I don’t know if we’ll find her.
How do you begin to look for a three-year-old girl who was taken while she slept in her bed? How do you begin to piece together the route the kidnappers took? How do you begin to formulate a plan to find someone who could easily disappear into a sea of three-year-old little girls with dark hair? It’s an impossible task.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“To find Doe.”
Kate turns to look at me, and after a scowl that could wake the dead just to kill them again, she smiles pitifully. She hates me for being here, but she understands why Cooper won't let me go. She thinks it’s because he loves me, because it was always me; because with me here, Cooper won't break—he won't lose control, snap and risk killing her with his mind on a rampage.
He’s keeping me with them, taking me on this journey to find the most precious gift in the world, because I’m the bargaining chip. I’ll be the trade-off. Doe’s life for mine. A life so young and innocent, with a world of promise at her feet, in exchange for a cheat, a slut, a girl with a plastic heart and dark soul. Cooper will make the right decision and I won't hate him for it. Nor will I force him to live in guilt.
“Where are we going to look?”
Kate looks at Cooper; Cooper looks at Kate. Something passes between them that makes me feel like an intruder. I shouldn’t be here.
“You have to tell her,” she says, reaching out to place her hand over his on the gearstick.
“We’re not married.”
“You’re as good as.” Her other hand crosses her body to caress Cooper’s arm. “Let her break out of the cocoon.”
“What’s going on?” I ask, my heart thundering in my chest at the thought of another secret Cooper’s keeping from me.
“Now?” he asks Kate, ignoring my question. “Of all the fucking times, you choose now?”
Kate nods, just once. “She’s about to put two and two together anyway. You may as well let her in.”
“Caterpillar,” Cooper says, his eyes connecting with mine in the rear-view mirror. “I don’t stalk people with drones. I hack into cameras, and plant my own bugs to do that. The drones are…sold on.”
“To who?”
He takes a deep breath and looks at his ex-wife. She’s sobered up pretty damn quickly and I wonder if her addictions are an act for Cooper’s attention—much like me refusing to eat. He feels for her. He may lack the ability to admit and identify, but he feels something that means he’s protective of her. He’ll heed her call because of that connection, and years of sleeping in the same bed and being equals, can never be matched by my few weeks of incarceration.
“I sell surveillance material to governments, Caterpillar.” His grip on the steering wheel tightens until his knuckles turn white. “I have eyes in the sky on every continent. I have the British, American and French governments in my pocket.”
Jesus, he really is a spy, and not just the kind who watches; he’s behind the fucking Big Brother scheme. He helps it run. He created it.
“You really do work for the CIA.”
“And MI5…and DGSE.”
“Is that all?” I scoff and turn to look out the window.
“Yes.” He grunts, “I’m not a fucking agent, I just sell shit. I’m a salesman. A scientist, a boy who found Lego too late in life for it to be nothing more than a hobby, and I sell those models on for others to decide their use.”
“I guess ruining your lung was the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“Sure,” he snaps. “Because my fucking kid would be missing if I swam the butterfly all day.”
“We’re going to his buyers,” Kate says, turning around again and placing her hand on my knee. “They’ll find Doe.”
“We’re not going to a fucking buyer,” he says, taking a quick turn around the bend, the back tyres screeching from the force. “I’m taking you home and I’m going to get our baby.”
“Cooper, no!” she cries, her nails scraping my legs as she turns around quickly. “I’m coming with you.”
“The fact you’re sober now, and have finally found a shred of maternal instincts, doesn’t change the fact that three’s a crowd.”
He turns onto a residential street and pulls up outside a house much like his. He stops the car, yanks up the handbrake and turns to Kate.
“Get out.”
“No.” She crosses her arms in defiance, but she knows as well as I do that it’s a bad move.
“Kate, he hasn’t taken his meds for a week,” I say, hoping it’ll be enough to warn her. If she knows he’s a secret agent, she’ll know he’s also crazy. “You’ll get Doe back, I promise. Someone needs to be at the house in case she comes home.”
“This doesn’t concern you, Erin.”
“Her name is Caterpillar,” Cooper seethes, leaning over her to push the door open. “And it does concern her. She’ll be the one to save Doe. Now get out of the fucking car before I let the beast loose.”
She stares at him, trying to battle him with a hateful glare, but all three of us know it won't work. He’s gone; whichever one of Cooper’s medicines that keep him in control with a shred of humanity, has worn off and he’s unpredictable. Finally, she sighs and unclips her seatbelt.
“You keep in contact, Cooper. If I don’t hear from you in two hours, I’m calling the police.”
“She’ll be back.”
With that, Cooper looks away from her and out of the windscreen. Conversation over. With a final look at me, Kate shuts the door. I watch her rummage in her handbag, pulling out her keys to get through the gate. A small white pouch falls to the floor and I pray Cooper doesn’t see it.
“Does she really have nothing to do with this?” I ask, undoing my seatbelt and climbing in the front seat.
“No, she doesn’t. Someone needs to be alive.”
He pulls away from the kerb, screaming down the road and whipping around another bend.
“Do you know where she is?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because I fucking know.” He rips into his hair, but with a hand on his thigh, I manage to calm him and he places his hand back on the wheel. “There are places Rob uses.”
“You know about him and other girls.”
“He’s on the radar.”
“And no one’s done anything?” I screech.
“I’m doing something now, aren’t I?” He leans over and pulls open the glovebox. A small handgun falls out onto my lap. “It’s unlicensed, untraceable, and loaded. If you get the chance, you grab Doe and you run. You fucking run, Caterpillar, and you don’t stop until she’s safe.”
“I won't leave you.”
“You’ll be killing us all if you don’t.”
“I want to stay with you.”
“You can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because where I’m going isn’t pretty.”
“I don’t care.” I hook my leg under me so I can turn to face him. “If one goes down, we both go down.”
“Will you say the same about Doe?” he asks. “Does she deserve to go down?”
“We can all walk away.”
“We can’t.”
“Don’t do this. Don’t decide this is the end before it’s even begun.”
“You love me,” he says, closing his eyes for a second longer than he should.
“And you love me.”
“And that means I’ll kill you. I’ll suffocate you, I’ll drown you, I’ll ruin you.”
“You can’t ruin something that’s already broken.”
“You’re not broken. You’re beautifully fragmented and you’ll move on.”
“I won’t,” I answer with complete honesty. “I won’t move on from you, Cooper. This is it for me. I’m in love with an ex-swimming secret agent with personality disorders. You don’t move on from something like that.”
“You’re young.”
“So are you.”
“You’re beautiful.”
“So are you.”
“I’m not negotiating. You take the fucking gun, you shoot to kill, and you save my daughter. Don’t have her death on your conscience.”
I still, stunned. One way or another, I will have to live with the loss of a life. Cooper doesn’t plan on leaving wherever we’re going. He’s trusting me with the life of his child, and I can’t break that trust.
“Okay.”
“Good. Now that’s settled.” He smiles sadly, rejection washing over him because he thinks I’ve given him up so easily. I haven’t, and I won’t. “I want you to tell my baby I love her. I want you to make sure that, whatever she thinks she knows about me, I wanted to be her father, and I loved her more than my own life.”
“She’ll know.” Because he’ll tell her himself.
“Thank you.”
Cooper turns onto the motorway, and we head towards the sea.
The boathouse was where I first met Rob. Brad had always been convinced that because I’m not entirely present mentally, I’d aid him in his crimes and suffer no guilt. But the thing is, I’m unstable; I’m slightly unhinged and so aware of my mind that I don’t give a flying fuck if something is illegal or not—if I don’t want it, I won't do it.
Rob and Brad found that out the hard way, when Brad flew me over for a tournament, booking us both some time off to engage in pastimes while we were here. Brad and Rob’s idea of a hobby is to fuck young girls. Some of them were women, but those got the least attention. The boathouse is where they take their conquests when they’ve drugged them, shoved them into the boot of their car, and timed it perfectly. When the girls wake up, they’re with their coaches—the men they trust, often more than their family—on a plush sofa, with a cup of something sweet in their hand. Every single time they’re convinced they just can’t remember how they got to the boathouse, but they went willingly. It’s their coach after all, and they wouldn’t hurt them.
I was their special guest one night. I was introduced by name so if anything went down, it would go down on me. I would be the one who touched them the night I met them; I would be the one they remembered as the bad guy because Brad and Rob had done all the grooming. I would be the detail that stuck out as suspicious and I would go down for two murders and raping underage girls. I refused to do it, but my attempt to tell Brad and Rob they shouldn’t either fell on deaf ears. When I learned how to adequately make surveillance equipment, I went back and bugged the boathouse. I know that’s where they’re holding Doe. I know that’s where they’re waiting for me. They may be criminals who have got away with their crimes for over a decade, but they’re predictable as fuck.
It’s getting dark when I pull up outside, next to the car I’ve been tracking since Rob took out a new lease last year. It makes things so much easier these days, with GPS tracking and satellite navigation connected to satellites I helped build.
“This is where they are, and they know we’re coming.”
I didn’t tell her before, because I wouldn’t let her convince me to do things a different way. This was my plan, the only one I’d stuck to besides my plan to take her, and I wouldn’t let her take control when it was the final piece of it I had.
“You knew all along.”
With a nod, I open the door. “Suit up. Remember what I said, Caterpillar.”
“I’ll never forget.”
We get out and walk round to the front of the car at the same time. She stops me before we head to the door, and wraps her arms around my waist. I close mine around her and inhale the smell of her hair, the lingering scent of chlorine that will never truly disappear after a life in the pool, and the unique smell that makes her mine—the only woman to make me sane, and crazier, all at once.
“I love you,” she says, snuggling into me and squeezing tight.
“And that is why I’m happy,” I say, honestly. I finally know what love means. I thought I loved her enough to kill her, but actually, I love her enough to let her go. “Ready to spread your wings, Butterfly?”
She nods and a warm tear soaks through my shirt. “I’m ready.”
I hesitate before I let her go, but eventually I do, afraid I’ll back out if I don’t. I can’t back out…I need to save my girl. Both of them. I’m prepared to do this—to give up the life I was prepared to take years ago. I’ve been ready to go since, and I know now is my time. Taking Caterpillar’s hand, I lead her to the door of the boathouse and push it open.
“We didn’t expect you to bring your prisoner,” Rob says the second we walk in. They’ve been waiting for us. “Good to see you, Erin.”
“I don’t answer to that name,” she says as I grip her hand a little tighter.
My breath hitches when she squeezes back. I’m going to miss her…can you miss someone when you’re dead?
“What should we call you, then?” Brad asks.
“My name is Caterpillar.”
“Where’s Doe?” I cut in, taking a step forward and looking for her.
“You missed her. She’s sleeping in the car.”
My heart sinks into my stomach when I realise we missed the chance. We could have taken Doe and got out of here. We could have all walked away, if I hadn’t been blinded by my insanity.
“But now we’re here,” Brad says, standing from the sofa and placing his bottle of beer on the table. “We should probably end this. You screwed up, Cooper.”
I laugh. He’s finally figured it out. For years, he believed in the flukes, but now he knows and its’s funnier than I imagined.
“You didn’t really think I’d let you cheat. I’m surprised it took you so long to figure it out.”
“You lied to them,” Caterpillar whispers.
“I told you I’m not a cheat. I lied on every one of the reports I sent them.” I turn back to Brad. “So we’re going to end this. Perfect. That’s exactly what I had planned.”
I pull the gun from the back of my pants.
“I wouldn’t if I were you.” Rob stands and joins his brother. “We didn’t tell you which car Doe is in.”
“What?”
“Kill us and you’ll never find her. She’s sleeping now…she may wake, she may not.”
“You cunt,” I growl, severing contact with Caterpillar to lunge for them. I don’t care which one I get to first.
I grab Rob, squeezing his throat as I shove him back to fall on the sofa, mounting him as both hands squeeze his windpipe.
“If you even kill one of us, it’s over.”
Brad grips my shoulder and pulls me to the ground, kicking me in the ribs before I have a chance to try and stop him. Pain screams through my abdomen and my lung sings in agony. He knows how to hit me where it hurts and he’s attacking all my weaknesses at once.
“What are you talking about?”
“Brad knows half the code,” Rob splutters, sitting up to lean over me as I try to get to my feet. “I know the other half. If one us dies, you’ll never get into the garage.”
“What fucking garage?”
“The one connected to your ex-wife’s neighbour’s house. We changed the code, locked them out and voila, we call the shots. They don’t even know she’s there.”
“She’s been there all this time?” Caterpillar asks, finally crouching down beside me and helping me to my feet. “Why?”
“Kidnapping a three-year-old is a bit much, even for us.” Rob stands and we’re all face to face once again. “We just needed you to think she was gone so you’d come here. We know you’ve kitted out your house, and we weren’t going to walk into a minefield.”
“What do you want?” Caterpillar asks. “What will it take to get the code and free Doe?”
Brad tilts his head to the right and regards her with interest. Rob tilts his head to the left and looks at her like he wants to eat her.
“Not fucking happening,” I spit, stepping in front of her. “Name another price.”
“Will you free Doe?” she asks, gripping my arm as she steps back out beside me. “Will
you erase all of the evidence you have on Cooper? Will you let him have his freedom in exchange for my captivity?”
The brothers smile the same menacing smirk.
“We’ll agree to that,” Brad says. “Rob says you’re more than worth a little sacrifice.”
“Do it and we have a deal.”
“No we fucking don’t.” I raise my gun at them both. “I’ll kill you and break into the fucking garage.”
“If we’ve given you the correct information, of course. The code could be to switch off a bomb, or stop a gas leak, or lower the barriers that stop the car plunging into a river.”
They’re playing us. They’re sending us running around in circles because they know Cooper’s mind won't cope with the game of cat and mouse. They’re feeding his paranoia, toying with the pendulum that decides Cooper’s mood; they’re forcing him to believe he has failed, or will fail, and reinforcing his decision to sacrifice his own life.
“Do it,” I say, gripping Cooper’s arm with both hands. “Make the call and set Doe free.”
“Well, we’d get nothing in return. You’d have no reason not to kill us.”
“And if you get me you’ll have no reason to save her.”
“Princess,” Rob says, snagging my attention and forcing me to meet his gaze with just one word. “You know you can trust me. You know I only want you.”
“Call an ambulance.” I won't let him manipulate me. “Call an ambulance, give them the address, and tell them we need immediate assistance. That’ll give us about six minutes. That’s plenty of time to make a call and save Doe, and get away.”
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