Bitter Nothings (29 page)

“And the bastard didn’t publish them.”

“Why?” Dervla took another half step backward.

“Why don’t you ask him?”

“I mean why did you send him the photos in the first place? Why didn’t you just confront Warren?”

“You don’t think I tried? I told him I loved him, that I wanted to be his wife,” Sophie said. “I even had a special getaway planned. Found the perfect place, too. Do you know what he said? Told me it was never meant to get serious, that it was just supposed to be a bit of harmless fun. That it was over. That he never wanted to see me again.”

Another step backwards. Then without warning, Sophie kicked the door closed, shutting them in the garage. All three of them. Not that Martin’s frozen corpse was going anywhere. Why hadn’t Dervla agreed to let Harry come with her?

“I know you don’t believe me, Dervla. You can stop pretending.”

“I do. He attacked you. You had to defend yourself.”

Sophie gave a dry laugh. “Yeah, that’s exactly what happened.”

“The police knew he beat you.”

A smug smile played on Sophie’s lips. She touched her cheek.

“Why don’t we call the police now? We can explain it to them together.” Making no sudden movements, Dervla eased her bag from her shoulder.

Sophie lunged, snatching the bag before Dervla had a chance to find her phone. “No police. As far as they’re concerned, Martin is on the run. Let it stay that way.”

“Why don’t I make up a pot of chamomile tea and we talk about it some more?”

“Oh, you are funny.”

Dervla felt anything but.

“Put your hands behind your back and turn around,” Sophie said.

“What for?”

“Just do it.” Sophie grabbed a hank of plastic-coated cord hanging from a nail on the wall. “I need time to think.”

“I’m your friend, Sophie. Please don’t do something you’ll regret.”

“Regret? I regret my whole fucking life. What’s left?” She advanced. “Now turn around.”

Dervla made as if to comply, but then swung around, hand fisted. The punch connected with Sophie’s side. Sophie gasped and doubled over. Dervla pushed past and yanked on the door handle. Locked. Frantic, she yanked harder.

“Tut, tut. Now that was really stupid,” Sophie said from behind her.

Her heart pounding, Dervla released her grip on the door handle and turned, recoiling at the sight of the gun pointed at her.

Sophie’s hand shook. “I didn’t want to have to hurt you—”

“Wait!” Dervla held up her hands. “If you’re going to shoot me, at least tell me why…” Her mouth went dry.

“Dear, dear Dervla, there are so many whys. You can’t say you weren’t warned.”

It took her a second to realize what Sophie was talking about. “You sent that email?”

“And you had to run straight to the police with it. Took me ages to find an Internet café where the cameras weren’t operating.” Sophie kept advancing.

Dervla pressed her back up harder against the door. “Where did Martin fit into your grand plan?”

“Martin did whatever I told him to do.”

Sophie’s puppet. Why didn’t that surprise her? “So what went wrong? Why did you kill him?”

“He was stupid. Threatened to go to the cops if I didn’t take him back.” Sophie’s face contorted. “Fool.”

“Even though you were pregnant with another man’s baby?” Anything to buy time.

“What baby?” Sophie sneered.

“You made it all up?”

Sophie jabbed the gun in Dervla’s ribs and nodded toward the left. “Move!”

This time Dervla did as instructed. “Is anything you told me real?”

“I’m fine, really,” Sophie whimpered. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”

Dervla stiffened. “You beat yourself up just to frame someone else?”

“Needs must.”

“On dear God,” Dervla said, the horror hitting home, “that night you stayed at Emmet’s. It wasn’t because you were too scared to stay on your own. You used it as a pretext to get inside his apartment so you could plant evidence. You murdered them. All of them.”

“But hon, I was hundreds of kilometers away,” Sophie said, in her sweetest voice. “Don’t you remember? I called you.”

“Very convenient. I bet when the police check, they’ll find you weren’t there the whole time.”

“Believe me, they won’t be checking. They have no need to.”

“I don’t get it. Why not kill my father at the same time you slaughtered his family?”

“Slaughter?” Sophie snorted. “You make it sound barbaric. Don’t worry, they didn’t feel a thing. It’s called getting rid of the competition. Unfortunately, Warren didn’t quite see it that way. I knew he would eventually, though.”

“Except you didn’t know him as well as you thought, did you?”

“Shut up.” Sophie prodded her with the gun. “Keep moving.”

“Where to?” They were nearing the garage’s roller door.

The boot of Sophie’s car popped open. “Get in.”

“No.” Dervla’s defiance was all bluster, but it was all she had.

“Do as I say.”

“And if I don’t?” Dervla turned to face Sophie, her eyes widening as she glanced over Sophie’s shoulder.

When Sophie whirled to see what she was looking at, Dervla grabbed her chance and jerked the gun from Sophie’s grip. Sophie screamed, her face one of fury. She lashed out, knocking the gun from Dervla’s hand.

Adrenaline surged through Dervla’s body. Using all the strength she could muster, she punched Sophie in the chest, knocking her off balance. Dervla shoved her toward the open boot. She fell in, arms and legs going in all directions. Grabbing an escaping foot, Dervla forced it inside just as Sophie struggled to right herself. A sharp smack in the face pushed her back. Dervla slammed the lid down.

Sophie let out a bloodcurdling howl, more animal than human. The boot lid bounced. Dervla threw her body across it, her abdomen taking the full force of Sophie’s rage. Another howl.

“Shut up!” Dervla pounded the car boot with her fists. “Just shut up!”

“Bitch!” More thumping. “You wait!”

“Waiting for you to rot in hell.”

The pressure of the lid against Dervla’s body eased. She heard a rustling. Then nothing. Gulping air, she lowered her ear to the cold metal.

Click.

Dervla froze, the split-second it took for the message to reach her brain an eternity.

She felt the gunshot before she heard it, the vibration as the bullet pierced the boot lid next to her head firing every nerve cell in her body.

Another flash. She flung herself off the car, tasting concrete as her face hit the ground. The garage reverberated to the sound of gunfire.

Dervla held her breath, waiting. Her whole body aquiver, she crawled toward the garage’s internal door to where her phone lay. Another shot rang out. She retrieved her phone, her hand shaking so much that it took her two attempts to dial 000.

The shooting stopped. Inside her own boot, Sophie continued to kick and rant.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

EPILOGUE

The late afternoon sun glinted on the waters of the Yarra below the bridge. A light breeze carried the scent of sunbaked earth and eucalypt. Dervla stood next to Emmet, one hand on the railing, the other touching her brother’s back. Gabe stepped forward and, placing a hand on Emmet’s shoulder, joined them.

Stony-faced, Emmet leaned forward and emptied the hinged silver tin over the railing. Saying a silent prayer, Dervla watched as the last of their mother’s ashes disappeared into the river, carried away by the current. Emmet had held onto them, unable until now to let her go.

“Bye, Mum,” he whispered. “Love you.”

A lump rose in Dervla’s throat. She bit her lip. For a long while, no one moved.

“C’mon,” she said quietly, “Alana is waiting for us.” As a family, they planned to visit their father’s, stepmother’s and siblings’ graves. The innocent victims of a woman scorned; a woman Dervla had once called a friend.

She could still hear Sophie’s screams of rage. Dervla shuddered, reminding herself that Sophie couldn’t hurt her or anyone else again. Todd had assured her that, regardless of the outcome of the psychiatric evaluation, it would be a minimum of thirty years – if ever – before Sophie was a free woman again. The final chapter in John Bailey’s book. Dervla could only hope.

Gabe sidled up to her as they walked back toward the car park. “Forgiven me yet?”

“If you mean for interfering in my love life, I’m still thinking about it.”

He frowned. “But all’s well that ends well, right?”

Slipping her arm through his, she gave him a quick hug. “Of course, I forgive you. You’re my brother.” She nudged him. “You probably did me a favor. At least Harry now knows what protective brothers I have. Did I tell you he wants to move back to Melbourne?”

“I wonder why,” Gabe said with a wink.

Dervla couldn’t suppress her smile. “Yes, I wonder.”

***

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Bitter Nothings
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Based in rural Victoria, Australia, Vicki Tyley writes fast-paced mystery and suspense novels in contemporary Australian settings.

Born in New Zealand, she emigrated with her husband to Australia in 1982. Vicki has travelled extensively, spending a year touring the world before terrorism was an influencing factor. She has lived in the central business districts of large cities, suburbia, idyllic seaside locations, rural areas, bushland, and remote desert mining camps.

In the lead up to her writing career, she worked in a multitude of different industries including banking, stockbroking, importing and wholesaling, human resources, mining, hospitality, civil engineering, and toys, in predominantly accounting, IT and management roles.

All these life experiences are brought to bear in her writing.

Want to say hello or ask a question, email Vicki at
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Website:
www.vickityley.com

OTHER BOOKS BY VICKI TYLEY

THIN BLOOD

Craig Edmonds, a successful stockbroker, reports the disappearance of his wife, Kirsty. What starts as a typical missing person’s case soon evolves into a full-blown homicide investigation when forensics uncover blood traces and dark-blonde hairs in the boot of the missing woman’s car. Added to this, is Craig’s adulterous affair with the victim’s younger sister, Narelle Croswell, compounded further by a recently acquired $1,000,000 insurance policy on his wife’s life. He is charged with murder but, with no body and only circumstantial evidence, he walks free when two trials resulting in hung juries fail to convict him.

Ten years later, Jacinta Deller, a newspaper journalist is retrenched. Working on a freelance story about missing persons, she comes across the all but forgotten Edmonds case. When she discovers her boyfriend, Brett Rhodes, works with Narelle Croswell, who is not only the victim’s sister but is now married to the prime suspect, her sister’s husband, she thinks she has found the perfect angle for her article. Instead, her life is turned upside down, as befriending the woman, she becomes embroiled in a warped game of delusion and murder.

PROLOGUE

Craig Edmonds stared at hands sticky with darkening blood.

His hands.

He held them away from his body and looked down at his chest in horror. Large, dirty-red blotches marred the once pristine white shirt. Forgetting the blood on his hands, he tore at the buttons, ripping the shirt open.

Breathing in short, sharp gasps, he frantically examined his torso, looking for the wound. No cuts. No injuries. No holes where there shouldn’t be any. His chest heaved in relief. He wasn’t dying, after all.

But then, mid-sigh, it struck him: if it wasn’t his blood, whose was it? His head whipped around, his eyes scanning the room like radar on overdrive.

Even in the half-light, he quickly saw all was not as it should be. The glass shade from one of the bedside lamps lay in shattered fragments on the floor. The curtain rail over the bedroom’s bay window hung at a precarious angle. Usually a black-and-white photo of a nude, tattooed woman hung above the bed; now the frame lay in pieces in the doorway.

He focused on the queen-sized bed. His stomach clenched as he took in the twisted and disheveled bedclothes. Instinctively, he knew the dark patches on the sheets weren’t shadows that would disappear once the curtains were opened.

He swallowed, the acrid morning-after taste of whisky harsh in his parched mouth.

“Kirsty?” he croaked. Clearing his throat, he called again, hesitant but louder.

In the crushing silence, time stood still.

“Kirsty!” he screamed, as he dashed into the master bedroom’s compact, white-tiled en suite. He stumbled, clutching at the doorframe. He took in the bloodied handprints adorning the vanity unit and walls like some sort of macabre finger-painting. Fighting an intense wave of nausea, he looked down at the blood-smeared floor.

Trying desperately to rein in his growing panic, he raced to the main bathroom. His wife wasn’t there either. Next room.

Out of breath, heart hammering, he reached the internal door that led to the double garage and opened it. The external roller door was down and his red Alfa Romeo and Kirsty’s silver Lexus were parked next to each other.

Gripping the door handle, he sagged against the door. He took a deep breath. Fought for control of his adrenaline-charged body. He lurched into the kitchen, heading for the sink.

Hands shaking violently, he somehow managed to turn on the cold water tap. He watched, mesmerized, as the blood from his hands, diluted by water, swirled in a pink eddy in the bottom of the sink before disappearing down the plughole.

Oblivious to the water dripping from his hands, he dropped onto the pine storage-box-cum-bench beneath the window at the end of the kitchen. Elbows on knees, he dropped his forehead into his hands. If only the infernal pounding would let up, he could think straight.