Page 2 of Twisted Elites

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered if he thought I’d battered Ashley because I wasn’t more distraught about her injuries. No matter how much she infuriated me, I would never wish something so heinous on her or anyone.

In a numb voice, I told him a sanitized version of the day’s events. That I had gone to Cummersdale with Leopold to pick up a few things from the cottage and had returned when Prakash had called, panicked and afraid. I couldn’t tell them that we’d been searching for items Ashley had claimed would prove that Prakash killed Corrine Gibbons.

When the elevator reached the bottom floor, someone opened the door, letting in a gust of cool, fresh air from huge, wooden doors at the end of another utility room.

The officer motioned for me to let the paramedics go first. “I remember Mr. Kashaayah from another incident last year.”

An iron fist of dread clenched at my insides. “Wh-which incident?”

“Where’s his friend, the one from Garraway Tea?”

I stepped out of the elevator, clutching myself around the middle. Sebastian was supposed to search the maids’ quarters with Prakash, but somewhere during their search, they had separated.

Where was Sebastian during all this? He and Prakash were supposed to work in pairs.

Panic rippled through my insides. What if the person who had attacked Ashley had also attacked Sebastian?

* * *

Thankfully, the enclosed space of the ambulance meant that I didn’t have to watch the vehicle negotiate the bends and curves of Hard Knott Pass. It still took nearly two hours to reach the hospital, and throughout the journey, the policeman and paramedics barraged me with questions about Ashley.

At the Royal Infirmary, they whisked her into a receiving area and then into the Resuscitation Unit. I was about to follow, but a nurse directed me to a waiting room.

Sweat broke out across my brow, and I asked, “Did she stop breathing?”

“Someone will update you soon.” The nurse hurried back toward the receiving area, leaving me gaping at her in the hallway.

Running a trembling hand over my face, I walked into a waiting room lined with plastic chairs, separated by a water cooler and coffee table full of dog-eared magazines. A man slumped in a corner seat and sobbed into his lap.

I took the chair closest to the door and pulled out the phone I’d taken from Prakash’s room. There was no service and no hospital WIFI, so I slumped in the plastic chair and stared at my fingers.

Had Ashley only targeted the kings and me, or had her maid job been part of a larger revenge plan? If so, she had probably pissed off the wrong person, but who?

Dad’s voice echoed in my skull, asking if I was blinded by lust since the answer was obvious.

I shook my head. Just because Ashley had blackmailed Prakash with evidence that linked him to the death of Corrine Gibbons, and just because her broken, battered, and bruised body was in his room, that didn’t mean he had perpetrated the assault.

My posture sagged. Now, I sounded like an idiot.

The door opened, and a male nurse poked his head inside. “Are you Ashley Evergreen’s sister?”

I gulped. “Yes?”

“The doctor wishes to ask you questions.”

I jumped out of my seat and followed him down the hallway to a room with one bed. A male doctor with salt and pepper hair stood to his back to me, typing something into a computer. Ashley lay under the covers of the hospital bed, her thin body barely making a bulge, and her face an even darker mass of bruises.

My stomach plummeted, and my heart galloped a frantic beat in my chest. Would the doctor tell me she’d suffered terrible head injuries? Dad told me boxers had them all the time.

The doctor glanced at me over his shoulder. “Willow Evergreen?”

“Y-yes?”

“Could your sister be under the influence of drugs?”

I licked my dry lips. “She used to take ecstasy during raves, and some friends of hers smoked cannabis from bongs.”

He turned back to the computer. “Anything else?”