Page 81 of Dead to Me

I’d hoped to talk privately to Kit on the riverbank before the dinner, but the moment we arrived we saw a whole group of people he knew and had to sit in a group and make generalised conversation.Luckily, none of them were actual rowers, which meant I could relax a little.I held my composure and chatted nicely to them, bantered with Kit and gave commentary on everyone’s technique as they rowed past.

So the dinner was going to have to be it.Kit had booked us a private room at Restaurant Twenty-Two.‘I can’t be bothered with other people tonight, and bollocks to having to dress up for Midsummer House,’ had been his breezy comment.‘But let’s get a drink in first, before the others come, hey?’

Dressing up was, I realised as I arrived, all relative.There were folks in the downstairs room of Restaurant Twenty-Two dressed up more than I would have been for a cocktail party.There was also a seriously expensive wine list, which made me wince when I thought about Gael’s comments.But Kit wasdead seton paying for everyone tonight, and I thanked my stars.The food was going to be in the hundreds, too.

Cordelia and I had chosen one of the Zimmermann silk minidresses Imogen had donated for me to wear, benefiting from the fact that the plunging neckline was made a lot more so by Imogen having breasts a good two sizes smaller than mine.I felt dressed up just enough, and I could see that it was working from the way Kit kept reaching out for my hand or my leg as we sat alone together over our pre-dinner champagne.

I knew I had seriously limited time to talk to him in private and that I’d just have to jump in.Even so, my heart was pounding as I pulled big, sympathetic eyes and asked, ‘How are you feeling about the stuff with James the other night?’

‘God, I’m… sorry,’ he said, leaning down to kiss my hand.‘That was a pretty crap start to things, wasn’t it?And it wasn’t even James’s fault,’ he went on.‘We’re all pretty messed up over Holly.I don’t expect him to be… you know.Totally chill.And it’s pretty natural to blame the people who should have looked out for her.’

I gave him a sympathetic smile, and then I hit him with, ‘He thinks you gave her the drugs, you know.’

He didn’t move his hand, but his eyes snapped up to my face.‘What?’

‘He saw her coming out of your room earlier on that day,’ I told him.‘She lied about where she was going, so he thinks she went to get drugs from you and didn’t want to tell him.’

Kit looked, to do him credit, completely horrified.‘What the hell…?Why would he think that?’

‘You’re often the guy with the gear,’ I said with a shrug.‘And he said you never mentioned her visiting.’

Kit looked dumbstruck for a good few seconds.His eyes were moving as if he were trying to work something out, or remember something, or, I don’t know, fabricate something.

‘I didn’t think to… She came to pick up her cardigan from me,’ he said.I was looking for anxiety, but he looked sad, actually.Really sad.‘Her… bolero, she said it was.Because she needed it for the ball and had left it at my room the day before.That was the only thing I gave her.’

I looked past him for a second, then said, ‘You don’t think it was an excuse?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I might deliberately leave something behind if I wanted a private conversation,’ I explained.‘Did she try to talk to you about anything while she was there?’

Kit looked genuinely startled, and then he said, ‘She kind of– I mean, yeah…’ He frowned and then let go of my hand to rub his forehead.‘It seemed like a side point.Not her main reason for being there.But she asked… yeah, about what I’d do in a dilemma.’The rubbing at his forehead faltered.‘She said her friend was having a crap time.And she asked… what would I do if I’d worked out something really bad about two people I cared about.Something that might ruin people.Was it my duty to tell everyone, even if it meant a huge amount of hurt?’He stopped, and took my hand again.‘Something like that.’

I could feel my heart doing strange things, and I was afraid he’d be able to feel it in my pulse.

‘Oh.Weird,’ I said.‘What did you say?’

‘Well, I said I’d need a lot more specifics to be sure,’ he said with a tight laugh.‘I mean, even from a legal perspective, there’s a huge difference between something that might affecta financial situation and something really criminal.I… kind of suggested we should talk about it when we had more time.’

I was trying to find the right thing to say; the thing that Aria would have said on hearing this for the first time, instead of any of the questions I now desperately wanted to ask.

Aria wouldn’t have been thinking,Cordelia was right.One of them did something bad enough that they killed her for finding out.

‘What would that even have been about?’I tried, in the end.‘She didn’t say anything else?’

Kit frowned and then briefly kissed my hand.‘I don’t know.I figured if it wasthatimportant, she wouldn’t have brought it up when we were all rushed to get ready…’

I paused for a second, and then said, ‘I guess it could have been nothing.It’s so… weird.That nobody might ever know what it was.’

I watched him so, so carefully for a reaction, Reid.I watched for a moment of satisfaction, or of fear.A desire to change the subject.

But instead, he just looked desolate.Like I’d made him realise all over again what had been lost.

James Sedgewick turned up then, so of course the conversation stopped right there.And James looked… well, unhappy to see us both.But he tried to give me a smile of some kind.

This is weighing on him, all of it, I thought, with the sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing things are unravelling.I just need to give him a push.

There was little room for private conversation that night, though.Esther and then Ryan slid their way round the table, and the chat got very cheerful and annoyingly group orientated.A bad situation for dark confessions.It was annoying, too, that there was no bar to go to.Everything was ordered right there at the table.

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