Chapter 68
My phone rings as I’m weaving through stop-start traffic on the dual carriageway back into town. The display shows it’s Mr. Sedgewick, the teacher who oversees tag rugby after school.
“Just checking on pickup arrangements for young Callum,” he says, failing to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “He’s the last one.”
“My wife’s picking him up today.”
“Any chance you can do it? She doesn’t seem to be here. Must be a crossed wire somewhere.”
“One of us will be there, very soon. Sorry.”
“As I said, Mr. Wylie, all the other parents have already collected—”
I hit “end call” to cut him off and ring Jess but she doesn’t pick up.
She must be running late, but it’s not like her to be out of contact. And however annoyed she was after what I said last night, she would never take it out on the kids.
Another call to Jess’s mobile goes unanswered, and a cold wash of dread starts to turn in my stomach.
As if on cue, my phone buzzes with another text and I jab the screen with a sudden lurch of hope that is instantly dashed.
It’s not from my wife.
Heart rising up into my throat, I click on the message.
It’s five seconds of looping video: Jess’s unconscious face, her eyes closed, black tape over her mouth, a line of blood snaking down from her temple. Below it, a brutal succession of texts drop in one after the other.
You made me do this.
Bring everything that belongs to me. No police.
She has maybe fifteen minutes of life left.
Or you will never see her again.
I type a rapid reply with one shaking hand, steering with the other.
Will bring it all to you. Where?
Further instructions to follow.
GPS says you’re heading in the right direction.
But if you’re late, she dies.
Fifteen minutes was barely any time at all, but I had to get to her.
I push down harder on the accelerator, flashing through a gap between a truck and a bus pulling away from the curb.
On the other side of the carriageway, traffic is gridlocked and at a total standstill.
In my head, I can’t stop seeing that five seconds of looping video of Jess, unconscious and helpless, at the mercy of a psychopath.
The ultimate confirmation that my family would never be safe until Peter Flack’s partner in crime was off the streets for good.
I dial Webber’s number again.
“My kids are in danger,” I shout over him. “You need to send police to Regency Place; they’ve gone to my neighbor’s house but they’re in terrible danger.”
He doesn’t seem to have heard me. “Listen, Adam, that name you gave me, Peter Flack? I put it into the system, but he was never on our radar, no criminal record at all, he was absolutely clean as a whistle.”
“JUST SEND THEM!” I repeat the address and hang up, weaving around the cars in front and accelerating through a traffic light as it goes red to a chorus of honking horns behind me.
Thirteen minutes. It was going to be incredibly tight.
Another call to Dom’s phone goes straight to voicemail.
I’m overtaking into oncoming traffic when the FaceTime app on my phone shows a new video call.
I stab the green icon to accept, almost crashing as I swerve lanes and dive back into a gap.
The screen opens up on an image of a dark ceiling, moving as the camera pans down onto my wife’s motionless body.
“Jess?” I shout it, the word catching in my throat. “Where are you? Are you OK?”
But she can’t hear me. She can’t speak. The black tape that had been covering her mouth is gone but her face is pallid, her lips starting to turn blue as if she’s slipping away. A trickle of blood crusting at her chin. The call cuts off abruptly and a message drops in a moment later.
You better hurry, she doesn’t have long left. You know where.
I blink, suddenly realizing that I do know where. I recognized the room, the desk, the wooden paneling on the wall. I recognized all of it.
Because the call was coming from inside my house.