As always, he knew exactly what to do to make my defenses weak. And as my breathing threatened to cut off completely, he eased back, dropped his forehead to mine, and whispered, "I don’t want to let you go today. I have a bad feeling."
I couldn't force my eyes to open. And then there was that ever so slight pressure on my neck, and I blinked up to meet his gaze. "Bridge. Nothing is going to make me run. Not now. Not ever."
And then he started kissing me again, back to taking full ownership of my body like he had forever rights to me.
His kiss was sure, demanding, and I melted and melted and melted. He meant business. He always meant business when he kissed me, but this was different. This wasn't just for show. The kiss was full of anger and desperation and sorrow. There was a melancholy edge to it. As if the kiss itself had been dipped in sepia.
When he pulled back and dropped his head to mine again, his breathing was ragged. "I'm going to work now. Walk inside, and please don’t ditch your guards today.”
I nodded my head. "Yeah, I hear you."
"Good." And then he backed off, once again the picture of perfect composure. "Have a good day."
As I turned, I could see the slight furrow between his brows. Hopefully, after my meeting, I’d have good news for him.
I hadn't been lying about Antonia. She really was a client, just not mine. And if Bridge went looking for her, all he would see was a local businesswoman who needed some assistance with a persistent ex-husband who wanted a piece of her business. Small though it may be, it was a multimillion-dollar shipping business. She was the sole owner, but he was coming for it.
Armed with the name of the girl who was murdered at Eton, I'd looked her up and asked her if she'd be willing to meet with me. When I arrived at the quiet café tucked at the end of the main street in the central village, I found my quarry in a corner tapping away on a computer.
"Hello, Antonia?"
She glanced up and blinked rapidly twice. "Yes, are you Emma?"
I nodded. "Yup, guilty as charged."
She stood and shook my hand. "Please, have a seat. Sorry I can't offer you more formal accommodations. My office is being fumigated."
"Oh, no worries. So, the café is the office for now?"
"Yes, unfortunately. Would you like some coffee?"
I shook my head and declined. “Thank you for meeting with me. I'm sorry this is such short notice."
"No, it's fine. I haven't heard anyone talk about this case for years. I thought everything had dried up. I'm glad to see that there's still some movement on it."
I just shook my head. "I'm sorry. I got an old file. Can you tell me what you know about it? And I’ll try and figure out the story around this." I may have fibbed and told her I was with the London Courier Journal, but in my defense, I didn't think she would meet with me if I wasn't a member of the press.
"Oh, I understand. It's been, gosh, ten years? Melissa was my friend. I’d sort of given up hope on finding anything. So if you want to go looking, I definitely want to help."
I took out my recorder and then a notepad. I had to look the part. "Tell me about Melissa. You said you and she were friends, right? So, what happened?"
Antonia's gaze took on a far-off quality. She sat back and fiddled with the edge of her napkin. "Melissa was funny and effervescent, you know? She was one of those women most people wanted to be around. She was so full of life. She also was a little bit wild."
I frowned. "How so?"
"You know, she was an assistant teacher over at Eton. Look, our families weren't rich. Melissa’s in particular. I think she thought she might hook up with a professor there or something, maybe one of the parents. When she was going for her teaching placement, she insisted it had to be there or nothing. She had these notions of falling in love and someone saving her from her normal everyday life. The students loved her. Pretty young teacher, so of course she was popular. And for the most part, I think she kept her nose clean. I don't think there was anything funny happening with the students."
“Afterward, were there any rumors about such things?”
She shook her head. " No. Nothing like that.” She seemed to hesitate before she spoke again. “There were some lads she talked about. You know the sort. The kind who don't believe they need to listen to authority. They were unruly in her class, wouldn't listen, that sort of thing. Misogynistic bullshit if you ask me. Anyway, she busted some of them down at the boathouse. They all knew they weren't supposed to go out there after dark, but they would often sneak off to party. You know, drink a few pints, that sort of thing."
I nodded. "Yeah?"
"Most of these boys had it really strict at home. After all, they went to a secondary school in Windsor. There was another school nearby, not boarding though, and that school was all girls. Every now and again a bunch of girls would go and meet them. Melissa busted up a party once. There was so much ego and posturing. One of the lads threatened to have her job if she told anyone. All she could basically do was give them a warning and tell them not to do it again. I remember her telling me she threatened to film the entire exchange if it happened again and anonymously send it to the dean. That shut some of them up.”
“She sounds spunky. I probably would have liked her.”
Antonia gave me a soft smile. “One night though, she said she was going to meet someone at the boathouse, and I remember thinking that didn't sound like her at all.”
A cold chill settled in my bones. “Do you think she was going to meet a student?”
“The way she spoke about him, he was maybe a teacher. Young like her, possibly an assistant. When I told the police that she'd gone to meet someone, I described the guy how she'd described him to me, but obviously that wasn't considered an eyewitness account.”
I knew she didn't want to think about her friend hooking up with a student and had probably convinced herself it was another teaching assistant, though it was entirely possible she actually had been involved with one of the older students. “Do you remember anything about the man she was meeting?”
“Not much. Just that she got a lot of text messages and late-night whispered conversations. That's why I thought she was dating another teacher. All the boys were on lockdown at 9:00 p.m., no phones, so I just assumed. Everything seemed normal."
I nodded. "Did anything change between them?"
She shrugged. "About a week before she died, they'd had a fight. He wanted to take her home to meet his family, I think. Something like that. And she didn't want to go because he didn’t have the kind of wealth she was looking for. She had a plan for her life. Next thing I knew, they were breaking up. He seemed so silly to fight over. Because he really did like her."
"Maybe she didn't like him?"
“I don't know. She seemed to. But I also knew that she was determined to find her way up and out by any means necessary. I couldn't really judge her."
"So, what happened the night she died?"
"Well, we'd been around to the pub, having a pint or two with some old school mate who’d come back from uni. The pub was so crowded, and she went up to get another round, but when she came back, she said she had to go. I thought maybe she just needed some fresh air, but when I went to look for her, she was winding through the crowd with some bloke.”