The Prisoner(39)

I carry on; underneath the 19, I scratch a 20, then next to it, the number 524,288. I’m about to double it when I realize that I’ve already reached the half-million mark.

I sit down on the toilet seat, frowning at the door. I must have made a mistake, it’s not possible that by the next day, day twenty-one, the total will already be more than a million. I go back over everything, from day one, and arrive at the same figure. A thrill of excitement takes hold. I carry on calculating.

21—1,048,576

22—2,097,152

23—4,194,304

24—8,388,608

I stand back, staring in disbelief at the number I’ve just scratched on the back of the door. If Jethro Hawthorpe pays the ransom tomorrow, on day twenty-four of our kidnapping, he will have to pay our abductors over eight million pounds.

My fingers are sore from the effort of scratching legible numbers with a nail, but I push on. Twice the light goes off, twice I reset it.

25—16,777,216

26—33,554,432

27—67,108,864

28—134,217,728

29—268,435,456

30—536,870,912

My body trembles as I make the last calculation.

31—1,073,741,824

My breath catches. Day thirty-one: over one billion pounds.





CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR


PAST

I was in the sitting room, reading a book, when I heard Ned’s car in the driveway. Jumping from the sofa, I ran to the window and saw him sitting up front next to Hunter.

It was the first time Ned had left the house since we’d come back from Vegas. Seizing my chance, I ran out to the garden, then around the side of the house, my bare feet stinging as I reached the driveway. But the gate had already closed. I hurried to it, trying to find a way to climb up the smooth steel. But it was impossible to get traction.

“Carolyn!” I shouted.

There was no reply. Even the press seemed to have gone, despite Ned’s insistence that they were camped outside. Another of his lies.

I tried again. “Help! Can somebody help?”

But there was still nothing. I called again and again, moving to different parts of the wall, but nobody came to my rescue. Deflated, I returned to the house.

Every day, I had sat at the top of the stairs, hoping to hear Carolyn at the front door, calling my name, demanding to see me. Maybe she’d tried and Hunter hadn’t let her past the gates. And then there was Hunter himself. In the eight days since I’d been here, he’d never come to check on me. It hurt that I couldn’t explain everything to him. But why would he seek me out if he believed I was happy being married to Ned?

I consoled myself that Carolyn wouldn’t have given up on me. If she had been turned away, it would only reinforce what she already knew, that something was wrong. She would be back, and next time, she would bring Daniel with her, or better still, the police.

I was about to go back to the sitting room when I decided to borrow a book from Ned’s library. I had never asked him if I could, because I wasn’t meant to know he had a library. I went in and began exploring the shelves. There were books on the universe, books on art, books on the history of the world.

I was pushing the moveable wooden stairs along the library floor so that I could reach the books on the higher shelves when I heard the car coming up the driveway. I hurried to the window; they were already back. Panic surged; I needed to leave, get back to my bedroom before Ned caught me here. But before I could move, I saw someone squeezing in through the gates as they closed shut. I recognized her instantly—Lina. My heart leapt; had Carolyn sent her, hoping she would have more influence with Ned?

The car braked to a stop at the front door. Hunter jumped out, pulled Ned’s door open, and without waiting for him to exit the car, he ran down the drive toward Lina. She was shouting something at Ned as he stepped out of the car and Hunter took hold of her arm, preventing her from going any farther.

Ned didn’t bother looking at Lina, he just walked into the house as if she wasn’t standing there, shouting at him. As I watched, Lina shrugged off Hunter’s hand and ran after Ned, her signature red tote bag clutched to her chest, her red high-heeled sandals a splash of color against the gray gravel.

Hunter caught up with her as she reached the front door. He was talking urgently to her, trying to steer her away from the house. But Lina was shouting over him.

“Let me in, Hunter, I want to speak to him!” Unlike Hunter’s, her voice carried all the way through the open front door and down the hallway to the library.

“It’s alright, Hunter, let her in!” I heard Ned call.

I’d been so busy watching the drama unfolding between Lina and Hunter that I’d forgotten I needed to leave the library. But it was too late; Ned was already coming down the hallway. The door was open; if he looked in, he would see me.

I ran to the door, slid myself behind it, my heart hammering in my chest as Lina’s stilettos clattered on the marble floor of the entrance hall. Through the gap between the hinges, I could see Ned approaching the library.

“Hey!” I heard Lina call. “I want to talk to you!”

Ned stopped in his tracks, just feet away from me, then turned slowly, waiting for Lina to catch up with him. He was so agonizingly close that from my hiding place, I could see the flare of anger on his face.

Lina came into view and stopped inches away from Ned, her hands on her hips, her eyes like daggers.