The Guilty Couple(9)

His tone is barbed and Dani raises her eyebrows. ‘Because I had a hand in Olivia’s conviction and if she’s getting out I want to know about it.’

‘By earwigging private conversations?’

He’s not entirely sure why he’s so angry with her but he’s under a lot of pressure, his head’s ringing and he wants her gone. It was a mistake to let her stay the night.

‘Look Dom.’ Dani swings her legs out of bed and yanks on her jeans. ‘You don’t want me to interfere, I get it, and I’m gone. After today you won’t see me again. But you’re not the only one with responsibilities here. If I don’t get my sister private care she’ll overdose and die and you’re the only person who can help me.’ She pulls her T-shirt over her head and stuffs her bra and knickers into her jeans pocket.

‘I told you,’ he says. ‘I can’t.’

She stares at him from across the bed, bristling with frustration. ‘Can’t or won’t?’

He stares back, anger bubbling in his chest like lava. Everyone wants something from him and he’s sick of it. He wants to run as far away as he can from his claustrophobic, penny-pinching life and never look back.

‘Won’t,’ he says steadily.

Dani’s eyes flare with rage. ‘Fuck you, Dom. If Casey dies it’s on you.’ She storms out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her. A split second later the door opens again. ‘And if that happens I’ll make sure you spend the rest of your life in prison.’

Dom’s pulse quickens. ‘If I go down, Dani, so do you. You’re in it up to your neck and I can prove it.’

‘Prove what?’ Her eyes narrow.

‘You didn’t think I’d hand over all that money without recording our little chat for posterity, did you?’

Her lips part but, instead of responding, she turns sharply, swears, and disappears out onto the landing. Dom crosses the bedroom, pulling his dressing gown tightly around his body, and heads for the open door. What did she see that spooked her? He stands in the doorway and looks left, towards the stairs, but Dani’s already disappeared downstairs. He looks to his right, towards his daughter’s bedroom, and rises up on his toes, a gasp of surprise catching in his throat.

‘Gracie?’ His daughter is in her school uniform, her hair smoothed back into a ponytail, her eyes cold. ‘What the hell? I thought you were at Louisa’s house?’

‘I was. But I forgot this,’ she jerks the flute case in her hand. ‘Louisa’s waiting for me downstairs.’

‘Did, um … did you see …’ The words tumble out of his mouth as his brain frantically scrabbles to keep up. ‘That was Dani, my personal trainer.’

‘Why was she in your bedroom?’

‘I had a shower after we worked out and she popped in to tell me something.’

Grace’s judgemental expression doesn’t shift. ‘Your hair isn’t wet.’

‘Before.’ He runs a shaky hand through his hair. ‘She needed to tell me something before my shower.’

His daughter gives him a lingering look then strolls past him, flute case swinging from her hand. She pauses at the top of the stairs and crouches down, her hand stretching for something that Dom can’t see. When Grace stands up again she casually hangs whatever she found around the knob of a banister and makes her way down the stairs. Dom waits in the doorway, heart pounding, as his daughter calls to her friend. Seconds later he hears footsteps on the polished tiles in the entrance hall. When the front door slams and the house falls silent he steps across the landing and plucks the discarded item from the banister knob.

It’s Dani’s sheer black gossamer bra.





Chapter 6


DANI


‘Fuck!’ Dani breathes the word into her hands, her fingers steepled over her nose, then twists at the waist and smashes her fist into the peeling gym punchbag. ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’

Ever since she left Dom’s house, a little after 7.30 a.m., she’s been feeling like she wants to beat the shit out of someone or something – her computer when it took forever to return a search result; DS Reece Argent for staring at her during the team briefing; the woman behind the deli counter when she got her lunch order wrong – and now she’s taking it out on the punchbag in the gym.

For every punch she mentally aims at Dom’s face, she adds two to her own. What was she thinking, assuming he didn’t have anything on her? She drew up a repayment plan when Casey entered rehab and paid Dominic back two hundred pounds of the five grand he’d given her. It was a stupid thing to do in retrospect but, at that point, Dani hadn’t done anything dodgy. Unlike Olivia, Dominic knew she was a cop and there were no strings attached to the money.

As far as Dani knew, Dominic Sutherland was a legitimate businessman. She’d entered his name into a database at work and nothing had come up, not even a minor affray. When he’d confided in her that he thought something dodgy was going on with his wife she still thought he was a decent bloke. She knew Liv was having an affair, but it wasn’t her place to tell Dominic. They were both her clients and she wasn’t going to get involved in their private lives. But then Dom told her about the life insurance document he’d found – Liv had increased the payout she’d get in the event of his death – and how he’d grown suspicious after overhearing phone calls his wife had made to her lover.