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I don’t mind. I feel better already. The headache that had been threatening like an oncoming storm starts to retreat.
“Thank you,” I say. I drop my voice a level. “What has he told you about me?”
“Just what I need to know.”
I think of how, in hostage situations, you’re supposed to make the kidnapper see you as a real person. This isn’t exactly the same situation, but I hang on to the hope that I might be able to bring him onto my side.
“My name is Honor. I’m twenty-one years old. My best friend is called Ruth. I want to be a songwriter one day, maybe even a singer. I’m not sure. I loved my mom more than anything before she died. I don’t do drugs, though I do love the occasional glass of cham—”
“Shut up.”
I don’t shut up. “Please. You must be able to see that this isn’t normal. Would you normally do an arrest like this? I haven’t been read my Miranda rights or anything.”
His lips thin. “Don told me you’re his stepdaughter and he doesn’t want to do things by the book.”
I beg him with my eyes. “And you think that’s right?”
Edwardo shrugs. “You have a drug habit. I can understand him wanting to keep things to himself. You don’t exactly make him look good, what with him being a cop.”
“Doyouthink I have a drug habit? Do I really look like a junkie?”
To be fair, after running from Brody and hiking across the island in the rain, I’m not exactly looking my best. I’m not even completely sure what a drug addict looks like, apart from what I’ve been fed by television and the media. Images of track marks and bad teeth pop into my head.
“Not everyone who deals drugs looks like a meth-head,” he replies.
I think, desperately. “Then check my record. You’ll see there’s no warrant out for my arrest.”
Would it have been possible for Don to get a warrant for my arrest? I’m not exactly sure about the mechanisms for these things, but I believe he’d need to submit some sort of case to a judge, and they’d issue one. But what if he has a friend in the court? He might have a judge on his side or even one who’s open to a bribe or two. I don’t doubt that Don is capable..
Is it better that I end up behind bars than being dead? Without question, yes. At least in jail I still have a chance of proving my innocence. Something else occurs to me. Unless, of course, that’s Don’s plan to get rid of me. If he can bribe someone in court, no doubt that he’ll have contacts with people inside as well. The police aren’t well-liked people in jail, but there will always be snitches and those either willing to take a bribe or who are even susceptible to being threatened. Perhaps they have loved ones on the outside whose lives are being threatened if they don’t do as they’re told. It would be a good way for Don to get rid of me without it ever coming back on him. If I was shanked while behind bars, no one would ever look in his direction.
Tears fill my eyes, my situation becoming increasingly hopeless. To think, there were moments I was upset on the island. Even being chained, naked, in the bunker was far better than this. I’d happily switch positions now, would take the bunker gladly. At least there I had the promise of good sex ahead of me. I realize just how different it felt to be with any of the guys—even Brody—compared to this. I’d wanted them, had lusted over them. I’d never been repulsed in the way I am with Don.
“Then just you take me,” I try. “I’m not resisting arrest. I’ll come with you happily, just not with him. Please.” I’m pleading with him, holding his eye contact, trying to get him to see how genuine I am.
Edwardo frowns. “Why?”
“Because he killed my mother, and that’s why I ran. I knew he’d find me and do whatever it took to keep me quiet.”
“Don wouldn’t do something like that,” he scoffs.
“He pushed her down the stairs, and then he hit her in the head with a golf club.”
“How could you know that?”
“I saw him washing off the club while she was lying bleeding at the bottom of the stairs. Who would do that? He’d already called the ambulance and the police, saying that he found her, and that it was an accident, but while he was waiting, he cleaned off the item he used to kill her.”
“Bullshit.”
I carry on. “When the police arrived, I tried to tell them what had happened, but they were all like you—on his side. They were all his cop buddies, and he was weeping and wailing over her body, and no one was listening to me. They called me hysterical—like I didn’t have a reason to be. My mother was dead, and my stepfather had killed her.”
“Why would he do that?”
I give a cold laugh. “Because he’d gotten bored of her. Because he had his sights on someone different.”
Edwardo fixes me with his brown eyes. “Who?”
“Me. I had no choice but to leave. He knew that I knew, and he was willing to destroy me. That’s why he’s come after me now. It’s got nothing to do with any bogus drug charge. It’s because he wants to see the end of me.”
