Page 117 of Love What's Left
Amelia turns on him. “Shut up.”
“We have enough evidence for a search warrant, Amelia. The FBI will turn your place upside down. They’ll go through every purchase you’ve made, every phone call and text and DM. Every website you’ve visited. They’ll check your locations on your phone. They’ll interview your neighbors about your comings and goings. They’ll get the security feeds from your building. They’ll interview your neighbors. They’ll interview Markov’s neighbors. They’ll find wherever you stashed Markov’s money,” Sydney says in a hard voice.
Amelia clutches the countertop behind her. “I didn’t want his money.”
“What were you hoping to accomplish by drugging Sydney at the birthday party? Don’t lie. We already know what you did. Make us understand.” I keep my tone deliberately calm, as if I’m the “reasonable” one who will help her if she’ll only confide in me.I’m the nice McRae. The funny one. The one who never takes anything seriously. You can talk to me.
Amelia turns watery brown eyes my way. “I didn’t want to do it. I had to. And, obviously, she’s fine now. It wasn’t dangerous. It was supposed to look like a relapse. You’d take her away somewhere she could be happy, and I’d be safe.”
It nearly kills me, but I paste on a look of concerned confusion because that’s my role today. “Sometimes people have to make difficult choices, but I don’t understand why you made this one.”
“I’venever been good at relationships. No one ever loved me. Not the way Nick did. So, when he said I chose work over him, I begged him to go back to acting like the man I fell in love with. He told me I had to prove my loyalty, or he was leaving me. It was supposed to be harmless. Like . . . like a prank. I didn’t know what he’d do to her. No one was supposed to get hurt. The company could afford some bashed-up equipment.” Amelia sobs.
Sydney takes a step backward.
Amelia puts out a beseeching hand to her. “You have to understand. I knew Arden McRae wouldn’t charge his own daughter-in-law for anything. He wouldn’t even let the information go public because of how bad it would look. And I knew your marriage was fake. I walked in on you with your prenup on the computer the day after you got engaged. You weren’t with Gabriel, at all. Then the next day, he’s giving you a million dollars and an early out from your contract to marry him? Everyone thought you were together. Rob did, but I knew you weren’t dating. I overheard Gabriel call you a blackmailer. You said it was a joke, but I knew it wasn’t. So, what could he do to you if he thought you wrecked the lab in a temper? Nothing. It should have ended there.”
Every molecule of air freezes in my lungs until my chest burns. Sydney goes utterly still, not even blinking in her shock.
Look at me. Please.
Instead, she angles her face away and takes a step toward Amelia. “How did you get my badge without me noticing it was missing?”
When Amelia hesitates, Sydney slaps her across the face. The sudden violence cracks through the otherwise quiet room. Amelia gasps and cries out. I force myself not to interfere.
“Howdid you get mybadge?” Sydney repeats, her voice shaking, with memory or rage or hurt.
Holding her hand to her cheek, Amelia looks back at Sydney with mournful brown eyes. “When you leave at the end of the day, you always put it into the front pocket of your purse. You didn’t have your usual bodyguard or driver that night because the day before, I distracted you and used your iPad to change the schedule. It wouldn’t have worked if you talked to anybody. I didn’t think it was a good idea, but Nick said I was being stupid. He said it wouldn’t look suspicious if anyone noticed, and you’d think it was just a bug in the system. I’d told him how you hated to inconvenience any of them. I just thought we were chatting. I didn’t know he was trying to get information about you.”
She lifts one shoulder. “Nick told me to stick with the plan. So at lunch I took your necklace. You didn’t even notice I did it. If anyone looked up the location, they’d see the necklace came back into the lab when you did. Then they’d think you forgot it there. You’d think you lost it at work. But I was so scared I was crying and shaking. That was real, Sydney. I didn’t fake cry.”
“My badge,” Sydney repeats.
Amelia rubs under her eye with the heel of her hand. “After work, I told you I was headed in your direction to see my grandmother, so we shared a ride. You didn’t notice me take it from your purse,” she says in a small voice.
Sydney watches her with the hot gleam of memory in her eyes. “You handed me your phone to watch a video.”
Amelia nods miserably. “Yes.”
Put your anger in the box, Gabriel.“And when my wife went missing the next day?”
She shakes her head. “What couldI do? I didn’t know he was going to take her. We met for brunch. I told Sydney I wanted her to meet my new boyfriend, but when we got to the restaurant we agreed on, Nick said he heard therewere health code violations and that we should go somewhere else. Then Sydney started acting weird. And he needed me to help him take her home. But he took her to his place. Then he told me I was an accessory. If I said anything, he’d tell everyone what I did and that it was my idea. He said he’d kill her before anyone could get to her if I tried. I didn’t know what to do,” she whines.
Amelia turns back to Sydney. “I tried to intervene. Nick wanted to stage some awful murder scene like something out ofThe Godfather. I did everything I could to save you. I was the one who came up with the idea to use Trahypnofen instead of killing you. I told him what I knew about your marriage. How it shouldn’t be hard to get you on his side. If he’d just been nicer to you, it could’ve worked. But he gave you too much, and he hit you too hard. And it was awful. You couldn’t pass his tests. You could barely talk, let alone tell him what you blackmailed your husband with. You wouldn’t do anything we told you to do or answer any of his questions. If you’d passed Nick’s loyalty test, he would have sent you home, like he did me. Then he’d have had you sabotaging the whole family from the inside out. I thought, once you were free, we could figure something out maybe. But my hands were tied until then. He was cruel to me too.”
“You poor thing.” Sydney’s voice drips with bile.
“You should be grateful to me. He didn’t kill you because I intervened. And I kept you filthy, so he didn’t like getting close to you. All you had to do was tell him one little secret about Gabriel, but you had some kind of breakdown, instead. I kept you alive as long as I could, but you weren’t giving him anything to work with. It was hard to keep a prisoner drugged all the time. You were getting worse, not better. So, he went back to his original plan. The guilt killed me, Sydney. I cried every day during it and since then. I’ve tried to make it up to you ever since. I tried to atone by being the best friend and support I could be because I know what you went through andthat it was kind of . . . not my fault, exactly. I was a victim too. But I felt so guilty. I was so depressed I had to go on medication for it.”
“Shut up!” Sydney screams in her face, then wraps the woman’s blonde hair in her fist and shakes her, before shoving her against the white lockers with a metallic thud and clang. “I don’t want to hear how youcried while I was tortured and dying.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice,” Amelia sobs.
“You had one, and you made it. If you’d told me where she was and what Markov did, I’d have cut you a deal. I’d have done anything to keep her safe, including letting you walk,” I say.
“I didn’t know that. I was under duress,” Amelia wails.
“You let fear choke out your morality. Cowardice is the most insidious evil of them all,” Sydney says.
