The Night They Vanished, page 27
Bizarrely, it actually makes me feel better knowing he basically broke into our house to sneak around on the computer. Because it means not everything is my fault.
“Where are you?” It comes out as a whisper.
There’s a pause before he answers. “I’m outside.”
I take a shaky breath.
“Meet me at the harbor.”
“No. No, I won’t. I…”
“You will if you don’t want me to lose my temper and take it out on Hanna. On your mother.”
My throat closes up as he ends the call. Of course, I could call his bluff and just run back upstairs, lock my door, and hide… but he’s here. He’s outside. And if I don’t go and meet him… I don’t know him. I thought I did but I don’t. I don’t know what he’ll do to Hanna if I don’t go out there now.
I hand the phone back to the receptionist, apologizing again about the computer before asking if I can borrow a pen and paper. I scribble a note, addressing it to Mum, telling her I’ve gone for a walk. I hesitate, then write down the time and that I’d be back within the hour. I hesitate again. I want to write something about Ethan, but… if I write that I’m meeting him in this note and Dad reads it before I get back and calls the police, that would make Ethan really mad. Mad at them as well as mad at me and Hanna.
No. I’ll leave it like that. The fact that I’ve left will be enough of an alert.
Just in case.
Ethan has his back to me, leaning on the harbor wall, looking out to sea. I glance back toward the hotel, wondering if we can be seen, but the road twists enough that we can’t be spotted from any of the windows.
I go to stand next to him and he turns to look at me. He doesn’t even seem to notice my hair or the crap makeup. “I should have seen it,” he says.
“Seen what?” I ask, but he shakes his head.
“Not here,” he says. “We can’t talk here.” He takes my arm and pulls me toward a van parked on the side of the road.
“No way,” I say, trying to pull away from him. “I’m not getting in a car with you.”
“Don’t be stupid,” he says as the van’s driver door opens, and Owen King gets out.
The panic proper kicks in then and I go to scream, but Ethan has his hand over my mouth, and he shoves me into the back of the van, climbing in after me as Owen slams the doors shut.
“Calm the fuck down,” Ethan mutters as the van starts moving.
Calm down? Calm down? My breath is coming out in gasps, I’m shaking and crying, and I think I’m going to wet myself, I really, really do.
“No one’s going to hurt you. It got… it got out of hand, that’s all. I thought I was doing Owen a favor—he gave me a job, I do a bit of computer work, check up on some old acquaintances.” He stares at me. “And then you told me Hanna was your mother…” He stops and shakes his head.
“It wasn’t ever about you, but then you told me, and I was so angry… so fucking angry… and that stupid Katie Bentley constantly harassing me, blaming me for a stupid accident…” He pauses, takes a deep breath. “I tried to tell her it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t. Gemma set me up, got me sent to prison, when I didn’t know what I was doing—it was her. I thought I was helping her, I didn’t know she was using me to siphon off funds… and Owen… he said he’d talk to her. Get her to confess so I’d be exonerated, be able to get my life back—some compensation for wrongful conviction, even. But he found her out running, and he tried to talk to her… It was a bloody accident, that’s all.” He stops again. “I had to keep it quiet, but then her sister was ranting at me. Blaming me. Threatening to get me sent down again for something else I didn’t do.”
I’ve no idea what he’s talking about. Who is it about if not me?
Hanna, of course. Whatever the hell is going on, it’s about Hanna and the boy in the photograph.
“Who is he—the boy in the photograph? Is it Owen’s friend? The one who died? Is he… is he my father?”
Ethan doesn’t answer for a long time.
“His name was Jacob. And yes, he was your father. He was also my brother.”
Chapter 41
HANNA—Tuesday 6 p.m.
DC Norton tells me what to say. I leave three separate messages, one each on Sasha, Jen, and Dad’s phone, all saying the same thing: This is a message for Ethan. The police know who you are. Please call me and we can talk. Please call me and let me know my family is safe. I’m careful not to let slip that I know who he is—who he really is. I’m frustrated leaving these begging messages when I want to be actually doing something, but DC Norton believes the temptation to speak to me, now that we know one hundred percent all of this is aimed at me and why, will get him to open communications. And if he calls me, we can try to trace that call, or get him to give something away to help us find him.
I’m sitting in the corridor with Adam, staring down at my phone and willing it to ring, when Dee and Seb come out of one of the rooms. I stand up and Dee comes over and hugs me.
“God, I’m so sorry. The police said they think he’s been hanging around us.” She shudders and steps back. She looks freaked out and even Seb looks shaken. Bad enough when some anonymous stranger was doing this, but knowing he’s been watching us, maybe for months… That’s what the police said. He got out of prison in October. Gemma Bentley was killed in a hit-and-run two minutes from my flat in November. Was I next on his list?
“It’s Jacob’s brother,” I say in a low voice to Dee. I look over toward Adam, but he and Seb are talking and not listening to us, so I draw Dee further away. “Ethan,” I say. “The guy that’s doing this, he’s Jacob’s brother.”
Dee visibly pales. “Shit. The officer that was talking to us, he wanted to know about Owen, and he showed us photos, wanting to know if we recognized this guy… He kept asking questions. We didn’t know, couldn’t even remember… but then, after we’d gone through every possible social event he could have been at in the last couple of months since he was released from prison, we figured it out. Or Seb did, anyway.”
“It was Liam.”
I jump. I hadn’t heard Seb coming up behind me until he spoke. I turn to look at him. “What was Liam?”
“It was Liam who brought him in. Right before you two split up… or it could have been just after. It was some time just before or over Christmas, anyway. There was that weird night me and Dee were out, and Liam came over with a couple of other guys and started chatting like nothing had happened.” He stops and looks at Dee. “I think it was then. I think that was the night. Do you remember? Between Christmas and New Year? They all just joined our table.”
“Oh God, you’re right,” Dee says. “I don’t specifically remember this Ethan, because I was too focused on wanting to escape from Liam the loser,” Dee says. “The police think that’s how he got into your flat, that connection with Liam. You didn’t leave the door open—either Liam gave him the key or he stole it from him.”
I remember the shock on Liam’s face when he saw the state of my flat after the break-in. And how pale he went when I told him about those two women who were murdered and how adamant he was that he gave me my key back…
I don’t think Ethan stole the key. I think Liam gave it to him for some reason, probably petty revenge for what he believes I did, and that’s why he is panicking so much about those visits from the police. He probably thought Ethan was just… Actually, what the fuck was he thinking? He gave a stranger a key to my flat—what did he think he wanted it for? Oh, that absolute shit. I turn away from the sympathy on all their faces. This must be how he found out about Adam’s website. Liam gave him a way into my life, into Dee, Seb, and Adam’s lives, and with his computer background… he must have seen it as the perfect way to mess with me.
“But why go after my family? If he knew where I was—if he knew where I lived—why not just come after me?”
“I think…” Dee pauses.
“Just say it, Dee.”
“He thinks you took his family away from him. I think he’s doing the same to you.”
“I need some fresh air,” I say, but as I get up to leave, my phone rings—and it’s my dad’s number that flashes up on the screen. I suck in a breath and stare at Dee. Adam rushes off, calling for DC Norton as I pick the phone up. Will it be him? Ethan?
I answer with a wobbly hello.
“Hanna?”
Oh God. Oh, thank God—it’s my dad.
“Dad? Where are you? Where have you been? I’ve been so worried, I—”
“Yes. I just got your message. We’re away and my phone’s been off for a few days.” There’s a pause. “I don’t understand. Why are the police involved? Why are you leaving messages for Ethan on my phone? Is that Ethan Taylor? The man working for Owen—for us?”
He sounds rattled. I frown. “There’s been some stuff going on…” I look up as Adam and DC Norton come running toward us and put the phone on speaker so they can hear. “This guy, this Ethan… we think he’s dangerous. And when no one could find you… But it’s okay. You’re safe. You need to tell us where you are; we’ll get the police to come and get you. Keep Jen and Sasha close and—”
“Hanna,” Dad interrupts me.
“What?”
“Sasha went out. There was an… argument. She told us about Ethan—she said they’ve been friends. That he gave her a phone and that they’ve been meeting up. We… I sent her to her room. Jen and I went to dinner. I thought I’d check for messages while we were waiting. When we went back up, Sasha wasn’t in her room. She left a note saying she was going out for a walk…”
DC Norton comes striding over. He takes the phone off speaker and starts asking Dad questions—what the argument was about, what time they went down to dinner, how long they were gone. The moment he comes off the line, he’s calling out orders, beckoning me to follow him out of the station.
“They’re only half an hour away. I’ve got local officers heading straight to the scene—to make sure your parents are safe, to see if we can find Sasha. It’s possible she’s just sneaked out after a family argument.”
“Possible, but you don’t think so,” I say.
He doesn’t answer that. “Let’s just get there as soon as possible.”
“Wait!” We both turn to face Adam as he comes running down the steps after us. “Hanna, I…”
DC Norton stares at him. “We have to go, Mr. Webster.”
Adam nods and steps back. “I’ll follow you,” he calls as I climb in the back of the police car. “I’ll bring Dee and Seb.”
By the time we get to the hotel my family is staying in, DC Norton has been able to get a rough time when Sasha left the hotel, and that she left alone. The receptionist, when he repeats the questions in person, tells us about a girl I wouldn’t have recognized from her description, a girl with punky hair and too much eyeliner, who wrecked the hotel computer before taking a phone call and leaving the hotel. Her note said she’d be back in an hour, but there’s been no sign of her in the town or on the beach since and that hour deadline has long gone.
Adam, Dee, and Seb arrive as DC Norton is questioning the receptionist. He frowns but doesn’t say anything. In fact, he hesitates as he’s leading me to where Dad and Jen are and beckons to Adam. “You come as well, Mr. Webster, in case we need to ask more about your website.”
Dad and Jen are waiting for us in the office behind reception. Jen looks as if she’s been crying, but Dad doesn’t. He jumps up the moment I walk in and he looks, if anything, furious.
“Mr. Carter? DC Norton.” The detective holds out a hand to shake, but Dad ignores him, keeping that angry face aimed in my direction.
“What on earth is going on? What have you done, Hanna?”
I recoil. “What have I done? Jesus fucking Christ—what have I done?” I have to stop, take a deep breath, because otherwise I think I might launch myself at my father and try to beat the crap out of him.
“Ethan,” I say through gritted teeth, “is Jacob’s brother. Jacob Saunders.”
I see the name register, watch his face go pale, then flood with color. Oh, yes, he knows that name. Didn’t he ever check? Before he hired an ex-offender to work on the site, so close to his wife and daughter—didn’t he do any bloody background checks? Adam and DC Norton are standing to my right. DC Norton looks solemn, Adam just looks confused.
“Sasha isn’t my sister,” I say to him. Words I meant to say after we spent the night together, but never got the chance.
“What?”
“She’s my daughter.”
His turn to take a deep breath. He opens his mouth as though to speak, but then stops, closes it, and shakes his head before trying again. “And Jacob? I’m guessing he was—”
“Sasha’s father, yes.”
“I don’t… I don’t understand. I researched it, the history of his house, his family… I read that he was arrested, before he died, and people told me that…”
“What? That it was my fault? He committed suicide. I didn’t do anything. I was fifteen, for God’s sake. He was my boyfriend and I loved him, I really did. But I got pregnant and it all… it all went so wrong.”
Oh, that moment. That awful moment when I sat in the toilets in school with a positive pregnancy test clutched in my hand. Every stupid thing I thought was so important—the parties, the drinking, the freedom, Jacob—all shrank to insignificance when faced with that brutal reality check.
“He was arrested for sexual activity with a child,” DC Norton says.
“I didn’t get him arrested. It wasn’t me,” I whisper, looking up to meet Adam’s eyes. I want him to see the truth there. I want him to believe me. “I would never have—”
“No, she didn’t.” It’s Dad who speaks up and I freeze. No, don’t, I want to scream, but Dad’s still talking.
“Hanna was fifteen. She was underage and legally unable to consent. Jacob had just turned eighteen—a legal adult. I had him arrested for rape.”
And there it is, the dirty truth, out there at last.
I thought Dad would help me. When I found out I was pregnant, I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. Instead of going to Jacob, I went to Dad. I thought, despite the nightmare of our relationship the last year, I thought he’d help me over this. I didn’t want a baby. I was fifteen, for God’s sake. Of course I didn’t want a baby. And I thought Dad, with his strict codes of always needing to appear in a positive light, I thought he’d quietly organize an abortion and make all this go away.
Stupid, stupid fifteen-year-old Hanna thought it would be that easy, thought having an abortion would be a nothing moment I could get past and then carry on as before.
But that’s not what happened.
I told Dad and Dad called the police.
I was essentially locked in the house, not allowed to contact Jacob.
Dad told no one I was pregnant, but made it known throughout the damned county why Jacob had been arrested.
Oh, the scandal, in such a small town… Didn’t matter that eventually the charges were dropped. It was too late then; the damage was done. Not just to Jacob, but to his whole family. And to Reverend Garner, who spoke up in Jacob’s defense because he knew him, he knew us. And then, after the charges were dropped and Jacob committed suicide… the blame turned to me. The gossip started, spread by his friends and family, that I was a liar, that I’d lied about everything.
“I was wrong,” Dad says, and I take a deep breath and hold it. Those are words I thought I’d never hear my father say.
“I was wrong,” he continues. “I should not have interfered. I should have let Hanna deal with her own mess. And I said as much to Sasha.”
I recoil. Oh. Oh.
“Is that what you told her?” I ask.
He doesn’t answer.
“She came to you for help and you told her to sort it out herself?”
“Daniel—you didn’t…?” Jen finally stirs and I want to turn and scream at her. Where the hell was she when this was going on? Oh, let me guess, doing fuck all, exactly as she always did.
Dad glances at her. “You know my feelings, Jen. I told you after the fiasco with Hanna we should have left her to deal with it. Children have to learn to take responsibility—but oh no, you insisted that if we nurture Sasha, protect her, everything would be fine. And look where we’ve ended up.”
“No,” Jen interrupts. “I won’t listen to that… that nonsense anymore. Sasha is fourteen. Hanna was fifteen—she was your responsibility. She was a child. You were the adult. You were the responsible parent. Yes, you were wrong. But you were wrong in what you did. Because it was all about punishment. It wasn’t about helping your daughter and it should have been.”
“Jennifer—”
“I’ve always believed that, but I’ve never said it, because Hanna was your child, not mine. I didn’t believe it was my place to criticize. But now you’ve repeated the same mistake with Sasha and she’s missing. You’re the one who needs to take responsibility. This is down to you.”
“It is not. Did I force Sasha to disobey all the rules? Did I force Hanna to sneak out, to skip school, to drink and take drugs? To have an underage relationship?”
“Stop it, Daniel. Stop it now. I have kept quiet over many things in our marriage, but I swear to you now—if anything happens to Sasha, I will never forgive you.”
Chapter 42
Tuesday 7:30 p.m.
I walk across the road and lean against the sea wall. DC Norton had stopped Dad and Jen arguing before it turned into a full-blown fight, getting back to asking them about Sasha, but I had to get out of that room, had to get away from my father and Jen. I’m not surprised when Adam follows me out. I don’t know how to feel. I was glad Dee and Seb weren’t still waiting in reception. I don’t know where they’ve gone, but I don’t think I could stand sympathy or pity at the moment. Adam is easier to be around. He doesn’t seem to mind just standing in silence while I take great gulps of sea air.
