Page 38 of Between the Lies

Nina hugged herself, hoping that indecision meant he’d let her go.

No such luck.

‘You’re fucking lying,’ he growled at her.

She’d spoken to enough people to know it took a lot of time to change opinions, especially for those victims who told themselves a lie to get over their grief. A part of her knew this could be worse for him. But she remembered Jonas from that night and she wasn’t wrong. She mumbled, ‘Do you have proof it was a woman?’

Again, he pounced on her. His face was now so close, if she leaned in just an inch, her lips would brush his. But this was no amorous liaison. Robert’s lips were tight when he said, ‘DNA doesn’t lie.’

‘DNA in a nightclub that was brimming with people and then destroyed by fire? I don’t think that’s reliable.’

‘Why did you kill her?’ Robert twisted his lips. ‘Why?’

‘I didn’t!’ Nina yelled. ‘I did not kill her.’

Robert paused; cocked his head. ‘What did you say?’

Nina wasn’t about to repeat that. She was leaving.

When she tried pushing away, Robert leaned in still closer, until she had no choice but to melt into the sofa. ‘You didn’t kill her. How can you prove you d-didn’t?’

Robert’s voice broke on that question.

Nina blinked at him. This was a man desperate for answers. His wife had died, and he wanted to blame it on someone.

The pieces of the puzzle came together then. The police had closed the case, deeming it an accident. And while she knew Jonas’s death wasn’t an accident, the fire was.

And this man wanted to pin it on her, blame her.

Tears pricked at her eyes at Robert’s distress. Nina wouldn’t have called herself an empath, but this man pulled at her in a way no one had before.

This time she reached for him, curling her hand around his muscled arm. ‘I was never in that nightclub, Robert. I swear to you. I wasn’t in there; I did not set the fire.’

Instead of replying to her, he just loomed over her, his face studying hers.

Unable to get a grip on her nerves, Nina sputtered, ‘Why would I set fire to that place? I was there to speak with a lead. It was work, and my investigation had nothing to do with that nightclub. I’d never met Shah before…’

Nina groaned and whispered, ‘The first time I met him was when he tried chasing me after I left that building.’

Robert opened his mouth to speak, but his voice cracked. So he cleared his throat and tried again. ‘When you left the burning building?’

Oh shit! Oh shit! She’d gone and slammed her head against a concrete wall. But once again, Robert’s eyes pulled her in, lulled her into saying, ‘No, when I left early the next morning, the building wasn’t on fire.’

‘Early morning? Why would you meet a potential lead in the early morning?’

Nina shut her eyes, knowing this was the nail in her coffin. ‘I never found my lead. I… I don’t remember, Robert. I don’t know what happened. But when I… when I woke up, it was dark outside, and too quiet, the sort of lull you hear after the incessant beat of music finally quietens. I was on the top floor – everything had been boarded up, but the stairs led down, not up… And when I woke up… there was a man there. He… he was dead.’ She squeezed her hands now. ‘I… I… I think I killed him.’

CHAPTEREIGHTEEN

Aman. Man. Man.

Robert pressed his palms against his ears in an attempt to stop that one word from echoing inside his head.

Man. Man. Man.

He shut his eyes and tried to take stock of what was happening. Ever since Cheryl had placed Nina inside that building on the night of Anne’s death, his gut had connected Nina to Anne’s murder. And hadn’t the police found one body inside that building, and it matched Anne’s DNA? Besides, Shah had also reported Nina for starting the fire.

There was enough evidence against the journalist. Only… He dropped his hands and heard it. The hiccupped sobs. It wasn’t him who was crying but Nina.

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