“What do you expect?” Ned’s voice is plaintive. “You keep me here like an animal, bring me the same food day in, day out.”
“What were you expecting, a five-star hotel?”
“I wasn’t expecting anything, least of all to be kidnapped,” Ned says. “You’re not going to get away with it, you know. You have no real idea of who I am, the connections I have.”
“Oh, don’t worry, we know exactly who you are.” The man’s voice drops. A sharp crack makes me flinch.
Ned cries out, I draw up my knees, rest my head on them. I don’t want to listen anymore, but I have to, it might have an impact on my plan to escape.
“Who the fuck are you, anyway?” Ned is shouting now, trying to sound tough. But for all his bravado, I know he’s scared.
“Shut up and listen. It’s over a week since we first contacted your father and we’re beginning to lose our patience. So, we’re going to call him again and you better make him understand that this is his last chance. Tell him that if he refuses to cooperate, he’ll be getting something in the post. Something of yours.” There’s a pause. “Or hers.”
“You can do what you like to her, I don’t care. Kill her and send her body to him if you want.”
My head jerks as if I’ve been slapped. Without warning, my mind goes to Justine and Lina. I push them away; I can’t think of them now, I need to focus on getting out of here.
Ned is speaking.
“Please, Dad, just do as they ask, otherwise there’ll be terrible consequences for me. It’s serious, Dad, they mean business, they keep me like an animal, I’m hooded most of the time. I have no toilet, almost nothing to eat…”
His voice stops abruptly. There’s a dry laugh that isn’t Ned’s.
“Better not say too much, your daddy might think it’s good for you to endure a bit of hardship for a while and decide to keep you here longer. Let’s face it, he’s hardly in a hurry to get you back.”
“Shut up!” Ned’s voice rises to a crescendo.
Another crack, another cry, followed by muffled sounds; the scrape of a chair dragged across the floor, then the slam of a door.
I stay still, my face against the wooden floor. It isn’t Carl, then, who is with Ned. Ned would have recognized his voice, he wouldn’t have asked who he was. My heart sinks. It makes it somehow worse that our abductor is a stranger, worse for me. He will have seen what everyone else saw, and assumed that Ned and I were in love. That’s why they took me, because they thought I had worth. Now, after what Ned said about killing me, they’ll know the truth.
The sooner I escape the better.
CHAPTER TWENTY
PAST
I left the Exclusives building, trying not to make it obvious that I was looking for Ned’s car on the road outside, as I did every evening. When it was there, I’d wave to Hunter, sitting behind the wheel, and he would always smile back. But he never made any move to get out of the car and talk to me. Sometimes, I thought I should stop waving. But I was worried he would think badly of me if I did.
There were a few paparazzi outside, waiting for Daphne Danaher, who had come in earlier for an interview. Or maybe they were waiting for Ned. He was often targeted in the media; people were fascinated by the Hawthorpe family, and the press loved to compare Ned and his father. Ned never came out well. Jethro was portrayed as an honorable man who worked tirelessly for his foundation, and Ned as a playboy who spent his time courting soccer players and rock stars, trying to persuade them to appear in his glossy magazine. I felt sorry for Ned. I liked him, he was funny and generous.
Ned’s car wasn’t parked outside the building where it usually was, so I stopped and pretended to search in my bag for my phone, trying to see if it was parked farther down the road, acknowledging that my need to see Hunter each day was getting ridiculous. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something hurtling along the pavement. I looked up, but before I could move out of the way, a scooter smashed into me, and I was knocked to the ground.
A crowd gathered.
“Are you alright?”
“Bloody scooters, they shouldn’t be allowed. I almost got knocked down by one myself.”
“Can you stand? Do you want me to help you up?”
“It’s alright, I’ve got this. Do you think you can stand, Amelie?”
I looked up and saw Hunter bending toward me.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Here, let me help.” He took hold of my forearms, lifted me to my feet. I winced as my right foot touched the ground.