way Adam had always watched out for me and stood up for me, even when I’d still been in primary school. The way he was faithful and loyal now we were all grown up, despite my shenanigans. That playful glint in his eye when we argued, as if he enjoyed even that just because it was me he was sparring with. The way that playfulness had hardened into danger last night on the terrace.
After the general memories came the specifics. Thick and fast.
The bleakness in his eyes as he’d stood on his doorstep and listened to my apology after that fateful party. The squaring of his shoulders the first time he’d met Nicholas. The way he always inhaled deeply when he hugged me, as if he couldn’t help himself breathing in my scent.
They were fragments, really. Nothing more than that. But when I pieced them together there was only one conclusion I could come to.
Adam loved me. Had done so for a long time. And I’m not sure either of us had really known.
I sat there on the sofa, staring at the plastic gun on the coffee table and trying to work out what that meant, how I felt about it. But I was numb. Overloaded. Terrified.
The others were asking questions of each other, bandying theories around and knocking each other’s clever arguments to the floor with new insights, but I didn’t hear any of it. My memory had cranked into gear again, and this time the images being flung in my direction, the sounds and words, all related to me.
My face lighting up every time I saw him, no matter how glum I’d been before he walked in the door. The way he made me feel as if I could do anything, be anything. His hand my only anchor at my mum’s funeral, as we’d watched four strangers in black carry her into the chapel. I’d squeezed it so hard it had creaked for days afterwards.
I’d needed him then, more than I could express or even comprehend. But I’d never had to articulate those feelings. In fact I’d never had to ask him for anything that I’d really needed. Oh, I might have begged and wheedled and sulked to get him to agree to something I wanted, but that wasn’t the same thing. He’d always been there, ready with what I needed—like the takeaways. I’d just been too blind to see that what I really wanted, what I really needed, was him.
My gaze flew to his face. He was laughing with Izzi about some ridiculous theory she’d just put forward, his grin wide and his dimples creasing deep in his cheeks, and suddenly I felt as if I were falling. Not a gentle floating, but being dragged by gravity so fast it sucked the breath from my lungs, the words from my mouth. I felt clammy and twitchy, shivery and cold.
And then I hit the bottom of whatever I’d been falling down. But instead of it ending with a nasty, messy splat there was an explosion of warmth and light. It rushed outwards from my ribcage until pins and needles stabbed my fingers and toes, until the roots of my hair tingled to attention.
Finally the polka-dots fell from my eyes.
I stood up shakily, my mouth working, my eyes wide. A couple of people stopped talking and stared at me.
‘It’s you,’ I said to Adam across the room. ‘It was you all along.’
He broke off mid-sentence and our gazes snagged and held.
There was a reedy voice to my left. The detective. ‘Are you making a formal accusation?’ he asked.
I nodded dumbly. How could I deny it?
He was the one. The cupcake of my dreams.
I was in love with my best friend.
I was in love with Adam Conrad.
CHAPTER TEN
Fever
Coreen’s Confessions
No. 10—You might not believe it, but sometimes I take things too far.
THE next twenty minutes were mayhem. Everyone talked over each other, unravelling the remaining tangles in the mystery we’d all been trying to solve. More than once I was clapped on the back and congratulated for working it out, but I hardly registered it.
I’d finally worked it out. But I wasn’t clever. I was very, very stupid. The clues had been laid out for me, and all I’d had to do was take the focus off myself long enough to see them winking at me along the way. I never had. What did that say about me as a person?
I could see with such clarity now why I’d been so territorial about Adam with my friends, why I put up with his endless teasing. Why he felt like a part of me. And it had only taken me the best part of twenty years to work it all out.
Very, very stupid.
Stupid not to have seen it. Stupid to have allowed it to happen in the first place. By not opening my eyes to it, thinking that was the safer option, I’d actually left myself even more vulnerable.
Jos and Louisa were making a fuss of Adam, asking him how he’d managed to fool them all weekend. Even Nicholas gave him a handshake. Then they wanted to know what his motive had been. It turned out my supposed brother—brother? Hah!—had discovered his beloved younger sister was the product of his uncle’s affair with their mother. The late Lord Southerby had been getting sentimental in recent months, had regretted denying paternity and had talked about changing his will. Harry had been scared for Constance, had sought to protect a young woman who selflessly wanted to spend her life helping others from a scandal that would prevent her from doing just that. What missionary society would have sent the illegitimate daughter of a well-known cad overseas as an example of good Christian morals? Harry had acted out of love and rage and retribution.
I woke from my daze briefly. ‘When did you know it was you?’ I asked Adam.
‘I knew right from the start…almost.’ He gave a careless shrug, but his gaze was probing. ‘It was right there in my second envelope—the one we got straight after the murder.’
Marcus gave the pair of us a disdainful look. ‘I don’t know…’ he said, in a slightly petulant tone. ‘I think this young lady might have had a slight advantage over us when it came to solving the case.’
I knew he was thinking about the larder incident, and just letting my consciousness touch the edge of that memory was enough to make me tremble deep down in my core.
But Marcus was wrong. In the situation I found myself in now, I had no kind of advantage. No kind of advantage at all.
I slipped away while the others were still debriefing themselves, using the excuse that I had to go and pack up the clothes that were no longer needed.
Izzi had been generous enough to offer the clothes she’d bought to their owners, and most of the guests had elected to keep their outfits. I collected the evening wear that wasn’t in use and made sure it was hung up or packed properly for their journey home. Once that was done I still had the ‘spares’ to deal with. The extra clothes would return with me to Coreen’s Closet, where they’d go back on the rails.
I was hanging up the wonderful red velvet dress when I heard a soft knock at my bedroom door.
People
