Skullduggery {sapphic thriller}

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

"No, you're wrong." I threw the death certificate back down into Desirae's pile of papers. "Artemisia is dead."

"Kirby, please sit." Desirae clasped my arm, but I ripped it away. "I don't know how she did it, who she paid off, but the body we tracked down through her file was not hers. Pino confirmed it last night."

"Okay?" Running a hand through my hair, I started to pace. My heart was lodged in my throat. I had to fight to swallow it down. "So hers is still out there somewhere. You said those companies trade bodies all over the world, it could be anywhere. Obviously, tagged wrong."

"Kirby..."

"No Des, you don't fucking get it." My voice cracked as hot tears pricked my eyes. "I saw her. I saw her and I felt her. No heartbeat, no breathing, just cold and pale and gray as the marble floor of the villa. She was dead. And I fucking left her."

Six months of guilt cut through me as the secret I'd been keeping finally was said aloud. My stomach twisted with shards. Ragged sobs left me breathless, but I had to get it out. I had to confront the past through the truth.

"I called for an ambulance, but they were sending the police too. We had stolen art shit laying out everywhere. That big opening in Venice during the biennale that you mentioned? It was a fucking front for a heist from a scumbag collector. I hung up on the dispatcher and panicked and gathered everything up and just fucking left her there. Alone." I stopped pacing to swipe at my eyes, but tears continued to stream down my cheeks. "So don't try to fucking tell me I don't know what I saw. She's dead."

"I'm sorry you had to see her like that." Desirae's teeth worried her lip, her eyes lowered. "But you saw what she wanted you to see."

An exasperated sob rattled me as I shook my head.

Desirae stood up and walked over to her closet where Artemisia's dress that I wore yesterday hung on the door hook, along with my blood stained gown from the retrospective. Her fingers slid down the side-seam. "The Yves Saint Laurent spring collection was released a week after her death."

My eyes shot up and down the dress in denial. "She goes to Paris every year for fashion week. They could've sent it to her early."

"Kirby," Desirae sighed. "I didn't want to tell you this, I didn't want to tell you any of this because you genuinely seemed like you wanted to change. And I thought maybe we—" She took a deep breath and reached for a necklace that wasn't there. "You deserve to know the truth. To make your own choices." She started inching towards me, but halted when I drew back. "She left a message for you on your phone. It's in your voicemail."

My hand darted to my pocket, fumbling, ripping it out to slide it open. I flicked through the screens until my mailbox opened up. A new message from the night of her retrospective played out.

"Amuri miu, you have not learned."

I played it again.

"Amuri miu—"

"Amuri."

"Amuri."

Snapping the phone closed, I shoved it into my pocket. Where denial had begun to settle in my chest, anger now ignited my whole being. I snatched up the tote and started wrapping the bronze cats back up.

"Kirby, stop."

But I didn't listen.

"She's dangerous. They used you for a reason to lure her back home—"

"No, you used me," I snapped, whipping back around. "You knew exactly what you were doing, withholding that message from me, keeping me close, pretending you cared."