‘Lucky. Fucking. Them.’
‘You had to ruin it.’ He throws his hands up. ‘We were enjoying a nice dinner together and then you spoil it.’
‘You’re a twisted psycho and you’re not as clever as you think you are. You dangled all those pretty, blonde kidnap victims in front of me, telling me they all have one thing in common: book deals. But that isn’t the only thing those girls have in common: they escaped. They were found. It’s only a matter of time before you trip up.’
He laughs and I am infuriated.
‘What?’ I snap.
‘You know what all those captors had in common?’ He steps closer. The threat is real and makes my breath come out in short, sharp pants. He has the look on his face of someone who has won. ‘They didn’t have a fall guy.’
He’s knocked the wind from my sails. ‘What’re you talking about?’
‘David Taylor was stalking you for a long while before he broke into your bedroom. He was arrested after your bloody pyjamas were found in his car.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
He pulls a folded piece of paper from his back pocket and holds it out to me. ‘Go on, take it.’
I do. It is a newspaper article. The heading reads ‘ARREST MADE IN CASE OF MISSING GRADUATE ELODIE FRAY’。 Then I see the photograph of the suspect and my stomach cartwheels because I recognise him – the man who’d been following me. I skim the article enough to know everything Jack has said is true. ‘David’s going to tell the police you’re behind it.’
‘You think I’m that stupid? Elodie, he has no idea it was me. I was paying him anonymously for months,’ he brags. This arrogance isn’t new but it’s the first time I’ve found it truly repulsive.
He takes a step towards me and I back up so fast, I smack into the bedside table. ‘Did you always plan to abduct me?’
‘No.’
‘Then why were you paying him to follow me?’
‘Because you were so wrapped up in your book, your coffee shop job, scrabbling around for your parents’ approval, mourning him, that you couldn’t see me. I knew if we spent more time together—’
‘By scaring me into it?’
‘—that you’d finally let yourself love me. I was hoping you’d be too afraid to live alone, that you’d agree to move in with me. But you were too stubborn. When things started snowballing with your book-deal lie, I saw the opportunity to have you here to myself and I took it. I did this for us, Fray.’
‘The police are going to figure it out.’
‘How? Your stuff was found in David’s car, your DNA, I have an alibi and now there’s an arrest …’
He’s still talking, his mouth is moving, but his words fall away, replaced by the white noise filling my head. I am never getting out. Never. The instinct to flee spikes and I dart a look at the stairs. The door is locked. I don’t have the key. And even if I did, Jack would wrestle me to the ground before I made it even halfway up. He catches my shoulders. ‘Are you listening?’ he barks. ‘I did this for you. Where’s the gratitude?’
I wrench myself away, but there’s nowhere to go, so I skirt the wall furthest from him. ‘Gratitude? Fucking gratitude? Who would be grateful for this?’ I throw my arms out wide. ‘You tried to rape me—’
‘Stop it.’
‘You tried to rape me and—’
He kicks the chair. It smashes into the wall in a violent burst of noise. ‘No one will ever love you like I do. Noah wasn’t fucking capable of loving you like this.’
‘Thank god.’ I am trembling; there are hot tears in my eyes. ‘Thank god he didn’t love me like this.’
‘That’s a shaky fucking pedestal you’ve put him on. Have you forgotten all the evenings he left you sitting by yourself in some restaurant because work was more important? All those evenings you rang me in tears because he’d let you down again? He was fucking one of his students. You know that, don’t you?’
‘SHUT UP!’ I scream.
‘I saw him. I went to London.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘He bought a ring too. Don’t know if it was for you or her but he bought an engagement ring.’
‘You didn’t like Noah, not at first, you were just waiting for something to go wrong.’
‘At first? I never liked him. It was an act, Fray. I knew if I didn’t at least appear to get on with him, I’d lose you.’