Page 22 of Kept 3
She has run. I do like a chase, usually, but she took my journals, which is unfortunate, and so I am not happy about the pursuit. If I thought she had only the one, I might let her run a little longer, live a little longer before I catch her, but her ridiculous police officer confessed she has two.
I admit, I enjoyed our little chat, and I’m sure had he not been coming apart at the seams, literally, he could have taken a lesson or two in interrogation from one so practised – but sadly for him, that was not to be. What he told me enraged me, and not being into the new-age stress balls I’ve seen advertised in the US, which you apparently can squeeze and supposedly your anger dissipates, I dealt with my anger and frustration the only way I know how; by using him as a squeeze ball.
But now I am left wondering.
How does she have my first journal as well as my last? Could she, all along, have been aligned with the hunters? Have I once again missed something obvious? Gerald will have a field day if that is the case.
Either way, I must find her.
I pause in my reading, my hands visibly shaking with anger.
‘He used my boyfriend as a squeeze ball?’
Oh, Jesus. Images flash up before my eyes of exactly how he did it, of what it might look like, fuck, feel like. I recall James’ comment that Blake was in bits and pieces all over the room, and I shudder.
‘Do I even want to read on from here? I’m living with this psycho. Do I really want to have in my head all the horrible ways he is going to kill me one day? Yes. I have to know more. I have to read on, because sooner or later, surely, he will slip up and reveal something I can use.’
New Entry
I must delay my hunt for the cook for a day or two while I return to Ereston briefly, to deal with Butler Edward. Apparently, during a recent gathering of the hunt, some of the guests were found to be trespassing in my library.
‘Why the fuck was it unlocked?’ will be my first question to the old man, followed by ‘why should I let you live?’ but then again, he has been in the family for fifty-odd years, and his father before him, and his before that, so perhaps I had better rein in my temper. Still, I will make him very aware that this is the only reason I am not ripping his head off. Even now, thinking about strangers glimpsing my journals – what the Hell was the idiot thinking? If they have read any of my entries, I have several more people I will need to dispose of, and taking a killing detour is not in my plans right now – I have to pursue the cook.
I will know more when I land.
I have arranged to meet my new landscape designer at the same time, may as well kill two birds with one stone, metaphorically speaking, of course. I can’t actually afford to kill another landscape designer if I wish to have my new garden finished this century.
I giggle, but then remember I shouldn’t find this man/monster funny, although, I have always enjoyed the way he writes, and the thought of him reaming that bastard Butler does bring a smile to my face. I hope, though, that the butler didn’t suggest Daniel had read any of the journals. My face blanches, and I hurriedly read on.
New Entry
Butler Edward lives, for the moment, but he owes his life to the cook.
I have my network of agents working around the clock, and I am informed they are confident she is within reach. But something puzzles me, something I had not expected has occurred, and it has left me both confused and at the same time, full of expectation. She was here, she was disguised as waitstaff, and she was the one who trespassed in my study. Her accomplice was not involved in what she was doing. According to Edward, the boy had simply followed her because he was planning on making a pass. This sounds about right. Fucking little lords can’t keep their hands off the staff, never have, never will. I don’t know why I feel so angry at the idea of someone touching her, pressuring her, but it bothers me.
According to Edward, the little bastard never got his way and was thoroughly contrite about being in an off-limits area. As for the cook; she left my journals and ran.
Surely if she was aligned with the hunters, she would have kept the journals and used them for whatever ulterior purpose they had in mind. But she didn’t. She returned them. She even had the courtesy to put them back in their correct order.
I wonder what she thought of this place, what she felt when she entered this library. Was she frightened? It was a brave move, a bold move, to come here, knowing me as she does. My estimation of her rises day by day, as does my expectation that when we meet, killing her will be both trial and tribulation.
I pause my reading as I hear a knock on the door and watch as a maid comes in and delivers a tray of lunch before bobbing a small curtsey and locking the door behind her.
Rising I wander over and lift the silver dome lid off the plate.
“Toad in the hole. You bastard, Butler.”
Snorting, I slam the lid back down and return to bed to continue my reading.
New Entry
Gerald phoned tonight. It has been some time since we have been in contact. He has been abroad and his yacht has no phone reception. Or that is what he tells me. Personally, I think he simply does not like to be disturbed when he is training a new Kept.
He was not at all happy to learn that my journals had been returned, or that I hadn’t found and murdered the Hunter who received the posted copy from Lucy Bernshire.
“Gerald, calm down,” I told him after he finished ranting. “I am going to kill the girl who read my journals. Then I will return to the States and track down the hunter. Obviously, the cook knows who that is, or she wouldn’t have had both journals in her possession. One will lead me to the other.”
“I don’t understand,” he growled, “how is it that you left her alive for all those weeks, reading your journal, and never told me about it?”
