Page 52 of Death Kiss

It sets my skin crawling.

Three oversized Chesterfield sofas sit in a horseshoe shape surrounding a fireplace large enough to walk inside. Like one of the ones you see in old castles. In one corner, a half bookshelf is filled with baskets of kids’ toys.

Hugh has no children.

A full-body shudder steals over me.

I familiarise myself with the cottage. It doesn’t take long. There are two bedrooms: one single, one double. A bathroom with a rather ornate bathtub. A coat closet and a little boot room at the back door. The rest of the cottage is just the open kitchen-come-diner-come-living room.

The decor looks old but nice. Like Hugh had paid a designer once many years ago and never bothered to change anything. I take my time by the taller bookshelf near the door. Pictures of Hugh with various people hang there. One is a face I recognise. A face I hoped to link with Hugh. Gregory. With the same surname, I’d hoped they were related, but my online searches hadn’t brought me much luck. One article mentioned Hugh having a minister brother. But the face I’d found was in a whole different avenue, down a different rabbit hole, and now here they are together, smiling on a golf course like they’ve not a care in the world.

I hide some ready-prepped, sedative-filled syringes, capped off, around the house, aiming for spots Hugh might not stumble upon too easily. Behind the curtains in the far corners. Between couch cushions. Down the side of both mattresses. While I may be angry, I’m not stupid. I’m younger than Hugh by a fair whack, but I’m also short and not all that strong. If my element of surprise fails, I’ll have to think on my feet. And that means preparation.

Stroking my fingers over one of my curved blades, right over the ivy, I think of Liam. Ellie told me he’d had to be sedated. I can imagine that might be after I texted him. Sighing, I slip my knife under the sofa.

The larger bedroom has a chest beneath a pile of blankets, and curiosity gets the better of me. Setting the blankets aside, I open the heavy wooden lid.

More blankets.

I stick one arm down the edge and feel around the base. It’s not solid; there’s something there. Smooth and thin.

Photographs?

Carefully removing the blankets and stacking them in reverse order, I uncover something I wish I could unsee. The entire base of the chest is covered in loose photographs. Lots of them. Most look old and yellowed, but some look new enough to be current.

It makes me feel sick.

I can barely look at the top photos. As I slide them to the right, I see a face I recognise. The Liam I met all those years ago.

‘Oh god,’ I whisper as I pick the photo up. Liam is sat on his father’s knee in matching jammies with the other four boys in the room. One of them is almost certainly a young Sam.

The group of men are younger too, but Hugh is there. Liam’s Dad. Pete. Bill. Unfortunately, no Ashworth. The boys stare at the camera, no smiles among them.

I lay the photo aside. Then look through the others, swallowing the bile that comes up at some of the horrors within the chest. Leaving none of Liam in the chest, I pile his pictures up and take a photo of the rest with my aeroplane-mode burner phone before replacing the blankets one by one, hoping the missing images won’t be discovered.

What the hell to do with them? I don’t know. My first instinct is to burn them. But it’s destroying evidence.

It has to be Liam’s choice.

I stroke a finger over his sweet little face, and my heart breaks for him all over again. A little of the anger dissipates. He’s been under incredible stress with everything. I’m having to face killing monsters, but he’s fighting the demons who stole his childhood. His own fucking father…

So this weekend I will come back for Hugh. And then swiftly track down Gregory. Then when Liam heals, we’ll go after Ashworth. Who, I can only assume, is sabotaging the investigation from the inside.

Liam and I have been careful, but links between the men should be starting to appear. Maybe they are, and for some reason it’s just not being reported more widely, but I feel like Ashworth has his sticky paws all up in this case to keep his name out of it.

Gathering up the stolen photos, I set the room exactly as I found it, taking care to photograph the outside of the chest and the room it’s in.

I lock the door as I leave, hiding the key back under the ugly gnome and clutching the photos in one hand. Shaking off the gross feeling of the place, I walk quickly across the lawn. A glance backwards has me fucking over and landing on my face in the grass, photographs flying.

Shit.

Ow.

My knee aches as I push myself up, wondering what the fuck I’ve tripped over. A mound of freshly turned soil at the edge of the lawn. The asshole had to garden right across my escape route. I roll my eyes and take my phone out, switching on my torchlight and crawling around to gather up the scattered pictures. When I think I have them all, I stand and scan the area with the beam of light. A small shiny square catches the edge of the light, and I walk over and scoop up the image.

My light catches something else.

Mushrooms?