CHAPTER SEVEN
I close my eyes, and memories from the house in Reading reach out from the past. I see Papa sitting in his chair in our sitting room, his eyes closed, his mouth half-open, smell his medication on his breath. I see the brown front door, the narrow hallway, the stairs with the patterned carpet.
Tears well. Papa had provided for me, he’d presumed that Mr. Barriston and I would meet in the first few days after his death. He couldn’t have foreseen that the end would come so swiftly, and while Mr. Barriston was away. My life could have been so different. I would have gone to boarding school, I would have had Mr. Barriston looking out for me. By now, I’d be in college, in the second year of my degree. I would have had friends, partners, I would have lived, loved, backpacked around Europe during the holidays. Instead, I had witnessed two murders, and been kidnapped.
It’s strange how much I long to be in the house in Reading. I need to be away from here, I need to be free. Except I will never really be free. The kidnappers will always be there, somewhere in the background of my mind.
I think of Paul Carr, and what they had said about him.
At some point you will be contacted by Paul Carr, Ned’s attorney. He will have information for you, you can trust him. In case of a problem, he’s the only person you may contact. Do not contact anyone else.
The last line of the instructions echoes through me. Do not contact anyone else. I hadn’t—but now that I’ve done everything they’ve asked of me, surely I can phone Carolyn?
The need to speak to her is urgent, visceral. She is all I have left, she’s the only one left. I find my phone and call her number.
I’m nervous as I wait for her to pick up. How can I explain any of this? I’m not allowed to tell anyone what I know, or what I saw, I’m not allowed to tell anyone about my fake kidnapping. I can tell Carolyn that Ned tricked me into marrying him, but I’ll have to pretend that we really did go to Haven Cliffs for a two-week break, that he really was depressed, so depressed that he took his own life. The thought that I’ll never be able to speak about what I actually went through makes me horribly anxious.
It’s almost a relief when an automated voice answers, telling me that Carolyn’s number is no longer in use. Then I frown; Carolyn wouldn’t have changed her number without telling me. But that was before. My heart sinks. What if she doesn’t want to have anything more to do with me because I didn’t tell her I had married Ned?
I call her office. A man answers and when I ask to speak to her, he tells me that he’s very sorry, but that Carolyn was the victim of a hit-and-run accident a few weeks before, and sadly passed away. The phone drops from my hands, I fall to my knees, and my wails of grief and despair echo around the silent house. I think I will die from the pain of it, I think I will die from the guilt. But most of all, I think that if Ned wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him with my bare hands.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The sun bursting through the clouds sends shafts of light shooting across the room. I blink my eyes open, lift my head from the kitchen table. Carolyn is dead.
Was I never meant to know that she was dead? Is that why I was told not to contact anyone, in case I found out? Or don’t the kidnappers know?
I stand slowly, move to the patio doors, and stare into the garden without seeing it. Since leaving the house in Haven Cliffs on Sunday, I’ve barely been outside. I feel a spark of anger—do the kidnappers realize what they’ve asked of me, insisting I stay here, in this house, until the funeral? And I realize that they don’t, because nobody except Jethro Hawthorpe knows I saw Lina being killed.
Where are they now, the kidnappers? Have they gone back to wives, children? Or are they plotting another kidnapping that isn’t really a kidnapping? What about Lukas, where is he? I need to find him because if I don’t, I’ll never have the answers that will allow me to move on. I need to know why; why I had to lie to the police, tell a man that his son was a murderer. Why I had to be a part of it.
All I want is to leave. With Carolyn gone, there is nothing left for me in London. But I need to wait for Ned’s funeral. I don’t want to play the grieving widow but it’s the price I must pay to be free. And when I am, I will find Lukas and I will get to the truth.
CHAPTER NINE
Ned’s funeral, a service followed by a cremation, is mercifully short. I stand apart from his parents and pretend not to notice the stares of the Hawthorpe family.
I don’t think of Ned, I think of Carolyn. I don’t have proof but I know her death was murder and I know Ned was behind it. Tears seep from my eyes when the words cruelly taken from us before his time are pronounced; nobody watching could doubt the sorrow I feel at Ned’s passing. Paul must wonder, though. He must know more; I’m sure he is somehow linked to the people behind our kidnapping.