The Churchill War Rooms museum was more interesting than I had imagined, but not so interesting that my ass didn’t drag the entire time. I could find history only so fascinating when current affairs were keeping me up nights. Being in the tight bunkers with the low ceilings made me feel claustrophobic, but it wasn’t Winston Churchill that I felt breathing down my neck—it was Nicki.
My poor sleep was catching up to me. I was exhausted, but at night I would toss and turn, trying to figure out what to do next, unable to drift off. My eyes felt constantly gritty and my nerves raw.
Now that I had an address for Nicki, I’d decided—at one a.m. when I’d been unable to sleep—to talk to Detective Sharma. She was the kind of person who didn’t like loose ends. She might not believe anything I said, but she’d check Nicki out just to make sure she’d done her due diligence. My real stroke of genius came an hour later, around two, when I realized I didn’t need to tell her the whole story. This was a case when the truth was way too weird to be believed.
Instead I’d talk about how Nicki and I had met on the plane and that she had been really interested in Connor. And how I’d seen her around town—almost as if she were following me—so when I got the clipping, it seemed as though it must have come from her. It wouldn’t be enough to get Nicki in any trouble, and she could easily come up with an excuse to explain everything, including why she had given me a fake name, but having the cops show up to ask questions would give her pause.
What I was really proud of was the fact that my plan stopped her plan in its tracks. There would be no way her mom could be murdered once this happened. The police wouldn’t think Nicki had done anything to Connor. There was no reason to suspect her. But if her name came up connected to Connor’s death and then her mom ended up at the bottom of a staircase with a broken neck? Well, that was going to raise some serious questions.
Nicki wouldn’t be able to go through with her plan to kill her mom, or at the very least she would have to leave me out of it. Once I was safely back home, I’d mail a letter to Nicki’s mom warning her. She might not believe me either, but she’d be more careful. If she had any suspicions about her daughter, it might be enough for her to take the step to kick her out. I was absurdly proud of having outmaneuvered Nicki. And after I’d thought that far, I’d finally been able to fall asleep.
When we left the museum, Alex went with Jamal to a game store. We had plans to meet up for dinner, but I told him I had something I needed to do first. I didn’t tell him that I’d made a call that morning and I knew the police would be waiting for me at the dorm. I was nervous, but also excited. I didn’t want this hanging over me anymore. When Alex got back, I’d tell him that I talked to the cops. It would be out of my hands. I could move on. We could move on. There wouldn’t be anything standing between us anymore.
Detectives Fogg and Sharma were in the lobby of Metford. Detective Sharma pushed herself up off the sofa, tucking away her phone as soon as she saw me.
I took a step toward her. The front desk clerk called out, “Kim? You’ve got a phone call.” She held out the receiver. I opened my mouth to tell her to take a message. “They say it’s important,” she said before I could speak.
I waved at Detective Sharma to let her know I saw her and jogged over to the desk. My stomach felt as if it were full of lead. I could think of only one person who would call me.
I took the receiver as though it were a poisonous snake. It was still warm from the clerk’s hand. “Hello, this is Kim.”
“You let me down,” Nicki chastised.
“I told you I wasn’t going to do it,” I said.
Nicki sighed as if I were a difficult toddler having a meltdown in the candy aisle. “You can’t just decide that you don’t want to. We had a deal. What kind of person would I be if I let you walk away from that agreement?”
“I’m not going to debate this with you.”
“I had a hunch you might do something stupid and I was right. Why in the world would you call the police? You must realize that won’t go well for you.”
“How do you know—”
“Look toward the library.” I spun and peered down the hall. Nicki was leaning against the door, holding her cell phone to her ear. She waggled her fingers at me in greeting. “I saw the police as soon as I walked in. Trust me, that’s the luckiest thing that could have happened. I’m guessing you haven’t told them about me yet?”
I swallowed hard. “I wouldn’t do that.”
She cocked her head with one eyebrow raised. “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
“Leave me alone,” I whispered.
“I thought we could be friends, but if that’s not what you want, that’s fine. However, it seems to me you could use a few people in your corner.”
Now it was my turn to raise an eyebrow in disbelief. “You’re not my friend.”
“Of course I am. Otherwise I would have given it to the police right away.”
Frost crept over my heart. “Given what to them?”
“Ask the clerk. I left something for you.” Nicki paused, watching me from down the hall. “Go on, ask her.”
I turned around slowly. I cleared my throat. “Excuse me, did anyone drop anything off for me?”
The clerk looked up from her desk as if surprised to still see me there. “Let me look.” She checked the cubbyholes where they slotted our mail. The clerk pulled out a plain white envelope with my name on it and passed it over. “Here you go.”
The thick envelope felt almost oily to the touch. I tucked the receiver under my chin and tore open the letter. There was a single sheet of paper inside. I unfolded it carefully, as if it were a ticking bomb. It was a photocopy, slightly crooked and a bit blurry, but there was no mistaking my handwriting.
WHY I HATE CONNOR O’REILLY AND WHY HE DESERVES TO DIE
The long list I’d made on the plane stared up at me. I remembered writing it, but it felt like something that had happened a lifetime ago. The saliva in my mouth dried up and I wanted to drop the toxic paper. I vaguely recalled her placing it, along with the list she’d written about her mom, into her bag on the plane. Thanks to the vodka haze, I hadn’t thought about it since. I shoved it into my pocket.
“Now, if the police were to get a copy of that, I have to think it wouldn’t look good. I’m sure they’ve wondered about your interactions with Connor, but I doubt they think you murdered him. You’ve got no history of violence. And even if you were going to kill him, you wouldn’t strike anyone as the type to do it that way. Too messy. Heavens, they’re not even certain that it wasn’t just a tragic accident. No point in giving them a reason to rethink that theory.”
“You kept this on purpose,” I said.
“Of course I did.”
“You planned it.”
She pursed her lips as if considering. “No. I wouldn’t say that. I tucked it away, just as a spot of insurance. I certainly didn’t plan to use it. I still don’t. I don’t want you to get into trouble. You’re acting like I’m the bad guy, when I’m simply asking for you to keep your promise. You’re not doing what you said you would and then you’re trying to get me into trouble.” Nicki shook her head. “Honestly, you’re the one making things difficult. How do you think I felt when I got home this morning and there was my mum puttering about in her dressing gown in the kitchen? Then I come here and see a couple of detectives in the lobby. You’re the one not leaving me a lot of options.”
I tried to imagine explaining to the police that I hadn’t meant anything by the list, that I’d just been blowing off steam, and that she’d been the one to trick me into writing the part about how he deserved to die. The cops hadn’t decided it was murder, but they also hadn’t declared it an accident, either. If the police got this note, that could sway the investigation. Sure, there was no proof that I did it, but I’d been on the platform. If they put pressure on Alex, he might not be willing to lie for me anymore—not after all the other lies I’d told. Not if he saw this. I’d basically stalked Connor at work and followed him here to England, and there were plenty of people who would testify I wasn’t happy about what he’d done to me. Then I’d lied, saying I didn’t know him, then saying we dated, then admitting we hadn’t. This sheet of paper basically tied up the investigation with a nice, tidy bow. CRAZY GIRL KILLS HER EX.
I clutched the phone. “Please don’t tell,” I whispered into the receiver, as if talking into her ear.
Nicki smiled. “I keep trying to get you to believe me: I don’t want any trouble. Now, first things first. I’m going to hang up. Then you’re going to give those nice detectives some story about why you called them, but it’s not going to involve me. If it does, I’ll hand this list right over.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “I can’t do it.”
“Can’t do what? Talk to the police? Of course you can. Just spin them a little tale.”
“No, I mean I can’t—” I glanced over my shoulder at the front desk clerk, who was busy tapping away on her laptop. “I can’t do the other thing.”
“Murder my mum?”
I flinched as her words seemed to scream through the phone. “Yeah.”
“We’ll worry about that later. First, get rid of the detectives. Then we’ll talk.” She clicked her phone off and then motioned for me to hang up.
I slowly passed the receiver back to the clerk. “Thanks,” I said.
Detectives Fogg and Sharma were both standing, waiting for me. I trudged over and shook their hands. “Thanks for coming,” I said.
“We were glad to get your call.” Detective Fogg smiled. There was a sliver of something black wedged between two of his teeth. I focused on that instead of his eyes. “You said you had something to tell us?”
Could Nicki hear our conversation from the hall? I shoved my hand into my jean pocket and felt the wadded-up paper. That list would bury me. “Yeah. I did,” I said, playing for time.
They both waited for me to speak.
“Did you want to go somewhere else to talk?” Detective Sharma eventually asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.
“No. I, um . . . it’s just that it seemed more important earlier and now it seems silly.” I hitched my bag up higher on my shoulder.
“We never know what might be useful in an investigation,” DI Sharma said. She motioned for me to sit on the sofa, and she and DI Fogg took the two wingback chairs across from me.
“So, I was just thinking about Connor. He was really worried about his college applications. His grades weren’t as high as he needed for some of the schools he was wanting to get into.”
The detectives looked at each other in confusion. “Okay. And . . .”
“And you’d asked if there was any reason he might be depressed. I didn’t think of it at the time.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Yeah.” I picked at a crack in the leather sofa cushion. “I thought I should mention it. You know, just in case.” I crossed my fingers that they wouldn’t ask me, In case of what? “Maybe he really had decided to kill himself, because he was so stressed, or maybe he hired someone to push him in front of the train because he was worried he wouldn’t get into McGill, his top choice.” I paused and sighed in real embarrassment. “I know. It seemed important this morning when I thought of it, but I guess I wanted to help so badly, I let my imagination get away from me.”
The lipstick around Detective Sharma’s mouth was a bright red, like an angry slash across her face. She slapped her thighs and stood. “Okay, then. If you think of anything else, you let us know. We want to hear from you if you get any more ideas.”
Detective Fogg looked less convinced that he wanted to ever hear from me again.
“I’m so sorry I dragged you down here.” I meant it, too. I wished now I’d never called them. I’d thought I was so clever, coming up with a way to get rid of her. It was beginning to dawn on me that that would never happen. “I didn’t mean to waste your time.”
“Getting clarity for Connor’s family is our number one priority. There’s nothing that we won’t do to further that aim.”
I couldn’t tell if Detective Sharma was reminding herself or if she was warning me.