Page 72 of Artful Deceit
“And he did,” Lily murmured.
“I don’t think he was fully convinced that running was the answer. He brought you over to visit me again.”
“That’s when the fire happened at the ice cream shop?”
“Yes.” She nodded sadly. “It didn’t seem as though the intention was to harm anyone, more that someone was sending a message.”
“Why did no one know I was here? I asked Glynis and Mirren – neither of them remembered you having guests.”
“Derek didn’t want anyone to know. After the incident with your gran, he got paranoid. He’d barely let you out of his sight. When the smoke alarms went off that night, he bundled you and your things together and slipped out through the back door.”
“I vaguely remember,” Lily said.
“You slept in his arms on the beach that night, and he left with you the next day.”
It took a few minutes for Lily to trust herself to speak through the emotions, which felt as though they might suffocate her. “We always used our real names, didn’t we? Why did he have fake passports?”
“He got them later. About a year after you moved to Italy, he caught some private investigator watching you at the school gates. I believe he beat the guy up, then he moved you to Spain. He found someone dealing in fake passports and got them as a security measure. He was trying his best to keep things relatively normal for you, so he didn’t want to change your names and identities. But he also wanted to be ready in case that became necessary.”
“You were right,” Lily said, her voice brittle. “This all sounds insane.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Will you tell the police all of this?” Lily blinked away tears. “I’m not sure anyone will believe I have a forged passport, but don’t know why.”
“Of course. I’ll help however I can.”
Lily’s gaze flicked to the door. “I don’t know what’s going on. Where did they go?” She pulled out her phone and messaged Flynn, but got no reply.
“Where are you?” she murmured, eyes not shifting from the door.
Chapter Thirty-Six
His radio had gone quiet,but Flynn was aware of his colleagues at the other end, waiting for an update. The ones whose voices had been there in the background while he’d administered CPR and while he’d sat in the back of the ambulance, watching the paramedic attempting to shock the sergeant’s heart back into rhythm.
It didn’t look good.That was what he’d told his colleagues on the mainland when the sergeant was wheeled into the hospital amid a bustle of hospital personnel.
He hung back in the waiting area, head bent, staring at his hands, which trembled slightly as the adrenaline subsided.
An occasional glance at the clock told him it was almost half an hour before the doctor finally came out to him.
“Sorry,” she murmured, eyes glassy with tears.
Flynn took a sudden interest in his boots. They could do with a polish. He’d do that later.
“You did everything you could,” Dr Redwood said, sinking onto the chair beside him.
“That’s probably not true.”
“It is true.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “He was gone when you got to him. No one could have done anything.”
“What about this morning when he complained of feeling dizzy?” His throat squeezed painfully around the words. “I probably could have done something then. Or yesterday when he was looking really pale. Or the entire week when he’s been saying he was tired and not feeling great.”
She rubbed gently on his shoulder blade. “It’s always the same with something like this. The signs are there, but they can easily be dismissed as something else, or nothing at all. Even I would have told him he just needed a holiday or a couple of days of rest.”
“I doubt it. You’d have checked him out properly and seen there was a problem with his heart.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” she whispered. “You really couldn’t have done anything to prevent this.”
