Page 114 of The Twenty (Major Crimes)

“So why did you kill Pippa?” A voice from the other side of the roof: Jamie has spoken.

All this time Jamie’s been standing, frozen. Romilly’s barely considered him, so focused on Maggie and that knife. But now she looks across.

Jamie has a strange expression on his face. Eyes locked on Maggie, his eyebrows low, forehead furrowed.

“Why Pippa?” he growls again. “Why the other victims?”

Maggie stares at him, a small smile on her face. “Because that’s what Elijah wants. The twenty.”

Romilly blinks. She still doesn’t understand. Her father wants twenty people dead? But why? And why those people?

“Arrest me.” Maggie holds her wrists out in front of her, the knife still in her hand. Romilly hesitates; she sees Jamie do the same, expecting a trick. “Put me in cuffs. Throw me in jail,” Maggie continues, “and they’ll say I was insane. That I wasn’t in my right mind. I’ll get off. A few years in a nice mental hospital, probably released early after budget cuts.” She pauses, and her attention turns to Jamie. “But I knew exactly what I was doing.”

Romilly sees Jamie’s nostrils flare, the tension in his jaw.

“I knew what I was doing when I went to your house,” she says to Jamie. “When I beat your wife over the head. When I dragged her to Elijah’s shed, tied her up.” Jamie’s shoulders are heaving; he’s breathing fast, shallow breaths. “When I suspended her from the ceiling, cut her open, drained her blood.” She smiles. “Why do you think they string animal carcasses up at the abattoir, DS Hoxton?”

It’s the final straw. With a roar, Jamie leaps forward. He goes for Maggie, arms outstretched, one hand closing on her neck, the other tight on her arm. And he swings her like a dog with a ragdoll toward the edge of the roof.

The knife clatters to the concrete. Her feet are lifted off the ground, her body dangles over the side. Jamie’s legs are braced against the low wall; he leans out. One slip, one wrong move, and they’ll both go over. He lets go and Maggie will fall.

Maggie makes a strange noise, a half laugh.

“She knew she was going to die,” she says, her voice coming out strangled in Jamie’s grip. “She screamed, she begged.”

“You … you …” Jamie’s not making any sense, half-formed words coming out of his mouth in a tortured shout.

Romilly pulls her phone out of her pocket. She dials 999, then shouts to the operator: “Dr. Romilly Cole. I’m with DS Hoxton, Detective Superintendent Marsh. At the central police station, on the roof. Send backup, send an ambulance.” Control struggles to make sense of what she’s saying. “Yes, on the roof. Marsh has been stabbed. She’s here. She’s here.”

She doesn’t take her gaze off Jamie and Maggie.

Maggie’s still hanging over the drop, looking up into Jamie’s eyes.

Romilly can see Jamie’s hand shaking. They’re close, too close.

One wrong move, and they’ll both be dead.

One wrong move, and they’ll never find Adam.

CHAPTER

67

HE HAS HER. His wife’s killer, in his hands. Jamie tightens his grip on her neck; he sees her eyes bulging, her face turning puce. Jamie can barely think. The red-hot burning rage fills him, pushing out from his core.

Maggie’s eyes are fixed on his. Her hands dangle limp at her sides; she’s making no effort to get away.

“She was beautiful, your wife,” Maggie says, her voice thin, constricted by his grip. A flash in Jamie’s mind: Pippa, lying sleepily in bed next to him. Her slow smile as she kissed him goodbye, the gentle touch of her hands. “Here you are.” Why hadn’t he saved her? Why hadn’t he got there in time?

“Her perfect pale skin. So full of life, of energy.”

Jamie wants to stop her talking. She has to stop talking. He leans another few inches over the edge.

“It’s what she wants!”

A voice shouts next to him. He doesn’t turn, but Romilly calls again. “Please, Jamie. She wants to be one of them.”

Jamie looks down. A drop of four floors. To the ashen-gray concrete. To her certain death. He sees a few people below, looking up, pointing. Shouts of alarm. Of fear.

---