Chapter 38
THIRTY-EIGHT
NANCY
Ihad dabbed the aftershave along my neck that morning. An unopened bottle I’d hidden away for Robert’s birthday. A birthday that would never come. The peppery, spiced scent had hung about me all day, and when Ginny caught it in the air, she had smiled.
‘Elijah,’ she’d whispered.
It was the only way I’d be able to bring her comfort before I deceived her.
She’d handed over her baby at last. Such a slight weight in my arms that it broke me.
Ginny hadn’t seen Alice as anything but alive.
Cooing over her sweet baby even as she deteriorated.
Tears made my vision waver as I traced her delicate skin.
It already softened, peeling in places, her tiny lips blackening at the edges.
The smell of rot seeped thickly from her.
The little ducky pyjamas I’d saved for my baby were barely holding in Alice’s ballooning gut.
‘You should have been mine,’ I whispered to the baby, my heart breaking at the deceased child in my arms. She fit just right. And she’d been Robert’s. And he’d done it for me. However sickly twisted that had been.
I had given Ginny as long as I could. Let her rock the little corpse and sing her lullabies. To pretend or sink into her delusion. But I couldn’t hold Marney off forever.
So we’d struck a deal.
A deal that landed Ginny in the chair.
‘No,’ Ginny sobbed, thrashing weakly against the leather bindings. ‘Elijah, please. Don’t let them hurt me. Don’t let them hurt my baby.’
Her wild eyes roved the room before settling on me.
Her terror broke a piece of me. Every soft touch and sweet moment flashing as I watched the last vestiges of Ginny. My arms tightened around the baby without meaning to.
The syringe slid into her vein, sending a paralysing dose of sedative into her. Her body stilled, eyes wide and wet.
‘Please…’ she mouthed.
Then Marney tilted her head back, fingers white against her jaw.
‘Such a pretty little disaster,’ he crooned, before looking over at me. I swallowed, knowing I was selling my soul to the devil.
I gave the nod, then turned away as they brought out the spike.
The sound was worse than I’d ever imagined. A crack. A wet shuffle before bone gave way. Ginny’s breath hitched once, then steadied into that vacant silence I’d heard from so many before her.
I pressed my face into the baby’s ribbon-wound neck, rocking her as though she still lived. The satin was damp and sticky. I removed it carefully, as if that could undo what was already done.
Her face sagged against me, her lips darker now and the smell sharper. My stomach lurched.
I couldn’t bear it.
Thrusting the bundle into someone else’s arms, I couldn’t bear it any more. I felt sick with relief.
Sick with loss.
I had worn Elijah’s scent to let Ginny believe there was hope.
And now she was gone.