Chapter 42
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CADENCE
The police impound Emily’s car as evidence, leaving me stranded. I call Mum but she doesn’t answer her phone, and I leave a message. Already knowing I’ll call again and again until I reach her rather than trusting she’ll hear the voicemail.
Arnold is next. I fight with his office manager until she connects me. When I try to speak, tears come pouring out instead.
“Cadence? What’s wrong?”
“It’s Drake. He’s been arrested.”
He immediately expresses concern, a change from the monster I’d built him into inside my head. Of course, he cares about his son. Even abusive fathers want their children to do well.
“Can you continue your classes?” he asks when my crying jag tapers. “We won’t be able to do anything for a couple of hours. Not until the police tell us more.”
“I won’t be able to concentrate.”
He sends a car service, and it takes me to his office rather than home. “Your mother’s not answering,” he says when I ask why. “I didn’t want you to sit there alone if she’s tied up with party planning all day.”
I’m anxious. Ready for action. Needing to help Drake but not able to think of a single useful thing. “Do you have a lawyer?”
“I’ve already sent him,” Arnold replies, sounding distracted. “He’s helped Blaine out of a sticky situation at school before.”
“This isn’t a school altercation.” My voice is strident, and I clamp down on my anger, not wanting to upset the only person with resources to help. “Don’t you know a criminal defence lawyer?”
The only applicable candidate I can think of is Hudson’s mother and I doubt she’s in the mood.
“He’ll be fine. It’s not as though they’re putting Blaine on trial. They’ll ask questions and he’ll advise him not to answer and once we know what they have, we’ll be able to adjust our approach.”
It’s sensible.
Of course, it’s sensible.
But my nerves propel me to my feet, pacing out the office, Drake’s words echo dully in my head.
He didn’t care what happened to me. The lawyer was to ensure nothing reflected poorly on Arnold.
Drake needs someone to fight in his corner. Not someone stamping out the flames to stop them scorching his dad’s reputation.
The only person I can think to call is the journalist.
Her card’s still at home but I search Elaine Ngata online, finding a secure link to report tipoffs anonymously. Not exactly the situation but I type out a quick message, adding my name and number so she can contact me.
Ten minutes later, my phone buzzes with her call.
“Can you help?” I ask after blurting out the details. “He needs someone in there who’ll prioritise his needs.”
I’m worried she’ll ask for an exchange. With my thoughts frazzled, I can barely form sentences let alone screen information before I talk.
But she doesn’t ask for a thing. Just assures me she has the details and will be in touch again shortly.
I fling myself into a waiting room chair, staring blankly into space. Wondering how Arnold can work when his son is in jail.
The hours drag by. A young man asks me what I’d like to order for lunch, and I nearly bite his head off, then clock his nervous glance at Arnold’s office and realise he’s only doing as instructed.
“Would you like a job?” Arnold asks as I pace by his office for an hour following lunch, arms wrapped so tightly around myself it’s hard to breathe. “You could file these documents. Imogen will show you how.”
Imogen doesn’t look enthused about the idea, visibly relaxing when I turn down the offer in favour of pacing more, this time in the empty office Arnold sends me to.
I know there’s nothing we can do without knowing more.
I understand my nervous energy won’t help Drake field the questions police are putting to him or get him free any earlier, but I can’t stop, and I can’t understand how his father can remain calm when my world has shattered.
Finally, as the clock creeps towards five, Arnold comes to find me. “Have you heard any news?” he asks, scrutinising my face more than he appears to listen to my words. “Once we’re home, I’ll give the lawyer another call and see if he knows more.”
We’re in the car when Elaine phones. “I have a lawyer who can help at short notice, but he’s not free. Are you able to cover the costs for a few hours while he talks to him?”
I break off the call, putting the question to Arnold, who shakes his head. “No. I’m already paying someone.” His face creases into a deep frown. “Who’s that you’re speaking to?”
“Citizen’s Advice Bureau,” I fib, turning aside before he reads the lie. “But can’t you make the payment? Just until we know—”
“Hang up.”
“But Drake’s didn’t do this. He needs someone who’s working for him, not covering for you.”
Arnold’s eyes narrow, hands gripping the wheel until his knuckles turn white. “Don’t speak to me like that. I won’t waste money on Blaine’s defence when the probability is he did this terrible thing. Instead of weeping over his future, spare a thought for the man he murdered.”
The ferocity steals my breath for a second, then I respond, enraged. “Drake didn’t do this. He would never do anything this serious and I can’t believe you would think so poorly of your—”
Arnold cuts me off. “I gave him the benefit of the doubt last time and look where that led. Or are you still pretending Drake didn’t set fire to Hudson Carter’s car?”
I jerk my head around, glaring out the window. “That’s not the same thing.”
He ignores me, concentrating on the road ahead like he’s wearing blinders.
The anger pours in, filling me to the brim and there’s still more, cramming me full, the seams of my consciousness bursting under the pressure. “He’s your goddamn son and you’re meant to care!”
“I do care.”
“About yourself. That’s not enough. He needs our help.”
Arnold shakes his head, the muscles in his neck so tight I hear them crackle as he turns my way. “This is help.” He leans over, taking my phone and opening the window, tossing it onto the road. “The less time you spend on that the better.”
I’m already trembling so hard with anger the loss of my phone barely registers. I fight back hot tears of helplessness, hating that I can’t do anything when Drake’s in so much danger.
When Arnold pulls to a stop, I jump from the car, unable to stand his company.
“Mum!” I yell, storming inside. “Where are you?”
The front door opens, and she runs straight to me. “Are you okay? I’ve been calling, and you didn’t answer.”
I meet Arnold’s gaze and flub the truth. “My phone battery must’ve died. Are you okay?”
“The police were here!” She lets go of me, waving her arm towards the garage. “They took Drake’s car.”
“No, it’s at the garage being repaired, remember?”
Her expression crumbles into confusion. “Is it? But they…” She trails off, looking more unsure with each passing second.
“I got a message to say they’d returned it this morning,” Arnold gently explains. “What time did they come?”
“They…” Her frown becomes deeper. “No, it was still damaged. I saw the—”
“It’s the shock,” he says, taking her arm and turning her towards the house. “Of course, it was fixed. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have such a large bill on my credit card.”
When we’re inside, he gives her a long hug, then pats her behind, aiming her towards the bedroom.
“Why don’t you get changed and I’ll phone my lawyer to check in on what’s happening?”
“Get changed?” Mum’s face turns white.
“For the party.”
My mouth drops open. “You can’t seriously expect to go ahead with the party while your son’s rotting in prison.”
“It’s jail and nothing will happen tonight. Why wouldn’t we go ahead?”
My mother clutches the front of her sundress, twisting her hands in the bright flowery pattern, her face now so drained of blood the circles beneath her eyes look like smudges of charcoal.
“I cancelled it,” she whispers, flinching away from Arnold. “Everyone knows not to come.”
“You cancelled who?”
She shrinks further, shoulders hunched. “The caterers, servers, cleaners. I went through the guest list and those I couldn’t get hold of, I left messages.”
“But, honey…”
“I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“It is the right thing,” I state, firmly grabbing her hands and nodding. “You’ll still be engaged next week once this mess with Drake is sorted.” When the reassurance doesn’t calm her, I tug her hand. “Let’s go in the kitchen and make a cup of tea.”
“No.” Arnold glares at both of us. “You’ll phone everyone back and—”
“That won’t work.” I shake my head, stepping between him and Mum. “Even if we reached everybody again, they’ll be confused. I doubt they’ll come.”
“I need to lie down,” Mum whispers. “Just for a few minutes.”
She looks like she’s drowning in worry. I pat her hand, but she doesn’t appear to feel it. Her slow steps to the bedroom might as well be the shambling gait of a zombie.
“Put a post online,” Arnold snaps, eyes following until the bedroom door closes, then his attention switches back to me. “Call it a family emergency, and reference Blaine, but use the photo of me and your mother smiling, showing off the ring.”
He rubs his forehead, face creasing into so many lines he ages twenty years. The first signs of genuine concern leave me wading in guilt.
Despite everything else, it is his son who’s just been arrested.
Maybe he doesn’t know how to do the right thing in this situation because it’s not something he’s considered before.
I should extend him more grace.
We’re all in shock. All slaves to our immediate reactions.
“The last thing your mother needs is folk speculating that we’ve already changed our minds,” he adds, lips twisting at the thought. “If you could pull together a short post, that would really be appreciated.”
“Of course.” I head for the lounge and pick up the spare laptop, taking it to the chair nearest the door.
Arnold goes to his office, and I keep my listening ears on, attuned for any sign he might head for the bedroom.
The more distance he keeps from Mum when she’s this upset, the better.
And probably vice versa, if I’m honest.
The task doesn’t take long but I stay where I am for another half hour. With no signs of anyone moving anywhere, I head upstairs, pausing in the door of Drake’s bedroom.
A deep ache settles into my gut at the empty space.
The clinical nature of the room is just as disturbing as the first time I poked my head in here. Like he knew better than to make this place his home.
After an hour spent pretending to read my book—in reality, just staring at the same page—I head down to the kitchen. There’s no way my tense stomach could handle a full meal, but a snack wouldn’t go astray.
Except I can’t decide what to have. I move to the cupboards. Opening them, closing them.
I tip Mum’s pill organiser towards me to check the right days are empty, then replace it on the shelves, shutting the door.
Then I frown, opening the cupboard again and this time, lifting the lids on the full compartments to check the medication.
The amounts are wrong again.
I take out the prescription bottles to fix them and feel sick. The anti-psychotics are nearly empty while the mood stabilisers are full.
It should be the other way around.
“Problem?” Arnold asks from the doorway. He’s as light on his feet as Drake.
“No,” I assure him with a vague smile. “Just finding something to do.”
He snaps the lids closed, replacing it in the cupboard. “Why don’t you ask your mum what she wants for dinner, and I’ll either phone it in or help prepare it?”
I follow his instruction, my steps slow as I move through the lobby, trying to get my sludgy thoughts to work properly.
Mum resents taking all her medication, but she especially hates the anti-psychotics. If she were to switch doses, it would be the other way around.
A dull sense of dread prickles across my upper back and I spin on my heel, sure Arnold is about to pounce.
He’s not there.
Just my nerves overreacting.
But my thoughts suddenly leap into action, giving me prompt after prompt as the unsettling dread weighs more heavily on my shoulders.
Arnold met Mum a year ago, then ghosted her. She’d left him messages he ignored until the one where she sounded desperate. The call when we needed to get away but had nowhere to go.
She’d suspected he had been untangling himself from another relationship. Not wanting to muddy the waters.
It sounds reasonable, but it’s not the only possible explanation.
Perhaps he understood desperate people do desperate things and if your personal number is on the phone of a desperate woman, early damage control could be the best option.
I think of how she accused me of selling multiple bottles of Xanax to my friends when I’d only ever taken the one for Harriet and the one for me.
Those pills could have been taken by anyone with access to the flat, sitting in an unlocked bathroom cabinet.
And I think of Drake.
Of how he can’t accept his mother committed suicide.
For all this time, I thought it was a stubborn refusal to besmirch the image of the woman he loved without reservation. Now the angles shift, and I see another answer hiding behind.
The person closest to her saw no signs of renewed addiction and I can’t pretend Drake lacks the capacity to notice those shifts. Even the subtle ones. Not with his powers of observation.
He didn’t notice a decline.
He didn’t notice altered moods or compromised decisions.
And I know that means nothing by itself. Every day, people lose their loved ones and don’t see any signs leading to the tragic decision.
But sometimes those signs are absent because there’s nothing to signal.
Like when a powerful man, a controlling man, a violent man, finds out his ex—a woman who witnessed his abuse firsthand—is talking to a journalist.
I stop, lost in thought.
The main bedroom is a foot away.
The pharmacist only swapped medication for sexual favours with Mum, and I believe she never gave a thing to Maggie.
Which leaves… who?
The man dating her.
The man who abruptly cut off contact until she left a pleading voicemail.
A sickening wave of nausea crashes over me. We have to leave. Get to safety then contact the police and tell them everything.
We can’t abandon Drake or let him pay for his father’s crimes.
I push open the bedroom door. “Mum?”
There’s no one in the bedroom.
No one in the en suite beyond or on the balcony.
I glance out the window, but she’s not in the garden and I spin on my heel, rushing to the lounge, trying to move quietly so Arnold doesn’t realise I’m panicked.
She’s not in here either.
I stare out the window at the glorious view. The patio. The viewing platform.
The cliff side path.
Terror strikes deep into my heart as I rush for the back door, then spin, hearing my mother’s faint cry from farther inside the house. I could sob with relief that she’s just in another room.
Her body isn’t lying twisted and broken on the rocks.
I run to the dining room and burst through the door.
Mum sits in a chair, arms bound behind her. A dirty rag is stuck in her mouth.
“About time we had a family dinner,” Arnold says from behind me. He grabs me in a chokehold, squeezing until I can’t draw a breath.
And the world fades to black.