“Wait,” I said. “Hear that?”
The sound of voices bounced through the passage.
Exhaling low, hard breaths, we rushed down the ladder in between the cloister and the hall.
“We’re on the wrong side of the hall,” I whispered.
“We’re going to get ourselves lost,” Richard hissed back. “Sorry. This is my stupid fault.”
We moved along the passageway in the oily dark.
The voices faded.
A sudden glow spilled through a peephole.
Richard pressed his face close. “It’s the scriptorium,” he said so softly I barely heard him. “Vito’s there.”
I took my turn to peer into the peephole. Brother Vito was seated on the ornate, high-backed chair behind the desk. Candlelight illuminated his face as he wrote with an old-fashioned quill. The scene looked otherworldly, like I were peering back to the medieval era.
A woman moved into view—nude—her soft flesh like that in a medieval painting, red hair half spilling from a bun. It took a moment for me to realise that the woman was Poppy.
Brother Vito looked up at her, startled. “What are you doing?”
“I can’t stand it anymore.” Poppy tried to step around his desk. “I need something to make me feel better. Don’t throw me out.”
Brother Vito stood. “Get dressed.”
Poppy whimpered. “But . . . you can recite philosophy to me while we do other things, and—”
“You need to remember that your place in the challenges is a privilege. Leave now, and I’ll forget this happened.” Brother Vito’s voice was authoritative, with no shades of uncertainty.
Richard, hearing my stifled gasp, bumped me out of the way, clapping a hand over my mouth. He took another quick glance through the peephole.
Grabbing my arm, he pulled me away and along the passageway.
I waited until we were safely out of earshot to speak. “We can’t tell anyone what we saw. For Poppy’s sake, and for ours.”
Richard’s voice turned ugly. “For Poppy’s sake? Surely you’re not so innocent you don’t know what she was trying to do? She was trying to gain an advantage. Sex for challenge points.”
“She said—”
“I know what she said. I could hear it plain enough. As if she’s going to tell Vito her real reason for trying to jump him naked. Poor guy. He looked mortified. Yeah, great counselling session that one was.”
“She’s probably just not herself. None of us are. And most of us would try to gain an advantage if we could. Look at what we just did.”
“Let’s just get back to the garden.” Richard marched down the passage. I hurried after him, not wanting to be left in here alone.
We found our way back to the alcove with the statue and slipped out into the hall. We returned to the garden the same way we’d come in—one by one.
Everyone seemed too caught up in their own thoughts to even notice either of us had been gone. I guessed it had just been minutes, but it’d seemed so much longer.
I felt empty.
None of us here were good. None of us deserved this chance at the money.
41. I, Inside The Walls
I FOLLOWED THEM ALONG THE HIDDEN walkways. They didn’t see me. I know how to hide. I won’t tell. I never tell anything I see.
I know you won’t tell either, Santiago.
42. Gray
I COULDN’T SLEEP NOW.
I pictured the items on Detective Devoe’s desk. The rope and the tape and the knife. Devoe had told me that items at the site were being investigated for DNA and fingerprints. And blood.
I could lay bets on what was coming after that.
If the people who were trying to frame me had done their job properly, my DNA and my fingerprints would be found at the site. On things they shouldn’t be on if I’d never been there. Maybe a trace of Evie’s blood would be found on the knife.
My heart thudded. Had these people hurt Evie?
I had to believe she was alive for my own peace of mind, even if they did find her blood. You could get a smear of blood just by pricking a finger.
One thing was certain: there was a narrow window of time left, and that window was rapidly closing.
If I did the crazy thing and flew to Greece, I had the tiniest chance of finding Evie.
But if I did nothing, she might remain missing forever. And I’d be locked away for life in jail. Our girls would grow up not only without their mother but with the belief that I’d killed her.
My lungs compacted into tiny boxes until I could barely breathe.
I had to go.
I headed out to the stair landing. Willow and Lilly were already asleep, and so was Verity. Verity had moved from the sunroom to Lilly’s bedroom, putting the girls into the one bedroom. She’d found the sunroom too cold and leaky, which it was.