Chapter 41
Dixie
A knock on the apartment door had me flying to open it. Mila waited the other side, and my heart fell. Not Tyler.
I masked my disappointment and stepped aside so she could enter. He’d brought me back here then left me at some point during the night, a guard outside the door filling me in that he’d had important business to attend to.
Well, didn’t we all.
Mila touched my arm. Something in her expression put me on high alert.
My heart skipped a beat. “What is it?”
“A body, discovered outside this morning.” Her eyes crinkled in pity. “I’m so sorry, but it’s Lex.”
Relief swept over me in a fast wave, the awful notion that she was going to say Tyler vanishing with the actual identification. Wait… “Lex is dead?”
The words were a cold hit. Not Lex. Not the ex-colleague who’d propositioned me and wanted to help me return to work, even if he’d gone about it the wrong way. It felt so wrong.
Mila moved to the window that faced the river and the front of the clubs. “He was found early this morning. Convict took a phone call from Manny, then he left, and shortly after told me the news. He said I had to stay inside, so I came here. Lex was your friend, wasn’t he?”
I joined her and peeked out at the grey morning. Further up the walkway that led to the city centre, glimpses of flashing emergency vehicle lights made it through the trees. Tyler would be out there somewhere, handling it.
I wished he’d woken me to give me the news, same as Convict had with Mila.
My thoughts rushed, catching up. Lex had been killed. The last remainders of sleep fled me, and shock crept in. “How did he die?”
She hesitated, as if the news could only be worse. “Convict said he was hanged.”
Dismay cracked my voice. “He was killed?”
“It appears that way.” She rubbed my arm. “Are you okay?”
I turned and dropped to the couch. “Lex had his issues, but he didn’t deserve that.”
“Of course not, but that makes three now. Esther, Karla, and now Lex. All killed by the neck and all left in or next to water.” She lifted her phone. “The skeleton girls are all over it.”
My phone showed a very active chat thread with Cassie leading the theories and discussing the CCTV footage from the club.
There was nothing at all from Tyler.
Worse was a reminder that popped up for the meeting this morning.
Mila must’ve got the same, as she winced. “Thirty minutes. Sure you want to do this thing?”
I nodded, though declaring myself alive in the face of yet another murder felt like a kick in the teeth to my dead friend.
Thirty minutes gave me enough time for a hot shower. With the water running, I tentatively texted Tyler.
Dixie: Are you around?
No reply had come in when I dried myself. Nor when I dressed or pulled on fresh clothes. When I did my hair and makeup, my battle armour to face the world, I tried calling him. He didn’t answer.
My heart ached.
I needed him, but he was busy, and I didn’t want to be demanding.
Mila and I sat side by side on the sofa.
She glanced around. “Are we waiting for Tyler?”
I shook my head, too fast. He knew I was doing this, and if he could be here, he would.
She dialled a number, setting her phone on loudspeaker. It rang, and the receptionist for Cochran Family Solicitors answered brightly, hearing her request.
“I apologise,” she said, “but Mr Cochran is about to leave for a court appointment. Can I take a message?”
Mila spoke calmly, though her fingers shook. “Tell him to wait. I’ve found Darcy Marchant.”
A stunned silence met her words.
The solicitor came onto the line. “This is no time for speculation or games, Miss Marchant.”
Mila bristled. “I agree. Which is why you’ll call a halt to what you were planning to do this morning. You can’t declare a woman dead when she’s very much not.”
He tried and failed to start a sentence, then managed, “If Darcy Marchant is still alive, that would… After everything… It would require proof.”
Mila muted the phone and eyed me. “Last chance to back out.”
I clamped down on the sick feeling in my belly. “Tell him to come here. I’ll meet him.”
She did, giving Mr Cochran the address, then she hung up and took my hand. “What you’re doing is so brave.”
Or stupid. I could just slide into obscurity and not face any of it. But nope. I’d chosen my path and I’d stick to it.
With the solicitor on his way, I paced, nervous energy directing my legs. I found my phone in my hands; still no reply from the man I’d said the big ILY to.
And who hadn’t said the same back.
Without intending to, I brought up his tracker. It pinged outside the city. My stomach dropped. Not even in crew territory. Not outside the warehouse handling Lex’s poor dead body.
Mila’s phone dinged, and she peeked at the screen then swallowed. “Convict says Cochran’s here. Should he bring him up?”
My head hurt, but I nodded and shut down the app before it settled on a location.
A thin, wiry man with a moustache entered the apartment, directing a flat look at Mila, a more scared one at Convict, then changing again when he came to me. His eyes flared then narrowed, turning shrewd. “And you are?”
“I think you know exactly who I am.” From the table, I collected my passport then held it out.
Mr Cochran took it between two fingers and held it. “You’re claiming to be Darcy Marchant?”
“I’m not claiming. I’m telling you I’m Darcy Dixon, granddaughter of Austin and Primrose Marchant. I used their name for one year only and never again since.”
At last, he examined my ID. Had me download an app to check something hidden in the passport that my phone could pick up.
Then came the questions, on where I was born, my family history.
I had my birth certificate ready to go—thankfully, that wasn’t in my treacherous mother’s hands—and a final ace card.
A DNA test that my grandparents had done back when I’d moved in with them.
I hadn’t cared for it then, but the thing came in damn useful now.
At last, the hostility left him.
The solicitor almost smiled. “I’m very glad to meet you at last, Miss Dixon. I regret that it couldn’t have been sooner.”
I didn’t answer that. I couldn’t regret something that felt like it had the claws and teeth to tear me apart.
He waffled an apology about intending to declare me dead then switched his gaze to Mila. “Thank you for concluding the hunt for the young lady. We can now proceed with the will reading for your grandfather.”
“Tomorrow, right?” she asked.
“I see no reason why we can’t do it today. Your grandmother and other beneficiaries are keen for it to go ahead. All being well, I’ll convene a meeting today at five.”
I stiffened. I’d forgotten entirely about using leverage. “I’ll need to do that meeting remotely, camera off. And use the name Darcy Marchant when you refer to me.”
Mr Cochran blinked.
I tried again. “Being anonymous is important to me. I don’t want a room of people staring. If that’s your plan, I won’t do it.”
He nodded gravely. “With the press attention your sister has endured, I understand. We can accommodate your request. I will need to see and speak to you first, but I am content for you to listen in.”
Relief flooded my system.
He left, and I had a meeting in the diary. One I’d never wanted to attend but at least could manage on my own terms. Mila saw the solicitor out to where Convict would take him back downstairs. I gazed at my hands. The tremble in them.
Tyler never showed. He was my rock, the one person I could rely on.
Hadn’t he told me last night that he’d find a way to let me go?
My mind swam, and nausea rose. I pressed my fingers to my mouth. Tyler wanted to let me go, and he’d walked away when I needed him most. Except when I looked at it from his point of view, I was making myself independent. Claiming my name.
Maybe all I’d done was shown him I didn’t need him after all.
Misery stayed with me.
Lovelyn joined us, talking about Lex. About how Cassie was leading the way in looking at his last movements. Then she shared further research she’d done on Austin’s accounts.
“There are more payments out than people. But I can’t find a list of accounts.
It has to be bribes, right? A hidden company, opaque cash.
” She heaved a breath. “One of the names you got from the prisoner interviews last night is someone high up in the police. No wonder they aren’t pushing the case. ”
“You think that’s the blocker?” Mila asked.
“I guess there’s one way to confirm it. I’ll ask my father.” Lovelyn dialled a number and set her phone on the coffee table, loudspeaker on.
“What is it?” her dad answered.
“Hello to you, too. Are Mark Bigelow’s dirty and illegal habits the reason the Eden case is stalled?”
The policeman spluttered. “Why—? Ah fuck. Probably.” His tone changed to interested. “What have you got? Say it’s something good. I hate that fucking cretin.”
Lovelyn’s eyes sparkled. “Something good.”
“It needs to be better than that to make any waves. Orders from the top have already buried one lot of evidence, and your witnesses are hours away from being released with no charge.”
The Marchant-Smythes? Damn. We’d messed up by simply handing them over.
Lovelyn hung up and lowered the phone. “That can’t happen.”
Mila’s words rushed in. “How can they do that? Women died, and corruption is just going to cover it up?”
Anger stirred in me. “Because they’re in control of the case. Men who used the system and bought women from it. Screw all of them. We can’t let them get away with it.”
Mila and Lovelyn talked, but an idea came into my mind. I raised a hand, and both ceased.
“If we hand over the prisoners, the same thing is going to happen again. They’ll find a way to sweep the evidence under the carpet. But if we get recordings of their confessions first and threaten to publicise them, they’ll have no choice.”
Mila’s eyes went round. “Meaning we share the confessions with names uncensored if they don’t press charges?”