The Prisoner(27)

“She was very shaken, obviously, but she was angry more than anything. She called me as soon as Ned left, and I went over. But you should know, Amelie—she filed a complaint against him, for sexual assault. She didn’t want to at first, she said the police wouldn’t believe her, and that they would ask her why she let him into her apartment to discuss her contract instead of asking him to wait until they were in the office—which she did, but Ned insisted he needed to see her that night. She said it would be her word against Ned’s. But then she realized the seriousness of what he’d done and that if she hadn’t grabbed the knife, it could have ended in rape, so we went straight to the police station, and she reported it.”

“I’m glad she did,” I said fiercely. “He can’t be allowed to get away with it.”

“I can’t tell you how worried I was when I got your message saying you were on your way to Las Vegas, because I guessed you were with Ned. He hasn’t tried anything, has he, made you do anything you were uncomfortable with?”

I swallowed hard. Uncomfortable with. The words echoed in my head. I couldn’t tell Carolyn about the marriage, not now, not like this. “No, nothing at all. I’m so sorry you’ve been worried. I would have told you I was going, but it was a last-minute thing, he said he needed to go to Las Vegas on urgent business and asked if I’d like to go with him. If I’d known about Justine, I’d never have agreed.”

“Vicky said she’d let Ned know that I was trying to contact you and ever since, I’ve been waiting for you to call. I couldn’t get ahold of Lina either, and Justine hasn’t been answering her phone since I took her home. It’s such a mess, Amelie!” Her voice broke and shame flooded through me. “I needed to find you, make sure you were alright, so I started phoning all the hotels in Las Vegas.”

“Carolyn, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you’d been trying to contact me, Ned didn’t tell me. Maybe Vicky didn’t tell him.”

“Even if she had, he probably wouldn’t have passed the message on in case I told you about his assault on Justine,” Carolyn said, her voice heavy with disgust.

“This is awful.” I was shaking so much I could barely hold the phone. “I don’t know what to do, I don’t even want to see him.”

“Just come home, but don’t tell him that you know what he did, it’s better if you don’t say anything for now. I’ll keep trying to find Justine. She’s not at her apartment, I’ve been over.”

“Maybe she’s with Lina,” I said. “Maybe Lina has taken her away for a few days, you know, for a change of scene.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell myself. But why aren’t either of them answering their phones?”

My eyes flicked to the clock on the bedside table. “I’m going to have to go, Carolyn, I’m meeting Ned downstairs in the lobby in ten minutes. When you get ahold of Justine, please tell her I’m sorry and give her my love.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT


PRESENT

Something wakes me, the sound of the door closing. I sit up and something falls from my shoulders. My blanket. It’s back.

I stretch out my hand and find a tray. The last four had been left inside the door. Does this mean that my punishment is finally over? My spirits lift. I wish I hadn’t been asleep when the tray was brought. I’ve missed my captor, missed his presence.

Maybe it’s because my punishment appears to be over, and I no longer need to obsess about lack of food or human contact, my mind keeps returning to the past. So far, I’ve managed to bury the absolute horror of the few days before Ned and I were kidnapped somewhere deep inside me, terrified that if I gave in to it, grief would make me lose my mind. But now their faces—Justine, Lina, Hunter—loom in the darkness. Please, not now. Don’t let me break now.

I do everything I can to block them out. I pace the room, counting furiously in an attempt to focus my mind on something other than those memories. When that doesn’t work, I lie under my blanket, my eyes shut tight, my fingers in my ears, not wanting to see, not wanting to hear. But nothing works, and sobs rack my body. Aware of Ned being able to hear me, I jam my hand into my mouth so that no sound escapes.

By the time my captor brings my evening tray, despair and loneliness have morphed into a burning resentment.

“Do you even see me?” I spit. “I mean, do you see me—Amelie? Or do you see some poor stupid girl, some poor, stupid, collateral-damage girl? Because that’s not who I am. And I want you to know that. And now that I’ve told you, you can leave. Go back to your worthless life working for violent men who seek to extort money by imprisoning women. I hope you feel good about yourself.”

He has already moved away, and I can’t bear that my words have left him unmoved. Groping for the tray, I pick it up, knocking everything off it, and aim blindly for his departing back. I hear a thud, then a grunt.

“Got you!” I yell.

The door slams shut, and I burst into fresh tears.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


PAST

In the hotel room, I dressed quickly, struggling to process what Carolyn had just told me. I couldn’t believe that the man I’d spent six days with—the man I’d just married—could have done something so terrible. But Justine wouldn’t have made it up.