Chapter Fifty-Seven
“That’s some bullshit,” Rey said over the phone when Isla cut the recording off. She couldn’t agree with him more.
“How could they?” Nat whispered. “That’s so savage. And who’s the person that found her? What happened next?”
Isla said nothing, the sickening click at the end of Eden’s recording replaying in her mind. She could think of nothing else. As much as she wanted to believe Eden had made it out of those woods, chances were she had not.
After several moments of silence, Nat ventured, “What will you do, Isla?”
Isla slipped the recorder back in the bag that had held it for the past ten years.
Rey said, “Take it to the cops, of course! Shit. This is murder. Cold-blooded killers. The recording proves Jackson is the last person to have seen Eden before she disappeared.”
Nat said, “The recording proves he found the recorder, not that he did anything to her.”
“You need to get him before he gets you when he realizes the recorder is missing and comes after you.”
All these years of guilt. All the not knowing. Victor’s hope that Eden was still out there living her best life, rebelling against him, punishing him.
One day, Isla, I’m going to bring my girl home.
“I can’t take it to the cops yet,” Isla said. If she handed it over now, they might never find Eden’s body.
“But there is no telling if you can get Jackson or whoever to say where she is,” Rey rationalized. “This is beyond you now. It’s cold-blooded murder. Call the detective.”
Nat agreed. “Right, all Jackson has to say is that he found the recorder, and he’ll admit to taking the car to protect Bennett and his friends.”
Isla said, “That’s why I have to wait until the reception, when their guard is down.
It’s the right setting where they can’t take cover or escape.
I think whoever knows where she is will make a move to tie up loose ends once I play the recording, and it could mean making sure the truth about her disappearance never comes out.
I just need to make sure I’m there to see it. ”
Isla ended the call and stayed in her room, thinking of all her options.
She looked at the notes she’d taken during the interviews she’d conducted.
She could write the article, not that anyone was pressuring her after the incidents that had happened to her these few weeks.
She couldn’t concentrate on a fake article.
She couldn’t do much else either. She was on edge, feeling more anxious as the clock ticked.
She could just go to Detective Bowen and be done with it.
But she couldn’t bear to put Eden’s recording in anyone else’s hands before she had a chance to face the Corrigans and see which among them was the one.
With the reception only two days away, Isla was on borrowed time.
Eventually, Jackson would realize the recording was gone and would assume that the person who had taken it had seen the revised will.
Jackson’s patience, his having waited thirty years to steal Victor’s company, was remarkable.
Isla was so consumed by preparing for the perfect moment to expose the three of them, Jackson, Brooke, and Bennett, that she didn’t notice much else until there was a knock at her room back at the estate.
“Brooke’s asked you to join them at the house. They’re having drinks in the sitting room,” Mae announced when Isla opened her room door. Mae did a double take. “You look horrible. Is it because of the accident? A relapse?”
“Did she say why?” Isla asked, touching her tousled hair, ashamed to be seen this way. “I’d rather pass. I don’t feel well.”
“She insists,” Mae said firmly, like she didn’t want to be the enforcer. “There’s a guest she wants you to meet who she feels will be a great addition to the article you’re writing on Mr. Corrigan.”
“Guest?” Isla repeated. “Who?”
Mae shrugged. “I just relay the messages. Come at five.”