’Cause that’s what this basement felt like – our final resting place. We could sit in it, stand up in it, walk and talk in it. The walls were brick. The floor was soft dirt strewn with rotten and broken floorboards. As coffins go, it was spacious, but a roomy coffin was still a coffin. Libby made a strange choking sound and turned her face into the crook of my arm. Then the dam broke. Her arms clamped round my waist as she gave in to her misery. My arms round her shoulders tightened. Neither of us said a word. What was there to say?

A sick question lodged itself in my head and refused to budge.

How many days or weeks or months would pass before they found our bodies?

Or maybe we’d never be found and Libby and I were destined to live out our last seconds in this basement, never to be seen again. Maybe we’d be ghosts, doomed to haunt this room until our bodies were discovered and properly buried. Maybe we’d be ghosts for as long as our loved ones remembered us. Or perhaps we’d unknowingly died and were already ghosts.

Now wouldn’t that be a bitch?

Then

DAN’S WINNER PARTY

eleven. Owen Dowd

The first course of our meal was over and I’d excused myself from the dinner table to check out some info that had been sent to me. The name of Kellan’s sponsor, along with proof, had been sent to the encrypted mail account that was only accessible from the laptop in my study. I sat at my desk and opened the coded email. It didn’t make for pleasant reading. But at least I now knew who was putting up all the money to get Kellan Bruemann out from under me.

Owen Dowd.

I shook my head, seriously annoyed. What game was Dowd playing? What purpose would bailing out Kellan serve apart from garnering his appreciation, which, let’s face it, wasn’t worth a damn?

A brief knock at the door, then Owen Dowd strode in like he owned me. This dagger was too reckless. That’s why he didn’t have long for this world. But, with his minions seated in the reception area on the ground floor and as a guest in my home, for tonight, at least, he was untouchable. He wore a black suit with a dark blue shirt, no tie, and even I had to admit that he looked the business. Everything about him was carefully groomed, right down to his trimmed moustache and goatee. What did he use on that thing? Manicure scissors?

‘Dan, I believe we’re due a private conversation,’ said Owen.

‘Oh yes?’

‘Eve tells me you’ve been making noises about a possible partnership, a merger between us to serve both our interests.’

Had she now? ‘Oh yes?’

Owen’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. ‘Was she lying or mistaken?’