Chapter 27
Cas
I never wanted to go into the office to cool down; I wanted to be out there with Emmy, no matter what she thought of me. She could have shouted at me till she was blue in the face, but it was the look she gave me that made me stop, the look that said I was just like all the rest, and it cut me so deep I had no choice but to respect her wishes, and so this is why I sit here nursing a beer and feeling sorry for myself.
“She just needs a bit of time to cool off, and once that’s done, you just need to go out there and apologise, and all will be forgiven”
I take a swig of my beer at Vik’s words.
“Since when did you become a relationship expert?”
He smiles at me, and it’s filled with sadness. “Just take it from someone who has been permanently cooled off, but we aren’t here to talk about me and my woes,”
he says, looking at his watch. “Okay, it’s been enough time. Let’s go.”
I stand up and throw my beer in the wastebasket before opening the office door. The club is busy, and the open mic night seems to be a success, with Archie blasting out Bon Jovi while a group of women surround him, screaming for more. I shake my head while laughing and move towards the VIP area when my eye catches sight of the bar, and I see Emmy’s phone next to an empty drink. I pick it up, turn it over, and look around for her, but she’s nowhere to be found. I start to panic.
Birdie comes back behind the bar from collecting glasses and notices my face “Bossman, what’s wrong?”
Vik looks at me, concerned, as I choke out, “Emmy…Birdie, where is she?”
Birdie’s face pales as she looks around; she says, “She was here earlier after your spat, then she went to the toilets, and when she came back, she was sitting right here, but I’ve been working, CJ...”
I held up my hand, not letting her finish. I needed to find her. I check the back office first and burst through the door to find Hayleigh and Nate curled up on the sofa bed. They wake up instantly and look at me with their eyes wide, searching.
I bark out, “Emmy, have you seen her?”
Hayleigh sits up straighter, more alert than ever before. She shakes her head. “No one’s been in here; it’s just us,”
she says and then swears.
I peel out of the room, with both of them following. I check the VIP area, down by Archie and the toilets, but she’s nowhere to be seen. That’s when I remembered her phone was still in my hand, so I opened it up and saw that the last thing she had been looking at was a voice note from an unknown number. My stomach turned sick as I hit play. To my surprise, it’s a recording from months ago between Vik and me when we were discussing how things were going, and I denied what I really felt at the time.
Vik is behind me as he says, “That was the day someone was creeping about in the hallway. Do you remember?”
I nod my head as the realisation hits me. I say, “I think she’s gone home. If someone sent her this, then she probably went home to get away from it.”
Vik is there with my truck keys, and he chucks them to me as I shout over my shoulder, “I’ll call you when I have her.”
But when I get home, I soon realise she isn’t there.
Emmy
Ouch.
My head is pounding, and something is digging into my side. I try to open my eyes, but they’re so heavy.
An arm drapes around me, but the smell isn’t right; it isn’t Cas. I start to struggle and open my eyes, but they’re blurred.
Then the arm clamps tighter around me before a voice hisses in my ear, “Not yet.”
I smell something sweet on the cloth being pressed against my nose, and once again, the darkness envelops me.
Cas
I race back to the club, and when I arrive, I see that everyone has been cleared out, and my brothers all sit around one of the big VIP tables that we have. Vik is pacing, and Hayleigh is quietly crying next to Nate, who holds her in his arms.
My dad sees me first and jumps up, hurrying over to me and hugging me. It catches me off guard, and then I burst into tears. My Mum is there in an instant, and before long, everyone is in on this hug, apart from Birdie behind the bar and Vik, still pacing.
When we break apart, I say to Birdie, “I don’t blame you, and I’m sorry for being short earlier.”
She waves me off. “Don’t sweat it, bossman; we’ll find her.”
I nod in reply, determined that we will.
I look around the bar and send a silent thanks up to whoever is up there in the sky because Emmy took her bag. I turn to Vik, giving him a pointed look, “Emmy’s bag isn’t here, so we have to assume she took it.”
I don’t need to say anything more before he says, “I’m on it,”
and he rushes off into the office.
What I didn’t tell Emmy was that the bag, although it was a thoughtful gift, I also gave it to her for protection in case something happened and she couldn’t take her phone. Earlier today, I had placed a GPS tracking tag in the lining of her bag, something which I know when I get her back, she is going to kill me for possibly.
I quickly fill my family in as they sit and listen to what Vik found and what we suspect Chad did when he was younger. Still, Hayleigh starts to shake her head, “No, Cas, you’re wrong”, I go to reply, but she carries on, “It couldn’t have possibly been Chad; he would have only been 10 at the time, and I know for a fact that during that time he was in the hospital after falling down the stairs, I remember the family telling me about it because it took his mother and father away from home, they had to stay with him and Pete…he…Pete was 15 and would have been home…”
She begins to shake all over. “No, this isn’t right. I’m going to be sick,”
she rushes to the bathroom with Nate on her heels.
My mind reels as I start to put it together, but before I can say anything out loud, Vik shoots out of the office; his skin has a greyish tint to it. He croaks out, “My contact just phoned…the record was unsealed.”
I don’t even need him to finish the sentence before I say the name that drops like a bomb.
“Pete.”
Vik nods. I see Birdie off to the side; her face drains with colour as she looks down at her nails; she looks up. Her eyes meet mine as she slowly says, “I moved Emmy’s cup, and some of her drink got on my nails.”
I walk over to her. As my temper frayed, I said, “Birdie, this isn’t the time for telling me you spilt drinks on yourself.”
She shakes her head, and tears well in her eyes. “No, CJ, you don’t understand. I paint my nails with a specialised gel that can detect date rape drugs”, and just like that, my ears ring, and everything explodes inside of me.
Emmy
My mouth feels like it's filled with cotton, and my whole body aches.
I remember a dream of being carried and laid down on a springy mattress, the broken springs biting into my skin. I must have drunk more than I thought last night.
Last night, Stephanie and that damned recording.
It all comes back to me as I try to sit up. I take in my surroundings; I realise that I’m not home at all; I’m somewhere that Chad once brought me in those early days when he was sweet and kind. It was a quaint little place at the time, an old camp where the wooden lodges had been converted into small living spaces that people could rent.
I sit up and get my bearings as I take in the room. There’s a musky smell to the place, almost damp as if no one has been in here for a while. It’s dark, save for a camping light on a table in the corner of the room, casting a low glow around the place. The bed I’m on is tucked into a corner; a window is behind me, but it looks to be boarded up from the outside. To my right is a kitchenette; next to that is the front door.
My eyes follow the room around, snagging on a lone armchair with its back to me, and I can see the top of someone’s head. They’re just sitting there, not moving, and I look to the kitchen area, wondering if I can make it and grab a weapon before they move. I shift the weight in my body slightly and slide my legs off the edge of the bed; no part of me is tied up, so I can’t imagine whoever it is wanting to hurt me.
Surely they would have tied me up?
I place the pads of my feet on the floor, and the mattress creaks; my head snaps up to look at whoever is in the armchair. Still, they don’t move, and I release a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding. I drop my head and take another breath, and that’s when my eyes catch something glinting under the bed. My bag! Then I remembered that I had left my phone on the bar after listening to the voice note — of Cas and Vik discussing…no, I couldn’t think of that now; I needed to be strong for myself and rescue myself. No matter how much I wanted it to be Cas to come to my rescue.
I am not the same Emmy from earlier this year. I can do this!
Taking another glance at the person sitting in the armchair, I stand and pad silently over to the kitchen area. Opening each drawer, my heart sinks as I realise that every single one is empty. I look wildly around the room, and my gaze snags on a bag in the opposite corner; it seems new and out of place. The only issue is that it sits right in the eye line of whoever is sitting in that chair.
I shake my hands out at my sides, trying to will some courage into myself. Everything is screaming at me to try the front door and not approach the creepy person in the armchair, but what good is getting to the door to find someone on the other side of it, or it being alarmed and with no weapon?
A decision made, I tip-toed my way across the room. When I reach the back of the armchair, my gaze is focused on the bag, not the person sitting in it, but then I notice their arm or, more importantly, the green shirt they are wearing. The same shirt that Chad was wearing earlier tonight, and as I move around the chair, that’s when I notice the tape binding his ankles and wrists; I look up to his face to see the tape across his mouth, the blood trailing down the side of his face from a nasty cut. His eyes are closed, and horror churns in my stomach as I realise we were wrong about him and he wasn’t the stalker.
I try to shake him awake. “Chad! Wake up, please,”
I say. He doesn’t even stir, but I can tell he’s still breathing. He’s just unconscious.
I look behind me to see the bag lying open and find a spare pair of men’s clothing inside; then, my own clothes stare back up at me. I push them aside, and tears well in my eyes; I wipe at them furiously because now isn’t the time to break apart. I stand back up and head towards the kitchen when I hear voices outside, and I freeze.
It sounds like whoever is out there is arguing, and my heart rate picks up as I realise it could be Cas; maybe he found me. Then I hear footsteps climbing the steps outside, and something screams at me to hide. I make it to the bed just in time as I squeeze underneath it. From here, I can see the whole room, including the front door. It swings open and bangs on the wall, and I flinch from the sound as it echoes around the room.
Dark jeans and boots swagger into the room and a memory triggers of seeing the same thing right after I had fallen and hit my head. He walks further into the room and stops, and I imagine he’s looking around.
Then he turns in my direction; I’m frozen in terror as he walks slowly and purposefully to where I’m hiding, and suddenly, being stuck here under the bed isn’t as good an idea as I thought. The boots stop at the bed, and I breathe a sigh of relief when he doesn’t look under, but that relief is short-lived when he grabs the mattress and hauls it up and off the bed.
I’m staring through the slats at the last person I ever imagined it would be…Pete.
His stare is wild, and a cruel smile plays on his lips.
I can’t move; I can’t breathe.
He tosses the mattress to one side as if it’s nothing, and then he lifts the bed. He jerks his head to the side, “Out from under the bed, Emily,”
he says. I obey and scramble out. He lets the bed fall, and I flinch as it crashes to the ground. I turn around to stare at him, and then I see the doors open. But he notices me looking and laughs, “You can try, Emily, but you won’t succeed. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will stop you from leaving. Nod, if you understand”
I nod but don’t say another word.
He walks over to the door, shuts and locks it, putting the key in his pocket. He turns back around and lifts the mattress from the floor, then puts it back on the bed. He nods towards it, and I follow his silent command, sitting down and pushing myself into the corner as far as I can go. He sits on the edge of the bed and looks towards where Chad is. I want to ask him why, but my throat closes up, and then he starts to talk.
“He never deserved you, Emily, always belittling you, cheating on you”
he turns to look at me, and I flinch, “She wasn’t the first he cheated with”
I don’t say a word; I let him carry on, “It was supposed to be me you know”
I look at him questioningly before he adds “that you ran towards, but instead you chose him” he spits that last word and I flinch again, he softens when he sees this and reaches his hand out and it takes everything in me not to shy away from it.
Something deep inside of me tells me to keep calm and play along, and so I do.
He tucks my hair behind my ear and then cups my cheek ever so gently. In an instant, his face transforms, and it’s no longer soft but harsh and cruel. He grabs hold of my chin to keep me in place, and as quickly as he does that, he backs off and walks over towards where Chad sits in the armchair.
He walks round to face him and kicks his feet, but Chad doesn’t stir. He laughs a humourless laugh as he looks down at his brother, and a shudder goes through me; if he can do this to his own flesh and blood, what will he do to me?
He starts to speak again. “You were always so kind to him, so understanding. I’ve watched you for so long, getting worn down by him, Emily. I’ve had to pretend to love your best friend to stay close to you, and when I finally thought we would be free to be together, you go and ruin it.”
He’s so calm, it’s scary.
His eyes lock on mine. “You sullied yourself with him; you believe you love him, but he can’t give you what I can”
he kicks Chad’s foot, but he doesn’t stir. He shrugs as he says, almost to himself, “Huh, must have given him more than I realised.”
Pete walks over to the bag in the corner of the room and starts pulling out the clothes he must have packed. He bunches them up into one arm and, with his other hand, pulls out from the bottom of the bag a large brown envelope. He walks over to me, throws the clothes on the bed, and holds out the envelope for me to take.
I hesitate for a moment but spring into action when he barks at me, “TAKE IT!”
I grab the envelope from him, my hands shaking, and he nods at it in my hands. “Open it”, and so I do.
Pictured flutter to the bed, so many pictures, and they’re all of me and Cas, or just me by myself. I thumb through them as he starts to talk again, standing over me. “I planned to stage these before you woke up, have them dotted around you, and have Chad asleep in the chair. You would wake up and panic and scream, maybe even attack him, and then I’d come to your rescue after being knocked unconscious by my brother. You’d fall into my arms,”
he chuckles as if it were a funny little story.
Bile rises in my throat at just how deluded he truly is. That’s when I noticed the last few pictures. They are of me and Cas, together in his parent's garden. I drop them and squeeze my eyes shut, willing for this to all go away, but of course, it doesn’t. He kneels on the floor and grabs my hands, and I have to fight my repulsion not to move away from him; something inside tells me that would be a horrible idea.
He looks at me, and his face is kind again as he says, “By the time anyone has realised what has happened, we will be long gone, Emily, and we can finally be happy. Isn’t that what you've always wanted?”
I flashback to the times I’ve talked to him over the years, all the times he laid into his brother for how he treated me, how he was so different around Cas, and it all makes sense.
I start to shake my head; this isn’t right. I look at him as I say, “You aren’t well, Pete. This isn’t right, and you know it; there’s nothing between us…”
I don’t get to finish my sentence as his face morphs into something cruel and detached; he whips his hand out and backhands my face. Pain explodes, and stars flash in my eyes; he hits me with enough force that I land on the bed on my side, and as the darkness once again creeps in around me, he stands and whispers to me, “Now that just won’t do Emily, it won’t do at all.”
With those lasting words, I drift away.