Chapter 10
TEN
ANNIE
I sat hunched on the closed lid of the toilet in my en suite, gnawing at my thumbnail, my eyes trained on the locked door.
The nickname – Mr Tenacious – rushed through my mind, and I felt a wave of nausea ripple through my belly, bile searing the back of my throat.
I’d been so sure of who Jade was from the moment I saw that bruise on her arm.
Her confession that she was running from someone dangerous had only cemented the certainty – though I couldn’t be sure how involved Ryan was in her disappearance, what games he might be playing.
But that text… that name … it had stirred a memory that had long been buried in the depths of my mind.
Kenna . I had never met her, never even spoken to her, but I had known what she meant to him.
Ryan had talked about his cousin, ten years his junior, with reverence, and in the early days of our relationship, I’d thought it was sweet.
How she would call him late in the evening to talk over a problem she was having, or send him care packages in the post. She still lived in Edinburgh, and though I’d made it clear to Ryan that she was welcome to visit us in our home, hoping to gain more insight into who he was and discover whether she’d seen the emerging darker side to his personality too, he had always refused, getting the train up to visit her instead.
Later, when he’d become too paranoid to leave me home alone for fear that I’d escape, he’d stopped going to visit, but still she’d never come to us.
Somehow I had sensed her dislike for me even without having spoken to her, and I couldn’t help but wonder what Ryan had told her about me.
And, when I let myself go down a darker path, whether there was an element of jealousy at play.
There had been something in the way he spoke about her, the warmth in his tone, that had made me uncomfortable, as if their relationship was more than just cousins.
I’d never been able to put my finger on it, but there had been little comments that felt off to me.
He’d once said she was the only woman in his life he could rely on, and when I’d asked him to elaborate, he’d told me she was family, something I would never be.
He’d told me that when he’d fallen out with his previous girlfriend, an eighteen-year-old fresh from sitting her A levels, and she’d accused him of beating her badly after an argument, Kenna had provided an alibi, sworn she was with him and made sure the charges were dropped.
I’d wondered when I’d first heard that whether Kenna felt any sort of guilt over that claim, or whether the Ryan she knew was so different from my version that she simply took his word without question.
But it had become clear over the years that she would do anything for him.
Lie to the police. Believe his stories. And love him no matter what he did.
I bit down on the tip of my thumb, tasting dirt and blood, a hiss escaping my clenched teeth.
Mr Tenacious . I’d heard him repeat it on the phone, followed by his deep, rumbling laugh – a sound reserved almost exclusively for her.
‘Why did you call me that?’ he’d asked, his face cracked wide open in an unfamiliar, genuine smile.
There was a pause, and he laughed again.
‘Because I always get what I want? Yeah, you’re damn right, babe, I do. ’
I felt stupid, careless , as I recalled those words now.
I’d been so single-minded about protecting my ex’s vulnerable new wife that I hadn’t stopped to consider that the woman in my home might be someone entirely different.
She was the right age, pale and pretty – that was what he’d always said when I asked what Kenna looked like.
He’d said she had dimples, and I was sure I’d seen them on Jade’s cheeks too.
Had I made a terrible misjudgement? Was it in fact Ryan’s cousin, the woman who would lie, perhaps even kill for him, sitting downstairs in my kitchen playing the victim in order to draw me into her web?
His game of cat and mouse. Kenna would do it, I knew without a shadow of a doubt.
She would do anything for Ryan and their odd relationship.
I felt like I’d swallowed a lead balloon, goose pimples rushing up my arms at the thought of what that would mean, the danger I could be in.
She would do everything he asked of her and more.
Anything to impress him. No doubt he had woven some story casting himself as the victim, just like he had when the police came looking for him for battering that poor girl.
My heart was racing, panic fizzing through my body, threatening to explode out of me in a primal scream.
I pressed my hands to my face, forcing myself to slow my breathing.
I was being ridiculous. Making up stories in my mind because I was afraid, because I wasn’t used to having anyone here under my roof. I was jumping to conclusions again .
Jade had confirmed who she was, hadn’t she?
And she couldn’t fake the things I’d witnessed – the enormous purple bruise on her arm, the fear in her eyes.
The love she quite obviously had for her baby girl.
She wasn’t Kenna. She was nothing like her.
She was quiet, vulnerable, the polar opposite of the brash, obnoxious voice I’d overheard on the phone countless times.
And there was no hint of a Scottish accent there. She couldn’t be Ryan’s cousin .
The poor woman had fled from abuse – abuse I could have stopped if I’d gone to the police three years ago to report what Ryan had done to me – and now, instead of helping her, I was letting my anxiety lead me into a fantasy fuelled by my own damn PTSD.
I was the reason Ryan had been able to find another victim.
I’d failed her, and I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
I stood up, going to the sink and splashing cold water on my face before meeting my blanched reflection in the mirror, determination flaring in my eyes. She was his wife. Simple as that. I’d seen the photo. The bruise. I would not let myself be driven to madness by fear. Not again.