by Adele Parks
Eventually, I must fall asleep although it isn’t restful. My nightmares are so close to my reality I can’t tell when I am asleep or awake. My head aches with dehydration, my limbs ache because I’ve been tied up so long and because of them beating me when they captured me in the woods and flung me in the van. I can’t gauge how long I slept for. I only realize I’m definitely awake when I hear new voices. Different ones. English ones and I listen really carefully, maybe a woman? Is it my mum? Is it the police, has someone found me? The hope vanishes, almost the moment it bloomed. The voices stay outside the barn, no one comes to save me. Whoever it is, they are angry, rowing.
I close my eyes again, too weak to resist sleep. Someone lifts my head. Rough hands, fast and careless, cradle my head and then hold a cloth under my nose. I smell that funny smell again. The dentist. I realize I’m being drugged and I’m glad in a way, because unconscious I can’t feel pain or worry.
The next time I wake, the hands on me are much softer. A woman? If so, I wonder if she owns the voice I heard earlier. I don’t know because she doesn’t speak. She takes off my gag, she gently brings a plastic bottle to my lips and I sip. The water is cold and fresh. She then slips some chocolate in my mouth. I think I’m dreaming again, but this time it’s not so. Yes, I am because I can smell her perfume and I can hear Megan, too. She’s swearing, and upset, like when her mum won’t let her go to a party or something. I wish Ridley would come to me in my dreams. I wish my mum would, and Dad. I need them. Where are they? Where are the police? I will myself to stay in the dream, but I think I’m weeing myself again, and that wakes me. The wet stickiness between my legs.
CHAPTER 41
Lexi
Sunday, May 26
We have heard nothing more from the kidnappers. I watch as the sky turns from black to an early-morning pink, the promises of a warm day. The light pulses its way into the kitchen, but it can’t bring any cheer. The glossy, perfect space is somehow exposed for what it really is: harsh and cold, impersonal rather than reassuringly expensive. The place is pocked with tea and coffee cups, half-full of forsaken slimy drinks that couldn’t warm or console. Jake puts on the lights, but they can’t seem to chase the gloomy shadows. Logan’s laptop is droning quietly. I don’t know what else to Google. I don’t know where to find answers.
At seven o’clock, the Heathcotes, who have slept, wake up because the sun is now fiercely shining in through the wall of windows. This was one of the features the estate agent pointed out to us. She said it was “very LA.” It’s hot as hell, and the heat combined with everything else makes me drowsy, cloudy, unfocused. I need to focus. I need to get my baby home. My pregnant baby. Not that this is my home. The house is something other. Without Emily it is not any sort of a home, it’s nowhere in particular. I look outside and see that the grass is wet from yesterday’s downpour and the early-morning sun rays make it look as though it is dripping with diamonds. It is beautiful, but I can’t feel the beauty. Until I get Emily back, I can’t taste, smell or feel beauty. I’m numb, sitting in a glass house, waiting for people to throw stones.
Ridley and Logan are both being archetypal teenage boys and sleeping like the dead. I’m glad I could finally persuade Ridley to go to bed after he told me everything he knew about the pregnancy. I don’t want him around when I tell Jake. Our circumstances are extreme and peculiar, but this news is age-old and no father ever shakes the hand of the fifteen-year-old who impregnated his daughter.
I have nursed one cup of coffee after another all night. Making it, if not drinking it, is at least something to do, and once we admitted to ourselves that we were awake and never going to find sleep, we needed things to do. I made coffee; Jake has been on his phone all night. When I asked him who he was messaging, he said he is sending texts to friends and family. Holding the pretence that the big news in our life was how the party went. He shouldn’t be wasting his time disseminating false news. He should be doing something real, although I’m not sure what. Certainly not comforting me—I don’t think he can do that. I imagine calling Gillian or Toma. I crave their sensibleness, their steadfast sympathy, but I know they’d both insist we call the police, so it’s impossible.
I suppose I could have told Jake about the pregnancy when the light first eked into the kitchen, when it was just the two of us. I could have made it our thing, about our daughter, but I know that’s not how he sees us anymore; otherwise, the Heathcotes wouldn’t be here. Jennifer means a lot to him. She’s not just a fling, a dalliance. I see that now. I’m going to tell them about the pregnancy at the same time, not because I respect her position in his life, but because I couldn’t bear the pain and humiliation of watching his first response be to look for her, hunting her out, wanting to share the news with her. This way I keep things on a more even keel. Anyway, this pregnancy is technically as much to do with her as it is to do with him.
The Heathcotes and Jake shower and dress. After being asked multiple times to do the same—“For God’s sake, Lexi, you are still in your fancy dress!”—I haul myself upstairs. I don’t shower, I don’t want to waste time in case the kidnappers call again. I pull on the first thing that comes to hand, something I was wearing before the party that never made it into the wash basket. It’s not quite clean. I possibly smell. I haven’t the energy to care.
Jennifer, Fred and Jake eat breakfast. It’s all I can do to swallow down more strong black coffee, which I force myself to in order to sharpen my day. I need to push through this fog of fear. I watch Jake chew, his strong, confident jaw moving with purpose. I only just resist hurling my scalding coffee in his face. I’m enraged at his ability to carry on. Watching him bite into his toast used to turn me on. I thought his appetites were sexy; now they disgust me. I loathe his greed, his hunger. The man who wanted it all.
I wait until we are all sitting around the table. There has been a surprising amount of normality this morning. I find it irritating, offensive. There is a lot of “Pass the butter, please” and “How would you like your eggs?” It’s unbelievable to me. There should be no semblance of normality. We are waiting to hear from kidnappers who want us to deposit ten million pounds in an offshore account. Why are they pretending a choice between marmalade or jam matters? I take a strange, secret pleasure in knowing that I have the information and power to destroy this facade of ordinariness they have created. I won’t be comforted and they shouldn’t be, either. This situation is dire, why would they try to minimize it? I’d respect everyone more if they were wailing and panicking.
I take a deep breath. “So, we have even more in common than ever now.” I throw this comment on the table, landing where they can all make of it what they will, but I keep my eyes on Jennifer. I’ve always thought she’s been a little overprotective of Ridley. Let’s see how this bombshell blows up her perception of her precious innocent son. I know I am behaving like a basic bitch—fear can do that. My child is gone. No one seems to be doing anything to get her back and they are stopping me doing what I want to. They are just munching whole wheat toast. My child has been ripped from me. I am going to take Jennifer’s baby boy away from her and deliver a procreating man back in his place. It doesn’t take even four words, just three.
“Emily is pregnant.”
Jaws and spoons drop, clatter on the breakfast table. “What?” demands Jake. He turns so white he’s almost blue, like snow on a field.
“Ridley confided in me last night. Naturally, he’s terrified for her.” The color empties from Jennifer’s face, too. Fred reaches for her hand, and she snatches it away. “I take it you didn’t know?” I ask faux sweetly.
“Well, nor did you,” challenges Jake, even though I had directed my question at Jennifer. I move my focus to him now. I see that there are deep lines of panic scratched onto his forehead. He’s shrunk inches in just moments. I imagine I look equally terrible, but I don’t have the will to put myself in front of a mirror.
“Ridley told me
that Emily planned to tell me after the party. She only told him yesterday.” Honestly, delivering this information doesn’t give me any satisfaction. Even though I am accurately retelling what Ridley said, it breaks my heart that Emily hadn’t turned to me first. She must be terrified. Why didn’t she tell me? I feel a surge of horror and adrenaline swamp me, suffocate me.
“I didn’t even know they were having sex,” mutters Jennifer.
“People do tend to be very secretive about sex,” I point out.
And then, although I think it might choke me, I bite into a slice of toast. With my mouth full, I won’t be able to blurt out everything else I know.
Suddenly, Jake jumps up from the table. “Where are you going?” I ask.
“To look for her,” he yells back over his shoulder. I hear dread and horror in his voice. I wish I didn’t because he has insisted that everything was under control, that everything was going to be fine. He said we’d get through it; we’d get her back safe and well. Although I’ve thought his perpetual optimism was delusional, exasperating, deep down I was seduced by it. I longed for him to be right. I’ve believed and trusted Jake forever. He is that sort of man, a man that might just be right. Now, he’s afraid, too, which is horrifying. I feel a tsunami of anxiety swell, threatening to wash me away, but I know Emily needs me to be calm now, not distraught. Jake is already in the hallway with the car keys in his hand and now he’s through the front door.
“I’ll come with you, I can—” The door slams behind him, cutting off Jennifer’s offer.
I stare at her, and she understands. I’m not jubilant. How can I be, under the circumstances? But I am somewhat vindicated. As much as the evidence of her precious only son having had sex will be bothering her—she’ll be mourning her place as his number one woman—her emotions are unlikely to compare to Jake’s. A father’s protectiveness of his daughter is fierce. Emily is underage, she’s pregnant, and now she’s been abducted. Emily has never needed her father more. Her pregnancy will change everything for Jake. Maybe now he’ll find a way to get her home. I just want my baby home.
I stand up and start to clear away the pots. Jennifer rushes from the room; I presume she’s gone to wake Ridley. I feel a bit sorry for him, but a dressing-down is inevitable under these circumstances. Fred and I listen to her feet clatter as she runs up the stairs. Fred looks apprehensive, unsure what to say next.
“A baby, hey?” he offers eventually.
“Certainly a pregnancy.”
“You’re saying she might not keep it. I mean, they are very young.” He looks hopeful.
“I have no idea what she will decide. Obviously, I haven’t had time to discuss the matter with her,” I snap. It doesn’t surprise me that Fred’s first thought is to have this tidied away. Apparently, it was Ridley’s, too. He confessed as much to me last night. A confession hiccuped out between tears of panic, regret, fright. I can’t imagine how horrendous things must be for Emily right now. An unplanned teenage pregnancy would be enough for any fifteen-year-old to cope with, but she’s been abducted by strangers, too. She’s tied up like a badly treated animal. I feel faint with fear every time I think of her and I’m thinking of her constantly. All I want is to hold her, comfort her, tell her everything is going to be all right because whatever she decides I will make sure that much is true. We will be all right. I just need her home. She might be having a baby of her own, but she is my baby still. My job, until she is home, is to protect her right to choose her future. I know Jennifer and Fred will be pushing for a termination, sweeping this under the carpet. They want Ridley at Cambridge. I can’t even begin to think what I want for Emily, beyond wanting her to walk through the door. I ache for that.
Fred looks uncomfortable. He coughs as though clearing his throat. I expect him to start talking about the fact all teens are curious, but that doesn’t mean they are ready to be parents. I expect him to give me statistics about the slim chances of teenage parents going to university.
“Will I still get my cut?” he asks.
“Wow. You are asking this now?” I drop back into the chair and glare at him.
“I’m owed it, Lexi. You know I am.”
“No, Fred, I know no such thing. I’m being generous in offering you a share.” My tone is steely.
“And you’ll still do that, even though the kidnappers have asked for ten million? I mean, you promised me three if I changed my statement for the inquiry and I did so.”
Funny that Jake thinks he sorted this with his bribe to Jennifer—he never really asked why Fred might have changed his statement in advance of being offered the one million. I suppose he thought Fred was doing it to spite Jennifer, considering everything. He didn’t know he had me to thank. Ten to the kidnappers, three to Toma, three to Fred. That would leave us with just under two million. It’s possible that Jake has spent most of that already—on the cars, the party, clothes, the house rental, the holidays he’s booked and canceled, his brothers’ mortgages, my sister’s house. I find I don’t care. “I said three. You’ll get three,” I tell Fred with a sigh.
He looks relieved. “You don’t think it’s over between them, do you?” he asks.
“I don’t care whether it is or it isn’t.” I realize that there is a chance Jake will leave me anyhow. When he discovers I’ve cleared out our bank account, that there is no more money, I think he will leave.
“I think they are done,” says Fred firmly.
“Are you thinking of staying, then?”
“Isn’t a condition of the ‘gift’ that I leave her?”
“I never said that.” Not in so many words, but if I’ve learned anything from the lottery win, everyone has their price. Stylists, security guards, bar staff.
Husbands.
I wonder what Jennifer is worth to Fred. “The way I recall it, Fred, is that you said you wanted to divorce her, but were worried she’d ‘take you to the cleaners’ despite her being the guilty party. As your friend, I promised you that when you did divorce her, I’d help you with setting up a new home, living expenses, securing custody of Ridley, et cetera.” Of course, three million pounds does this and more. Fred’s eyes widen greedily.
“I’ve already spoken to a lawyer. I’m not staying with her.”
CHAPTER 42
Emily
“Oh, my God. Oh, my God. What have they done to her? We need to get her to a fucking hospital.”
Dad?
“Jesus, Jesus. It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. I’m here. Daddy is here.” My dad hasn’t called himself Daddy for ages. I’d laugh at him, usually. I think I want to laugh, but I’m crying. He is stroking my head and my face like he does when I’m ill. Is this real? Please let this be real. He usually smells of instant coffee, my dad, but now he smells of something darker and richer. His aftershave is different, too. Is it him? Is this difference since the lottery win? “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I let this happen to you.” It’s not like he could have actually stopped them. This isn’t his fault, but his words make me cry harder. Tenderly, as though he doesn’t quite trust himself to touch me, he carefully takes off my blindfold and my gag. “Oh, my princess. What the fuck have they done to you?”
I guess I must look pretty bad.
CHAPTER 43
Lexi
Just when I believe the longest day of my life will never end, it does so with a sweet, sudden abruptness. At ten o’clock on Sunday night Jake does exactly what I need him to do—he finds our girl.
I had not even noticed, until it was too late, that when he’d strode out of the house this morning, he’d taken my phone with him. He must have discreetly pocketed it, knowing it was the way the kidnappers would communicate. When I realized, just ten minutes later, I was wild. I felt thwarted, infantilized. Isolated. I had no way of reaching him and, more importantly, no way of hearing from the kidnappers. In frustration, I threw a plate at the kitchen wall. It smashe
d satisfyingly. The shards splintered in every direction. The discarded jam toast that had been on the plate clung to the pristine white wall for a moment. I watched in fascination as it slowly loosened and then slipped, smearing jam, the color of blood.
“How dare he!” I yelled.
“He’s trying to protect you, for fuck’s sake,” snapped Jennifer. I saw that it hurt her to acknowledge as much. She was defending a man that she—what? Loved?—to his wife. She was pointing out her lover’s kindness and responsibility to his wife. Not an easy position to take. She must have been wondering where she stood now.
I had no choice but to accept the situation Jake had left me in, but I clung to my dignity and a semblance of control. “Send him a text. Tell him he has to keep me informed,” I instructed. “He needs to give me updates regularly or I’m calling the police.” She texted swiftly. Almost instantly, her phone pinged in response. Wherever he was, he clearly didn’t struggle to receive her messages, the way he struggled to receive mine all the time. “He says okay, he’ll text updates and he’ll call on my phone when he has news.” Jennifer placed her phone in the middle of the kitchen table, just where mine had been. I fought the urge to think the replacement was symbolic. The day passed at a snail’s pace. On about a thousand occasions, I reached for Jennifer’s telephone to check to see if I had somehow missed a call from Jake. Time after time I was faced with a blank screen. He didn’t keep his promise to keep me informed. Why did I think he would?
