You Can Trust Me (27 page)

“I was given the locket,” Shannon says. She backs away from us. The patch of wall behind her is freshly painted, just like the furniture. “The person who gave it to me owed me money. I got a couple of the guys at Aces High to put some pressure on—”

She catches the look in my eye and frowns. “Don't get me wrong, they're pussycats, those guys, but they
look
tough. Anyway, it worked. The loser who owed me eventually coughed up some cash and a few bits and pieces, like the locket, to sell.”

“Who?” I ask. “
Who
owed you money, who gave you the locket?”

Shannon ignores me. “I tried to sell it on eBay. That's when Julia saw it. She contacted me, but … but her message sounded weird. She was offering way more than it's worth and she wanted to meet me. In person. I thought it was a trap, like maybe the locket was hot … so I made her meet me at Aces High, where I know people, so I'd be safe and I didn't take the actual locket with me, so—”

“Wait. Slow down.” I'm still completely bewildered. “What about Honey Hearts? How does that fit in? You said that Julia hiring you to talk to Will was a cover. What did you mean? Cover for what?”

“Who gave you the locket?” Damian persists. He turns to me. “Don't you see?
This
is what Julia found out. She worked out that whoever gave Shannon the locket was Kara's killer.” He turns back to Shannon. “That's right, isn't it?”

“Sort of,” Shannon admits. “Julia knew there was a link between the locket and the killer. That's why she told me to come here if anything happened to her—or if anyone threatened me.”

“We were threatened earlier too,” I say. An image of the
STOP
letters stuck to their piece of paper flashes before my mind's eye.

“
You
were threatened?” The color drains from Shannon's cheeks.
“Where? When?”

I look away, not wanting to admit to breaking into her flat. “This morning,” I explain. “A guy was sent to give us a message to back off.”

“Was someone
following
you?” Shannon's voice rises.

“Er, yes.” My heart drums against my ribs.

“Did he see where you went?” I can hear the panic in Shannon's voice. “Could he have followed you
here
?”

“We got away in Damian's car,” I say. “I don't think—”

“Which is
here
?” She turns to Damian. “Your car is
here
?
Now?
”

“Yes,” I say. “Please, Shannon—”

“Oh my God.” Shannon blinks. “I have to go. Right now.
God,
I can't believe you've risked—” She turns and runs up the stairs.

“Wait.” Damian charges after her. I follow.

The cottage upstairs is even smaller than I remember. Just two tiny bedrooms and an even smaller bathroom. The woodwork here is far shabbier than downstairs, though a couple of cans of paint stand ready to use. Shannon rushes into the bedroom on the right. She pulls a Louis Vuitton suitcase out from under the bed, hurls it on top of the comforter, then pushes past me to the chest of drawers.

“Please, Shannon, you
have
to talk to us,” I insist. “Who do you think might have followed us? Who's threatening me? Did
he
give you the locket?”

“
Tell
us,” Damian demands.

Shannon ignores us, just carries on hurling clothes into her suitcase.

“Please.” I'm almost in tears.

“Enough.” Damian strides to the bed and slams the suitcase lid shut. “I'll take you wherever you want to go, but you have to tell us where you got the locket.”

There's a pause. The silence drums in my ears.

“Okay,” Shannon says at last. “But we have to get out of here first. You could have been followed.” She points to the case. “I'm done.”

“Fine.” Damian clicks the locks and hauls the case off the bed. “Let's go.”

I follow him and Shannon back downstairs. The photo of Julia and Kara is on the sofa, where Damian dropped it earlier. I pick it up and place it carefully into my handbag. The three of us leave the cottage.

Shannon pulls the front door shut, locking it with trembling fingers. Damian's already halfway to his car. I follow, impatient to get away.

“Oh, shit,” Shannon mutters. “I forgot something.” She unlocks the door again. “I'll just be a sec.”

She disappears inside. I wait, halfway along the sidewalk, tapping my foot. Damian is loading the suitcase in the trunk. There's something in the way, a bottle. I stare as he pushes it aside and the label rolls forward: it's whisky, Talisker.

I gasp. What's a recovering alcoholic doing with a full bottle of whisky in his trunk? Damian straightens up and looks around. He clocks me along the sidewalk and heads over.

“Where's Shannon?”

I point to the cottage, still thinking about the whisky. “She forgot something.”

Damian frowns.

I have to ask him.

“Why do you have whisky in your car if you don't drink?” I ask.

Damian's face flushes. “It helps to know it's there and I'm not touching it.”

I stare at him.

“Seriously,” he says. “If I have it, then I'm in control of whether I drink it or not. I keep it in the car, out of sight, because it's not actually in my face that way, but I know it's there.”

“Right.” I don't know what to say, whether or not to trust what he is telling me, so I say nothing. We watch Shannon's front door, waiting for her to reemerge. And we wait.

A minute passes. Two.

“Something's happened.” Damian strides to the front door. He hammers on it. “Shannon!” he yells.

No reply. We exchange a worried glance. I press the doorbell, leaving my finger pressing down hard. The bell inside rings on, high-pitched and insistent.

“Fuck!” Damian pushes at the front door. It's locked.
“Fuck.”
He hurls himself at it. Again. Harder. Again. The door snaps and flies open. I follow him inside, a sense of déjà vu washing over me. Another break-in. It feels surreal.

The cottage is still. Silent.

“Shannon!” Damian yells. He rushes up the stairs.

I stand by the tray of gloss paint cans and mineral spirits bottles in the living room, listening to Damian pounding across the small landing, into Shannon's bedroom. The door to the kitchen is closed. I cross the room and open it. A carton of milk from one of Shannon's shopping bags has been upended over the floor. Shannon's high-heeled sandals rest on their sides beside it. The running shoes that were lying here before are gone. The back door out to the beach is open. A breeze bangs it against its frame. I rush over and peer outside. The stony beach beyond is deserted. I look up and down, past the breakers on both sides. All I can see is an elderly couple in the far distance, both walking slowly, with sticks.

There is no sign of Shannon.

A moment later, Damian rushes outside. He skids to a stop and peers up and down the beach, as I have just done.

I point to the sandals. “She changed into shoes she could run in.” The realization settles on me like a deadweight. “She's gone.”

“No.”
Damian pounds along the path that separates the backyard from the pebbles of the long beach. He runs hard, fast. After a few seconds he swerves left and disappears through what must be a gap between the houses. I can't see from where I'm standing. I look up and down the beach again. A group of mums with strollers are walking along the path, laughing over some shared joke.

I go back into the cottage. Shannon is gone. Our only lead to the truth about Julia's—and Kara's—death has vanished. Despair seeps through me.

I try to take comfort in the fact that Shannon said Will had nothing to do with any of it. Then I remember what Martha told me. Julia's Honey Hearts visit may have been a red herring, but Will still slept with Catrina. I put down my handbag and sit on the sofa, my head in my hands. The pain of his betrayal is unbearable.

A minute later Damian is back. He's out of breath, a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“Couldn't—see—her,” he pants.

I step back to let him in. He knocks over a bottle of mineral spirits as he collapses on the sofa with a groan. I absently set the bottle upright and look around the room.

“Why did she run away? We've got her suitcase, all her things are here.…” Damian looks up at me. He takes a cigarette out from the pack he dropped earlier on the coffee table and rolls it between his palms.

“She must have been really frightened,” I say. “You heard her. She thinks we were followed here.”

“By Julia's killer,” Damian says.

“Maybe Kara's killer too.”

We're silent for a moment. Suppose Shannon is right? Suppose he
has
followed us.

“If Shannon was scared, maybe we should be.”

Damian raises his eyebrows. “You think we should leave? Surely Shannon's got to come back at some point for her stuff.”

“I don't know.” I look around the room. “I can't see her handbag, so she probably took that with her, which means she's got money.” I sigh, feeling defeated. “I can't see why she
would
come back. Not soon, anyway.”

Damian springs to his feet. “Then we need to see what we can find here.”

“Okay.” I hesitate. “But suppose someone
did
follow us?”

He runs his hand through his hair with a frown. “Let's give ourselves ten, fifteen minutes max to search the place, see if we can find anything that might help us work out where Shannon got your sister's locket. We can take it away and look through it properly later.”

We work systematically rifling through the drawers and cupboards in the kitchen. There's nothing remotely relevant here. I deposit the groceries from Shannon's shopping onto the countertop and we each take a plastic bag. Damian hurtles upstairs while I grab anything I can find that might be worth a second look from the living room. There isn't much, just a bunch of receipts on the dresser and a shoe box of photos under the coffee table.

After a couple of minutes I head up the stairs. Damian is busy rifling through the chest of drawers in Shannon's bedroom, his own plastic bag bulging. Again, I have a sense of déjà vu.

“Anything useful?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Not really.” As he speaks, his phone rings.

It's Gaz, Damian's friend who's been looking at the hard drive from Julia's computer. He tells Damian that he's retrieved some fragments, and is going to e-mail them over.

I head next door. It's a spare room. Just a bed and two side tables, with a shelf of books next to the wardrobe.

“I don't think there's much in here,” I call out. “Two more minutes, then let's take what we've got and go.”

Damian agrees. I open the wardrobe. It's full of more designer clothes. I move to the bookshelf. These are Julia's, I'd bet money on it. She was studying psychology at uni, like Kara, and I remember years ago her being in awe of my own degree in history—and of all the books she thought I had read.

My taste in books makes your average airport novel look highbrow,
she once told me.
I just want to escape when I read, not have to think.

I run my fingers over the paperback spines. They feel old and dusty. I don't recognize any of the author names, but the covers are all in lurid golds and pinks.

The firm smack of a door closing downstairs makes me turn.

“Damian?” I walk to the door.

He's still visible in Shannon's bedroom, now on his hands and knees looking under her bed.

I catch a whiff of cigarette smoke, then the sharp scent of mineral spirits.

As I turn to face the stairs, I hear the crackle of flames. My guts clench as thick black smoke curls up onto the landing. I take a step toward it. Time slows down. My mouth opens.

“Fire!” I hear myself say. “Damian!
Fire!
”

 

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“Damian! Fire!”

In an instant he's beside me. “Fuck!” He looks wildly around.

I am transfixed by the smoke. Flames crackle and writhe on the stairs below us. The smell is acrid, stifling. There's absolutely no way past the fire to the ground floor.

I glance back through to the spare room. There's a window opposite.

“Come on.” I rush over, all my focus on opening the window and getting out.

I yank at the sash. It's locked. My fingers fumble with the catch. Damian pushes my hand away and flips it in a single movement. He hauls the sash up. Peers out.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.” I'm moaning with fear.

“We're going to have to climb onto the roof,” Damian says. “We can't jump down.”

I push past him to look out of the window myself. There's a deep ledge and a sheer drop to the paving stone below. My stomach lurches as I peer down. Damian's right. It's too far to jump. He's already easing himself out onto the ledge. I look out, up and down the beach. Where is everyone? The mums with strollers are distant specks. There's a man walking his dog in the opposite direction. I yell out, but he doesn't hear.

“Come on.” Damian gets to his feet on the ledge. It's just deep enough for him to stand on. He's holding on to the tiles above the top of the window with his fingers.

“Oh, God.” I look over my shoulder. Smoke is filling the room behind me.

Outside, Damian is clawing his way up, onto the roof. I watch his legs go past, then creep out onto the ledge myself. I'm trembling all over, my heart beating furiously against my ribs.

“Please, help us,
please,
” I mutter under my breath. I don't know whom I'm praying to. When Kara died, my parents lost their faith. I never had any in the first place.