Chapter 17 Daphne
17 Daphne
It always starts the same.
I’m running down the stairs to the basement, trying to avoid being caught up past my bedtime. I head into the pantry in the prep kitchen on a mission to find my favorite late-night snack, Manzanilla olives with crushed peppercorn and seasalt crisps.
I drag over a footstool, feeling unusually short, and reach up to retrieve the jar. Once I have it secured I make for the crisps but as I grab them with my left hand, the olives in my right, I am abruptly stopped by a loud thud echoing through the prep room.
Clasping the jar to my chest, I wait in anticipation for the owner of those footsteps to find me.
When a few moments pass, with my chest still heaving, I hear another thud, harder yet further away this time. Jumping off the stool I set the olives down on the counter and go to hide behind the door. I don’t know how long I stay there, but once it sounds like the coast is clear I slowly open the door and make my way to the stairs. The renovation team was here earlier in the day, I think, maybe it was some of their tools that fell, causing the thuds?
Before I can reach the stairs I hear a soft muffled whimper coming from the soon-to-be swimming room. With the curiosity and confidence of the character that dies first in a horror movie, I move closer to the sound and stop when I see a bound man on his knees, blood dripping from his face and neck, his bare arms bruised and bleeding.
‘Interesting how such a strong, proud man can end up in such precarious positions,’ I hear a female voice say as she walks towards him. With the lighting so dim and her back turned to me I can’t make out any of her features, but I notice something metal in her left hand, glinting in the moonlight seeping in from the lightwell in the hallway.
‘Look at you,’ she says, disdain dripping from her voice. She uses the metal object to tip up his chin as he continues to sniffle. ‘You poor, disgusting, disgrace of a man.’ She smashes the metal across his face, causing him to fall sideways.
A silent gasp pours out of my mouth.
It’s a gun.
She has a gun.
A person has a gun in my basement and is torturing someone.
‘Malcolm, we were supposed to do this together, you and me.’ Her voice is shockingly sincere as she drops to her haunches. ‘You weren’t supposed to be the wild card. You were supposed to be the person I could depend on. But now, just because you’re scared, you want to throw in the towel? Unfortunately for you, darling, that’s not an option. I’m going to give you one last chance to tell me the truth. What did you find?’
From where I’m standing I can’t see the expression on his face, but I hear the determination in his voice. ‘I’m not going to tell you anything. Not any more. So, do your worst.’
‘Malcolm,’ the woman whines, ‘please don’t tell me this is all because of the child.’
A child? What child? And who in the world is Malcolm?
‘No, it’s not. I’m just choosing to do the right thing for once in my life.’
‘That’s admirable, it really is. But it’s also rather disappointing, Malcolm, and frankly, rather embarrassing,’ she says, mock pity soaking her voice. She gently runs her free hand over his bloody and now swollen face, before releasing a laboured sigh, striking him with the same hand she soothed him with. ‘Well.’ She perks up. ‘I don’t need to remind you what happens to disappointments, do I?’ I can practically hear the smile in her voice. She stands up and sets the gun down, out of Malcolm’s reach, before she retrieves a knife from her back pocket, twirling it haphazardly in her hands.
Bending back down, she repositions Malcolm so he’s kneeling upright.
I shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t see this.
I turn to leave but stop when I hear a gasp. I look back, only to find Malcolm staring right at me as the woman plunges the knife into his chest. He drops lifelessly to the floor, eyes still open.
All I can hear is white noise as I stumble over my feet on my way up the stairs. I don’t stop running until I’m up the next flight of stairs and safely in my bed.
I’ve barely caught my breath when I hear footsteps climbing the stairs. They come closer and closer and don’t stop until they’re at my bedroom door.
I bury my head into the pillow, shaking violently as the door opens and the footsteps enter the room.
‘Daphne?’
My eyes burst open at the sound of a loud knock. I look around and realize I’m lying on top of my bed, still wearing the mismatched clothes from our eventful shopping trip. My bedroom door creaks open and my father walks in tentatively, smiling gently when he sees that I’m awake.
‘Hi, darling, I just came to check on you.’ He comes to sit on the end of my bed, still hesitant.
‘Hi, Daddy,’ I whisper as I start to adjust.
It was just a nightmare. It wasn’t real. Sitting up in my bed I look over to him. ‘How did I get upstairs?’
‘Well, Henry was driving around aimlessly after he came to get you and Milosh, just to make sure there was no one following you, and you ended up falling asleep in the car. Milosh carried you up and you’ve been asleep for about,’ he breaks to look at his watch, ‘six hours.’
Six hours? Milosh carried me upstairs?
I look at the clock beside me, shocked to see it reads 8:40 p.m. I think back to the car journey and I honestly can’t remember a thing.
Huh.
Milosh carried me upstairs.
My mind involuntarily takes me back to the feel of his strong, warm arms wrapped around me when we kissed, noting that those same strong warm arms carried a very unconscious me out of the car, through the house, up the stairs and to my bed, all without waking me.
Forget about how cleverly he got us out of the shopping centre, that was the really impressive feat.
‘Daphne, I’m so sorry.’ Daddy sighs, bursting my thought bubble.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I told you to go. I told you to go shopping, and now look. You nearly got attacked – kidnapped even. If anything happened to you, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself—’
‘But it didn’t,’ I interrupt, moving down my bed to place my hand over his. He looks at me in shock, probably because this is the first time I’ve got remotely close to him in weeks. ‘Other than my favourite dress and a few new pieces still being at the mall, nothing happened, Daddy. Milosh got us out and away from there before anything could.’
‘Yes, but it could’ve, Daph. That’s the point. I wasn’t thinking properly when I suggested you go. Milosh warned against it, but did I listen? No.’
‘Stop trying to blame yourself,’ I demand. ‘Realistically, I was gonna go shopping whether you endorsed it or not, so it’s really not your fault at all. And if you think about it, you’re the one who hired Milosh. So technically you saved me with your forward thinking.’ I shrug.
I watch him as he looks down at his hands, shaking his head.
‘Daddy.’ I pause, considering whether I really want to ask this question. We’ve just got to an okay place, do I really want to cause another argument due to how cagey my father is whenever I ask him a question?
‘Yes, darling?’ he prompts when I don’t continue.
Just rip off the Band-Aid, Daphne. ‘Why is this happening?’ I ask, looking at him cautiously for a response. When I don’t get one, all my unfiltered thoughts start seeping out. ‘I mean, it just doesn’t make sense. These people break into the offices and labs of you and your co-workers, but to my knowledge only break into our house. Then they rifle through your study but end up trying to strangle me. Then I innocently go shopping, and someone tries to kidnap me. What do they want with me? I don’t even know who they are.’
My father looks at me blankly for a moment, so blankly that I start to think he wasn’t even listening, until life starts flooding back into his face. Holding so much emotional intensity it almost startles me.
He starts to shake his head slowly, once again refusing eye contact. ‘Daphne, I—’
‘Please,’ I interrupt him, ‘please just tell me the truth. And please don’t get angry at me for asking these questions. I have the right to know what’s going on, especially seeing as I seem to be the one who’s been the most affected.’
‘No, you’re right, you deserve the truth.’ After a short exhale, as if to brace himself for the story he’s about to tell, he begins. ‘These people are after our money.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘At work, people had been getting these notes, rather threatening notes, demanding money or someone they love will get hurt, but none of us listened. When you’re in a certain tax bracket you get used to the empty threats that always seem to come across your desk. But these threats were anything but empty. There’s an organization called Daveeno that has a weird Robin Hood complex where they want to steal from the rich but give only to themselves. These are the people who ransacked my work office and broke into our house. When I didn’t give them what they wanted they chose to take things into their own hands and scare me into submission. But no more. I’ve been talking to the police and they’ve been building a case against them for a while now. We just have to sit tight and wait for the police to do their job, but in the meantime Henry and I have hired some more men to protect the house. I’m sorry, but as of right now you can’t leave the house. You’re able to go to the charity gala in a few weeks, because it will have heavy security anyway. But other than that, nothing. Just until this is resolved.’
‘Okay, thank you for sharing that with me. I really do appreciate it.’ He offers me a small smile before lifting himself off my bed, preparing to leave.
‘Really, Daddy.’ I get up off my bed and walk round it so I’m standing right in front of him. ‘Thank you for your honesty.’ I wrap my arms around his waist and we share our first hug in weeks.
I like that we’re okay now.
I hate arguing with my father, but if he’s actually embracing the whole honesty thing I know that we can work through all of this.
I let go of him and he walks towards the door in silence, pausing as his hand goes to turn the knob. ‘Daphne, everything I do, have done and will do, is for you. I love you, darling, and no matter what happens that will never change.’ He leaves swiftly without giving me a chance to respond, the door closing with a soft thud behind him.
I walk into my dressing room and pull open the drawer containing my mother’s things. ‘Gosh, I wish you were here,’ I whisper as I reach down to retrieve her necklace. ‘You’d know what to do.’
I drape the necklace around my neck, securing the clasp, before I go and pick out a swimming costume.
After today, and the news that my father just told me, I need to be anywhere but in my own head, and swimming has always seemed to help with that. You would think that I’d hate swimming given what happened to my mother, but the first and probably best thing my father did after she drowned was force me into swimming lessons to strengthen my technique and ability.
I hated it at first, not understanding why I had to do it, but I truly believe if he hadn’t done that I would’ve grown up with a fear of water.
But I love it. It’s so freeing and relaxing and oddly helps me feel closer to my mother.
I know she wouldn’t have wanted me to grow up fearing the thing she loved the most, so I choose to enjoy it. For her.
I pull on a white swimming costume, shrugging on my pink silk robe over the top to hide the necklace, and make my way to the basement. My father rarely uses the pool so I know he won’t be there to see the locket.
‘Hi, Daph,’ Amelia says when I walk into the kitchen to pick up some blueberries and water to take downstairs with me. I look over to the end of the kitchen where Amelia and Henry are sat in the breakfast nook, eating their dinner. ‘I didn’t know you were awake. Would you like some dinner? I think Josh left you a plate.’
‘I’m good for now, but thank you for offering,’ I respond, retrieving the berries from the fridge and heading for a bowl.
‘How are you feeling, sweetie?’ Henry asks.
‘I’m fine, Henry,’ I say sincerely, turning around to give them my full attention. ‘Thank you for coming to get us today. I really appreciate it.’
‘Daph, part of my job is to ensure your safety. You were in danger, so I did my part. Milosh did all of the heavy lifting.’
Yeah, I can’t disagree with him there. Without Milosh I definitely wouldn’t have made it back home.
‘Hey, random question,’ Henry starts, a sly smile emerging on his lips. ‘How did he get you out of that changing room? I know that you went in there to change your clothes but wasn’t one of those guys hot on your heels? How did you get out? I wasn’t fully listening in the car.’
‘Oh.’ I clear my throat, the memory of what happened in that changing room flooding back to me all at once. ‘Um, well, w-we just distracted him and then left.’
I return my focus to the blueberries and start picking out the nice-looking ones to put into my bowl.
‘And how did you distract him, again?’ Amelia asks innocently enough, but I know if I look up right now I’ll see an irksome smirk on her face, and another on Henry’s.
‘We just did.’ I shrug, still keeping my eyes glued to the blueberries as if they’re the most fascinating fruit in existence.
‘Okay,’ Henry probes, ‘but paint us a picture, I want to feel as if I was there.’
No, you really do not.
‘We pretended we were a couple to make the guy feel uncomfortable so he would leave without properly looking at our faces.’ I blurt. They’re going to hear the story anyway, so I might as well tell them now.
‘Huh,’ Henry says and I can practically hear the smile in his voice as I make my way over to the sink to give the blueberries a rinse. ‘And how exactly did you pretend you were in a relationship, Daph?’
I finally look over to face them and I’ve never seen anyone more fascinated. They’ve both got the most ridiculous grins on their faces while still trying to feign innocence.
‘We just did, okay?’
‘Daph,’ Amelia says, dragging out my name, ‘did you kiss Milosh?’
I don’t even know what to call what we did. Yes, technically it would be classed as kissing, but it felt like so much more.
It felt deeper, more meaningful and intimate.
Even though it was fake, it felt anything but.
When I don’t reply, Amelia lets out a small, satisfied giggle. ‘I’ll take that back rub now, along with my thirty pounds.’ I look over at them to see Henry shaking his head and reaching for his wallet while Amelia gloats.
‘You two bet on me?’
‘No, we bet on you and Milosh,’ Amelia corrects.
‘That’s literally the same thing,’ I deadpan. ‘What was the bet?’
‘Meels was certain that you two would get together within two months, whereas I said it would take three,’ Henry explains.
‘Milosh and I are not together, we just had to play a role to stay safe.’ I sigh.
‘Okay, well, let me ask you this,’ Amelia says. ‘Did you enjoy it?’
I look down at my berries, wishing I was anywhere else but here. ‘It was an act. There was nothing to enjoy.’
Lie.
‘Oh, come on, Daph. You really expect us to believe that?’ Henry quips. ‘He’s a good-looking guy, and you’re a good-looking girl. You two have more chemistry than me and Amelia, and I honestly didn’t even think that was possible.’
‘It’s not,’ I confirm. ‘And we don’t. We were simply trying to get out of a precarious situation, which just so happened to result in a small kiss. That’s all. Nothing else to it. So, Meelie, you can give Henry his money back and end this bet because it’s not going to happen.’
Who in the world am I trying to kid?
Them? Because that sure isn’t working.
Me? That sure isn’t working either.
I’ve had very limited kissing experience in my life but that one definitely topped them all. Whether it was under duress or not.
‘You heard the woman, give me back my money,’ Henry teases as I start to head out of the kitchen.
‘Sorry, Hen, no can do,’ Amelia answers, sliding the money into her back pocket before standing up with their finished dinner plates in hand.
‘Well, if you’re not gonna give it, I’m just gonna have to come over there and take it from you.’ He stands up slowly and stalks over to her, giving her enough time to put the plates down before he picks her up, earning a squeal from her and a faster walking pace from me.
The situation between Milosh and me is clearly forgotten as soon as he gets his hands on her, but that’s absolutely fine with me.
If they’d probed me about that kiss once more I might’ve blurted out how it really felt.
And we can’t have that.
Honestly, I don’t even know how I feel about it, only that I want to do it again.