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“Please… I don’t…”
I haul her into a tight embrace again, trying not to count the minutes ticking by, needing to be here for her more than I need to clear up this mess.
“He said he was going to show Marnie.”
The words mean nothing to me, but her distress is palpable. “Show her what?”
When her voice comes back it’s so low, so crawling with shame that I want to bring the kid back to life and beat him to death properly, to take out my fury on someone.
“He recorded…” And she can’t finish. The sobs overtake her until she’s shuddering violently in my arms, completely lost to them.
I hate to do it, but I have to move.
The longer his body lies there, the more likely he’ll be found. The more likely there’ll be traces.
My brain jumps from one connection to another, making a list of the things I can do myself and the things I’ll require help with. A list for Patrick when I finally make the call.
The new obligation will bind me to my family with ties so tight I might never break free, but I don’t care. All I care about is getting through this and making sure Paisley comes out the other side with the fewest mental scars possible.
The crawlspace flashes in my mind. Xander going into a bedroom and coming out the side of the building.
“Stay here,” I tell her again, making sure the door is fully closed when I slide it across.
There’s no manhole evident in the room, so I go to the most likely place. Under the bed.
After pulling the drawers out from beneath the frame, I stack them one atop another on the bedspread, then tuck the dangling covers out of the way.
I shine my torch app underneath, immediately spying the manhole cover, and my chest jumps with hope. I get to my knees, sliding the cover across, then pulling it all the way free and adding it to the top of the pile.
He recorded…
The mental prompt reminds me to search for a phone. There’s two in his pocket, one in a pink case with a purple unicorn pop-socket attached and the second in factory black. I place them near my clothes.
In Paisley’s laundry basket, I find a pair of dirty sheets and spread them out, starting a mental list of things to replace. Once James is wrapped in them, I drag him across to the bed, shoving him underneath, through the open manhole, having to get right under the bed and push when his body snags a couple of times.
The blood doesn’t look nearly as bad without him in the centre. I duck into the bathroom again, giving Paisley a kiss on the head, before stealing her towels and going back to wipe up as much of the blood as I can without smearing it too badly.
Once the bulk of it is gone, they also go through the manhole cover on top of James, along with the knife. There are smears and splotches on me but nothing too severe. I open the door to the bathroom again, quickly wiping myself clean with a washcloth, then glance at Paisley.
“You should have a shower,” I tell her gently. “I’ll grab you something to change into.”
There’s an inside-out pair of jeans near the laundry bag. I pick them up before I notice the long cut in them, the spots of blood near the waist.
My rage boils into an inferno and I close my eyes, forcing it back. He cut them off her. Five foot tall and not even a hundred pounds to her and he held her down and cut her jeans off.
When I look again, I see more signs of disturbance. Of a struggle.
Knocked books, dishevelled clothing on the floor instead of the shelves. I quickly get dressed again and grab the two phones. The pink one belongs to a girl, so I toss it aside. The black one is his, but it’s protected.
I slide under the bed again, reaching through and snagging his hand, pressing the thumb against the screen until it glows.
It opens into the recording app. I rewind through the footage, playing it back, watching him hurt her, the only relief coming when her elbow catches him in the throat, allowing her to grab the knife away. The visual goes crazy, phone dropping or being tossed aside, then it shows the two of them tumble to the floor, Paisley plunging the blade into his chest then, when he knocks her free, the top of his spine.
My hands shake as I force myself to watch it again. I want to delete it, but we might need it later. It’s showcasing an obvious case of self-defence. If something goes wrong, this is her ticket out of jail.
I click through the rest of the recent gallery. Paisley isn’t the only terrified female on here.
Some faces I don’t know. Some I vaguely recognise from the thumbnails. One belongs to her friend, Marnie. In the preview pane, she’s crying.
