You Owe Me a Murder(58)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The crowd at the bar let out an anguished groan. Someone had missed the chance to score a goal.

Nicki shook her head. “No playing like you’re an idjit. It’s not that I don’t understand how intoxicating a new bloke can be, but you need to get your priorities straight.”

“You made him take me on the Eye.”

She sat back with a sigh. “I didn’t make him do anything. I simply talked about how this was such a once-in-a-lifetime experience. The kind of thing you should share with someone special.”

“I told you I was afraid of heights the first time we met.”

One perfectly tweezed eyebrow twitched. “Did you?” She tapped her lips with a finger. “You know, now that you mention it, you may have said something. But look at it this way: you confronted a fear and did it. I had a hunch you wouldn’t back down when he was around and I was right. It was like a little experiment and you passed.”

“You let him think you’re an art history student?”

Nicki picked at her nail polish. “What? I love art history. I might study it someday.” She looked up at me pointedly. “It depends on if I have any money to go to university.”

“I don’t know how to do it,” I said. My voice was tight, like an archer’s bowstring. “I’ll get caught.”

Nicki paused, letting a group of women teeter past our table in impossibly short skirts and incredibly tall heels. “I like that we’re discussing how instead of what. That’s progress, at least. Looks like facing down a fear might be moving you forward in general.”

“I keep trying to tell you—?I’m not the person to do this. If I get caught”—?I leaned forward—?“which I will, it isn’t going to go well for you, either. The cops are going to want to know why I did it. The truth is going to come out. You’ll end up in jail right next to me. You need to hire a professional.” I lowered my voice even though there was no chance anyone could hear me in the loud bar. “You need a hit man.”

She laughed. “A hit man? You sound like you’re in a bad gangster movie. I must hand it to you: At least you’re no longer talking about how people don’t deserve it. And how it’s wrong. Blah blah blah. Honestly, all that morality was getting dull.”

“Being a decent person isn’t dull,” I said.

“Says the person who made a list of reasons why Connor deserved to die. Guess your morality was less exacting back then.” She tapped her fingernails on the table.

“That doesn’t mean I wanted him pushed in front of a train,” I fired back.

“No, that is exactly what you wanted; it’s just that you were too scared to do it. Or maybe you thought you couldn’t get away with it. But here’s the thing.” She tapped me on the shoulder, like a queen anointing a knight. “I believe in you. I know you’re smart. You can figure this out. But you’re running out of time.”

“I can’t—?”

“I don’t want to hear any more excuses.” Her voice was tight and clipped. Her teeth looked sharp in the dim pub lights. “I’ll be out tomorrow night. This time I don’t want to be disappointed when I get back home.”

Alex approached the table with a glass in hand. Nicki jerked her head up, her lips peeling back into a jack-o’-lantern-size smile. “Oy! That’s my man.” She took the drink from Alex’s hand and took a long sip, then stood. “Now, I’m not going to stick my nose into your date any longer. I’ll let you lovebirds have some time alone. I’ve got to run.”

“Do you want to go back with us? It’s getting late,” Alex offered. I tried not to react.

Nicki smiled. “Aw, love a gallant man. He’s right—?it is a dangerous city . . .” She let her voice trail off.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I said.

“Oh, you know it.” Nicki tossed back the rest of her drink and walked out of the bar.





Twenty-Six


August 27


4 Days Remaining


Every second of the next day I could sense a huge clock running above my head: the countdown to when Nicki would be expecting me to do something. Not something—?murder.

As the day crawled by, I kept checking my phone on the off chance that the camp secretary had broken down and told Emily I needed to reach her, but there was nothing. Just the ticking of the clock, lurching toward the point of no return. Nicki’s expectations grew heavier and tighter, suffocating me until I couldn’t breathe.

There was a quiet tap on my door just before midnight. My throat seized shut as if someone were choking me. It had to be her. She seemed to have no trouble sneaking in and out of the building and now she was wondering why I wasn’t at her house pushing her mom down a flight of stairs. I closed my eyes and prayed she would go away, but there was another soft knock.

Metford didn’t have peepholes, so I had to settle for cracking the door and peering out. It was Alex. The tension in my muscles vanished.

I opened the door. “What are you doing here?” I glanced up and down the hall to see if anyone had spotted him on a girls’ floor after hours.

“I was worried about you.”

I motioned him in. The room was so small that his body touched mine as he slid past. There wasn’t much space, so we both sat on the bed. I was wearing a sweatshirt, which needed a wash, and a pair of old boxers that I slept in. I hoped he hadn’t been expecting me to be busting out the Victoria’s Secret.