Free The Warning by Sophie Hannah Page B

but—”
    “Forget guessing and focus on what we know. Facts. Indisputable ones. When were you planning to tell me you tweeted Nadine Caspian yesterday?”
    “You did what ?” says Lorna.
    “Do you want me to find out the truth for you or not?” Simon glares at me. “If you do, tell me everything.”
    “Simon!” Charlie hits his arm with her toffee-sauce-stained plastic fork. “Chloe isn’t a criminal. She doesn’t have to tell you a single iota more than she wants to.”
    “I didn’t mention it only because I thought it was neither here nor there,” I say, feeling my face heat up.
    “Yeah, well, luckily I found it, and it points in the same direction as everything else. Your tweet to Nadine: ‘What have you got against Tom Rigbey?’ or words to that effect. Hers to you: ‘He’s a sociopath. Leave me alone. You’re blocked.’ You didn’t find that interesting?”
    “No.” I blink away tears. “I found it nasty and slanderous and . . .”
    “Slanderous?” Simon leaps on the word. “Because she didn’t back it up with facts?”
    “No, she didn’t.”
    “She gave you only one word to go on: sociopath. Still, it’s a big one, as words go. Has Tom said anything to you about being fired? Sorry, I’ll rephrase that: has he ever mentioned the circumstances in which he left either Sagentia or Intel?”
    “No! I’ve hardly had a chance to speak to him about anything. We’ve only just met.”
    And yet you’re wearing a diamond ring—a ring that means you intend to marry him—on a chain around your neck.
    I don’t know why I do what I do next. It’s an urge I can’t restrain. Perhaps I’m impatient to have the worst over with. I remove my scarf, hook my finger around the gold chain and pull it out so that the ring is visible. “I had dinner with Tom last night,” I say. “We’re engaged.”
    “Jesus frigging Christ on an arsehole cracker!” Lorna declares.
    “Aren’t you training to be some kind of cleric?” Charlie asks her.
    “Good,” says Simon.
    “ Good ?” I repeat, baffled.
    “Yeah. It was the next thing I was going to urge you to do: stop avoiding him, and behave toward him exactly as you would if you weren’t suspicious. I was going to say: if he proposes, which you seemed to think he might, say yes. Might seem like odd advice, but you’ll understand in due course.” Simon shrugs. “You’ve already seen him and agreed to marry him, though, so. No need for me to steer things in that direction.”
    “Urgh!” Charlie groans. “Simon—sorry about this, Chloe—just tell her, and tell us all while you’re at it. Why can’t we understand right now instead of in due course?”
    “Yes, especially if you’re planning to use Chloe as some sort of bait,” Lorna agrees. “She needs to know what level of risk she’s dealing with. How dangerous is Tom Rigbey?”
    “Simon.” Charlie waves her hand in front of his face. He appears to have drifted into a trance-like state. “If you’ve found out that Tom was sacked from one or both of his previous jobs, tell us. Why was he fired?”
    Simon fixes his eyes on me: an intense stare. “I assume you looked up a definition of sociopathy, after reading Nadine’s tweet?”
    I nod.
    “So you know that a key trait of sociopaths is the inability to hold down a job or stay in one place for very long?”
    “Tom’s been at CamEgo for long enough to be promoted several times,” I say. “Talented, ambitious people often change jobs.”
    “So do sociopaths with forged references,” says Simon. “Who ever checks that references are from the person they’re meant to be from?”
    “Simon, stop tormenting her,” murmurs Charlie. “Whatever you’ve found out, whatever you know . . . seriously. Out with it.”
    “Not found out,” he says. “Worked out. You really can’t see it? None of you?”
    “No, we can’t,” Lorna speaks for all of us. “I did pretty well guessing Tom had been fired, but there’s a limit to