Page 118 of Her Dark Lies
“When I went over the cliff, screaming until I landed, somehow, some way, I wasn’t broken in two. I lay on the rocks, in that freezing cold water, twisted, in such pain. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I lay there while they flashed their lights on me, while they decided what to do.
“And in the meantime, I let the water buoy my body. When I felt myself sinking and the sucking brine ran over my head, I moved my arms and legs, spread them out in the water. You know they call it the dead man’s float? Well, eventually, I floated. Floated right out into the crashing waves, but the current brought me into the cove that led to the grotto. We used to swim there, all the time. Jack liked to make love in the grotto, under the watchful eye of the statuary. Has he taken you there yet?”
“No.”
“Hmm. Pity. It’s terribly romantic. Well, the storm was frantic, the wind whipping the waves onto the shore as if it was punishing the land for being solid. The boats had been lashed to the pier before the storm came in, but one had worked its way loose and was bobbing in the waves. I unmoored it and crawled inside. It was small, but I was so waterlogged, so pained, I wasn’t thinking about the possibility of it capsizing. It was shelter. It was safety. I didn’t care anymore.
“My little boat and I were swept up in the torrential waves. It floated out into the bay while I slept, while I was dead, while I was dying.”
“Well, which is it, Morgan?” I feel a little hysterical pushing her, but I can’t seem to help myself. She’s mad. She even speaks like a crazy woman, sharing a story only she is experiencing.
“What difference does it make? Sleep is only a kind of death, one from which we usually awaken. I was resurrected. And now here I am. I have yet to awaken from this particular nightmare. But that’s all about to change.”
“That’s quite a speech.”
“Did you like it?” She smiles coyly. “I want you to like it, Claire. I know how much you like me. I know how much you enjoy thinking of me.”
“Oh, please. Don’t flatter yourself. I want you to explain yourself, Morgan. None of this mystical ‘I floated away in a little boat’ crap. You have been systematically trying to ruin my life.”
“Not your life, Claire. His.” She gestures with the gun toward Jack’s prone body. “You, I find interesting. I’d prefer not to have to kill you.”
This is utter bullshit. Her eyes are wild and mad. It’s either her or me, and we both know it.
“All right. I’d rather not be killed. So, you floated away. Then what?”
“And then, my dear girl, I was transformed. I ran. I hid. And I became another woman. I bided my time. I worked from within. I recruited, and I planned, and I watched. Oh, I watched. Especially since you came into his life. I was there the night you met, did you know?”
Alarm fills me. What? “No. I didn’t.”
“You were so radiant. I wish I had it on video. You lit up like a candle the moment he looked at you. And of course, since he was so interested in you, I needed to be, too.”
She walks in a tiny half circle, and now she’s between me and the door. Fuck.
Whereiseveryone?
Assuming Jack and I are having a knockdown, drag-out fight, probably. Being discreet, a disease this whole family suffers from.
She’s cut off my path to the door. But she came in elsewhere.
The tapestry. Jack told me they used to bring girls to the emperor through a tunnel. The boats came to the grotto. She came through the fucking wall.
If I can draw her down there, draw her away from Jack and Ana and Gideon, maybe someone will come find them, help them.
And then I can kill her. But I need to keep her talking.
“So, you watched me?”
“I did.”
“And how did you meet Shane?”
“Research,” she says simply, with a flip of her hand. “It wasn’t hard to dig up your past. I am rather good with a computer, as you might have guessed. It was convenient, him getting parole when he did. I could have found any number of louts to do my bidding, but someone who wanted to take you down? Perfection. He couldn’t wait to see you punished. We had a deal, he and I. I got my revenge on Jack, he got his revenge on you. His was less...elegant than mine, of course. Baser.” She shivers delicately. “What you ever saw in him. Ah, the vagaries of youth.
“Of course, you must know already, that man is a first-class idiot. He broke with the plan. I guess he decided watching you wasn’t enough anymore, he wanted to feel you again, taste you again. I didn’t tell him to, and until that moment, he’d been quite good at doing what I told him.”
“Maybe he decided he was tired of being your lackey.”
“Perhaps.” Morgan shrugs. “It doesn’t matter. Money speaks louder than words with some people. Malcolm, for instance. Always second fiddle, always being bossed around. He was desperate for some power. He was supposed to bring you to me, to the cottage, so we could talk this out, like adults. And instead, you killed him. Such aggression from you. Did you know then, sweet Claire? Did you know I was waiting for you?”
