“I don’t understand, Jake. I wasn’t… We were going to give it another go. Weren’t we? We’d talked and sorted it all out.”
“Don’t lie to me,” he spat. “You’ve been to my private space. You’ve seen the garage.”
My jaw dropped. “How do you know that?”
“Remember that phone I bought you for Christmas last year?”
I nodded. “My iPhone. Yeah.”
“It has a ‘Find My Phone’ app on it. I use it to watch your every move, Emma. I know how much you’ve been coming here, too. What’s that for? To complain about me? To talk about me behind my back?”
“No, Jake. I wouldn’t do that.” I heard the pulse of my blood thumping in my ears. I was short of breath and trying hard not to panic. Next to me, Aiden sat very still. I tried to keep calm. If I was calm, maybe I could calm Jake down. “I’m sorry if I betrayed your trust. I swear I never meant to, I just wanted to find out what happened to Aiden. Jake, why don’t you call an ambulance for Rob? We can say it was an accident. He fell and hit his head. We can sort all this out later, but Rob is bleeding to death in the hallway and he needs—”
“That’s all you care about, isn’t it? Ever since he’s come back to Bishoptown you’ve been lusting after him like a wide-eyed schoolgirl. It’s sick.” He paused and rubbed his temples. For one fleeting moment I thought about rushing him and knocking him down, but then he was back to pacing, and the determination on his face gave me caution. “There’s no way the waster survived that blow. I hit him with Hugh’s African warrior statue. The thing is made of stone.” Jake snatched the large stone figure and lifted it above his head. I flinched at the sight of Rob’s blood and hair smeared across the face of the African man.
“Hugh could come home at any time,” I said, forcing myself to keep my voice level and calm.
But Jake just laughed. “Hugh knows how to live. He takes whatever he wants, no matter what. He’ll be fucking some nineteen-year-old in Vegas or something. I like a man who takes what he wants.”
“You think that making a mockery of marriage vows is something to be proud of? You think that lying and cheating is admirable?”
“We do what we have to do to stay in polite society,” he said, sneering at the term. “But we all have desires, don’t we? We all have secrets deep down. I bet you didn’t know Hugh was screwing Amy Perry, did you?”
I frowned. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“She was wild in the sack, according to him. Into some real hard-core stuff. Not like you, my beautiful wife. But I didn’t marry you for your abilities between the sheets. You were broken, and I liked that. And no, I don’t mean when you jammed that knife into your wrist—I mean before then. Before Aiden, before everything. Even at school. I saw who you were before you knew it yourself. You needed guidance. You were like a baby deer walking on ice. Without someone by your side telling you where to step, you’d slip and slide around until you fell through the surface.” He had stopped pacing now. He seemed calmer, but that was even more unnerving than his agitated state. “You needed me, but you turned to that idiot in the hallway.”
“Please, Jake. If you love me even a little, call an ambulance for Rob. Let Josie and Aiden go so we can talk on our own.”
Jake laughed. “Don’t you think I know you’re trying to manipulate me? Do you think I’m stupid? Do you?”
“N-no,” I stuttered. Though the adrenaline still pumped through my veins, I was twice as frightened as I was angry. I’d never seen this side to Jake and it was terrifying. He was dangerous. All this time I had been sharing my bed with a dangerous man and I never knew it. My eyes roamed around the room searching out potential weapons. There was nothing within reach.
He sighed. “I really thought you were everything I ever wanted and ever needed, but now I look at you and I see very little at all, Emma.”
“I’m carrying your child.” My throat rasped as I tried to speak without letting myself cry. “Our baby girl.”
“Yes, I know,” he snapped. “But do you even care? All you do is whinge and whine about Aiden, who, by the way, is nothing but pathetic and messed up in the head, until you put our baby at risk. You prioritise everything else apart from me and our baby. I thought once we were married you’d finally put all that behind you. The drowned son. The lover who abandoned you. The parents who died. I thought you’d actually moved on and would finally, finally notice me. But you could never leave it alone, could you? It was always about them and never about me, even though I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you. Just look at what I’ve given you—a job with people you like, a home that you love, a lifestyle most women would kill for, and still you can’t find it in yourself to be grateful.”
I opened my mouth to speak. I wanted to yell at him, to show him there was more to me that he could possibly understand, that he could never break me down in the way he thought he could, but all that came out of my mouth was a whimper. I crumpled forward, clutching my abdomen. Another cramp seized my uterus. My body grew hot from the pain and I felt sweat forming along my hairline. It started from my back and radiated around me, turning my bump hard as a rock.
“Jake,” I said. “You need to call an ambulance. I think I’m in labour.”
For the first time, there was a slight twitch of doubt in Jake’s expression as his jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed. “It’s still a few days until your due date.”
“What do babies care about a due date? Call an ambulance!”
He shook his head. “Your waters haven’t broken yet. Besides, we haven’t finished talking.”
I rubbed my stomach and tried not to think about what would happen if I went into labour here in this room with my ex-boyfriend dying in the corridor and my husband emotionally torturing me, with my son sat still and traumatised to my right and my best friend tied up in one of the rooms upstairs. What had I done to arrive at this lowest point in my life? What mistake had I made to not see this coming?
“What is it you want to say to me?” I said bitterly. “Are you going to tell me about how you took my son and abused him for a decade? Is that what you want to say? Why did you do it, Jake? Was it some sort of sick, controlling fantasy where you took everything away from me to see what would happen? Am I just a doll to you? A plaything you can experiment with? Or did you want to turn Aiden into some robotic slave to do your bidding for this precise moment, so you could reveal to me what an evil fucking man you are? And what about my parents? What did they ever do to you?”
“You were alone after they died,” he said with a smirk. “That was useful.”
My blood was hot with rage. “I hate you. You stalked me. You murdered my parents.” I refused to cry. I would not give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. “That day, when I tried to kill myself, where were you? How did you know?”
“Recording device,” he said, the smile spreading across his face. He relished the fact that he had fooled me.
“You’re evil,” I repeated.
“I’m not evil, Emma. I’m just free. I do what I want.”
“And what you want is to be an art teacher in a comprehensive school? What the hell are you? You’re just pathetic.”
“I don’t really care about being a teacher. That’s just an easy way to get people to like me. Teachers are warm and cuddly. Art teachers who wear tweed are even cuddlier.”
“You messed up with that girl in Bournemouth though, didn’t you? You might have manipulated her into not talking about your little affair, but that photo on Facebook was a slip up.”
“Katie was young and made mistakes. She was almost as broken as you. She loved to be led. She liked to be controlled. Most women like it.”
“What have you done with Josie, Jake? Have you hurt her?” My bottom lip trembled. Why didn’t I see his disregard for other people? Why had I never noticed how much he hated the world? This was all so hidden from me. He kept it in that garage along with his true face. That was where he hid his obsession.
Slowly, he walked across the room towards the fireplace and retrieved a shining object from the mantel. I gasped. It was a long, sharp knife, wider than a chef’s knife, with a smooth handle made from some sort of ivory-coloured material. My stomach twisted into a knot when I realised it was bone.
“Hugh gave me this as a present,” he said. “It’s a hunting knife. He told me you probably wouldn’t approve, so I decided to keep it hidden. It seems appropriate to use it now, in his home.”
“Jake,” I whispered. “What are you going to do with that thing?”
“Finish what I started ten years ago,” he hissed.
41
My muscles felt like stretched elastic. The hairs stood up on the backs of my arms as Jake tilted and examined the knife in his hand. I tried to ignore a third cramp as it took hold of my womb, squeezing and twisting up my insides. My fists clenched, pressing my fingernails deep into the palms of my hands.
“I’ve wanted to tell you this for a long time, Emma.” He smiled, revealing those white teeth I had once found so attractive. Handsome Hewitt. “It’s a confession, really. An event that I wasn’t proud of at the time, but it grew to be an accomplishment I praised myself for after the dust settled. The thing is, I got away with it. At least, I thought I had. The problem is, your son came back, and it’s only a matter of time before he starts talking, I’m sure of it.”
My fingernails dug harder into my skin. I felt warm liquid pool there.
“Despite all my best efforts to get rid of him again, you seem determined to keep the little brat around, so I suppose I may as well spill the beans.” He laughed. “Not even the little incident in the crib with the paint changed your mind.”
“That was you?” I said. Why was I even surprised? He was clearly capable of anything.
“Yes, darling. It was. But going back to the past… I wasn’t ever going to tell you, but then you went to my garage and you snooped in places you shouldn’t be snooping. You made it so that I’ve got nothing to lose.” The knife blade glinted as he held out his arms and grinned at me. “You’ve only got yourself to blame, now. This all would have been swept under the rug and we could have lived a happy life if you hadn’t kept digging. Somewhere down the line, preferably before Aiden grows a pair and starts talking, I’d have ensured Aiden had a little accident. So tragic, but these things happen.”
Heat washed over me. My chest was tight, making it hard to breathe, but I forced myself to concentrate. I could see how Jake was loving the captive audience, drinking in the way I hung on his every word, waiting for the moment I would finally get some answers. He wasn’t going to make this easy for me. He wasn’t going to make this quick. He was going to enjoy it.
“Let me tell you a story about a feral child. You see, feral children usually have terrible mothers. Those mothers are often too young to be mothers and let their children run riot wherever they feel like it.” He paused to see if his words got a reaction from me but I didn’t give him the satisfaction. “When all the other, normal children are behaving themselves, feral children do the opposite. Normal children know how to behave when there’s a natural disaster like a flood, but fucked-up children like Aiden wander off on their own and decide to play in the river.”
I kept my mouth firmly closed, waiting for him to tell me. There was an infuriating grin on his face that made my blood boil. He knew he was in control and he was milking every single second of it.
“I saw Aiden walk away from the classroom. I saw him slip through the corridors and out of the school.” He paused to push his hair back away from his face. Hair that I’d caressed. A face I’d kissed. A body I’d touched. A man I’d made love to over and over again. “I’d been watching you for years. I remember the first day I saw you at school, with your dark hair long and luxurious. You were more hesitant than the other girls. You didn’t wear those slutty skirts or thongs pulled up above your waistline. You had something about you. You had paint under your fingernails and lowered eyelashes. You blushed when boys tried to talk to you and were oblivious when they were clearly besotted with you.” He sighed. “You used to be so beautiful, and now you’re old, fat, and covered in that disgusting rash.”
Instinctively, I hid my hands beneath my legs, ashamed. Then I realised that I was looking at a murderer. I pulled my hands back out and scratched them in front of him.
“I’d been biding my time with you. The incident with Katie had been rushed and I didn’t want that to happen again. Besides, Katie was the appetiser. You were the main course, and I wanted to make sure I was ready to devour you.” I retched but nothing came out of me. Jake seemed oblivious, and carried on with his story. “But that lump of clay, that walking black hole, Rob, got there first. You needed to be led, and I was going to show you the way, but he was the one who got to you first and for that I will never forgive him. That’s the reason why he’s bleeding onto the Barratts’ hallway tiles. That’s what happens to people who cross me.”
“Get to the point,” I snapped, unable to cope with this for much longer. I scratched at my itching skin, feeling dirty just from listening to him. Next to me, Aiden sat quietly, still and impassive as always. He could be watching cartoons again, not listening to the ramblings of a psychopath.
“You were tainted when you had Aiden, but I knew I could salvage you. It would just take some breaking to get you where I wanted you. When I saw Aiden slip out of school that day I followed him at first to see what he was doing. I realised that I might never get him alone like this again. I might never have a chance to do what I’d wanted to do for years.” He licked his lips as he relayed the memory. “I was already soaked through from checking the outside of the school with Simon. I followed your son’s red coat through the pouring rain all the way down to the river. There he was, just standing and staring at the gushing water.”
I thought of my nightmares after Aiden was taken. I thought of that image forever haunting me: Aiden floating beneath the tumultuous waters. Aiden in the still, calm part of the river with his lips blue and his skin white.
Jake’s fingers gripped the knife even tighter. He lifted his arms in animation as his excitement grew. “This was my chance. I knew what it would do to you, and I knew I had to do it. The slate had to be wiped clean, Emma. I needed you to be that broken girl again, the one I fell in love with. You’d become too assured in your role as a mother. I saw how you played with Aiden in the park, and I saw you slowly becoming a family with Rob. You even had the friends I saw us having, Josie and Hugh. It wasn’t fair. It was all supposed to be for us.”
“What did you do?” I whispered.
“I pushed him,” he said.
“You did what?”
“I pushed him into the river.”
I turned to my son. He was blank faced and staring right at me. There were no answers in that face, only more questions. I reached out to touch him, before retracting my hand. Then I moved to face my husband.
“What happened after you pushed him into the river?” I asked.
Jake shrugged. “I went back to the school.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s because you’re stupid. You’ve accused me of kidnapping your son, but why would I do that? I never wanted him, I wanted you. Aiden just gets in the way. With him around you have no time for me, or the baby growing inside you. He’s an obstacle to me.”
“Who took him? Tell me. I need to know,” I begged.
Jake just laughed. “I don’t know. Some chancer who was nearby and saw a kid drowning in the river. They must have fished him out and thanked God because it meant they could keep him in their sick little dungeon or whatever.” He was so casual and callous that my stomach lurched and I tasted bile at the back of my throat.
“It wasn’t you,” I whispered.
“Of course not,” he said. “I wanted him out of the way, like I wanted your parents out of the way.”
I threw my head into my hands. I’d slept in the same bed as the man who had tried to
kill my son, and who had also succeeded in killing my parents. My skin was full of ants. My body was cold, down to the core. I shivered, but I had to keep my head. I had to try and stay in control. I had to put all of that aside and focus on saving the lives of the people in the house.
“You said you were going to finish what you started ten years ago,” I said, lifting my face to meet his gaze. “What did that mean?”
The laughter faded from Jake’s face and instead his eyes glassed over like marbles. Without his usual amiable grin, he was frightening. He angled his chin down, and dark shadows flooded his eyes, turning him into the cliché movie villain. But this wasn’t your average bad guy. He was my husband and the father of my child. He was the man who rubbed my feet at the end of the day and brought me a hot chocolate when I had my period. He was the man who laughed at my jokes and teased me when I mispronounced a word. He held my hand through horror movies and chatted to my friends. He listened to me when I talked about my past and he was a shoulder to cry on when it was the anniversary of my parents’ death. He had been everything to me, but all of it had been a complete and utter lie.
“You’ve ruined it all, Emma.” The cold edge of his voice was like a razor blade running down my spine. “I can’t fix it anymore. I can’t break you into the woman I need you to be. It’s too late for us all. I’m going to finish what I started ten years ago, and then I’m going to move on to you.” He took a step forward with the knife gripped in his hand.
42
There’s a kind of strength in weakness that comes from hitting the absolute lowest you can go. There have been many moments in my life where I’ve hit such depths that I thought I would never claw my way out of them. Jake talked about owning the darkness within him and taking what he wanted, but he wasn’t the only one in that room experienced with dealing with darkness. When I look back on my time in that room, I realise that Jake had made the same mistake over and over in his life, and that was underestimating me.
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