Kisses and Lies (21 page)

It’s not the photo I took of Moira and sent to Nadia, so she could match it against the security camera.

It’s the one of Catriona.

I spin round and run back to the tower so fast I don’t even feel the ground beneath my feet. There’s a dark gap at its base, which, as I near it, resolves itself into a narrow entrance leading to a spiral stone staircase. I start to run up until a loose chip of stone turns beneath the sole of my trainer and tumbles down a couple of stairs. In my state of nerves, it sounds like a wrecking ball crashing through a wall. I stop dead, pressing myself flat against the stone wall behind me, only allowing my breath to ease out slowly, silently, through my nose, though my lungs are gasping for relief.

Above me I hear a voice, but I can’t make out if it’s male or female, let alone identify it. I think I hear footsteps, too, but the tower’s close to the cliff edge, and the noise of the waves beating below us and the plaintive cries of the seagulls are loud enough to make it hard for me to distinguish any other sounds.

Which might work in my favor. I can’t hear what’s going on up there, but hopefully whoever’s up there can’t hear me either.

Steadying my breathing, I proceed up the stairs, taking more care on the crumbling steps. This tower isn’t exactly safe: there are big cracks in the walls. But the steps seem to hold my weight well enough, and I don’t have any choice. I have to keep going up.

Suddenly, a shaft of light strikes down the well of the spiral stairs. I must be near the top. Gingerly, I crouch down and creep up the last few treads. And then I raise my head fractionally, fractionally, till my line of vision is just barely at the level of the floor.

I see feet, first of all. Boots, jeans  .  .  . I tilt my head back, looking up the body. It’s Callum. He’s standing further away from me than I anticipated, and I realize that the tower is only a staircase, that there’s a whole upper level here that I couldn’t see from the ground, probably because it was concealed by the oak trees. Behind him there’s a crumbling stone wall, as far as I can tell. And no wonder it’s light up here—the roof is completely gone. Nothing overhead but sky.

There’s a shotgun propped against the wall next to Callum. His arms are by his sides, but there’s a big window at his back and because of the light pouring through it, I can’t see the expression on his face.

“If this is some kind of joke, it’s sick!” he’s saying, sounding completely incredulous. “I can’t believe you’d do this!”

“It’s not a joke,” comes a voice from behind me. “Just do it, Cal!”

“You’re crazy! You’ve gone completely crazy!”

Callum takes a couple of strides forward, and behind me, a shot rings out. The echoes are deafening in the stone room, and I duck down, clapping my hands over my head, terrified of a ricochet. Callum jumps back again, yelling something that gets lost in the sound of the blast.

It seems to take forever for the noise to die down. I wait till I’m sure that there isn’t a bullet bouncing off the stone before I raise my head again. Callum’s stepped further back, terrified beyond words.

“Just jump, Cal. It’ll all be over before you know it.” Catriona has lunged forward, almost level with the stairs now. I just have to tilt my head to see her. She has a shotgun in her arms, which she is aiming straight at Callum.

“Cat, I don’t understand,” Callum pleads with her, rubbing his hand violently over his skull. “Please tell me what’s going on! Is it some sort of game? If it is, it’s not bloody funny, okay?”

“Jesus, Callum!” Catriona yells. “Don’t make me shoot you!”

“Why? Why would you shoot me?” her brother yells back.

“Because I can only inherit Castle Airlie if you’re dead,” says Catriona furiously. “Even though I’m the oldest of all three of us, I couldn’t inherit, because I’m a girl. Did that never strike you as the most unfair thing in the world? Didn’t it? Or did you just take it for granted that you should get Castle Airlie, because you’re a boy?”

“But Cat, I wasn’t going to get Castle Airlie either,” Callum points out desperately, “because Dan is—was—half an hour older than me. How’s that fair either?”

“I’m older than both of you! Two years older! It should have gone to me!” Catriona screams.

Callum covers his face with his hands. “Jesus, Cat,” he says. “I had no idea you felt this way. I promise, I had no idea. You never said a word.”

“There wouldn’t have been any point,” she says. “It wouldn’t have changed anything. I mentioned it to Dad once, and you know what he said? ‘Girls marry and go to live with their husbands, Cat, that’s how it works’! Well, I’m never leaving Castle Airlie. Never. I’m going to make it perfect, I’m going to do all the work that needs doing and Mum and Dad have neglected all these years—”

“Cat, just put the gun down, okay?” Callum pleads. “You’re not in a good state. Please, put the gun down and let’s talk about this.”

He takes a step toward her, his hand held out.

“I’ll shoot you if you take one more step, Callum,” Catriona snaps. “I swear I will. I’ve gone too far to stop now.”

“What do you mean?” Callum stares at his sister, her eyes filled with rage. “Oh my God—Dan? You couldn’t have. That was an accident, wasn’t it?”

Catriona gives a dry, nasty laugh.

“Right,” she says. “It was an accident, actually, believe it or not. I went along to that party with a whole group of Lucy’s friends, and I put peanut oil on every bowl of crisps I could find. It was so easy.” She makes that awful laugh again. “I just dribbled some oil into each bowl before I poured the crisps—then I stirred them around a bit with my hand so they’d get some trace of oil on them. Nobody even noticed me. I’m not one of their group—and all they wanted to do was drink and smoke and get off their faces as quickly as possible. They couldn’t have cared less what I was doing.”

I hear her shift position slightly, her feet moving on the stone flags.

“They were Dan’s favorite crisps, those blue ones he loved,” she’s saying. “I brought them to the party. I was sure he’d eat some, and of course, as we’ve all been told since the dawn of time, it just took the faintest trace of oil to send Dan into anaphylactic shock, right?”

“But he didn’t,” Callum says faintly.

“That’s right, he didn’t. Scarlett ate some instead. I saw her at the bar, talking to him. Then, when she kissed him, she still had some peanut oil in her mouth, and that was enough to trigger the shock. Amazing, isn’t it? It made things so much easier for me,” she adds. “All eyes were on her. No one even looked at the crisps. I couldn’t have planned it better.”

“Cat—” Callum starts. His voice sounds awful now, rough with shock.

“And this’ll be an accident, too,” Catriona interrupts. “You were up here shooting and the floor gave way by the window. It’s all crumbling anyway, everyone will believe that.”

“And what if I don’t jump?” Callum asks hoarsely, sounding so doubtful that I can tell he still doesn’t believe she’ll make him do it.

“Then I’ll shoot you, like I said, and leave you to bleed out. Make it look like you tripped and shot yourself with your own gun. That’ll be a much nastier death, Cal. I’d jump if I were you.”

“No one will believe I’d be that clumsy,” Callum says furiously.

“What else are they going to think? That I shot you?” She laughs, a bitter laugh quite devoid of any amusement. “Come on, I’ll be their only child left. They’d believe anything before they’d think I killed you and Dan!”

“You won’t get the castle anyway, Cat, even if I do jump,” Callum says, sounding frantic now.

“Oh, yes I will,” Catriona says coldly. “There’s a clause in the deed of trust. If all the male heirs die before they attain their majority, Castle Airlie passes to any surviving sisters. I only realized it six months ago, but I started making plans straightaway. I had to get it done before your eighteenth birthdays.”

She takes another step toward Callum. If she’s going to make it seem that he shot himself by accident, she’ll need to shoot him at close range. And that’s going to bring her close enough to me that I could reach out and grab her ankle. I weigh the odds.

If I knock her over, the gun could go off and any of us could get shot. But if I don’t, she’ll kill Callum.

Callum may still have some doubts about the seriousness of Catriona’s resolve to kill him. I don’t. Callum’s brother, Dan, died in my arms. I know, more than anyone, that Catriona’s already murdered one brother.

She won’t hesitate to kill Callum now.

I have to take the risk.

I raise my right arm and snake it out across the floor, reaching for Catriona’s ankle. But just as my fingers touch her boot, she takes another step. I make a grab for her and miss by a fraction. I fall sprawling onto the cold stone as Catriona fires the gun. The blast is so close it’s like something slamming into my head. My brain is spinning with the reverberations. When I snap my eyes open again, I see dust hanging in the air, fine stone chips from where Catriona fired and a ricochet hit the floor.

But I don’t see Callum. Just the empty air where he was standing.

A terrible scream bounces off the crumbling walls and flies into the air.

It’s me. I’m the one who’s screaming.

A SHEER DROP DOWN

I scramble to my feet and sprint across the floor to the place where I last saw Callum, shoving past Catriona on my way. It’s take her down or find out what happened to Callum, and that’s no choice at all. I have to see Callum, or what’s left of him—

I pull up short a bare foot before I tumble to my death. Oh my God. I didn’t quite understand why Catriona was telling her brother to jump, because the tower isn’t that high. But this ancient building backs onto the cliffs, and there’s a sheer drop down where the wall has long since fallen away. I’m teetering on the edge, the stone floor crumbling away beneath me, looking at the rocks below and the gray sea pounding them, white frothy foam surging up the sharp teeth of the cliffs.

But what I don’t see is Callum’s body lying down there. My heart is pounding.

And then I hear something, a movement just below my feet. In a flash, I drop to my knees and crane my head over the edge.

Callum’s hanging there, both hands wrapped around a stone block protruding from the wall. His eyes widen as he sees my face appear directly above his.

“Scarlett!” he manages.

“Hang on, Callum!”

I look down. There’s nowhere for him to jump—it’s nothing but bare rock below him. Behind me, I hear the sound of a shotgun being racked up. I swing round.

Catriona’s pointing the gun at me. I’ve never stared down the business end of a shotgun before, let alone when it’s aimed at my chest. The sight of those two shiny black barrels is the most frightening thing I have ever seen in my life.

“You too,” she says, gazing straight into my eyes. “You’re going over the edge as well. Jump.”

I remember lying on Catriona’s bed last night, laughing and joking with her. Thinking how nice she was, how normal. Last night I was almost sure it was Lucy who had killed Dan, for Callum’s sake.

Now I look into Catriona’s slanted gray eyes and I wonder how I could ever have liked her. Because all I see in there is sheer, terrifying madness.

I brace myself. I’m going to hurdle two steps, hit the floor in a roll, and kick her legs away from her. I know I can do it. She won’t expect how fast I can come at her. Nobody who hasn’t seen a gymnast sprinting toward them realizes what a head of speed we can power up from a standing start. I’ll be on her before she knows it, and as soon as I’m in my forward roll, I’ll be below the gun barrels. If they go off, she’ll be firing above my head. And Callum, hanging far below floor level, will be safe from any stray shot.

I switch my weight to my toes, lifting up slightly, poised perfectly to burst into action—

“Scarlett! Help!” Callum yells desperately. And I hear a terrifying slipping sound, like nails sliding down a stone block.

I have no choice. I have to help him. What good will it do me to take down Catriona if Callum’s falling to his death below us?

I drop flat on the ground in a single movement, dragging myself over the edge, dangling my arms over to reach him. One of his hands has slipped over the block and is reaching up, flailing the air, trying to get a grip on something. I grab it and dig my fingers tightly into the muscles of his forearm. His hand closes just as tightly over my arm. Wow, he’s strong. I know I can pull him up, I know I can, if Catriona just leaves us alone.

“Oh, how sweet,” Catriona mocks. “Saw one brother die and now you can’t watch the second one go? Who d’you like more, Scarlett? Dan or Callum? Dan was the charmer, but Callum’s worth twice of him, you know. Just ask anyone.”

To my horror, I see Callum’s face, upturned toward mine, crumple in pain as she taunts me. Tears are welling up in his eyes as Catriona insults Dan. I feel his grip slip a little, his fingers slide down a fraction toward my wrist, and I take a deep, deep breath, grab him even tighter, and haul him up with every atom of strength in my body.

“Hold on!” I yell savagely down at him, right into his face, that handsome face that’s so like Dan’s but so different at the same time, so full of a strength that Dan never cultivated. “I’ve got you! I’m not letting go!” I give another haul, one hand digging into a crack in the stone floor, the other one dragging at Callum’s dead weight, the lats down the side of my arm and back screaming in protest, until suddenly I realize he’s not a dead weight anymore.

Somehow, I’ve lifted him far enough that he’s managed to find a foothold that’s taking a lot of his body weight. The strain on my arm loosens enough that I can afford to reach my other arm down now, not needing to cling to the ground for dear life, and Callum, seeing instantly what I’m doing, lets go of his clutch on the stone block and grabs mine instead.

God, he’s heavy. I grit my teeth and heave him up, clenching my stomach muscles tightly to help my back take the strain. I feel Callum come up higher; I feel him get a better foothold in whatever crevice in the rock below he’s found to grind his boot into, and I have a surge of excitement, knowing I can pull him up. I can save his life when I couldn’t save Dan’s.

“Oh no,” Catriona says above me. “No, no, no! Sorry, but I didn’t come this far to back out now!”

And I feel the barrel of the gun, cold and hard, against my temple.

“Drop him,” she says. “Drop him and I promise I won’t kill you.”

She must think I’m the biggest fool in the world if she even imagines I’d believe her.

But I can scarcely call her bluff.

The barrel presses closer against my temple. I flinch, despite myself, and my grip on Callum loosens for a second.

“Do it,” he calls up to me.

His eyes are looking up directly into mine. Gray and clear and trying to tell me something, frantically, with everything he’s got.

“Do it,” he repeats. “It’s okay.”

He starts to let go his grip on my forearms, and I scream: “No! No! I won’t let go!” and tighten my grasp on him so convulsively that I can feel my whole upper body trembling with the tension.

“Then I’ll make you!”

Catriona’s voice rises to a high-pitched, insane-sounding scream. She drags the shotgun barrel from my forehead. The relief of having it gone is intense, but it’s instantly replaced by fear of what she’ll do next. Though I can barely lift my head with the strain of holding Callum, I crane my neck back just enough to see her from underneath. Looming over me, her shadow falling over us, she reverses the shotgun, holding it by the barrels, and lifts it above the edge of the abyss, about to bring the stock down on my and Callum’s clasped hands.

I close my eyes and hold on to him with every atom of strength I have left, though I know it will do no good. We’re completely vulnerable.

I glance down at Callum again, and he stares up at me. He’s stopped trying to let go of me now. And somehow, we’re gazing at each other, and all I can see is Callum’s gray eyes, thickly fringed with silky dark lashes, wide-set under his strong dark brows. I notice for the first time that he has speckles of gold-green in his gray irises, like mica chips that catch the light, and a moment of utter calm passes between us, and I stop panicking. For that moment, that long moment, I don’t think about anything but looking down into Callum’s eyes.

I wait for Catriona’s blow to come, and hold on as tight as I can to him.

Suddenly Callum’s face below me lightens—but not in expression. The shadow over us has lifted. Catriona’s moved. And in that second, something falls heavily across my foot, and I hear signs of a struggle, a shotgun barrel hitting stone, gasps and grunts and fists landing on flesh.

I have no time to look round, no time to do anything but concentrate, fiercely, on dragging Callum up. I lock my back and curl up my abdominals, and, with everything I’ve got and more I don’t, I haul away at Callum’s arms in a series of long, miraculously powerful pulls that run right down my shoulders, into my back and my hamstrings, as my toes dig desperately into the stone floor scrabbling for a toehold, forcing me to stay there and not be pulled over the edge.

I can feel the cords in my neck standing out with the terrible effort, my teeth locking together in a grimace. Callum’s face below mine is strained into a rictus of concentration as he swings his body up and walks up the wall, using my hands to steady him, higher and higher till he’s got high enough to grab the edge of the floor and use his powerful arms and shoulders to heave himself over—

The shotgun goes off behind me.

I scream, though I’m so exhausted with the strain of pulling Callum to safety that all that comes out is a dry little croak.

Callum drags himself onto the floor beside me, panting as if he’s run an obstacle course. He grabs hold of me, patting his hands up and down my body, his eyes wild.

“Scarlett! Are you all right? Scarlett!”

I nod mutely. My entire body is burning with the agony of straining my muscles way beyond their natural limits, but I think I’d know if I’d been shot.

Or would I? With the amount of adrenaline pumping through me, would I really know? And would Callum know if he’d been shot? The thought scares me so much I sit up and scan him with equal, wild-eyed panic. I can’t see any blood on him, thank God.  .  .  .

It sounds mad, but we’re so intensely focused on each other, after what we’ve just been through, that it’s not until we’ve ensured that we’re both unharmed that we even think to look around us. Catriona’s sprawled on the floor, facedown, several feet from us. The shotgun barrel is just visible below her. And across the room, body at a weird angle against the wall, head twisted round, is—

“Taylor!”

I jump to my feet, all pain forgotten, and race across the room. If Taylor’s been hurt saving our lives, I’ll never forgive myself.

“Taylor!” I kneel down beside her. “Taylor, are you okay? Taylor!”

I take her head between my hands and turn it gently, my heart pounding with fear. Please, please tell me she hasn’t broken her neck.

Taylor’s eyes snap open like someone in a horror film coming back to life. I scream again, something I’m doing much too much this afternoon, but again, all I produce is a hoarse croak.

“Ow!” she says crossly. “Stop twisting me!” She gets her hands under her and lifts herself up. “My back hurts really bad,” she complains.

But suddenly there’s a howl from Callum, so raw and wounded that I spin round, terrified that somehow he’s realized that, after all, he’s been shot.

He’s kneeling beside his sister’s body. He’s turned her over, and she’s lying in his arms, her head flopping back over his arm at an angle just as odd as Taylor’s was. But Taylor didn’t have a huge red stain on her chest, a stain that looks as if it’s spreading out even as I stare, horrified, at Callum. He puts one hand against her neck, looking for a pulse. And I see from his expression, simultaneously horrified and also, awfully, relieved, that he can’t find one.

Catriona is dead.

I get up and walk slowly toward Callum, as slow as if I were walking through water, because my entire body is screaming with pain. And when I reach him, I kneel down beside him and put my arm around him. I don’t know what I’m expecting, but he turns to me, and awkwardly, over Catriona’s body, he leans into me and puts both his arms around me. His head sinks till it’s resting on my shoulder. With my other hand, I stroke his hair, his poignantly short stubbly hair, and I take the weight of him on me, holding him as he sobs against me, his tears wetting my sweater as I burst into tears myself. The relief of finally letting my guard down, sobbing my heart out, while Callum and I hold each other, is unbelievable.

Taylor is as white as a sheet as she looks at Catriona’s body.

“I grabbed her, and she tried to hit me with the gun. I ducked and she tripped and sent me flying  .  .  . ,” she says. “I tried to get the gun away from her, but she wouldn’t let go, and then she fell against it and it went off. I didn’t mean  .  .  .”

“It wasn’t your fault, Taylor,” I manage to say to her. “You saved our lives. It wasn’t your fault.”

I take my hand from Callum’s head and hold it out to her. Wincing, she makes her way across to us and kneels down beside us, looking at Catriona, holding my hand.

I can’t be sure, because I know how much Taylor would hate it if I ever caught her crying. So, deliberately, I look away.

But I’m pretty sure that tears are pouring down her face too.