Page 131 of Secrets (The Sins Trilogy 2)
Chapter Fifty-One
Anthony
Ryder sends everyone home quickly. His people usher Iris, Bobbi, Elizabeth, her husband and Paige to another room. Harry and Edgar leave with Yuna and Julie.
I try to get the paramedics to tell me what happened to Jill. I want them to tell me they can revive her if they take her to a big hospital with real doctors and lots of equipment. But they don’t. They just take the body away.
The body.
She’s not even a person now.
Ryder takes me to the room where everyone is, and I sit on a couch, hollow and shaky. Iris quietly puts an arm around my back. Ryder’s pacing, speaking furiously on his phone. Elizabeth, too, is on a call. Dominic rubs a soothing hand along her back.
I look down and see my hands. Trembling. A little damp in the palms. But when I turn them over, there isn’t any blood.
Might as well be.
I clench them. I learned how to do CPR and other basic first aid. It was supposed to help me not repeat the tragedy of the past. I should’ve been able to save Jill. If I had been better, maybe. If I’d been thinking more clearly…
She had to have been poisoned. Healthy people in their prime don’t just keel over and die. And certainly not when she was just about to tell me what she’d found.
It’s all my fault. I should’ve told her the people she was digging into were dangerous. If I had, she might’ve been more careful. Might still be alive.
I think back on what happened since I spotted her in the crowd. She looked fine, drinking her martini. Who could’ve poisoned her? When? Ryder’s place has tight security. The catering company came highly recommended.
A large hand thrusts a glass full of clear liquid in my face. I look up and see Tolyan, of all people. When did he come here?
“Drink. You look like shit,” he says.
I take it and finish the whole thing. It’s vodka.
“Jill was a good woman. It’s nasty business, people dying at your engagement party.”
No shit, Sherlock.It’s nasty business to have people die on you, period. Then I wonder if he knows something. Elizabeth’s “assistant” has a certain reputation. I stand and tell Iris, “I’m going to get another drink. Do you want anything?”
She shakes her head.
I head toward the wet bar, gesturing at Tolyan to follow. He helps himself to Ryder’s best vodka when we get there.
“Whatever Jill was after…she got too close,” he says.
I nod, gratified Tolyan agrees with my unspoken theory. “It was no accident.”
“She was here to see you. Ryder doesn’t use her. She wouldn’t have gotten in without an invitation.”
There’s no point in feigning ignorance. “Yeah, I hired her.”
His eyes grow remote. “Stop unless you plan to go all the way. And unless you don’t care who you have to hurt to get justice. It could be a hollow victory.”
What does he know?“I’m not stopping until I find out who did this to her.”
He grows even more emotionless. “That’s for the police. I mean the thing you wanted her to look into. Obviously somebody’s willing to kill to keep it buried.”
Willing to kill…
Suddenly, it clicks. The answer comes like a lightning bolt. Sam. He was there in Tempérane. He did some things he shouldn’t have. He tried to hide Iris. Then forced her to leave the country. When that failed, he tried to drown her. Whatever Jill discovered must’ve been damaging, and he had to do something about it.
Jesus.Blinding panic tears through me. “Where’s Iris?”
