else seemed to be getting through. ‘If you dare say one derogatory word against Sara, I shall assume you’re hysterical and slap you.’
‘What?’ Her eyes and mouth were wide with shock but she must have seen something in his face that made her believe he would do what he’d threatened because she subsided ungracefully into the chair on the other side of Zara’s bed.
‘As I was saying,’ Dan continued, apparently calm again, but from her position Sara could tell from the way his veins were distended that his anger must have sent his blood pressure up. She would have to suggest that he have it checked, but for now she was still amazed that he would have sided with her against the rest of her family. No one had ever done that before. ‘Unfortunately, it’s the truth. I took that piece of plastic from the BMW and gave it to the police because I saw that there were fibres caught in it. Their forensic labs have confirmed that they were strands of top-quality vicuna and that they were an absolute match for the fibres in Sara’s coat—the one you gave to her and that she was wearing when you knocked her down.’
There were several seconds of horrified silence at the end of his recitation and Sara almost felt sorry for her parents when she saw the way they were staring at their beloved daughter … almost as if they didn’t recognise her any more … as if she’d suddenly grown a second head, or something.
‘All right!’ Zara snapped. ‘So it all went a lot further than I expected, but I still didn’t get what I wanted, and that was to get rid of the kid.’
It was all too much for her mother to cope with and she burst into noisy tears, unwilling even to be consoled by her husband.
‘Why did you have to go poking around? Why couldn’t you just leave it alone? After all, bones heal and she’s still carrying your precious baby … Oh, I’m sorry, it’s babies, isn’t it? There’s two of the ghastly ankle-biters in there, gradually bloating her body until she’s going to look like a hippo.’
‘Why, Zara?’ Frank demanded, obviously completely confused. ‘What went wrong? You seemed so happy until you couldn’t have children, but then Sara offered—’
‘Sara didn’t offer,’ she interrupted rudely. ‘Mum virtually blackmailed her into it because I said I couldn’t get pregnant.’
‘Well, there was very little likelihood that you’d be able to while you were taking the Pill,’ Dan supplied dryly.
Zara blinked, as though surprised that he knew that she’d been lying to him, but he was already moving on. ‘What I don’t understand is why you went through the whole pantomime in the first place.’
‘Typical man!’ she scoffed, tossing her head in a wellpractised move that sent her hair tumbling over one shoulder. ‘It’s obvious. It was all a game, just a bit of fun seeing how easy it was to take you away from Sara, especially when I could tell that she had already fallen head over heels for you. I didn’t love you—never really wanted you, if you want the truth—I certainly never had any real intention of going as far as marriage.’
Her mother gave a little whimper of distress but that only seemed to enrage Zara further and she turned her fury on her parents. ‘If you two hadn’t been so bloody eager to put on the big flashy fairy-tale wedding, none of this would have happened. I’m a successful model and there’s a possibility that I might get a part in a Hollywood film. The last thing I want is to be stuck at home, nothing more than a housewife with two brats.’
‘So, let me get this right,’ Dan said icily. ‘Everything you’ve done—married me, almost killed your sister because she’s pregnant with the child you said you wanted, and taken an overdose of drugs—which, by the way, you carefully timed so that, if I hadn’t been taking care of Sara, I would have found you before they’d had time to get into your system—all of that is somebody else’s fault and beautiful Princess Zara is the innocent victim? I think not.’
He took a step closer so that he positively loomed over her and his words had the precision of surgical steel.
‘The police are waiting for me to report back before they charge you with the attempted murder of your sister and her unborn children. If you’re found guilty … which I hardly think is in doubt … you can expect to be sentenced to a minimum of twelve years in prison, but it’s more likely to be eighteen years.’
‘Eighteen years!’ Audrey wailed, but Zara didn’t say a word, at last speechless now that she’d been confronted with the probable consequences of her actions. ‘She didn’t mean to do it.’ Audrey turned pleading eyes on Sara, as ever protective of her favourite daughter. ‘You couldn’t possibly send your own twin to prison.’
‘I really didn’t mean to do it,’ Zara said suddenly, the subdued tone of her voice and the ghastly pallor of her skin telling Sara that perhaps she really was telling the truth this time. ‘I’ve had a couple of photo shoots on the West Coast—of America,’ she added, in case they weren’t following. ‘And when the possibility of this acting job came up and then became a probability, I suddenly felt trapped because the baby … babies,‘ she corrected herself, ‘weren’t due until a couple of weeks after filming’s due to begin.’
‘That still doesn’t explain why you would decide to run your sister over. Why on earth would you want to kill her?’
‘Why? Because she’s too bloody perfect,’ she snarled. ‘She got all the brains in the family and just sailed through school and medical training, and she got the beauty as well.’
‘That’s why you did this,’ Sara murmured as she traced her original scar, the one Zara had given her so many years ago. ‘I thought it was because you wanted people to be able to tell us apart. I never dreamed it was because you hated me.’
‘No!’ It was the first time that her sister hadn’t rushed to claim that it had been an accident and the fact that her first instinct had been to deny that she hated Sara thawed something deep inside her that had been frozen for a very long time. ‘Oh, everything just got so muddled in my head, probably because of the tablets one of my friends gave me.’
‘Tablets?’ Dan demanded instantly. ‘What tablets? Where did you get them from?’
‘My friend said she got them from America, on the internet. They call them designer drugs. They’re gone now,’ she added hastily. ‘I flushed them when I got back to the flat after I … after …’ She shook her head and started to shed what were probably the first genuine tears in years. ‘My friend and I were high on them when she said my only option was to get rid of the baby, then I wouldn’t have to be stuck in England, and my head was so messed up that it seemed to make perfect sense. Then, when I was driving towards Sara in that lane and her first thought was to save the baby … I was just so angry that she always … always did the right thing that I … that I aimed straight at her and … Oh, God, I’m sorry, Sara,’ she gasped. ‘And I’m just so glad that I didn’t … didn’t k-kill you …’
One part of Sara’s brain must have been registering the changing figures on the electronic monitors because somehow she wasn’t in the least surprised when Dan reached for her sister’s wrist to feel for himself just how fast her pulse was beating.
‘What’s wrong?’ Audrey demanded. ‘What’s the matter with Zara?’
‘Probably nothing more than too much stress in the last half-hour,’ he said soothingly.
‘It’s not her liver,
