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He takes me down the hallway, I know we’re going past the double doors, toward the front of the house, and I imagine a car waiting totake me somewhere safe. But he stops, guides me into a room on the right, it will be the kitchen with the long table and the French windows at the end. He makes me sit. I smell coffee and my mouth waters.
“I want you to listen carefully,” he says. His voice comes from behind me. “I’m going to take off the hood and put sunglasses on you so that your eyes get accustomed to the light. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Close your eyes.”
I do as he says and the hood comes off. The light pierces my closed lids and I drop my head in reflex. Sunglasses are put on me. I raise my head, open my eyes a little, close them again.
“I’ll be back soon,” he says. “Don’t move. Stay exactly where you are.”
The door closes. Muted sounds come to me, of hammering, of things being put down, picked up. While my eyes adjust to the light—I open them slightly behind my sunglasses for a couple of seconds, then close them again, gradually increasing the time of exposure—I wonder where my captor is. He must have left with Ned. Is Ned with his father now, does the world know that he’s been rescued, that I’m apparently dead?
The man comes back, moves behind me.
“Don’t turn around,” he says. “On the table in front of you, you’ll find a letter with instructions for you to follow. You’ll need to read it at least three times, maybe more, but however strange the instructions seem, you must comply with them. Your help is in exchange for your life.” He pauses, giving time for his words to sink in. “Do you understand?”
A tremor runs through me. “Yes.”
“If there had been some other way, we would have taken it. But there’s too much at stake. That’s what you need to remember. What we need from you is a leap of faith.” Another pause. “Are you willing to make that leap?”
“Yes,” I say again, because what choice do I have?
“Once you know the instructions by heart, put a match to them,burn the sheets of paper. Don’t write anything down, or take notes. I’m going to leave now. Don’t attempt to look at me. There’s a clock on the wall in front of you. It’s now six in the morning. Don’t move for fifteen minutes, except to pour yourself a coffee. Once the fifteen minutes are up, you can read the letter.”
He leaves, and tears seep out from under my sunglasses. I’m out of the room. I’m alive.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
PRESENT
I lift my sunglasses, scrub the tears from my eyes, then put them back on and search for the clock on the wall. I study its face, my sight gradually adjusting. The black hands show it’s five past six.
I lower my eyes to the table. Lying facedown are two sheets of paper. There’s also a carafe of coffee, a bottle of milk, and two mugs. I reach out, pour myself a coffee, and take a sip, my hands shaking as I raise the mug to my lips. The taste is so strong that I hold the hot liquid in my mouth before swallowing it down. I stare at the sheets of paper. I feel detached from reality, as if my body is still locked away in the darkness and I’m watching this scene from above. I take another sip of coffee and this time I close my eyes a moment, savoring the nutty, slightly burnt taste.
I look again at the two sheets of paper. Everything written on them will determine the rest of my life. Will I have a new name? Where will I go? Will a car come to collect me, take me to a safe house somewhere? What about money? My stomach clenches. I am here because of money, because I wanted to make life easier for myself.
The black clock’s hands now point to six-fifteen. I take a breath, exhale, take the blanket from my lap, place it on the table, and remove my sunglasses. The light streaming in through the windows is too bright and I’m about to put them on again when something catches my attention. I look at the glasses more closely, turning them this way and that, squinting at them. They’re mine, they’re the ones I bought in Vegas. One of the abductors must have gone back to Ned’s house after taking us. I put them down on the table, my mind too exhausted to think about it now.
Turning over the sheets of paper, I read the first line.
Today is Saturday, August 31.
I frown. It must be a mistake. Today is Saturday, September 14, day twenty-nine of our captivity. I know this.
I continue reading.
Today, you have been married to Ned Hawthorpe for exactly thirty-one days.
My skin prickles. What is this? A joke of some kind?
You may think it’s later, but your days here were not days of twenty-four hours. This is day fifteen of your capture.
Day fifteen? Stunned, I lift my head from the paper. I can’t have been locked in that room for only fourteen days.
I continue reading.
The story you will tell when you are asked is that Ned rented this house for two weeks to escape from the media glare surrounding the claim of sexual assault made by Justine Elland, and to spend some quality time with his new wife. His Instagram account will confirm this. You can check it on his phone in the bedroom upstairs, in accordance with our instructions.
