Page 111 of Riordan's Revenge

That same scared person had left a note for me. Musing on that, I unstuck the last card. Natasha’s. I squinted at it. She’d been a visitor to the city, here to take part in Arran’s game, but turned on the warehouse and caused a scene in Divine.

My mind shifted on to the scene of her murder. There was CCTV footage of the crime. The stolen car that squealed up to the warehouse. The body dumped out of the back.

A detail snagged my attention.

I faced my friends. “What comes to mind when ye think of Bronson? Physically, I mean.”

Genevieve wrinkled her pretty nose and wound the string into a ball. “He was an addict. Opiates, I think, plus coke and weed. Probably not healthy.”

“He was a big man. Heavy and muscular, even in his fifties,” Everly added. She had a stack of papers, all the suspects gone and half the Deadwater map down now, plain wall remaining.

The strange sense of intuition strengthened. I held up Natasha’s card. “Yet that big, cumbersome man climbed through his car to dump a body out the back. He didn’t open his door, run around, and lift her free. Instead, he chose a far more difficult route, one which would take longer.”

“Presumably so he wouldn’t be seen,” Genevieve suggested.

“Sure, but clambering over car seats? That would be hard. The engine was still in reverse gear and squealing. It doesn’t make sense to do that.”

All three of us swapped confused looks.

Everly spoke first. “Except he confessed. I didn’t watch the video, but Connor told me how he gave up the truth. He wouldn’t do that unless he was guilty. I guess he had a moment of agility and a reason to take the path he took. We’ll never know, but that doesn’t make it impossible.”

My shoulders slumped. I dropped my gaze to the paper. “It just feels off somehow.”

She gave a soft smile. “I was caught for days on the fact that he’d been tortured, and hurt people do strange things. If he was so deranged by the pain, he’d say anything to make it stop, but the fact is, he’s a viable suspect, which the evidence pointed to, and he confessed. He said those words. He could’ve bargained his freedom in other ways. I don’t think this is wrong. But more to the point, the murders have stopped. If someone else did it,they wouldn’t let him take the credit. Not after all they’d done to get that attention.”

Damn. She made sense. I heaved a sigh.

Genevieve bumped her shoulder into mine. “I understand. I feel it as well. I wanted to stare at this map then work it out from all the clues we’d gathered. But the fact is, the murderer has been found and he’s off the streets. He can’t hurt anyone ever again. It’s a shame we didn’t get our eureka moment, but it’s better that we’re all safe.”

She meant me. I’d been the next target.

Maybe that’s why this was still bothering me.

We continued the removal of our evidence and were almost finished when my phone buzzed. It interrupted Everly filling us in on her plans for further events at the warehouse, and I apologised, but she waved me away when I read the name on the screen.

Shade spoke without preamble. “Can ye come down to the office? I have something to share.”

“Give me five.” I hung up. “Shade wants to talk to me downstairs. I’m going to have to cut and run.”

Genevieve nodded. “It’s cool. I can’t hang around either. I need to borrow my brother for a while. Our dad, I meanmydad, has gone AWOL again, and when I mentioned it to Riordan earlier, he said he’d come with me to the flat. Arran’s busy, and it would be just me with an armed guard otherwise.”

“I hope ye find him.”

She sighed. “I do, too.”

At the lift, Everly hugged me. “My apartment, tonight. I have knitting supplies and instructions to follow. I’ll also show you my latest new video obsession.”

“Which is?”

Her eyes lit. “People doing magic tricks to monkeys in zoos. I mean, I hate the poor animals being in cages, but you should seetheir reactions. It’s adorable, and it shows just how intelligent they are.” She bit her lip. “I also have some other news to share.”

I stared at her. A while back, when we’d caught and mildly tortured Piers, Everly had told him she was pregnant in order for him to fully comprehend that she’d never be his bride. After, she’d taken me and Genevieve aside to say she’d been jumping the gun, but her choice of words was very telling.

My grin spread. “One friend engaged, the other about to reveal another big secret. We are living our best lives.”

My family had gone nuts at the sly announcement of Arran proposing to Genevieve, done while he’d talked to the crowd before the last game. Arran had refused a bachelor party, and knowing my brothers that was a good decision, but told them they all needed to come to the wedding.

“I love weddings so much. They always make me cry.” Everly took Genevieve’s hand and examined the pretty, sparkling ring which matched her choker.

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