“Thank you,” I say, breaking into a run. “Thank you.”
I run through the exit and keep running until I can’t run anymore. I double over, pull in large gulps of air. I don’t want it to be true—but it’s staring at me in the face. I had imagined Lukas masterminding our kidnapping from his home in Vilnius. But he had been there all the time, in the house in Haven Cliffs. He was my captor.
My mind feels as if it’s coming apart as I walk the rest of the way home, my head down, my shoulders hunched up around my ears. It must have been why he never spoke to me, in case I recognized his voice. I reach the house, stand in the hallway a moment, letting the silence wash over me. I move to the kitchen, sit down at the table, and take my phone from my pocket. My hands are shaking as I google Stockholm syndrome:
An emotional reaction victims can have after being held captive: feelings of having bonded with a captor, of missing them when they are separated. People suffering from Stockholm syndrome can experience insomnia, flashbacks, high suspicions of others, nightmares.
Is that what I have?
I go upstairs and crawl onto the mattress without undressing, wanting to hide my shame. How could I have bonded with the man who had Hunter killed? I screw my eyes shut, craving oblivion. But it doesn’t come.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A few days later, my phone rings. It’s Paul Carr again.
“Amelie, you may have heard that there’s to be a memorial service for Justine Elland and Lina Mielkut? next Wednesday.”
I feel a wash of relief. I hadn’t checked the Exclusives Facebook page for the last few days. “Thank you for telling me,” I say. “I would hate to have missed it.”
“Ah.” There’s an awkward pause. “I’m afraid it has been suggested that you don’t go.”
My heart thuds. “Why not?”
“Something to do with media presence, I think. Concern about you being put in the spotlight, perhaps.”
“Who?” I demand. “Who suggested that I don’t go?”
“I hope you understand.”
“No, I don’t. Could you please go back to whoever gave you this message and tell them that I need to be there, that I need the closure?”
“I’m afraid I only receive messages.” Paul sounds unhappy. “But I would have only been asked to pass this message on to you if it was important.” Another pause. “Can I have your assurance that you’ll respect it?”
It’s not his fault, he’s just the messenger. “Yes, of course. Goodbye, Paul.”
I hang up politely, but inside I’m seething. I’ve done everything they’ve asked of me, those men who disrupted my life so brutally. But I will not do this for them. I am going to the memorial service, whether they like it or not.
In the dining room, I open my laptop and bring up the Exclusives Facebook page. There are more messages about Justine and Lina, and details about the memorial service, on Wednesday, at St. Anne’s, near the Exclusives building. I make a note of the time—2 p.m.—and then I do something that I hadn’t thought to do before. I look for articles about my marriage to Ned.
I’m surprised at how much space was given to it, mainly in the tabloid press. But with Ned described as one of the most eligible men in England, perhaps it’s not surprising. As I read the various articles, I learn things that I already knew—that Ned’s fortune was left directly to him by his grandfather, and that his father and grandfather had fallen out, largely because Jethro Hawthorpe disapproved of the way Ned Senior spoiled his grandson—and things that I didn’t—Ned, at eighteen years old, assaulting another young man so badly that he ended up in the hospital; a car crash six months later, his red Ferrari wrapped around a tree and a young woman with life-changing injuries.
I don’t know why I’m shocked. Ned had told me, when we were in Las Vegas, that he’d been involved in a couple of incidents that had angered his father, because he’d had to put the launch of the foundation on hold. He had never mentioned that he’d caused catastrophic injuries to a young woman, and had put a man in the hospital. No wonder Jethro Hawthorpe was paranoid about any scandal involving Ned.
I continue searching to see what else I can find and I’m about to give up when I come across a news story from 2008, about the death of an ex-girlfriend of Ned Hawthorpe, suffocated in a sex game gone wrong.
I draw in my breath, scared of what I’m going to read. But all the four-line article mentions is that the young woman, Tanya Haughton, was an ex-girlfriend of Ned’s. There’s no mention of who she was having sex with when she died, just that the police are investigating the circumstances surrounding her death. I search for related articles later that year, and the year after, and all the years up to the present day, hoping to find the results of the police investigation. But there is nothing, nothing at all. Which means that somebody must have made it go away.