He did. Olivia had systematically eliminated her family— the twin sister who could pass for her and steal her grandfather’s love. The stepfathers she hadn’t wanted. The half brother who had stirred up the household and kept it on its ear. The mother who was planning to marry again. But not Nicholas, never Nicholas, who had looked after her. Not until the very end, when he no longer served any purpose—

Hamish was still raising fierce objections. Rutledge ignored them. He was angry and unsettled and—yes—bewildered by the leap his intuition had taken without warning.

Without a motive, he could keep to himself his suspicions about Olivia. He could deny, on the surface, that he believed in them because there was no real evidence except the carefully hidden trophies of the dead. It was possible—it was likely—it was practicable—But still theory. Still his own torment.

Now, it was real. Suddenly, it was real—

He had nearly forgotten about Chambers in the dark, low-ceilinged room, standing by the door like a man who’d lost his way and waited for a sign.

The hoarse voice startled him.

“Damn you! You should have died in France!” Chambers said with such bitterness that Rutledge knew he’d won.

It was a hollow victory. It had cost both men very dearly.

Suddenly, exhausted and drained, he felt he was on the edge of a precipice inside himself, the blackness he’d fought so long in the hospital, and once, too short a time ago, in Warwickshire. It seemed to draw him, to beckon like the Sirens, a place of peace and darkness and silence where nothing could ever touch him again.

The doctors had warned him he was still at risk, that it might be too soon to go back to the pressures of the Yard, while his own stability was an uncertain factor—and he’d fought them, inch by inch, to try returning.

And then a line of poetry came running through his head like a bright and deadly thread.

If I choose to die,

There is peace in darkness, and no pain.

The grave is safe—

It was as if Olivia herself urged him to fail, to choose the darkness and leave the past intact. Chambers would never speak of it again. Rutledge was certain of that—

But the very last lines of the same poem came back to him too.

If I choose to live,

Oh, God, it will never be the same ...

Yet I prevail—

The dilemma of Olivia Marlowe, who could give and who could destroy with equal adroitness.

Chapter 13

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