CHAPTER 27 #2
‘And, when she said that to him, her voice changed,’ Lucy continues. ‘Softened. You know? The way it does with relatives.’
Simone’s eyes are wet. She’s so wise, her daughter, but she’s also experienced something so awful. Lucy scoots closer and places her hand over her mother’s. Simone blinks. ‘I told him, at one point, that I was thirsty, and he came into the room and took my cup away, didn’t bring it back.’
Simone feels like she’s been slapped. ‘That’s …’
‘She said to him, the daughter, she said that she had to get back to her house, but that she’d be sure to stay inside.’
‘Huh. That’s weird,’ Simone says. ‘That was the second day?’
‘Right. The first he left me blindfolded there on the floor all day, apart from when he made me film the video. No food,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t have eaten even if he had offered.’
‘I see.’
‘And then I was allowed on this horrible old bed. Mattress like a block of wood. And then, the next day, evening, he must have known I’d got the blindfold off because he gets the phone to read out that I have to face the wall with my eyes closed before he comes in.
He put me in the car again. I couldn’t hear any street noise; no neighbours I’m guessing.
Some of the shock and the adrenaline or whatever had worn off by then.
And I did think: Is he taking me somewhere to die?
And it’s weird but – when you’re in it …
you don’t feel the fear. You just start to face it.
He took me to – somewhere, and then handed me over to someone else, someone who felt taller, who then drove me to you. ’
Simone nods, but, inside, her spirit is crushed. They will never be able to find or identify this man, this criminal mastermind, and Lucy will never be the same again.
‘And I just thought, Well, at least it’ll be quick. He’d shoot me. I don’t know,’ Lucy says, her shoulders rising and then falling so slowly Simone wonders if it’s more of a breath than a sigh or a shrug.
‘And then you came,’ she says suddenly to Simone, looking directly at her.
‘I came.’
‘I can’t believe I shot at that car.’
‘I know.’
‘I can’t believe I hit it. I didn’t even know how to …’ She looks at Simone and, once again, they are thinking exactly the same thing. Simone didn’t even know she knew how to do it, either.
‘How did they …? Why did the handover go wrong?’ Lucy asks.
Simone takes a breath. She will tell her the truth in the most straightforward of terms, but nothing more. And then, after this, they must think this through; they must think about what it is they’re trying to do.
‘They said it wasn’t the right amount of drugs. I think one fell out when I was running … I heard sirens. In Mexico.’
And although Simone is explaining herself, she can’t help but think how foolish she has been.
How she unthinkingly complied. Destroyed the flip phones.
Put them in rubbish bins. Crossed the border.
Should anything ever have gone wrong, the kidnapper was covered.
Untraceable. Obviously, this was his entire plan.
‘Do you think we’re going to get away?’ Lucy asks, her voice quiet, the question almost downbeat, rhetorical. Then: ‘Don’t answer that.’
She pauses. She gazes at the horizon, leaving Lucy to process her thoughts by herself, and she finally has some time to consider what they are trying to do.
The ambulance will get to the body; will anyone connect it to them?
Maybe not. Their DNA isn’t in a database.
There’s no CCTV around there; the location no doubt deliberately chosen for that reason.
Nobody knows it was them. The 911 call was anonymous. Simone blinks, wondering whether she said anything that would give a clue to their identities, other than their British accents. They are suddenly on the run without meaning to be. The decision presented itself and they ran without thinking.
She doesn’t let up on the accelerator, though she is thinking perhaps she should. At what point are you running, and at what point are you on the run?
The only person who might know who they are is the kidnapper. And if he does, it’s all over for them. He could tell the police, even anonymously, that it was them.
But does he? Their passports were lying around in the lodge, but not disturbed, she thinks. The hire car was in her name, but would he be able to trace it, even if he saw the registration plate when watching her?
If they’re going to really try this, then they need to get home, now, as soon as possible, be free.
‘You don’t think he knows our names?’ Simone asks again.
‘No. Unless …’
‘Unless what?’
‘Unless the lodge was targeted. The door that wouldn’t lock …
’ Lucy says, and Simone nods, her heart sinking.
It can’t be a coincidence. Can it? But does that mean he knows their identities?
Does it mean the police would know it’s them?
Surely the kidnapper wouldn’t want to tell the police anything …
Simone guns the engine. ‘Do you think Dad understood the urgency to meet us at the airport?’
‘Yes,’ Lucy says. ‘Yes, I think so.’
She wishes Lucy could drive so she could pull over, concentrate on working everything through in her mind, but she can’t. Time is of the essence.
The road is black, bending and unspooling behind them like they’re on a spinning record.
Canyons on the left, vast desert on the right, and Simone thinks about who the kidnapper might be, and what he might know about them, this man who executed every step of their downfall.
Maybe she should have listened to Damien and told the police.
The kidnapper was smarter than she was. She had no real idea she was destroying evidence, setting herself up.
But then she might not have got Lucy back.
‘You know when you decided to come,’ Lucy says, maybe thinking similar things to Simone, ‘did you ever think you might not? You do so much for me … I feel so bad.’
‘No,’ Simone says immediately and passionately. ‘I’d do anything.’
‘How did you decide?’
Simone reaches across the handbrake to touch Lucy, just gently, along her shoulders. ‘There was no decision. From the moment I got the text,’ she says, ‘I was coming.’
Simone looks at her daughter, and is glad Lucy doesn’t know what Damien thought, that there was any dispute at all. No child deserves to know there was indecision like that.
‘So you came armed, for the handover,’ Lucy says, and she nods, as though this were completely expected and normal, and Simone wonders if she might be traumatized, after all.