Revenge (David Shelley #1) - James Patterson Page 0,62

she said weakly, “she killed herself.”

Karen nodded sagely, as though expecting credit for her wisdom. “I gave her a choice. I laid it out for her. I introduced myself, I told her who I was and what she’d done to me. I told her that if she’d just come along with me that day and we’d have got our money, she would have been returned safely and then maybe none of this would ever have happened. Her whole life might have taken a different course.

“I told her that she was going to die because some bodyguard told her to bite me and then broke my arm. That this was the reason she had to die; that honor had to be satisfied. I told her that my need to satisfy that honor was as real to me as the need for heroin was to her. A good comparison, don’t you think?

“And then I told her that she had a choice: either she come with me, and I would take her somewhere, to one of my dad’s lock-ups, and I’d let the lads have their fun with her before I’d kill her. Or she could take her own life, there and then, on camera.”

Susie swallowed. All she could find to say was “It wasn’t much of a choice.”

“I wanted to do it myself,” said Karen. Her voice was bright, but her eyes were dead. “I really wanted to do it myself. I would have had fun in the lock-up. But it was better the way it happened. It put me in the clear. Plus I got to put it all online.

“I told her that I’d be uploading the footage, you know. I told her that her death would stand as a warning to others. Like, look what happens when pretty little rich girls mess with drugs. I told her that she might even prevent another girl from getting into the same predicament. And if she did that, then wasn’t that a good thing?”

“You bitch,” said Susie. The words escaped her like air from a balloon.

Karen nodded, smiling. “Yeah, I was very convincing. And she was so zonked out that she bought into it, without really thinking what it might do to Mommy and Daddy. Or maybe . . . maybe she did actually stop to consider the effect it would have on you. What about that? What if she thought that with her death she could land one final blow to her mommy and daddy? Or what if she thought that with her death she could make you proud? Christ, that’s an even more twisted thought, isn’t it?

“I could have done it another way that might have been more satisfying in the moment, pulling the trigger, slipping the blade in. But I liked this way too. It had the feel of a plan, and if it came out who she was, and anyone put me together with her, then there was no way Dmitry could turn round and accuse me of being behind her death. It was all up there on the screen.

“It would have worked like a dream but for the fact that men will always behave like men, and your husband had to have his tantrum.” She lapsed into silence, seeming to think.

Susie prompted her: “So that’s what happened? She did it herself?”

Karen nodded. “She used the gun I gave her. Dad would make sure there were people who could say she bought the gun herself.

“And then, when the deed was done and all the girls had stopped screaming and Jason had stopped puking, I got Jason to ring Sergei, who came down, and that was it. Think I told Jason not to breathe a word to anyone that I’d even been there, and good old Jason, he didn’t. He didn’t ask any questions. Just did as he was asked: rang Sergei, calmed the girls down. I rewarded him for his help by slitting his throat.”

“You can add that to your tally,” said Susie through clenched teeth.

“Oh, Mrs. Drake,” said Karen, cocking her head. “It makes you angry to hear about this, doesn’t it? How angry does it make you?”

And suddenly it struck Susie. She realized Karen had been clever, but not nearly so clever as she thought. She had overplayed her hand. The gun had been left there to tempt Susie. That’s exactly what Karen wanted. Under the gaze of the CCTV camera, she wanted Susie to make a move.

Susie had been sitting forward in the deck chair, perhaps unconsciously readying herself to