Finding Grace(66)

‘Are you seeing Rhonda? Why is she here, in your bedroom?’ She glanced at Rhonda’s prostrate body behind her. ‘We need to call for an ambulance.’

‘Mind your own business,’ he snarled. ‘I was getting sick of you anyway.’

A wave of heat blasted through Lucie.

‘I’m going to report this to the police, and to the university too,’ she yelled.

Stefan grinned, completely unflustered. ‘We both know that’s not going to happen.’ He held the camera up. ‘I’d bet good money these photos are going to show you were helping her shoot up.’

Lucie wanted to leave, to push past him and run out of the house to ring the police. It felt as if someone had removed his mask and exposed that he was a maniac. Gregg had been right after all.

‘You bastard. I trusted you, I really thought you cared about me.’ She let out a bitter laugh. ‘You’re just a cheat. And worse, a criminal.’

Stefan exploded. ‘What do you want me to do? Get rid of her once and for all?’

In three big strides, he was at Rhonda’s bedside.

Lucie cried out as he wrenched the pillow from under Rhonda’s head and shoved it on to her face. Rhonda’s arms jerked out to the sides in reflex as she tried to escape the smothering sensation.

Lucie ran over and tried to pull Stefan away from her.

‘You’ll kill her! You have to stop it now!’

Stefan said nothing. He stood stock still, his eyes never leaving Rhonda as he constantly shifted his body weight over the pillow to add pressure.

Lucie ran wailing to the door. ‘Help! Help! Is anyone here?’

She heard him chuckle. She held on to the wall as the room started to spin. The air felt thick and unbreathable and the room seemed somehow bigger, rendering herself smaller as her grasp of time slipped. She watched as Stefan’s hands bore down harder on the pillow, his face morphing into a crazed mask.

Then, through her brain haze, she saw Stefan leap towards her. He grabbed her by the hair, throwing her back on to the bed. She started to scream, terrible ear-splitting cries that echoed in her ears.

‘This is what you wanted, admit it!’ he yelled at Lucie. ‘You wanted me to prove I love you, no matter what it took. You made me do it. It’s your fault.’

‘Stefan, no! No!’

She knocked the pillow from Rhonda’s face with her arm. Horrified by Rhonda’s wide, staring eyes and frozen expression, she began to whimper.

‘We have to help her, Stefan. Call an ambulance, please.’

‘Don’t look if you can’t handle it. You made me do it.’ His voice sounded unconcerned. Monotone. How could he act so clinical, so disinterested?

‘There are just two truths you need to remember. You never saw anything,’ he said, his voice chillingly calm and cold. ‘And you didn’t find anything in my rucksack.’

Lucie scrambled to her feet. ‘We’ve got to go to the police. There’s no way something like this can be covered up. You… you’ve killed her!’

He gave a little smile. ‘I had no choice, but you do. You have to choose whether to walk away or take the rap, Lucinda.’ He looked coolly at the dead girl and then reached over and pulled the sheet back over her body and face.’

‘What? You killed her, not me!’

‘She’s dead now and nothing is going to bring her back. You say you’ll betray me and go to the police. But I’m telling you this…’ He stepped closer to her and she shrank back against the wall. ‘If I go to prison, I’ll make sure you do too. And when I’m out, I’ll do to your interfering father the same as I’ve done to Rhonda today.’ He pressed his face closer to Lucie. ‘He’ll die horribly and painfully. Do you love him enough to keep quiet?’

Lucie covered her face with her hands. ‘I can’t. I just can’t do it.’

‘Nobody knows she’s here, Lucinda. Her family disowned her, wanted nothing to do with her after she got a prostitution charge, working the streets for drugs money at sixteen years of age. She ran away to Nottingham and I rescued her.’

A tiny noise behind her made her jump on to the balls of her feet. She turned, thinking it may not be too late to save Rhonda, but it was just the house cat, weaving between her feet in a figure of eight.

‘I’ll just tell the other housemates she left. Why not join me? You could make so much money.’ His voice softened and he stroked her arm. His touch made her flesh crawl, and she jerked her arm away. He smiled. ‘You don’t have to love me; just cover for me and we’ll be home and dry.’

She tilted her head back and stared up at the cracked, watermarked ceiling.

‘Not interested.’ Even though her hands were shaking, she kept her voice level, just waiting for a chance to escape. She now realised that the man she thought she knew was very different to the manic, violent one in front of her and so she swallowed her threats. She had to tread carefully.

Stefan laughed and stepped aside.

‘Go then, but think carefully, Lucinda. If you shop me, I’ll tell them you killed Rhonda in a jealous rage.’

The muscles in her guts contracted and for an awful moment she thought she’d vomit right there, in front of him.

‘I won’t report you but I want nothing to do with it. With any of it,’ she said, nearly choking on her words.