Page 15 of Ruthless Intent

“The reason I was there is none of your business.” I turn my back on her and walk away.

“I hope you don’t think you can come back here and expect to be greeted with open arms. Zain is on his way home, and then the truth will come out. We all know what a lying little bitch you were.”

I bite into my bottom lip to stop myself from responding, and keep walking. The last thing I need is to get into a fight with her.

“I’ll see you later, Ashley.” There’s a clear warning in the syrupy sweet voice, but I ignore her and focus on putting one foot in front of the other until I reach the steps leading up to my mom’s house.

The door opens before I reach it.

“I thought you were going to call before you decided to come home?”

I shrug. My mom’s gaze tracks over my face, then she sighs.

“Come on in, then. You’re lucky I’m here. I’m leaving in half an hour to meet the girls.”

I follow her inside, and walk through to the kitchen.

“I can book a room in a hotel if you don't want me here.”

“I didn’t say that. Was that Sondra I saw outside? Did she say anything to you? That woman really needs to keep her nose out of things that don’t concern her.” She sits at the table. “I was planning to eat at the club tonight. But there’s food in the freezer, if you’re hungry. Or you could just get something delivered.” Her eyebrow lifts, and I know what’s coming. “If you’d called first, I could have made other arrangements.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I just …” I drag out a chair from beneath the kitchen table and sit down opposite her. “I can’t stop thinking about him being freed, and this is the only place I don’t have to pretend it didn’t happen.”

She’s silent for a minute, then her arm reaches out so she can touch my shoulder. “I don’t understand why you need to pretend at all. But I know how hard this must be for you. I honestly didn’t think he’d be released, and I never thought about how that would affect you. Do you want me to cancel my plans? I can stay here with you.”

I shake my head. “No. You go. The quiet will make a nice change. It’s always noisy at the house with Jessa-Mae and Karla.”

“Are you sure?”

I summon up a smile. “Of course I am. I’ll go and see if Sondra has gone, get my case and unpack. I want to go through the things I left here anyway, so I’ll spend the afternoon doing that.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

ZAIN

Sleep is impossible, and I give up after a couple of hours of staring at the ceiling, and go back into the suite’s main room. The bag containing everything I’d had on me before being imprisoned is sitting where I left it on the table, the television remote beside it. I reach for the controller, and stab at the power button with one finger. The TV screen brightens, and voices come from the speakers. I lower the volume down to a respectable level for this hour, then pick up the bag, sit on the couch, and empty the contents onto my lap.

Two sets of keys, a half-empty packet of cigarettes, fifty dollars and change, a polaroid photograph, a stick of gum, and my cell phone.

I toss the keys onto the table, put the cash in my new wallet, and throw the cigarettes into the trash can. One good thing about being incarcerated, I guess. I no longer smoke.

Leaving the photograph face down, I put it on the cushion beside me, and pick up the cell phone. I know it’s not going to turn on. Not after this long. The battery will be long dead. But I can’t stop myself from trying anyway, and there’s still a surge of disappointment when it stays dead. Maybe I can find a charger that works with it.

Why do you want to torture yourself with what you’ll find on it?

I shove that question away, and look down at the back of the photograph. I don’t need to flip it over to know what I’ll see. I kept the photograph in my wallet. We all had one. Three of the same pose.

A reminder of a more innocent time.

The date scrawled across the back in faded black marker is six months prior to Jason and Louisa’s death. Heart in my throat, I flip it over … and stare down at the younger versions of myself, Louisa, and Jason.

Louisa is in the center, and we both have our arms across her shoulders. We look happy, carefree, and ridiculously young.

My stomach twists, bile rising, but I swallow it down and force myself to look closer at the image.

Louisa is wearing a summer dress. Her favorite one, covered in sunflowers. Jason is wearing my jacket. He’d grabbed it off the back of the couch as we all ran for the door, late for class. I stroke a finger over the laughing faces.

We’d stopped for lunch at one of the college cafes and begged some random guy outside to take three photographs, so we could have one each. Six months later, they were both dead, I was found covered in their blood, without anyone who could confirm where I was when they were slaughtered.

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