by M K Farrar
Maybe you should let him.
At least if he killed her, all of this would be over. But then who would take care of her parents? If something happened to her, and then her dad died, her mum would be left alone in this world with nothing but her grief. Cynthia had already buried her son. Natalie couldn’t imagine the sort of pain her mum would go through if she buried her husband and adoptive daughter as well.
“You knew, didn’t you,” she said eventually. “That’s why you wanted us to go down to see them. You already knew that my dad was sick.”
She kept her face to the passenger window, not wanting to look at him. A part of her was worried she’d lose control and would launch herself at him, screaming and clawing, and forcing them off the road.
“Yes, I did.”
“How?”
“I’ve been watching your entire family ever since that day on the moors. You’ve all been of great interest to me over the years. In a way, it’s almost like I was a part of it as well.”
“You’ve never been a part of our family!” she snapped.
He ignored her. “And one day, I overheard a conversation between your parents about getting your dad to see the doctor. Of course, I was interested in the problem. It’s amazing the sort of open conversations people have in places like car parks and coffee shops—almost as though they don’t care who might be around to overhear.”
“You’re no better than a fucking stalker.”
The insult slid right off him. “I know everything, Natalie. It would serve you well to remember that.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m cleverer than you, and I know how to take my time. You’re impulsive and thoughtless—the exact opposite of me. You react without thinking things through, and I can always predict those reactions. Just like how I know you’ve thought about how easy it would be to grab the steering wheel out of my hands and cause an accident.”
Her blood ran cold.
“Don’t even try it, by the way,” he continued. “I’m ready for you, and it won’t work. All that will happen is you’ll end up hurt and I’ll be fine.”
That was what she’d feared. “If I didn’t think things through, I’d have already done it,” she pointed out.
He gave a cold laugh. “Your idea of thinking something through is very different to mine. You’re talking about considering something for minutes, where I’m talking about years. Don’t ever think you’re going to get one over on me, because it’s not going to happen.”
The more he said it, the more a determination settled inside her that she would do her best to try. She wasn’t just going to give up and let him run her life. How long would he keep her around before he grew bored and decided to step things up? It had only been a matter of days, and he’d already torn out her hair and scalded her. He’d only just started having his fun.
“I’m not thinking anything,” she muttered. “I only want my parents to be safe. That’s the only thing that matters to me.”
“We both know that’s not true. You have a survival instinct as well, Nat. You would never have pushed your brother off the wall that day if you didn’t.”
“He was never my brother,” she snapped.
“He was in the eyes of the law, and in the eyes of your parents.”
That was the worst of it. Her parents had seen them as brother and sister, even though they were never related by blood. It would sicken them to their core if they had known the way Anthony used to speak to her.
How long had Kyle been following her? An unseen figure in her life, like a ghost that had always been in her periphery. All this time, she’d been wandering around, completely unaware she was being watched—not just watched, studied.
By the time they pulled into the close, it was already starting to get dark. Her heart sank at the sight of the house. The last thing she wanted was to go back inside. She was utterly exhausted, and she didn’t have any fight left in her. All she wanted was to go to sleep and escape this nightmare, if only for a few hours. But then she remembered that she’d spend the night with Kyle pressed up against her, his hair beneath her nose and breath hot and damp on her skin, and she suddenly no longer wanted to sleep.
They climbed out of the car. He went to the front door and unlocked it, and she trailed in after him, feeling as though she had weights attached to each of her limbs, and she had to drag them along behind her. Maybe, if she went straight upstairs now, she could get an hour or so before he joined her. Or perhaps she could lie down on the sofa and get some rest there.
He cleared his throat deliberately. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“I just want to sleep. I’m exhausted.”
“No.” His voice was sharp. “It’s dinnertime, and I’m hungry. Is this how you take care of someone? Because if it is, you’re not doing a very good job of it.”
Tears filled her eyes. It had been a physically and emotionally exhausting day. She wanted to get some rest and turn over the news about her father in her head, absorb what it meant.
“Please, I just want to—”
She didn’t get the chance to say anything else. With three strides, he approached her, his face a mask of fury. She gave a cry of fear and twisted away from him, ducking to make herself smaller, her arms raised to protect her face. But he was too clever to punch her in the nose or mouth, where there might be questions asked by anyone who happened to stop by. Instead, he delivered the blow in her back, right beneath her ribs.
Pain exploded through her, and she dropped to her knees, a gasp of shock and agony escaping from between her lips.
“Get up,” he snarled. “I told you, I expect my dinner as normal. Go in the kitchen before I hit you again.”
Tears streamed down her face. She tried to use the wall to get back to her feet, but a fresh wave of agony brought her to her knees again. Staying down, not trusting herself to stand, worried she may end up blacking out and doing herself an even worse injury—or at least leaving herself even more vulnerable to him hurting her while she was unconscious—she crawled to the kitchen.
He watched her humiliating passage, his arms folded across his chest and a smirk on his face. He was enjoying every second of this. Hadn’t he already told her that her pain and fear gave him pleasure?
Just go, Natalie, a voice that sounded like her mother’s spoke in her head. Just get the hell out of there.
But she couldn’t. If she tried to leave, he’d tell her parents everything.
That’s probably the least of your problems. If you try to leave, he’ll most likely kill you.
At what point would she be happy for him to do exactly that?
She needed to think of her parents and use them to give her strength. They were going to need her now more than ever, and she wouldn’t be able to be there for them if she was dead.
Chapter Twenty-six
She managed to put together a reasonable meal for him.
Simply cooking dinner was like walking into a trap. Kyle had high expectations, and even if she wasn’t exhausted and tearful and in pain, her skills in the kitchen still most likely would never live up to what he wanted. She didn’t have any choice other than to try, though, and she was relieved when he ate without complaint.
After dinner, they went through the same night-time routine as before. She used the toilet before going to bed and there were streaks of red in her urine. Blood. When he’d punched her in the back, he must have injured her kidneys. There was no point in mentioning it to him, however. He’d probably be happy he’d hurt her so badly.
She didn’t want to come out of the bathroom but eventually she did.
There was something in particular Kyle wanted her to do for him, and she had no choice but to comply.
NATALIE SPENT ANOTHER tearful night lying next to Kyle, her mind whirring, despite her misery and tiredness.
She felt used and dirty, and was thankful the next morning when he had to go out and leave her alone.
“Don’t try anything,”
he told her. “Remember your parents and the pain you’d cause them if they found out the truth.”
She had no intention of trying anything. All she wanted was to sink into a well of misery and cry herself into oblivion. She wanted to sleep without Kyle’s skin pressed against hers, and his breath hot on her neck.
She watched his car pull out of the driveway and head down the cul-de-sac. It turned left at the end of the road and vanished out of view.
As much as she’d been planning to feel sorry for herself and sleep, now he was gone, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
This is your chance. You might not get another.
She had the feeling Kyle was in this for the long haul, but she didn’t know how much she’d be able to hack it. She still felt sure she’d be able to find something on him, something she could use.
A memory came back to her of how, when she’d been hiding the paperclips, the skirting board had come away, as though it hadn’t been glued on properly. It was a long shot, but was it worth checking?
Just like all the rooms in the house, with the exception of the windows and front and back door, the office wasn’t locked. She assumed the lack of locks was to prevent her securing herself in one of the rooms to get away from him, but Kyle must have some way of hiding the things he didn’t want her to find. She was sure he’d expect her to search the place when he wasn’t here, so he’d go to more extreme lengths than simply locking them in a desk drawer.
In the office, she got to her knees and wedged her fingers back under the loose piece of skirting board and yanked. As she’d expected, it came away in her hand, and she put it to one side.
A hole had been dug out behind the skirting board, a nook formed in the concrete and brick.
She pushed her hand inside, praying she wouldn’t come into contact with any spiders, though bugs were really the least of her worries.
Her fingers met with the solid, smooth binding of a hardback book.
Natalie frowned. Why would he have hidden a book?
She gripped the edge and took it out.
The cover was gritty with dirt, the pages yellowing and dog-eared. On the back cover, the face of a pretty woman with long dark hair and a fringe, and deep-brown eyes smiled back at her. Something about that smile and those eyes were haunted, as though she had a secret deep inside her that she couldn’t tell anyone. Natalie knew all about that.
Carefully, she flipped the book over so she could read the cover.
When Children Kill by Doctor Amy Penrose.
Her heart fluttered, and her mouth ran dry. Why did Kyle have this book, and more importantly, why had he hidden it?
She glanced up, suddenly certain she’d heard his car return, but when she popped up her head to check, the driveway was empty.
This book was important, though she didn’t know why. It seemed to have been written by a child psychologist and was filled with case studies about children who’d killed. Was this some kind of fascinating subject for Kyle? Plenty of people were interested in true crime, but if that was all it was, why had he gone to so much trouble to hide it? No, when someone hid something, it was because they didn’t want others to see it, but they were also connected too strongly to it to let it go. She didn’t know what the significance of this book was yet, but she was sure there was more to it than it just being a book.
She flipped open the cover to the foreword by the author.
Anxiously, she glanced up again. How much time did she have? She was certain if Kyle came home and found she’d gone through his stuff and was reading something that was clearly important to him, he’d make sure he punished her for it.
Foreword.
Writing this book wasn’t easy. Several people warned me not to ever put pen to paper, and to leave what happened in the past. But if anyone out there has ever been through a traumatic event, they’ll understand that it’s never really in the past. Not fully. That event becomes a part of who you are, and you have to carry it with you, every single day.
In the autumn of 1983, a young boy and his father walked into the office where I was a newly qualified therapist. The boy showed signs of being the victim of domestic abuse, and not only that, his mother had mysteriously disappeared two years earlier. I set my heart on helping him, but what I didn’t know at that time was that the boy was a masterful deceiver and liar. All the while he convinced me he was the one who needed help, he was luring me into a trap.
The hairs on the back of Natalie’s neck and on her forearms slowly rose one by one, and an iron band wrapped around her chest, constricting her lungs. Luring her into a trap. That sounded familiar. She lowered her head and kept reading.
Edward Swain knew exactly how to play me. I directed my attention at the wrong person, believing that his father, Robert, was the one to blame for Mrs Swain’s disappearance. Edward worked on my insecurities—my fears of being a bad mother myself, of being in the wrong relationship, and of not being a good enough employee. I wanted to prove people wrong, but instead all I did was exactly what Edward expected me to do. He created situations that made me doubt everyone around me, and I ended up isolating myself from everyone but him. Somehow, I thought if I was able to help Edward, I’d be able to help myself as well.
I was wrong on all counts.
“Jesus Christ.” Natalie pressed her knuckles to her lips. Even though almost two decades separated the events, she felt as though she could have been reading about herself. Only Kyle had never needed to isolate her—she’d done that for herself, living as she had, filled with regret and self-hatred, never giving anyone or anything a chance.
She dropped her gaze back to the book.
One evening, Edward lured me to his house on false pretences. When we were there, he hit me and tied me up in a cellar beneath his house. There, I discovered I wasn’t alone. I shared my prison with the body of Susan Swain, Edward’s mother.
Natalie couldn’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like. It was bad enough being a prisoner here, in a comfortable house, with access to food and water, and a bathroom. She couldn’t imagine how terrifying it would be to be bound and locked in the dark with only a dead body for company. That poor woman. And she’d only ever been trying to help the boy, even if she did have some motives to help herself, too. That was how he thanked her.
Because he’s cold and heartless, and only wants what he wants. No one else matters to him. You just serve a purpose.
Had the boy in the book inspired Kyle somehow? Was that why he kept the book hidden away like this? Or maybe one of the other stories the doctor had written was the reason he had the book.
She kept going, desperate for answers.
Edward wanted to keep me prisoner, but initially it wasn’t because he wanted to hurt me. He told me that the first moment he’d seen me, I’d reminded him of his mother—the same mother he’d killed and whose body was now bundled in plastic nearby.
The low purr of a car engine snatched her attention as the Audi pulled into the driveway.
Shit, shit, shit!
Panicked, Natalie threw the book back where she’d found it and pushed the piece of wood into place. Her face burned, and she knew she must be flushed, sweat prickling across her forehead and upper lip.
She couldn’t let him know what she’d learned. She had no idea how she’d use that knowledge to her advantage, but it was the first thing she’d found on him that might help her, and if he knew she had one up on him, he might do something to level the playing field again.
With the wood firmly back in place, she sprinted up the stairs and threw herself into the bathroom. There was no lock on the door, of course, but she leaned into the bath and turned on the shower.
Come on, heat up, she willed it, needing the steam to fill the room to explain her red face.
“Natalie?” Kyle’s voice came from the bottom of the stairs, though it was muffled by the drumming of water from the shower.
She yanked off her clothes, leaving her in only a bra and
knickers.
The heavy fall of his feet on the stairs. “Natalie?”
The door handle moved, then the door opened.
He frowned at her. “What are you doing in here?”
She covered her body with her arms. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m about to take a shower, if you don’t mind.”
His gaze darted around the room. “In the middle of the day?”
“I didn’t realise there was a rule against it. I like to shower. The hot water relaxes me, and it’s not as though I have much else to do cooped up here all day.”
“Don’t be long. I expect you to cook, and it had better be up to my standards.”
He pulled the door shut again, and she released a shaky breath. Needing to keep up the act, she removed her underwear and stepped beneath the flow of water.
What if Kyle noticed something was different? Had it been a trap? He might have put a piece of cotton across the board or something, to prove it had been tampered with.
Too many thoughts raced through her head, but there was one thought that pushed all the others out of the way.
Was Kyle Detcher Edward Swain?
An overwhelming urge to get her hands back on that book filled her. She hadn’t seen any photographs of him, but that didn’t mean there weren’t some within the pages. Would she even recognise him as a child? Had he changed much? Or was she on completely the wrong track and the book meant something else entirely? Perhaps he was related to the woman who’d written it, or to someone else?
Yet the story in the foreword about how he’d deceived the author and had reeled her into his life sparked something inside her. It was exactly what Kyle had done with her. He’d made himself out to be something he wasn’t, and she’d fallen for it one hundred percent. That deception was what made her believe the Edward Swain the woman had been talking about was also Kyle Detcher.
She had no idea how she could use this knowledge against him, however.