He pushed a hand through his hair. ‘I suppose telling you why you need to die is the least I can do. That moronic husband of yours persuaded me to invest a quarter of a million in some foolproof scheme of his. I borrowed the money from the company. If it had worked, we were going to be very rich. I could have returned the money, and nobody would have been any wiser. But his scheme went belly-up, taking all our money with it.’ Standing, Charlie paced the floor restlessly again. ‘He said he’d get my money back and gambled even more, but he was on a losing streak.’ He stood over her. ‘You’re starting to look paler, about bloody time.’

She knew she was repeating herself, but the only words she seemed able to say were, ‘I don’t understand.’

Reaching a hand down, he brushed back a lock of her hair. ‘You are quite beautiful, you know, it seems a shame.’ He patted her cheek and moved away. ‘Money, Molly. Your life insurance. Once you die, Jack will get it, and he’ll be able to repay me.’ Charlie smiled unpleasantly. ‘He’ll have no choice; I won’t let him out of my sight until he signs it over.’

It was almost a relief to know everything. Almost everything. ‘Lucien Pleasant, did you kill him?’

Charlie shrugged. ‘He insisted on meeting me to explain what had gone wrong. Then he wanted 10K to keep quiet. Luckily, I never go unprepared, and caught him off-guard when I rammed that knife into his belly.’

Molly stared at the pleasant, unremarkable face of a monster. There was one more question she had to ask, one thing she had to know. ‘Does Jack…?’ She couldn’t continue.

Charlie turned and gave a short laugh. ‘Does Jack know what I’m planning? Is that what you want to know?’ He sat beside her again, staring at her the way a lab technician would stare at a specimen. ‘He was really cut up about you and Lucien, you know, convinced the two of you had done the horizontal mambo. And of course, I couldn’t tell him the truth because, no, he doesn’t know. He’d never have played along. For one thing, he really loves you, and for another, apart from his gambling habit, he’s a pretty decent guy.’

‘I thought you were,’ she said, her voice thick.

Charlie shook his head. ‘People see what they want to see, haven’t you learned that by now?’ Standing, he reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet, ignoring her whimper of pain. ‘It’s lovely to sit here chatting with you, Molly, but it’s time for the next phase of my plan. A nice hot bath. When they find you, they’ll assume you got weak and slipped under.’