I let out a whimper as he shook his head, enough that he laughed all the louder.
“Oh, sweet little Miss Emmerson,” he said, with a horrible smile. “Trust me, you do want it. And I want to see you begging for more.”Chapter Twenty-FiveBrandon“What’s on this?” I asked her, unable to fathom checking the contents out on my laptop without serious warning.
She took a sip of her tea, checking around us for close ears. There were none, but her voice was a whisper all the same.
“Your father heard I wasn’t dead, apparently. He heard I was holed up with some friends at the Boat Inn until I managed to find a way out of the place. He reached out through some contacts, said he wanted to talk, heard I might be around on that one evening before heading up the coast to an old family friend.”
“Yes,” I said. “So he came after you at the Boat Inn, at the side of the river Wye.”
She nodded. “Yeah, he did. He’d been drinking loads. I saw him. I was waiting for him to get to me in the quiet, with one of the guys I knew waiting behind one of the trees with a camera.”
“And what did it record? What did you see that night?”
She looked down into her cup, swishing it round in circles, breath quickening no doubt at the memory. “He was looking for me. Stumbling a bit. He must have been too slow and too obvious. Drake came charging up behind him and grabbed him back there, but they jostled. Your father told him to get away, that he knew he was a murderer out to sell out poor girls in the meantime, and I got that too. Drake had tried to sign me up for his horrible show.”
I felt my hackles rise on the back of my neck. “He tried to sign you up to what?”
She shook her head again. “Before I had to claim to accept the million while you were there, he’d told me to get away for good. Threatened the consequences.” She paused. “Then, when I said I understood and would take whatever route was in front of me, Drake told me there were other options. Fair options for pretty little girls like me.”
And I knew it. I fucking knew it.
“You didn’t take it though? You didn’t take his pain and punishment for money on screen?”
Her eyes were wide when they met mine. “Thank hell you know about it. It was terrible, Bran. The stuff he said he’d do to these girls, no matter the money on offer. He said people would hurt them over and over, but it didn’t matter, not if they came out with all that cash to their name. But I didn’t want it. I really didn’t want it.”
I felt like my own morals could shrivel up. Could die in front of me. That the people I thought would be on side or who hated my guts were the opposite on both counts.
Her eyes dug into me, deep and ready. “You’re on side with him, aren’t you?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you anywhere in the media for so many years now, but you’re on side with Drake, aren’t you?”
“Was,” I said, with a snap. “Was.”
She looked down at the table top. “I wish I could’ve told you sooner. Told you so much.”
“Yeah, well, so do I,” I finished, taking a drink of my coffee.
“They argued,” she continued. “Drake and your dad argued on the side of the river. Your dad was drunk, said none of Drake’s stuff would ever be enough to keep him quiet, so Drake tripped him. Tripped him himself and smashed his head on a rock on the riverbank. Then he pushed him in.” Her pause was long again. “It’s on the memory card, my friend recorded it.”
“And you didn’t try to save him?!” I said. “You didn’t try to do anything?”
Her eyes were thick with tears. “They said they knew everyone. Everyone at the top of the legal system. Everyone who could take me down. I had no way of doing anything. No way of doing anything but taking the memory card and running. Running far.”
I struggled to swallow down my own misery all over again. “This is horrible fucking bullshit,” I told her. “It’s all fucking horrible.”
Her nod was genuine. “I know, Bran. I know. It always was. I just thought you would be a part of it ongoing. Maybe one day you’d finally turn up and ask for details, and here you are.”
I flipped the card over in my palm. Over and over and fucking over. “My father thought you were dead,” I said. “Due to Drake? He tried to kill you?”
She nodded. “He tried to get me to go along with his punishment for money venture, but I said no. I started screaming as he tried to grab me at one of his places in the middle of nowhere, ran outside and into the river, and jumped. I jumped in. Incredibly, there was another poor girl who must have jumped in further down. Drake must have thought that was me and I didn’t tell him otherwise. Nobody did until your dad got wind of it.” Another pause. “He’d have killed me, Bran. Believe me, he’d have killed me like he did your dad.”