It hadn’t been properly closed. Glancing at the popper thingy, I could see the car wasn’t locked. My heart rate spiked, not because I was now worried John was nearby, but because I knew what I was going to do if he wasn’t.
I stepped back a little, peering around the edge of the car to see if anyone was about. The carpark was empty and silent. I could hear the river gurgling twenty yards away behind the cars. My heart started to hammer in my chest as I went back to the passenger door. The paperwork was right there!
All I had to do was open the door and grab it. I could decipher it later, but anyone could see there was something about it that had spiked John’s interest. All the exclamation marks had to mean something. Another squint through the window showed there were notes at the bottom of the page, but they were handwritten and too difficult to read upside down in the dark.
A question surfaced in my head. What would Patricia do?
Knowing I absolutely shouldn’t, I grabbed the door handle anyway. The door popped open just a fraction as I held it almost closed and looked guiltily about again. Standing on my tippy toes, I still wasn’t tall enough to see over John’s car, but I couldn’t hear anyone approaching, so I opened the door another inch.
The light came on inside, bathing my face in light. Panicking, I yanked the door open far enough to snake my arm inside, grabbed the top few pieces of paper, and pushed it shut again.
My heart was threatening to leave my chest, it was pounding so hard. The pages got stuffed unceremoniously into my handbag just before I stepped back out into the light from the overhead lamps.
There, caught like a thief in a searchlight, I froze to the spot. John Ramsey was twenty yards away and he was looking right at me.
Vince to the Rescue
He froze too, but only for a half second. Then he was shouting and angry and coming my way at a run.
‘You again! What the devil are you doing here? Are you set to ruin me? Are you in on it? Is this all just because I was horrible to you when we were little?’ The torrent of questions seemed likely to never end until they did.
They ended because I panicked and shouted, ‘I’ll scream if you come any closer!’
The warning was enough to make his advance falter, but it also caused a new question. ‘What were you doing by my car?’ His voice was calmer – not shouting at least – but there was no mistaking the threat behind his words.
‘I wanted to confirm it was yours,’ I told him truthfully. ‘How come the police let you go?’ I asked because the question begged an answer.
‘I was released on bail,’ he growled through gritted teeth. ‘Thanks to you and Joanne, I am in the frame for attempting to kill my oldest friend. He jumped, and whether he dies or not and whether they convict me or not, he will still have jumped.’ The rage behind his words made me back away a pace. I will admit I was scared.
I’m a small woman and I was alone in a dark car park with a man who might have already tried to murder one person today. I did not feel like giving him a chance to improve his batting average by getting it right this time.
Seeing me back away another pace, John took a step forward. ‘What’s the matter, Felicity? Afraid I might hurt you? I don’t hurt people!’ he thundered. ‘Not ever. I didn’t push Derek, I tried to stop him. I am not the crook in this equation.’
I felt the muscles of my right eyebrow tug, as it climbed my forehead. ‘Who is the crook?’
My question seemed to amuse him, a smile pulling the corner of his mouth. ‘Why would I bother telling you? You wouldn’t believe me.’ He pointed his key fob at the car, and the boot lid slowly opened skyward the next moment. In his hands he held a cardboard box, the kind one might employ to clear out one’s desk. Dumping it over the tailgate so it vanished inside the dark boot space, he reached up to grab the boot lid once more.
Then he paused and turned to face me. ‘You don’t deserve to know the truth, Felicity. You certainly don’t deserve to know the truth about me. No one does.’ He shifted his stance, turning his body to face me.
I was staring at him, unable to convince my legs to move for fear he was going to chase me and drown me in the river.
His hands clenched into fists, but his feet didn’t move, his mouth did. ‘It will ruin me, but when I can prove it, I’ll expose the truth.’
He could see my fear, I felt sure he could, but if he was thinking about killing me, he changed his mind because he snorted a small laugh at my terror and got in his car. I still hadn’t moved when he pulled away, the taillights of his car disappearing from sight when he rounded the first corner.
I was left alone in the car park, my heart still beating away at twice its usual speed and that’s when my phone rang.
I almost wet myself.
The shrill noise in the near silence of the carpark made my heart stop and restart. As a result, a wave of nausea and a lightheaded sensation combined to make me believe I might faint. I had to dip my
