“Five objects you can see. Tell me.”
I exhale, my eyes scanning the area. “Other cars. A lamppost. The hotel car park sign.”
“Good. Keep going.”
Dad stays silent while I try to concentrate. Slowly, the pain in my chest eases a touch, but not fully. “A fox just ran across the small hill in front of me.”
“Do you remember Luciella wanted a fox as a pet when she was ten?”
A smile tugs at my lips. “Yeah.”
“One more, son.”
My mind isn’t against me. All this panicking is just in my head. “I can smell her in the car. She’s still wearing the same perfume.”
I know he’s nodding. “The one you bought her?”
“Yeah.”
I stare at the passenger seat and imagine her soft legs, toned from years of dancing, and her hair flying around her face as I drive faster. She’s giggling, then crawling into my lap.
“Same one. Flowerbomb.”
“You’ve had to spend time with her.”
I look away from the hallucination of her beside me. “Yeah.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“That I was okay with breaking the first four rules. But now I regret it, because at the end of the day, she doesn’t deserve for me to break the fifth.”
Dad helped me form the five rules. I was spiralling right after we broke up, and he knew I was seconds from losing it. He thought it would help me get off the booze, completely unaware of all the drugs I was consuming.
I needed something to fill the void, and partying myself into a comatose state was the best way when I had Bernadette over my shoulder, leading me into the underworld like an animal into a slaughterhouse.
“I watch her,” I admit. “When she’s in the manor, at the studio, or walking around the mall. If I don’t see her at least once every day, I lose my mind. I’ve climbed to her window to see her sleep, and I’ve been trying to hack her phone for the last year. I hacked Luciella’s.”
And I hunt down the people she sleeps with and make them disappear, but I keep that part to myself.
“That’s extreme,” Dad replies. “But I understand.”
Of course he does. “I can’t stop hating her though.”
“It would help if you let her explain.”
My hand nearly crushes the phone to my ear. “No. We’ve already talked about this. Neither of them deserves to be fucking heard.”
“Stop swearing.” Dad is silent for a beat. “What else has happened? Your mother is worried about you.”
I divert his attention from me. “Stacey has a lot of bruises,” I say. “They look fresh. When I saw them, she said most were from the studio.” It’s quiet for a long second, and I add, “It’s making me think.”
I pull a cigarette out and spark it, glad my lungs are functioning enough for me to get the dose of nicotine I need. The ember casts a soft glow around the car as I suck and inhale deeply.
“What are you thinking?”
I blow a cloud of smoke out the window. “She’s a good liar, but Luciella does the same training as her and she isn’t black and blue. Someone hurt her.”
Stacey is probably the best, most manipulative kind of liar. I know. I’ve been on the receiving end of her lies.
“You didn’t notice anything while stalking her like a crazy ex-boyfriend?”
My eye twitches at his tone. “No.”
“Where is Stacey now?”
“Hotel room. The door’s locked, so she won’t be able to get to her.” I inwardly groan as soon as the words fall from my lips.
“Who?” His tone is dangerous.
“No one.”
“Kade. So who can’t find her?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
His hand slams down on something. “Don’t keep something like this from me. Who are you in trouble with?”
I take another draw, enjoying the burn of each inhalation. “If I tell you, you’ll try to escape. You’re better off not knowing. I’ll deal with it.”
He laughs, and it sends a chill up my spine. “You think I’m stuck here? That’s insulting, son. It would take me less than a day to be out of here and halfway to Scotland.”
My brow raises. “You could escape?”
“In a heartbeat. Now tell me what’s going on?”
I ignore the second part. “Why haven’t you escaped then?”
“My family is happy – why would I ruin that? I hurt your mother by trying to love her the way she needed. As much as she will always be everything to me, I could never give her what she wanted. ”
I hang on to this subject, knowing he’s so deluded when it comes to my mother that he’ll stay on it. “I think she still loves you. I see it in the way she changes when you’re there.”
It’s true though. Mum’s face lights up as soon as she sees or speaks to my dad. She loves my stepdad Ewan, that much I know for a fact, but she’s totally different and more alive when she’s around my dad.
If he wasn’t a psychopath who put her through hell when they were in their twenties, then maybe they’d have a shot. But, in all honesty, from reports I’ve read about them, they were toxic.
Besides, I like Ewan.
Silence. And then. “I wish that were true, son. Ewan is the love of your mother’s life, and she is the love of mine. There’s no changing that.”
“Sounds miserable,” I say, flicking my finished smoke out the window then rolling it back up with the press of a button. “You’ve been locked up for over twenty years and you still love her?”
“Not a day goes by have I ever felt less.”
Yeah, as I said… miserable and deluded.
“I can tell you’re feeling better. Good. We’re allowed to have bad days too. It’s late for you. Why don’t you try to get some sleep before your flight?”
My eyes close as my head drops back against the headrest. “She’s there, remember?”
A pause, and he scoffs. “Then have some self-control around her.”
I hear Mum asking if everything is okay, to which he says yes and that he’ll be right there.
“I’m going to spend time with your mother before she leaves. Go to the room and sleep. And for fuck’s sake, son, keep your dick in your pants and stay out of trouble.”
Mum scolds my dad for his language.
I chuckle. “Right.”
He hesitates. “And Kade? I apologise for what happened the last time you were here. I had no idea she meant so much to you.”
The call ends.
I stare at the screen with a bitter taste in my mouth. Dad knows more than anyone what it’s like to want someone you can’t have. His block is himself, whereas mine is that I don’t trust a hair on Stacey’s head.
We have six hours before our flight. There isn’t a chance in hell I’ll survive that. I’m honest enough with myself to say that I’m terrified to be back in that room with her.
My phone vibrates in my hand as I walk over to Barry’s car.
Speak of the devil.
Stacey: You’re not seriously going to sleep in the car? There’s a killer on the loose! I’ll sleep on the floor or the bathtub. Some dude is at the door too – he told me to wait for your return when I tried to come out for you. What’s that about?