Dylan turned his attention back to Julia.
‘Jules,’ Grace tried yelling, knowing pretty well what was just about to happen, but the alcohol and the tears had weakened her vocal cords considerably. ‘Wake up, Jules… please… wake the fuck up.’
‘You better shut the fuck up before I shu—’ Dylan never finished his sentence. As he began turning his head to look back at Grace… BAM… his face was met by the thick end of one ofthe empty Champagne bottles… the one that Grace had swung at his head.
Blood flew up in the air from the cut just above his right eyebrow and Dylan dropped like a dead weight. He wasn’t dead though, and it took Grace the will of gods not to slice his penis off and shove it inside his mouth.
‘What the fuck is wrong with men?’ Grace kept on asking herself, as she finally managed to wake Julia up before helping her get dressed.
Julia was still too out of it to understand what had just happened.
After stripping Dylan of all the cash he had – enough to see them through at least a couple of weeks – Grace tied him to the bed and simply left him there, bleeding from a head wound, on the floor of that dirty caravan.
And that was how, at only sixteen years of age, Grace and Julia found themselves having to run away from abusive men for the second time in their lives… and Grace had a feeling that it wouldn’t be the last time either.
Sixty-One
Denise’s answer made Mary’s blood run cold inside her veins.
‘What do you mean I called you and asked you to come?’ The nervous edge to her tone was punctuated by fear.
‘The secret phone,’ Denise said, her eyes narrowing at Mary. ‘The one that onlyyouknow the number to? You left a message, didn’t you? Almost a month ago?’
Mary could feel her entire body tensing. ‘What message did you get, Denise?’
‘The one with no “Hi, sis”, no “Hey, I hope you’re well”, no greeting of any kind. Just you being you and going straight into business. It had to be you, Mary, because it was your voice and you used both code words – the opening and the closing one – like you always do.’
‘And what did I say on the message?’
‘Simple… quick… like always,’ Denise explained. ‘You told me that Mary Smith was now living in San Francisco.’ She nodded at Mary. ‘I’m assuming that after the Nelson job, you managed to get that government-endorsed identity change that you were talking about, right? No phony documents here.’ Denise didn’t wait for a reply. ‘And then you said that you were dating again, which we both know means that the wheels were already in motion with a brand-new target. That was you, wasn’t it?’
‘Yeah, that was me,’ Mary agreed. ‘But you said that I asked you to come to San Francisco.’
‘Didn’t you?’
‘No.’ Mary shook her head. ‘Didn’t you hear the whole message? The ending? You must have if you heard me say the closing code word.’
‘What ending?’
Mary threw her hands up in the air. ‘The one that I said, “give me three to four months to solidify things and I’ll get back to you”.’
‘Oh, that ending?’ Denise sounded nonchalant. ‘Yeah, I heard that.’
More hands in the air, this time with a headshake. ‘And what part of “give me three to four months to solidify things and I’ll get back to you” didn’t you understand, Denise?’
Denise shrugged carelessly. ‘Well, I haven’t heard from you in a year and a half and then, all of a sudden, “ping” – voice message… “I’m in San Francisco… bla, bla, bla… new target…” – and you know me… I get curious… I get restless. I wanted to see what this was all about. Plus, I really missed you, sis.’ She shrugged. ‘So here I am.’
Mary took a moment, her brain trying hard to slot pieces into places. ‘OK, first of all – how the hell did you find me? I mean… I did say that I was in San Francisco, but I never gave you an address. You know that I would’ve never done that. What I would’ve done, like always, would’ve been to set a meeting location… somewhere where no one would see us together.’ She paused, her expression worried. ‘There are over six hundred and fifty Mary Smiths in the San Francisco area. I know that you didn’t check them all.’
‘No, just you,’ Denise replied, a proud smile on her lips. ‘Been following you around for two weeks now.’
‘Two weeks?’ Mary’s eyes almost exploded out of their sockets.
‘You’re losing your touch, sis,’ Denise joked.
‘Fuck you!’
‘I was justkiddiiiing.’ Denise lifted her hands in surrender, giving Mary her best ‘puppy eye’ look. ‘I’ve been tracking you from a very safe distance. You wouldn’t have noticed me because you can’t notice what you can’t see. You taught me that, remember?’
