The Night They Vanished, page 30
“Did he tell you about the new article he wrote about you after his last little visit to your home town? The guest post he did, all ready to post on the anniversary of my brother’s death, celebrating the story that started it all?”
I shake my head and glance at Adam. No—he wouldn’t have…
“I never posted it,” Adam says, and I want to sink down to the floor and curl up in a ball. “After Dee set up our date and then I met you properly—I never would have posted it.”
“But you wrote it, didn’t you? You didn’t delete it, either,” Ethan says. “It’s still on your computer. I’ve read it.” Ethan smiles. “But don’t worry, Adam. Hanna can’t exactly claim the moral high ground here. Oh, the things she’s done. All there, so easy to find out. The lies, the cheating, the stealing. Her life’s been like a soap opera—you really should include some of it in your article. It’s a far truer picture than the one you painted, where she’s some poor, innocent schoolgirl caught up in a tragedy.” He pauses. “Actually, maybe the two of you are perfectly suited. Shame I’m not going to let it happen.”
He turns and smiles at Sasha. “Don’t you have anything to say to your daughter, Hanna? The girl you were so desperate to save? The girl who actually hates you because of what you did?”
“Yes,” I say. “I do.” Because it might be my last chance.
“I’m sorry, Sasha. I should have fought harder for you. It’s not an excuse, but I was barely older than you are now. And I was destroyed by everything that happened. And Dad said… he said I wasn’t fit to look after you. That if I tried, I’d be in the care of social services and if I messed up, they’d take you into care. So I agreed to let them keep you, and I left.”
“You could have stayed,” Sasha says and her voice breaks. “You could have been in my life, even if you weren’t the one looking after me day to day.”
“Dad told me to leave. The moment I turned sixteen, he told me to leave. He kicked me out.” It still hurts to remember. To remember how I begged. I begged him to help me, to let me stay. I promised to give up drinking, give up drugs, if he would just help me. It still hurts to remember his rejection.
After Adam told me about his website, I went home and looked up dark tourism, interested enough to find out more. Tourism that involves traveling to places associated with death and suffering, that was what I found. Traveling to places associated with death and suffering. I close my eyes. For me, I don’t need to travel to an actual place to become a dark tourist. My past is a place of death and suffering. I just have to close my eyes and remember.
But my future doesn’t have to be. I open my eyes and look straight at Ethan.
“So, what are you going to do?” I say to him. “Kill us all? Murder Sasha, the only family you have left, just when you’ve found her?”
I hear Sasha gasp, but I ignore it. I want Ethan’s attention focused solely on me. “Or is your plan to kill me and Adam and let Sasha live? You think she’ll want to be related to you after watching you murder us in front of her?”
I sigh and shake my head. “I don’t think you’ve thought at all, have you? Were you thinking when you murdered Katie Bentley? I don’t get it. And you say you didn’t commit the crime that got you sent to prison, that you didn’t run Gemma Bentley down… You could have just got on with your life. Even what you did with Adam’s website—everything you’ve found out, everything you did to mess with me, using Liam… that was clever. Really damned clever. And you could have kept yourself hidden in all that—left it at that. But this—Katie Bentley, kidnapping Sasha, us—all of this—is anything but clever.”
The hand holding the knife moves, and I take a step back. But Ethan just cocks his head and smiles. “I wasn’t planning on killing anyone, just… confronting the one who got me sent down. I wanted her to admit what she’d done. But Owen convinced me it was a bad idea, said he would do it. And the other woman… she was so convinced it was me that ran her sister down, because she knew. She knew her sister set me up. She was so sure I did it out of revenge. But she could hardly tell the police why she was so sure it was me, could she? Not without tarnishing her precious sister’s reputation. Even after the police cleared me and I had an alibi. She wouldn’t leave me alone. She made me so angry.” He looks at Adam and Sasha huddled against the unplastered wall. “Why don’t you two leave? Let me and Hanna talk.”
I want to collapse with relief, but I force myself not to react. Adam starts to protest, but I shake my head at him, pleading in my mind for him to get Sasha to safety. Please, I mouth.
I sag with relief when they leave. Whatever happens to me now, it doesn’t matter. Sasha and Adam are safe.
Chapter 47
SASHA
Adam takes my arm as soon as we’re out of the house, steering me toward the muddy track that leads away from the building site.
“Stop,” I say and turn to look at him. He looks so unlike any of the boys in those old photos of Hanna, so unlike anyone I ever pictured Hanna being with. He looks so… normal. Nice. He looks nice.
“Please, Sasha,” he says. “Let me get you away from here. Let’s get to a phone, call the police…”
“What about Hanna?”
I looked at Ethan as we left and I knew, I knew… He’s going to kill her. He’s going to kill Hanna, my mother or my sister—whatever the hell she is—he’s going to kill her. I can’t let him do that.
“The police will get here too late,” I say. “You heard him—you saw him. He’s going to kill her.”
“It’s okay.” He looks at me and smiles. He has a really nice smile and I wish I could get to know him properly, as Hanna’s boyfriend. He came here with her, into certain danger, doing more than me or Dad have ever done for her.
“I’m going back in,” Adam says. “I’m going in and I’m going to get her out.” He looks at me again. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she’s okay. But I need to make sure you’re safe, that you’re away from here and safe.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. I can’t just run away.”
“This is why Hanna is here—why we’re both here. To make sure you’re safe. Let her do this for you. She needs to. You go—get back to the road. Try to flag someone down or get to a phone.”
My throat goes tight, but I nod and step away from him, watching as he lopes back toward the house. Oh God, I need to get help, or Ethan’s going to kill them both. I start running back toward the road. Which way do I go? I don’t know where we are… I could start running the wrong way, away from help rather than toward it. I get to the edge of the road and stand there wavering, my breath coming in gasps. A flash of light catches my attention and I turn to see headlights approaching on the lane. My heart starts racing and I launch into a sprint, skidding and stumbling down the muddy road. Help is here. Help is here. I can save them both.
It’s not just help, it’s the bloody cavalry. An unmarked police car with a detective in the front, Mum and Dad in the back seat; two proper police cars with flashing lights. I almost die, throwing myself in the path of the unmarked car, but it skids to a halt and just manages to stop before it squashes me. Mum’s out of the car before it even comes to a proper stop, flinging her arms around me and squeezing all the air out of my body.
“Oh, thank God, thank God,” she keeps muttering, and she’s pulling me toward the car.
“Wait,” I gasp. “Help. Ethan’s in there—he’s got Hanna. And Adam. He’s going to kill them.”
They won’t let us go anywhere near the site while the detective in charge coordinates his rescue plan or attack plan or whatever the hell it is they do when there’s a man with a knife hell-bent on killing his hostages. They make me wait in one of the police cars with Mum and Dad, sitting in between them, unable to stop shaking. I hate this. It’s only been minutes, but it feels like hours. Sod that, it feels like years since Ethan sent me and Adam out.
“Don’t worry,” Mum says, squeezing my hand. “They’ll get in there in time. She’ll be fine.”
I burst into tears and bury my head in her shoulder. “This is all my fault. I should never have made friends with Ethan. Never have told him Hanna was my mother. If he kills her, it will be my fault.”
“No—enough,” Dad says. “It is not your fault. You were foolish, yes, but he manipulated you and he did it because of what Hanna did. This is her own fault, all down to—”
“All down to what?” I say, shaking now with anger rather than fear. “I know everything now—I know what you did. I know what you did to Jacob and I know what you did to Hanna. You kicked her out. Is that what you’d do to me if I messed up?”
Mum looks up. “Sasha, no honey, that’s not true. Hanna ran away. She—” Mum stops talking and stares at Dad. “Oh, Daniel, please tell me you didn’t…”
“It was the right thing to do,” Dad says, still so cold. Even now, even with all this happening, still so bloody cold. “She was still drinking, still bringing drugs into my house, even with a baby there.”
“She needed help,” I say, my own voice breaking, “like I needed help, and you threw her out.”
“You told me she chose to leave. When I came home with Sasha that day, you told me Hanna had packed her bags and run away, that it was her decision,” Mum says.
“She would have destroyed us all if she’d stayed,” he says. “This all comes down to Hanna, and the choices she made. I could see the direction she was going in when I made the decisions I did. And everything I did was to protect the family.”
He looks at Mum. “You think it would ever have worked out if she’d stayed? You wanted Sasha as your daughter, not a step-granddaughter. I just made sure that happened.”
“I never, for one second, suggested me wanting to adopt Sasha was at the expense of Hanna,” Mum says.
“You didn’t need to. For heaven’s sake, Jen—I was tired, after sixteen years of struggle with Hanna—sick and tired of it all. And you wanted to start again with another baby. There was no way that was going to happen with Hanna still on the scene.”
I feel sick and Mum looks like she’s going to either cry or punch Dad in the face.
“Get out,” she shouts. “Get out of this car. I’ve let you control and bulldoze me for our entire marriage. But not anymore. I’m not letting you control any part of my life anymore.”
Mum squeezes my hand as Dad gets out of the car, stiff-backed as he marches away toward the other cars. Despite the howling loss I feel and however scared I am, however scared she is, the fact that she finally, finally stood up for me, for Hanna and said no to Dad… that loosens something inside. I look back toward the silent building site.
Now we just have to wait.
Chapter 48
HANNA
Ethan turns to me after they’ve left. “Let’s sit,” he says.
I sink down on to the cold floor.
“I didn’t know to hate you when Jacob died,” he says. “I was too young, and my parents didn’t tell me the details. They didn’t tell me about you or why he was arrested.”
He sounds so calm; it’s difficult to believe he’s already killed one woman. Maybe two, if he’s lying about Owen. Well, it would be difficult to believe if he weren’t still carrying that knife. And I don’t really know how much involvement Owen has had in all this.
“To be honest, he was almost six years older than me. We weren’t close in any way. It was weird when he died, but it was my parents dying that was the real fucker.” There’s a long pause. “Owen came to see me when I was in prison. He was pretty much my only visitor. And he liked to tell a lot of stories about Jacob. And about you.”
I bet he did. I picture the horrible stories—not all of them lies—Owen could have told Ethan.
“I never realized Jacob was struggling mentally,” Ethan says. “Before his arrest, and especially after.”
“I didn’t know either,” I say. “I was fifteen, and troubled enough myself. I thought he was like me, just another angsty teenager. To me, we were Cathy and Heathcliff, tortured, troubled souls, eternally romantic.” I pause and sigh. “When I got pregnant, reality intruded in a big way, and I reverted to what I really was—a frightened kid who ran to her dad for help.”
“That’s not an excuse.”
“I’m not offering it as an excuse. I’m offering it as an explanation. I know what I did—or rather, I know what I didn’t do. I should have insisted on speaking to the police myself, making them know our relationship was consensual. I should have found a way to get out of the house, to go and see Jacob. Maybe if he’d known I was pregnant, he never would have done it. But I didn’t. I was a frightened, selfish kid, too caught up in freaking out over my own situation. I let Jen drag me off to hide out halfway across the country like some shamed unmarried mother from Victorian times, and then I let them take my baby away from me. I’ve regretted it and punished myself for it every day since. You could stab me now and it wouldn’t be more of a punishment than what I’ve done to myself over the years.”
“That was the plan at first,” he says. “Just mess with you a bit. Especially as I got to know Sasha and found myself liking the kid. I didn’t want to mess with her anymore. I just wanted to get you thinking, get you remembering, get you torturing yourself a bit more. You and Adam, especially after I read that article he wrote about Jacob.” Ethan looks at the knife in his hand, then twists around and throws it across to the other side of the room. I feel the faintest fluttering of hope. If I can keep him talking… Sasha and Adam will be racing back to the car, back to the road. But—oh God—Ethan still has the keys. No, it’s okay. They might find someone, another car to flag down even sooner.
“The thing is…” Ethan says, softly, turning back to face me. “The problem is, you’re not punishing yourself anymore, are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe if Owen had come to see me a few years earlier, maybe if I hadn’t been sent down, I would have found you and seen the miserable, tortured woman you tell me you were. Maybe I would have seen that, and it would have been enough.” He pauses. “But now… now I see a woman with friends, a home, a job. A woman on the verge of a new relationship. I see a woman who’s happy. And we can’t have that.” He gets up as he says that and drags me to my feet, fingers biting into my upper arms as he pushes me toward the wall.
“That,” he says, “was the problem with Gemma fucking Bentley. She got me sent down, ruined my fucking life, and there she is, living her best life, while I’m forced to mow fucking lawns while your fucking father lords it over me. Owen did me a favor there, and this is how I’m going to repay it.”
The breath is forced out of me as my head and back slam against the wall, but I don’t get a chance to take another one to fill my lungs, because Ethan has his hands around my neck, squeezing, choking. I try to pull his hands away, but he’s too strong.
There are black spots in front of my eyes and the strength has gone out of my legs, when the pressure around my neck is released and someone hauls Ethan off me, Adam pulls Ethan off me, dragging him away as I sink, gasping and coughing, to the floor.
No, get out. You were out, I saved you, I think—I scream—in my head, no breath to say it out loud. I fight to stay conscious as I lie there, watching Adam and Ethan fight, because I know the knife is over there somewhere, and Ethan knows, but Adam doesn’t, and I see Ethan crawling toward it.
I scream a warning, ignoring the pain in my throat, and I struggle to my feet as Ethan picks up the knife and turns toward Adam, ready to turn this place into another site worthy of The Dark Tourist, making me and Adam today’s tragic Romeo and Juliet.
But no. Not this time. I reach down, pushing tarpaulin and rubbish aside until my hand closes on a piece of wood. Ethan still has his back to me as I grab it and swing it, my whole strength behind it as I smash it into Ethan’s back. He collapses and I stagger over to where Adam lies unmoving on the floor.
I slide back to the ground next to him. Everything is whirling and the world is turning black but finally, finally, I can hear sirens in the distance.
Chapter 49
I wake up in the hospital. My throat feels like someone is still squeezing the life out of me and shoots needle-like jabs of pain into me when I move my head. Dee is huddled in the chair next to the bed and she flies to her feet when she sees my eyes open.
“Don’t try to talk,” she says, reaching above my head for the call button.
I look at her, blinking back tears. I open my mouth because I need to try to ask, but she does her special Dee thing and reads my mind.
“Adam’s alive. He’s going to be okay.” She smiles at me. “Your family is all okay. Sasha is here, outside. Your dad tried to make her go home when he took your stepmother, but she refused to leave.” Her smile dims and dies. “Ethan got away. They’re looking for him now. It’s only a matter of time before they find him.”
“What about Owen?” I whisper it and it still hurts.
She shakes her head. “He claims he had no idea what Ethan was up to. He’s got alibis for all of it—when Gemma Bentley was killed, and her sister, when your flat was broken into. All of it.”
“But Ethan said it was him who did the hit-and-run. He took Sasha, he was the one driving the van and…”
“He claims Sasha went willingly. Or he believed she was willing. He claims he thought he was helping them be together, that Ethan told him they were family, that they wanted to get to know each other and your dad was keeping them apart.”
“That’s bullshit. That’s bollocks.”
She nods. “You know it, I know it—the police know it. But until they catch Ethan, they have little chance of proving it.”
“Sasha is fourteen. She was bloody kidnapped.”
“But she’s told the police that they were friends to start with, her and Ethan. That they were meeting up and messaging. Owen says he doesn’t believe Ethan killed Katie Bentley either. And, Hanna… he’s also claiming Ethan never intended to hurt you, or Adam. That he just arranged to meet you to talk.”
