Page 98 of Devil's Riches

My brows shot up. “That was you?”

Edward scoffed. “Of course it was. Who else would send you a box of chocolates laced with scopolamine?”

I slowly shook my head. “Why did you do it?”

“Like I said, I wanted to drive you off the island. Part of that plan involved an attempt to drive you insane and make you think you had to leave to escape the terror,” he said. “Scopolamine is the perfect drug for that. You may have heard of it as Devil’s Breath. It can cause hallucinations, paranoia, disorientation, amnesia, sleep paralysis, and night terrors. It can even cause psychosis in some rare cases.”

“What about vivid nightmares and sleepwalking?”

“Yes, it can cause those things too.” He smiled. “Some people who are dosed with it are seen wandering around at night by friends and family. They can get dressed, leave the house, and even hold a full conversation with another person. When they wake up, they have no memory of it whatsoever. It makes them think they’re losing their mind when other people tell them what they’ve been doing.”

My mind spun as his words sank in. Now I knew what I did on the night of the recent Blackthorne murders. I was affected by my nightly ritual of chocolate in bed before I went to sleep, and it made me sleepwalk. I got dressed, left my dorm, and wandered around the campus in an intoxicated Devil’s Breath haze. When I awoke the next morning, I had no memory of it because of the drug’s amnesic effect.

“How did you fake my mom’s handwriting on the letter that came with the chocolates?” I asked, mind still whirling.

Edward let out an annoyed sniff. “Your mother kept a diary when she was a teenager. She’d use the pages to air out all her grievances with the family,” he said. “She left it behind when she ran away, and I figured her handwriting couldn’t have changed much over the years. Most people have their writing style set by the time they’re thirteen or fourteen.”

“So you used the diary as a guide to copy her writing.”

“Yes. I knew you’d probably be too smart to eat a box of chocolates that showed up at your door without a card. But if you thought it was a gift from your mother…” He trailed off and smiled. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?”

I briefly closed my eyes. “Jesus,” I muttered. “You really are a psychopath.”

“If you say so. I actually consider myself to be a pragmatist.”

I opened my eyes and glared at him. “Did my mom ever know about the Golden Circle?”

He shook his head. “No. She wasn’t the right sort of person. We could tell that about her from an early age,” he replied. “Even if she hadn’t run away, we wouldn’t have told her.”

“And my aunt and uncle?”

“They knew, and they helped. Now tell me,” he said. “How, exactly, did you find out about the Golden Circle?”

“None of your business.”

“Oh well. As long as no one else knows apart from you, I suppose it doesn’t matter.” He cocked his head. “Sascha doesn’t know, does she?”

“No. I looked into it all by myself,” I said. “I couldn’t trust anyone else. Not even friends or family.”

I might die soon, but at least Nate would be safe now. Edward had no idea about him, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell him.

“You know, I’m actually quite impressed at how much you managed to figure out,” he said, tapping his chin with his index finger. “The others in the Golden Circle never knew I was a part of it. They thought I was just a shady guy who accepted payments from them in order to turn a blind eye to the illegal operations that were going on in my hospital. They had no idea that I was actually in charge of everything.”

“Why are you talking about it in the past tense?”

He frowned. “Because the Golden Circle is a thing of the past, dear. We ceased operations in 2009.”

“Oh, bullshit,” I snapped. “I know you’re going to kill me soon, so you might as well be open and honest with me before you do it. It’s not like I’ll be able to tell anyone.”

“I think I’ve lost you again,” he replied. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I gritted my teeth. “The new murders. Nessa Pratchett and Claire Reilly.”

“That wasn’t me.”

“Of course it was.”

His eyes flashed. “I can assure you, it wasn’t me or anyone else from the organization,’ he said stiffly. “The new killer is a copycat of Gregory Lockwood.”

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