Rufus was staring at her.
Careful, she thought.
‘That was her,’ he said. ‘Last I saw of her, Orla was alive and well.’
‘Well, if it was her, she just knocked out the alarm, broke the basement window. She must have decided not to go any further.’
‘But why would she do that?’ asked Rufus.
Annie took another breath. Her chest felt tight with terror. ‘Maybe she thought she couldn’t go through with it. Perhaps she could see what an evil thing it would be, to do something like that.’
Rufus nodded slowly. ‘Knowing Orla? Unlikely. So I’m thinking you did something to stop her.’
Not me, thought Annie. Layla stopped her.
And now Orla was out in the English Channel somewhere, being nibbled by crabs and fish, tossed and swept by deep underwater currents. She was gone for good this time.
‘I never saw her,’ said Annie.
‘You’re a liar,’ said Rufus. He tipped his head at the mug in front of her. ‘Drink up.’
‘I don’t…’
His eyes were hard. ‘I know you don’t. There’s nothing about you I don’t know. Drink it.’
Annie picked up the glass, sipped the liquid.Then without warning, Rufus leaned across the table, grabbed her neck, tipped her head back, and forced the mug painfully against her lips. The whisky gushed into her mouth, burning, choking her. She swallowed convulsively. Felt it forge a molten path all the way down to her stomach.
‘Shit,’ she spluttered, turning red in the face.
‘I said, drink it. Don’t play with it.’ He was pouring out another mugful. ‘Now this one,’ he said, lifting it to her mouth.
‘No…’ Annie couldn’t get her breath.
But Rufus forced her head back, and she choked as the whisky filled her mouth again. She swallowed. Gagged. She was going to be sick, but that was good, wasn’t it? Get it out of her system, because this was going to make her drunk very fast, and ill even faster.
She had no tolerance for alcohol. Never had. First there had been the revulsion over her mother Connie’s drinking, then the realization that she personally could not drink at all. A doctor had told her she was extremely sensitive to it. Some people were. She hated the taste, and a single glass of fairly low-proof wine was enough to make her feel drunk.
This was forty per cent proof whisky.
This was going to knock her out.
This was poison to her.
‘And again,’ said Rufus, pouring her another. He winked at her while she sat there choking and retching weakly. ‘It’s for the best. Orla can’t finish this, so I’ll have to. And this will deaden the pain.’
Pain? The pain of what?