Page 93 of 56 Days
She wants to ask him what’s wrong but she’s afraid if she doesn’t push these words out of her mouth right now, she’ll never say them, so instead she says:
“Oliver, there’s something I really need to tell you.”
One footstep off the ledge and now she’s in freefall. Too late to change direction—or her mind. All she can do is try to ensure she doesn’t hit anything on the way down, and has the best possible landing.
Even if the odds of surviving the impact are astronomically slim.
“Can we sit down?”
Oliver nods and moves to take a seat on the couch. She takes one beside him, and then one of his hands in hers.
It’s cold and clammy.
She thinks maybe hers is, too.
“So,” she starts. “I... I haven’t been completely honest with you.”
He’s rigid beside her, barely breathing, watching her with unblinking eyes. Looking at her in the same way she’d imagine he’d look at an apex predator he was worried was going to suddenly lunge at him and bite into his neck.
“Something happened today,” she says. “Just now. In town, on my walk. And it makes me think that I should tell you about theotherthing that happened because... Well, maybe you know what it all means and you can explain to me.” She squeezes his hand. “The first thing was the night of the fire alarm. The woman I was talking to outside. She asked me something weird—”
Hesqueezesherhand the same way her sister does duringtake-offand landing because she’s a terrible flyer and is always terrified.
“—and I didn’t tell you at the time, because you were paranoid about that guy from the firm knowing I was here, and there was a lot going on with us that night and I didn’t want to add to it. I just didn’t want to listen to you going on about it, to be honest, so—”
“What did she say?”
It’s the first time he’s spoken since she came in.
“Well...” Ciara swallows hard. “She asked me if I’d recently moved in, and I said I didn’t really live here, that I was staying with a friend, and then she said, ‘Is it Oliver?’ I knew you didn’t know anyone here, and then I was thinking, shit, maybe she’s pretending to live by herself and actually she’s the wife of this senior partner or whatever and she’s trying to catch me out, so I didn’t say anything. Then she says, ‘It is Ollie?’ which made me even more confused because you never mentioned that anyone calls you that... And then she said something about how I could... I could go to her for help if I ever needed it?”
He’s squeezing her hand so tight, it’s started to hurt.
When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper.
“And what didyousay?”
“Nothing, to that. I thought she was a headcase.”
“Did she tell you her name?”
“Not that night,” Ciara lies. “But today she did. It’s Laura.” She pauses, looks down at her hand in his. “You’re, ah, kind of hurting me. A little.”
He pulls away as if her hand is on fire.
“Sorry,” he says. “So... You met her again today, this Laura woman?”
Ciara nods. “I was in Stephen’s Green”—let him assume it was the square—“and she just walked right up to me. Said she knew itwasyou—Oliver—that I was staying with, and that she knew there was a good reason why I might not want to confirm it, and something about my wanting to protect you. She said she knows your last name isn’t Kennedy. And that she’s a journalist.”
His face is as pale as she’s ever seen it.
“Who is she, Oliver?” She swallows hard. “And who areyou?”
Today
“She’s lying,” Lee says.
She and Karl have stepped into the corridor, leaving Laura Mannix alone inside her apartment, still insisting that everything she’d told them was the truth—and furiously and fruitlessly deleting pictures of their crime scene from her phone, if Lee’s instincts are correct.
