Page 96 of I Would Die for You

With burning lungs, she sprints around the block to the back of the hotel and is horrified to find two ambulances parked up with their blue lights flashing and sirens silenced.

“No!” she gasps, racing toward them.

A policeman sees her coming and holds his hands out in an attempt to stop her from crossing the invisible barrier he’s trying to maintain.

“I need to see,” she shrieks as she pushes past him.

“Now, now, young lady…” he says patronizingly, trying to get hold of the sleeve of her top. “You’ll not be going any farther.”

“Get off me!” she yells, breaking away from him and making a run toward the ambulance that a stretcher is being loaded into.

She stops dead as a robust man with graying temples is huddled out of the back door of the hotel. His face is ashen white and he’s trembling so violently that he can’t keep the blanket on his shoulders. The shock of seeing someone she knows so well in this unfamiliar context takes her brain a second to process.

“Oh my god—Dad!” gasps Nicole, struggling for breath. “What’s happened?”

She stumbles in a state of confusion, unable to comprehend what he could possibly have done to warrant the handcuffs around his wrists.

It’s only when she rights herself and looks at the stretcher again that she gets her answer. It’s not a casualty being taken to hospital. It’s a body bag being taken to the morgue.

53

CALIFORNIA, 2011

My fingers prod at the digits on Zoe’s cell phone in a frantic attempt to call Cassie back.

“I swear, if you do anything to hurt them…” I cry when it goes to voicemail.

“What the hell’s going on?” asks Ben, perplexed.

I turn the phone to show him the photo Cassie has sent and he looks at it blankly, none the wiser.

“She’s in my house,” I say, as a searing heat wraps itself around me, making me feel as if I’m about to pass out. I look at my watch blindly, unable to see the time as my brain tries to work out where Brad and Hannah might be right now. But I don’t even know what day it is anymore, my mind a jumbled mess.

A red mist descends as I dare to contemplate the hundred miles or more that stand between me and my family. How will I ever make it in time? How will I ever forgive myself if I don’t? I head to the door, knowing that I can’t stay here, the reason I came no longer important.

“Wait, what about the letter?” Ben calls out after me. “What did it say?”

“Where are you going?” asks Zoe, seemingly oblivious to the threat Cassie poses.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “This was a mistake.”

The rush of blood in my ears is deafening as I get in the car and slam it into drive. “Please pick up,” I wail as the call to Brad’s phone goes unanswered again and again.

I recall the image on Zoe’s phone, of Cassie sitting on Hannah’s bed, waiting for my sweet girl to get home from school. What will she say when she sees her “auntie” there? Will she call out in innocent surprise? Or will Cassie do something to silence her before she has the chance? I swallow the hot bile that rushes to the back of my throat every time I’m forced to imagine the worst-case scenario, and try Hank instead.

“Hank, she’s at the house,” I cry into the phone as soon as he picks up. “She’s got Brad and Hannah…”

“Who has?” he says in a rush.

“My sister—the woman behind it all… She’s at the house. Brad’s not answering his phone and I’m going as fast as I can but…”

“OK, I’m heading there now,” he says, and I can’t help but feel pathetically grateful that he’s not going to ask any more questions.

“Please hurry,” I sob, pressing the gas pedal down to the floor.

Miles pass, but I have no recollection of them as my macabre thoughts take over my entire being. I imagine Brad being forced to watch as Cassie carries out her threat. How far will she go to protect herself? Does she really believe that holding my family for ransom will keep her secret safe? Does she not realize that I stand to lose them anyway once the truth comes out?

When I finally admit thatIkilled Michael Delaney.

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