by Sofia Daniel
“My final piece of evidence is the… Valentines Day Massacre, a cute way to phrase a mass character assassination. You distributed tickets within Mercia Academy, possibly inviting everyone who had wronged you to become drunk and make fools of themselves in front of the cameras.”
Realization hit me like Carbuncle’s fist to the gut. This had to be Mr. Frost, the sycophantic, drug-dealing Latin Master. How else would he have known the tickets had come from me? I’d even suspected he could be Charlotte’s older lover. I lowered my head.
Mr. Frost had masterminded Henry’s kidnapping and arranged for all the blame to fall on me if anything went wrong. According to Rita, he was extremely intelligent. The man had probably talked his way out of being charged for his crimes and had somehow recruited Mr. Carbuncle to beat me into submission.
There was no way to win against an opponent like him. Especially with my arms and legs tied.
I cleared my throat. “What do you want?”
“The truth,” he replied.
“A-alright.” I swallowed hard. “I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Chapter 14
Mr. Carbuncle drew back several inches but remained firmly in my line of sight. Even when crouched, the man’s hulking form took up my entire vision. His shoulders quivered with impatience, and he ran a glistening, pink tongue along the underside of that bushy, walrus mustache. His excited breaths echoed in my ears, sending tremors of disgust across my gut. Tendrils of panic twined around my lungs and coiled up my windpipe, tightening with each passing second.
Dots appeared before my eyes, and the edges of the empty room spun. With my wrists still bound by tight ropes, I clutched at my neck and tried to suck in deep breaths, but they stuck in the back of my throat.
“Carbuncle,” said the man at the door. “Get the girl a glass of water.”
“But she’s faking—”
“Do it!”
He swooped forward, and muttered a tobacco-scented, “You’d better not be planning anything.”
A cold wave of fear and panic and revulsion seized my muscles, and a pained whimper reverberated in the back of my throat. Would he make one last, defiant snatch of my neck to make his point?
He drew back, taking away his stench, and stood. I kept my gaze on the herringbone pattern of the parquet floor until his footsteps receded through the room. It was only when I spied him shuffling through the doorway that the tightness around my lungs loosened, and I could finally exhale.
“He won’t be gone long,” said the man at the doorway. His brown hair and broad back offered no clues as to his identity, and neither did the navy blazer he wore with black slacks.
“Where am I?” I asked again for the benefit of the hidden cameras.
“An apartment whose owners will be overseas for the next three months. If you ever want to leave here alive, you’ll cooperate with us and answer our questions.”
I swallowed hard. Everything throbbed. Even speaking with one side of my lips was a painful effort. “When I tell you the truth, Mr. Carbuncle hits me.”
He huffed a laugh. “That hardly seems fair, does it?”
I would have clenched my jaw with frustration if it wasn’t already swollen and aching, but blood pounded in my ears. This man treated my situation as a big joke, and the worst part was that I couldn’t confirm his identity. I turned my head, hoping that the one remaining camera in my hair might pick up a little footage that could give the reporters a clue about my location. I still didn’t understand why they hadn’t already gotten the police to kick down the door.
The room was empty, save the paint-stained dust sheet underneath me. It reminded me of a show about a forensics expert and serial killer who was meticulously careful about not leaving his victims’ DNA in crime scenes. I shook those thoughts away and focused on what I knew. The mystery man had to be affected badly enough by the leaks to have gotten involved with an abduction, so he was either Mr. Chaloner, our headmaster or Mr. Frost, our Latin master.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“The only person standing between you and Carbuncle’s wrath.”
I squinted my good eye and whizzed through my options. The police had arrested the headmaster. Last term, I’d seen him in cuffs, being bundled into the back of a police car. And Mr. Weaver from the Board of Governors had said he was facing charges of fraud and money laundering. Would they let someone with links to organized crime out on bail? I would have thought they would try to keep him in custody, so he wouldn’t use his Swiss Bank Account money to leave the country.
Maybe it wasn’t Mr. Frost. He was more than capable of an abduction like this, but his hair was red and thinning, not thick and dark. But if I were going to commit a crime and didn’t want to be identified, I would wear a wig.
I knew two things for sure. One, he didn’t want me to see his face in case I recognized him, which meant I might go free at some point. And two, he had collaborated with Charlotte, who had told me about the party and had probably left that fake invitation lying about in the hallway for me to find.
My tongue darted out to lick my lips. “What are you going to do to me?”
“You’ll remain here until your stepfather pays a ransom of a million pounds.”
All hope of leaving the empty apartment alive drained away with my plummeting stomach. Rudolph only cared about maintaining his reputation. He wouldn’t care about something as trivial as a dead stepdaughter. “W-what if he doesn’t?”
“According to the article in the Saturday Correspondent, he paid that amount to clear your name after the Bourneville kidnapping that never was.”
I gulped. “That was to prevent a scandal for himself.”
With a chuckle, the man turned his head to the side a fraction. “What kind of stepfather wouldn’t pay the ransom of a seventeen-year-old girl? The longer we keep you here, the more injured and debauched you’ll become. I’ll issue daily pictures to the press, showing your degradation over time. Rudolph Trommel will not allow the world to know him as a heartless bastard.”
My blood turned cold. He’d just given me an important clue. He probably wasn’t as affected by the leaks as Mr. Carbuncle but had used it as an excuse to let the janitor attack me. This opened up the possibility of culprits to anyone associated with Charlotte or Elder House. A million-pound ransom had universal appeal, and anyone with a bit of ingenuity could have lured me to the fake party.
But one word stuck in my memory like a skewer.
“Debauched?” I rasped.
“You saw Carbuncle. He can’t wait to get his hands on your pretty flesh.”
Chills spread across the surface of my skin, and I curled my knees into my chest. “H-have you sent the first ransom note?”
“We’ll upload it and a few photos as soon as your bruises turn purple.”
I stared down at the ropes encasing my wrists and grimaced at the sheer number of undecipherable knots. They weren’t taking any chances. Someone must have told Mr. Carbuncle and the mystery man that I had once freed myself from duct tape.
Mr. Carbuncle returned with an opened can of Diet Coke and placed it by my feet. “Your water’s in there. Drink.”
Holding up my bound wrists, I said, “I can’t pick it up.”
“I thought I told you not to bind her arms too tightly,” said the man from the doorway.
“She’s faking.” Mr. Carbuncle stepped closer and cupped his crotch. “Pick it up or I’ll give you something else to drink.”
Before I could scramble down to reach the can, Mr. Carbuncle nudged it with the tip of his boot along the floor to my hip. I stretched out my fingers, picked up the half-empty can, and pretended to drink. Neither of them had asked me any questions yet, and they didn’t seem to like each other much. But if I could get them to argue, maybe I could find an opening and escape.
“Go on then,” said the janitor. “Talk.”
I coughed a few times and gathered my thoughts. “That day the police raided your lodge, we found ba
nk statements with monthly payments from the Saturday Correspondent.”
“Those were planted,” spat Mr. Carbuncle. “By you, most likely.”
“No.” I shook my head. Clearly, the janitor was in denial about having succumbed to blackmail, as he had put the incriminating evidence in the filing cabinet himself. “They were real enough to convince the people in the room. But there were a few checks written out to you that you didn’t cash, which proves you might have been involved with the paper against your will.”
Mr. Carbuncle didn’t answer for several moments, but he continued t heavy, excited breaths that make me cringe. Eventually, he said, “A reporter cornered me at the start of the spring term.”
“This is the first I’m hearing of your involvement with the press,” said the man at the door.
“You know what reporters are like.” I let my voice carry. “They probably found out Mr. Carbuncle had a criminal record and blackmailed him.”
“I’ve never been inside,” snapped the janitor.
“Oh.” I paused. “Then someone must have told them about what you do with school girls.”
Mr. Carbuncle swooped down and snatched my neck with such ferocity, he cut off my supply of oxygen. “Shut your fucking mouth!”
A scream caught in the base of my throat, and my eyes bulged. I batted at his hand with my bound hands and kicked at his legs with my bound feet. Tepid water, presumably from the spilled can, seeped into the fabric of my jeans. I’d hit a nerve, but if I couldn’t get him to release his strangling grip, I’d die of asphyxiation.
“Get off her,” said the man. “Now!”
“You keep quiet,” Mr. Carbuncle snarled through clenched teeth, splattering droplets of spittle onto my face. “Keep quiet, or I’ll snap your neck.” He lowered his face to mine and gripped harder. His harsh tone implied he would snap my neck later, whether I kept his secret or not.
My eyes bulged, and I tried to move my lips, but no sound came out. With my gaze locked onto his crazed, bloodshot eyes, I nodded.
The janitor released his grip and shoved me so hard, my head bounced on the parquet floor.
“I mean it, Carbuncle,” said the man. “If you touch her again today, we’ll cut you out of the deal, and you’ll get no share in the ransom.”
My breaths came in labored pants, and my sore throat convulsed with relief. The man at the door had a business partner. Charlotte, most likely, who had lured me to the apartment building in the first place. But what if he wasn’t the headmaster or Mr. Frost? What if he was the man who had paid for Charlotte’s academy fees and cosmetic surgeries?
Mr. Carbuncle stepped back, but his scuffed boots remained in my line of sight.
I rolled up to a sitting position and shuffled out from the dust sheet and propped myself up against the wall. If they were going to kill me, they could leave DNA evidence and get themselves caught.
“You were saying, Miss Hobson?” asked the man. “What exactly does Mr. Carbuncle do with girls?”
My gaze flickered to the janitor, who stiffened.
Trepidation skittered down my spine and settled into my roiling stomach. Would the threat of not getting his share of the money be enough to stave off his violent impulses? Did it matter, if the man would allow Mr. Carbuncle to do worse with each passing day Rudolph didn’t pay the ransom?
I gulped in several deep breaths to steady myself and spoke. “W-when Mr. Chaloner kicked down the door to his lodge, we found him face-down between the legs of an upper-sixth former. That’s the bribe he takes from the girls. M-mostly with Ch-Charlotte Underwood and her friends.”
The room went silent, and I flinched. When the blows didn’t arrive, I peeked up through my lashes. Perhaps the unknown man wanted me intact for the first round of photos, so he could show a daily progression of additional beatings and force Rudolph’s hand.
“Charlotte,” said the man, his voice laden with menace.
Mr. Carbuncle shot me a venomous look. His hands curled into fists and he jerked forward. “She’s lying.”
I clamped my mouth shut and raised my bound hands over my face.
“He rapes them?” asked the man.
The janitor’s quickened breaths filled my eardrums.
I blurted, “They all come to him willingly and exchange sexual favors for help.”
“What kind of… help?” asked the man through clenched teeth.
My gaze flicked up to Mr. Carbuncle. The mustache that took up most of the middle of his face quivered with malevolence. My stomach churned, and I reminded myself that the only way I might get through this ordeal was to create discord among my abductors.
“When a girl forgets her keys and is locked out of her room, she needs to go to Mr. Carbuncle.”
The man’s back stiffened. “What?”
“No,” cried Mr. Carbuncle. “You’ve got to believe me. I only went with the girls who visited my lodge and wanted something over and above. It was never for things like unlocking doors or replacing lost keys”
“Then what did you do for them?”
The chill in the man’s voice made me think he might be more dangerous than Mr. Carbuncle. When his elbow rose as though to pull something out of his inside pocket, I drew in a sharp breath through my nostrils. What if he had a gun? I fixed my gaze on the can of diet coke lying on its side on the dust sheet. While there was still hope of using me for a ransom, he wouldn’t shoot me… yet.
“M-Mr. Carbuncle let Charlotte into my room to search it,” I blurted. “I caught them on camera. And there was the time she put something in my shampoo, the time she put dye on my clothes, and the time they both arranged for a crowd of students to attack me.”
The janitor backhanded me across the face. My head jerked back and hit the wall, and pain ricocheted through my skull. With a nervous, high-pitched giggle, he said, “She’ll say anything to make trouble.”
“I’m. Not. Lying.”
“Shut up!” He booted me in the stomach. Pain lanced through my belly, but it was still less excruciating than the time Charlotte kicked me in the diaphragm. “Or your stepfather will need to pay another million when I make a tape of you choking down my cock.”
“Stop,” snapped the man. “She’ll be unrecognizable with these bruises. Get out and take a cigarette break.”
My eyes squeezed shut, and a boulder of regret dropped into my stomach. I’d overplayed my hand, and now the man was more concerned about the ransom money than about Charlotte’s virtue.
Mr. Carbuncle stalked out of the room, opened a door and then slammed it shut. It sounded like an external door, but I couldn’t be sure.
The man turned around, holding a huge SLR camera in front of his face. One hand held the curved grip underneath the shutter, while the other cupped an oversized lens, obscuring the entirety of his features.
A pained breath whistled out of my lungs. He wanted these photos as high-resolution as possible to capture every detail of my bruises. With photos of my injuries getting worse each day, and the inclusion of a few with Mr. Carbuncle, the man looked to shame Rudolph into paying my ransom.
After the last photo, he turned around and stepped through the open doorway. “I’ll be leaving for an hour. Maybe longer. For your own safety, don’t say anything while I’m gone to rile Carbuncle.”
Terror warbled in the back of my throat. He had his day one photo. Now Mr. Carbuncle would be free to hurt me however he pleased!
“Don’t leave,” I whispered. “He’ll kill me for telling you what he did with Charlotte.”
“He won’t let you die.” The man walked into the darkened hallway. A door creaked open, then a moment later, it clicked shut.
A wave of determination tightened my muscles, and I sucked in a deep breath. If I didn’t find a way to leave before Mr. Carbuncle returned from his cigarette break, I probably wouldn’t want to live after he’d finished with me.
Sitting with both feet firmly on the ground, I pushed my back into the wall, and used my thighs to p
ropel myself up. The pressure exacerbated the pain around my shoulders, my lumbar, and the back of my head, but I clenched my teeth and forced myself to keep going. Sweat beaded on my brow, and my pulse echoed in my ears, but I ignored everything to push myself to standing.
I hobbled across the room, through the doorway, and into the darkened hall, hoping that the man had left the front door unlocked. It was one of those stainless steel smart door locks with a digital display. I gripped its handle with my bound hands and pulled down.
It was stuck and probably needed an app to unlock it.
A cry of frustration flew from between my lips, and I rushed back to the room. If the apartment wasn’t too high off the ground, I would have to jump.
As soon as I crossed the threshold of the room, my gaze locked onto a tall, dark figure standing outside the window. He held his smartphone like a torch, its flash illuminating the empty space.
Chapter 15
I froze at the doorway, my heart in my throat, and stared at the dark figure at the window. He was too tall to be Tom, the Saturday Correspondent’s tech guy, and wasn’t wearing the uniform of a police officer. Whoever he was, he had to be better than an enraged and oversexed Mr. Carbuncle. The man made a shooing motion with his hand, which I interpreted to mean he didn’t want me to come any closer.
With a nod, I remained at the doorway. My gaze darted to the front door, which remained closed… for now. How long did it take to smoke a cigarette? Two minutes? Five?
The dark figure tucked his smartphone away, plunging himself in semi-darkness. Then he drew his arm all the way back and punched the glass with his gloved fist. Shards flew into the room and clinked over the parquet floor and onto the electric heater beneath the sill. I clapped my hand over my mouth and gasped. Had he hurt himself? And what the hell was he standing on, a ladder? We had to be several stories high, as there were no views of street lights from beyond the window.
The dark figure hooked his arm through the gap he had created in the broken glass and fiddled with the window lock. After a moment, his arm sagged.