Victoria watched as Steven tapped away on a laptop he’d brought down to the basement. He’d been at it for a while, his fingers dancing across the keyboard like lightning. She’d always known he’d been techy, but seeing him now she realised it was more than that.
This wasn’t simply a man checking his emails or updating his address book; this was a man using multiple systems and browser windows at the same time. He looked confident in his deep concentration, and Victoria realised that whatever she was witnessing was part of whatever dreadful mess she had managed to get caught up in.
Following his outburst, she’d remained silent. It afforded her the opportunity to take in her surroundings. The basement had one door at the top of a flight of stairs that led to the main house. There were no other doors and no windows. She suspected that someone was in the house if the occasional creak of floorboards was anything to go by.
She had no idea of the time, but her internal clock told her it was probably around ten in the evening, which meant that surely the alarm had been raised about her disappearance. Hugo would probably call Holly, which meant she was on the case.
Victoria was glad that Holly’s journalistic expertise and general perseverance would be helping with the search, but she also loathed the idea that Holly was no doubt fretting about her. She wished she could somehow reach out to her and tell her that she was okay. At least for now.
The thought of Holly being worried caused Victoria’s anger to spike. How dare Steven do this, not only to her but also to her family? How dare he lie to her for years, and how dare he hold her prisoner in this filthy basement?
“Is this likely to take much longer?” she asked haughtily.
He looked over the top of his laptop at her, his eyes narrowing.
“You know, I’ve always hated your attitude, Victoria.”
She laughed. “Well, you never said anything, darling. If you’d complained, maybe I’d have changed for you. Seeing as we were supposedly such great friends.”
He smiled, a sickly-sweet grin. “No. As much as I hated your attitude, I put up with it so that you would trust me. And sign whatever I put in front of you.”
“This is about some papers I signed?” She couldn’t believe that all of this ridiculous drama was over some sheets of paper and splotches of ink. What could she have possibly signed to warrant this?
He was right: she did sign whatever was asked of her. If she read every document she was asked to sign, then she wouldn’t have a second of time to do any actual work.
Steven had returned his attention to his laptop. She searched her mind, wondering what on earth she had signed. If all of this really was about her signature, then she wanted to know what, precisely, she’d put her name to.
“Go on,” she encouraged him. “Tell me what I signed if you’re so damned pleased with yourself.”
He looked at her again and let out a sigh, presumably still annoyed by her apparent attitude. He stood up and ambled over to her, a cocky grin spreading across his face. He crouched in front of her.
“You know, if you asked me that two hours ago, I wouldn’t have said a thing, but now I’m finally free of you. I don’t need to worry about keeping you sweet anymore. You see, while you’ve been focused on models and dresses and all that bullshit, I’ve been moving money from Arrival into a private account.”
He stood up and smiled widely, seemingly enjoying the shock on her face.
“Years, Victoria. That’s how long this has been going on. At first it was a little here, a little there. Tiny amounts. But then I met someone who helped me move it into the big leagues. They dealt with the technical side of things, and I just kept putting pieces of paper in front of you.”
He mimed a signature in the air.
“And the best thing? Everything points to you,” he explained. “They’ll never find the money now—it’s all been scattered—but the paper trail leads squarely back to you.”
Her heart pounded at the realisation that one of her oldest friends was in fact her biggest enemy. He’d toyed with her for years in order to gain her trust and make her do his bidding. She’d allowed him to defraud Arrival, which felt like stealing money from her children. She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid.
“It’s always been the plan to frame you, Victoria. A repayment for having to put up with you for so long. And you make such a pretty scapegoat.”
The fact that Steven was so happy to tell her his plan filled Victoria was dread. It meant that, in his mind, she wasn’t getting out of there. She wondered how much more he was willing to spill. If she was going to die anyway, she wanted all of the answers, and Steven seemed more than happy to showboat.
“What has all of this got to do with Holly?”
The smile vanished from his face. “Dear, sweet Holly.” He shook his head in annoyance. “I suppose I might as well tell you. What does it matter now?”
Victoria didn’t say anything in response to the confirmation that this was probably one of the final conversations she was ever going to have. If he was willing to speak, she’d let him.
“Holly overheard a very sensitive phone call,” he explained.
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He was always a bit of an idiot. She could just imagine him taking a telephone call about his illegal activity in a public place.
“And she couldn’t be convinced that she hadn’t heard what she thought she heard.”
“You mean she couldn’t be bribed,” Victoria corrected.
He lifted a shoulder with indifference. “She had to be stopped. I made another call to my business partners, and they said they’d deal with her.”
Cold washed over Victoria.
She’d always naturally assumed that Holly’s accident had been just that—an accident, a terrible event that could have taken her life but luckily had left her with scars and memory loss. Now she was hearing indisputable proof that it wasn’t. Not only that, but that Steven was involved. And by extension, herself.
“Don’t look so shocked,” he told her. “People have done far worse things.”
She felt sick to her stomach.
“Of course, the idiot they sent didn’t quite manage to finish the job. He reported back that she was dead. It wasn’t until much later that we found out she was alive but had no memories. Can you imagine our luck, Victoria? What are the odds of that? It was like a lottery win. The one person who could point a finger at us couldn’t even remember how to feed herself.”
His glee caused anger to rise within her again, and it took all her strength to sit passively in the chair. He’d sent someone to murder Holly. His only reservation was the fact that the job hadn’t been correctly carried out.
“I got rid of her stuff, wiped her devices, and we all agreed that she’d just had enough of you. Perfectly believable that a bright, young woman with her whole life ahead of her would choose to walk away from you. People wondered what took her so long, so you even made that easy for us.”
Victoria sat ramrod straight as she imagined all the terrible things she’d do to him if she could. Robbing from Arrival was one thing, lying to her was another, but what he’d done to Holly was unforgivable. He’d just admitted to attempted murder, and Victoria felt her blood boil.
He dramatically rolled his eyes. “But then she came back. I was out of the country, so I had no idea until I saw you a few days ago. That was a shocker. We realised we couldn’t just kill her off, that would raise suspicions, especially after what happened to her in Paris. She hadn’t remembered anything yet, but there was always a risk that she would. So, the obvious choice was to push you apart.”
“Which you did,” Victoria said.
“And now everyone will believe that you have run off with the money.” Steven grinned.
Victoria swallowed hard.
There was the hard confirmation that they planned to kill her. She wished she could see Hugo, Alexia, and Holly one final time, to tell them how much they meant to her. She’d never been good at voicing her feelings, but she’d like one last try.
She wanted to impart every piece of advice she could to Alexia, to tell her to be the brave, strong, independent woman that she knew she would be. She wanted to tell Hugo that she was so immensely proud of him and that she knew his good heart would lead him well.
She wanted to hold Holly in her arms and tell her just how much she loved her. To admit that she’d always had a toe or two out of the relationship in some strange attempt to keep her heart intact should they break up, and to admit how she now knew that was a foolish endeavour. All it did was limit the happiness she could feel, happiness which could have been all-consuming if only she’d allowed it.
If she were given one last chance, she’d explain to Holly what had really happened to her all that time ago in Paris. She knew how desperately her partner sought answers and clarity. It would go some small way to atoning for the part she had played in what happened to Holly, if she could only let her know the truth now.
“Nothing to say?” Steven asked.
“Is there any point in saying anything?”
“I suppose not,” he agreed. “If it’s any consolation, I’m sorry that it has to end this way.”
Victoria didn’t believe his false platitudes for one moment. If he did feel any guilt, it was only for himself. Any real man would have shown some kind of shame at embezzling corporate funds and ordering the death of a young woman in his employment.
Steven didn’t seem to care about his crimes. He’d obviously long ago convinced himself that he was in the right. There was no sign of the decent man she once thought she knew. He was rotten to the core.