. . . my leg . . . broken . . . hip . . . hurts . . . was hit . . . back of head.”
Lozza heard sirens wailing, louder, louder. Closer.
Ellie tried to talk again.
“Shh, don’t say anything.” She took off her T-shirt, and wearing only her bra, she pressed the shirt against the bleeding wound on the side of Ellie’s head.
“I . . . I freed my hand,” Ellie whispered. “Managed . . . to open the door . . . When . . . car swerved I spilled out.”
Lozza nodded. “Yes, yes you did. Good job, Ellie. You’re going to be good. Hang on.”
Ellie tried to moisten her lips, moaned. Her eyelids fluttered. “The photo—”
“Shh, don’t talk. Save your energy. The ambulance is almost here.” They’d see Lozza’s car parked up on the road. She smoothed hair back from the victim’s eyes.
“I know who . . . person . . . in the photo . . . with me and Dana . . . All this time . . . she . . . targeted . . .” Her voice faded. Lozza’s pulse quickened. The sirens grew deafening—they were almost here. Ellie’s lids fluttered. She moistened her lips, trying to speak again. Lozza leaned close.
“Willow,” Ellie whispered. “She . . . she was . . . in the bar that night. Listening . . . her and . . . they . . . they did it together.”
THE MURDER TRIAL
Now, February. Supreme Court, New South Wales.
Dana Bainbridge is pointing at me in the dock. Everyone in the room is looking at me. Tension presses down. My throat closes.
Focus. Stay calm. Lorrington has got this.
I’m a victim.
Do not react.
Breathe.
“For the record,” says the Crown prosecutor loudly into the mike, which makes her voice echo and bounce around the heavy silence in the courtroom, “Ms. Bainbridge is identifying the defendant, Mrs. Sabrina Cresswell-Smith. The real Mrs. Cresswell-Smith. Married to Martin Cresswell-Smith for the past fifteen years.” She pauses. The court artist’s chalk scratches furiously on paper. “Also known as Willow Larsen, among the many fraudulent aliases she has used with her husband in their cons around the globe.” The prosecutor returns her attention to Dana.
“Ms. Bainbridge, are you certain that the accused is the same woman in the photograph?”
Dana leans close to the mike. “Yes. She was sitting right next to us at the bar counter—unnecessarily close because there was a vacant stool on her other side.”
“What was she doing at the counter?”
“Eavesdropping while busy texting with someone on her phone. She was a brunette then.”
“Did Ellie mention the woman to you at the time?”
Dana reaches for her water. She sips and carefully sets her glass down, using the moment to regather her composure.
“Not at the time. But when Ellie phoned and asked if I still had digital copies, she mentioned that she thought the woman at the bar had earlier been seated next to their dinner party. Ellie, by her own admission, was arguing very loudly with her father that night. Mrs. Cresswell-Smith would have heard Sterling Hartley making Ellie an offer of money for any project Ellie chose. Ellie said she’d hung a framed print of the photo on her studio wall, and something about it had begun to bother her. You couldn’t see Willow—Mrs. Cresswell-Smith—very clearly in that framed photo. But she was much more visible in the copies shot with my phone.” She sips more water. Her hands are still shaky. “Ellie said someone had taken the frame off the wall while she was in a coma.”
“Did she say why she thought the framed photo was taken?”
I turn my head slowly and look at Ellie seated in the gallery next to Gregg. She’s staring at me. Gregg, too. The Crown team has chosen to not put her on the stand. I’m betting it’s because the Crown is worried she’ll sink the case—it’ll open her up to admitting she hated Martin and that she wanted to stab and kill him herself. Ellie on the stand would have given Lorrington the reasonable doubt we need.
My memory swings back to that fateful wintry night in Vancouver over two years ago. Martin and I were in trouble. Because we were under investigation in Europe for several scams, we’d moved to the States, where I began parting rich women from their money by giving spiritual readings. I soon learned faith healing was more lucrative—people will try anything and give everything to get well again when faced with death.