A cloud passes across his face. ‘Will Elliot be okay with that?’
‘Of course,’ she lies. Elliot won’t like it one bit, but tough.
Jonas reaches into his jeans for his car keys. Kristin steps forwards too, but Jonas shakes his head at her. ‘I think it’s best you stay here, darling.’
Kristin’s face falls, and Emilia can tell she’s inwardly seething but doesn’t want to make a scene in front of Marcie and Frank. ‘Fine,’ she says, white-lipped. ‘She’s your daughter. Whatever you think is best.’ She turns on her heeled boots and marches back into the house before Jonas has a chance to reply. He raises an eyebrow at Emilia but doesn’t say anything.
They drive in convoy to Emilia’s house. Jasmine and Nancy are sitting at the kitchen island, looking small, with their fingers wrapped around mugs of hot chocolate when they all rush in.
‘I’m going to take Wilfie to the park,’ says Elliot, tactfully, steering Wilfie away from the others. Despite his feelings towards Jonas, he’s polite and shakes his hand as he leaves the room, which Emilia is relieved about.
‘Is Jas going to get told off?’ she hears her son ask hopefully, as he follows his dad into the hallway.
‘Thank God,’ cries Marcie, enveloping Nancy in a hug. ‘We were so worried.’
Jasmine looks up sheepishly when she notices her parents, and slides off her stool, running into their arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ she says, bursting into tears as they both embrace her in a group hug. Emilia doesn’t ever want to let go. Thank you, thank you, thak you, she thinks, inhaling her daughter’s familiar scent mixed with something earthy and unwashed.
Jonas is the first to release her. ‘What were you thinking?’ he says, sternly but gently.
‘Yes,’ agrees Emilia. ‘What the hell happened? We’ve all been out of our minds with worry. Where have you been?’
Jasmine wipes her nose with the back of her hand and sniffs loudly. ‘We’re so sorry.’ She hangs her head, her dirty-blonde hair falling into her face. ‘We really wanted to go to this concert and I’d asked you both last year and you’d said no. And then …’ She glances nervously at Nancy.
Nancy, a slight girl with a rosebud mouth, curly dark brown hair and wide blue eyes, is actually trembling and Emilia is struck again by how young they really are. They’re at that in-between age of no longer little children but not quite adult.
‘Let’s go and sit down,’ Emilia says, leading them all into the family-room end of the kitchen. ‘Bring your hot chocolate, girls. You look freezing.’
Jasmine sits solemnly between Jonas and Emilia on one of the sofas, Nancy and her parents a mirror image on the other.
‘Where did you sleep?’ asks Emilia, rubbing her daughter’s back, as though unable to believe she’s actually here. She’s wearing a hoodie and jeans, which she must have packed and taken to school with her yesterday.
‘We stayed at Meghan’s house. Not that we got much sleep. It was so cold on the floor.’
Emilia has never heard of Meghan but she doesn’t want to ask about that now. She glances at Jasmine’s face. Her eyes are downcast. She never thought Jasmine would lie to her like this. She isn’t the type to be sneaky. Emilia’s always believed they have a very open relationship. She’d kept things from her own parents, of course, but that was because they were emotionally distant. She’s tried so hard to make herself approachable to Jasmine. To make her daughter feel loved, not judged, and able to tell her anything.
‘How did you get tickets?’ asks Marcie, her round face pinched with worry.
‘Jake gave them to us. He said he’d received them through the post with strict instructions to give them to me and Jas,’ replies Nancy, quietly, her fingers tapping on the side of her mug. She has a streak of dirt along her cheekbone.
Emilia’s stomach turns. ‘What? Who gave them to him?’ This is familiar. Too familiar. The room tilts and she has to grab on to the arm of the sofa.
‘He doesn’t know,’ says Nancy, staring into her mug. ‘He just said someone had posted them to him with an anonymous letter. And that whoever wrote the letter said he had to give them to us.’
This can’t be happening. Concert tickets being sent anonymously to a friend of two teenage girls. Teenage girls who then go missing. It’s straight out of her book. Except it’s not a past book of hers. It’s from the most recent. Her Last Chapter. A book that won’t be published until later this year.
A book she’s sent out to a select few.
26
Jonas is hovering in the kitchen after everyone else has left. Elliot is still at the park with Wilfie, and Jasmine is having a bath. Emilia has made Jonas a cup of coffee and they’re sitting next to each other at the kitchen table. He’s gazing around the room, at the skylights and the blue-painted units, with its large island and pale parquet floors. ‘Wow! This is really stunning, Em. You’ve done a great job on it. It’s a lot tidier than our house used to be when we were married.’ He grins to show he’s joking. This is the first time he’s seen the kitchen since the renovation. He usually hovers in the hallway when he picks Jasmine up.
‘Thanks.’ She returns his smile, although it’s an effort. Her mind has been reeling ever since she realized that the letter and tickets sent to Jasmine and Nancy were like the plot from her unpublished book and that this is all down to someone she knows. It’s a far worse thought than it being a stranger. She’d trusted them all, even Kristin who, despite their differences and her odd behaviour lately with Ottilie and Louise, is a great stepmother to Jasmine.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks, his brow crinkled. ‘You’ve hardly said a word since Nancy and her parents left. Am I outstaying my welcome? You can tell me.’ His voice is teasing.
‘I’m just a bit in shock, I think,’ she says, taking a sip of coffee while stealing a furtive glance at him. He’s hurt her in the past, yes, but would he do something as sick, as devious as this? She can’t imagine so. Especially as this involves his daughter. Yet she can’t imagine anyone she knows is capable of this. ‘Have you … um, read my new book yet by any chance?’ She tries to keep her voice light.
‘Only the beginning,’ he says. ‘It’s good. Quite dark with all that praying-mantis stuff.’
‘So, you wouldn’t have reached the bit yet about the two girls disappearing after a concert. They’re lured there by a letter. Like what happened with Jas …’
His eyes widen in horror. ‘No!’
‘There’s something I need to tell you.’ The coffee curdles in her stomach, and she remembers she hasn’t eaten anything since breakfast, yet she feels she might be sick. ‘I hoped it would all go away but if anything it’s escalating. This has been going on for ages … God, Jonas. Someone is playing with my fucking head.’ And then she tells him everything that’s happened so far: the bomb scare, the flowers, the troll, the wreath, the skylights opening by themselves, the man who followed her and Louise. Someone lurking around the house last night. When she’s finished, he’s staring at her with his mouth hanging open. ‘And because they were events that happened in past books, I thought it could be anyone. But now, with this coming from my unpublished manuscript, well, it has to be someone I know.’