Behind Closed Doors (Season One: Book 7) (Jessica Daniel) (26 page)

‘Working? I’ve only had one day. I was ill yesterday, then we’ve been off today.’

‘Sorry, of course. So much has happened this week that everything’s blended together. It seems like ages ago that you came along.’

Jessica couldn’t argue with that. It was hard to keep track of time. She knew it was only four days that she had been here but it felt like weeks.

‘Can I help?’ she asked, craving someone to talk to who didn’t have an obvious desire to investigate her every word.

‘Not really, I was . . .’ Ali glanced over Jessica’s shoulder and she saw the hopeful gaze he had been sporting dissolve into disappointment. She might not be an expert on
relationships but it told her he had a thing for Heather. If they were both off, he had hoped to spend an afternoon with her. Jessica wondered if he knew about Heather’s feelings for Moses.
She doubted it.

‘It’s been a hard week with Wayne and everything,’ he said.

‘I didn’t realise you were friends.’

‘It’s not that, it’s because we all end up hearing each other’s stories. I always felt drawn to him because we’d been through a lot of the same things.’

Jessica flicked her head, indicating for him to come into the bedroom but he shook his head.

‘I think I’ll come back to find Heather later,’ he said, before turning and heading back towards the stairs.

Dinner was another tense affair. Moses’s Bible reading was from Isaiah, about traitors and destroyers. He thanked everyone for their cooperation through the day,
insisting he would not allow ‘outside forces’ to corrupt what they had. He seemed edgy, which only fed the uncertain atmosphere in the room. Jessica couldn’t figure out if he was
doing it on purpose as a way of bringing them together, or if he had genuinely been rattled by the police visit.

‘Would anyone like to share their thoughts about today?’ he asked, scanning along the table. Jessica wouldn’t meet his eye.

He waited in silence to see if anyone would respond but the room stayed eerily silent. As well as Moses at the front, Jessica could sense Glenn glaring across the table too. Something had
changed and she didn’t know what.

When it was clear no one was going to speak, Moses said a prayer for Wayne, their ‘brother who has passed’, and then excused them for the evening.

Jessica followed the others through the hallways but the mood was subdued, few people bothering to speak to each other. The games room was similarly quiet, the only sound being the thud of darts
into the board and the clatter of snooker balls into each other.

Over the past few months, so many people had told Jessica she should talk to someone about everything that had happened to her that she had simply stopped speaking to anybody. She had almost
forgotten how to interact but this felt like people were going out of their way to avoid talking to her. She would glance up, only to see people quickly look away; try to start a conversation only
to have it shot down with a one-word answer.

It wasn’t the first time she had been unpopular in a group situation and probably wouldn’t be the last – assuming she got out of the house. But in all past situations, she knew
why she was in that position, usually because she had spoken out of turn or wound someone up either accidentally or, more likely, on purpose. This time, she wasn’t sure but the unease had
begun with Moses’s advances that morning, continued with Heather’s obvious fishing for information, and now culminated in people apparently not talking to her. Was it something she had
said or done? Or was this some new sort of test to see how she would react? Worse still, was she becoming paranoid? It wouldn’t be the first time she had been accused of thinking everything
revolved around her.

Still, this felt real. Heather would usually sit close to her but she was on the opposite side of the room, refusing to acknowledge anything. What little chat there was around the room related
solely to the games.

As well as the feeling that she had somehow annoyed the others, Jessica was bored, stuck in the house with pastimes she would usually have no interest in, surrounded by people she had no
connection to and couldn’t trust.

For the first time in months, she missed her old life: her job, her friends, driving to work, forgetting her coat, the buzz of finding a lead. Most of all, she missed Adam and the way it used to
be before things had fallen apart.

Again.

She longed for the weekend they’d spent trying to decorate but mainly making a mess. He was one of the few people who actually understood her, let alone could put up with her. He was in
the small minority of people she could tolerate for longer than a few minutes here or there.

Cole might have been manipulative in getting her here, Charley might have been taking advantage by using everything that had happened to her as fuel to get her into the house, but what they had
both achieved was to make her appreciate what she had left in her life, as opposed to the things she had lost.

The irony was that it had taken coming to this place for her to realise it. She wanted to return home but knew she couldn’t be happy there unless she finished the job here.

How much of her life would still be left standing when she eventually got out, she didn’t know.

Jessica felt as depressed as she had done since arriving at the house but that was coupled with a greater sense of purpose to get it all over with. Knowing she wasn’t going to get anything
done by sitting around being ignored, she left the room without a word, heading into the deserted corridors and going for a walk. She checked each of the paintings to see if any were of the house
and could perhaps give a clue to what the greenhouse was. Nothing jumped out but she at least felt like she was doing something.

Jessica did one full lap of the ground floor before heading up the stairs, stopping at the top and staring out of the central window towards the land beyond. The moon was lower but larger, the
white so bright that everything across the gardens could be seen clearly.

Lost in the view, Jessica heard movement behind her. Thinking it was someone going up to bed, she didn’t turn, assuming they wouldn’t want to say anything to her anyway.

It was only when the bag was slipped over her head and the hand covered her mouth that she realised someone in the house was ready to have a word.

Jessica knew how to look after herself. She swung her elbows back viciously but her attacker knew what to do, stepping close and wrenching her arms up into a full nelson before
yanking them down again as her wrists were clamped together with plastic ties. The ends were pulled tightly, a male voice shushing her as she squealed in pain. Jessica tried to flail her legs but
they were kicked out from under her, leaving her writhing on the floor.

The backs of her knees were burning from the force of the blow, the ties cutting so deeply into her wrists that they were already going numb. As she breathed in, Jessica got a mouthful of the
harsh hessian material, scratching her lips and leaving her gasping. Instinct told her to panic, to fight and thrash, but she already knew she was beaten. Flashes of every tight situation she had
ever been in swirled through her mind: being choked in her own hallway by a mass murderer, paralysed and unable to move after being injected with a drug, almost being caught breaking into a house
by the police waiting outside.

The fire.

Smoke seeping into her lungs, clouding her thoughts, making her chest heavy, leaving her at the mercy of the flames.

As she was roughly hauled up, Jessica’s feet bounced limply on the floor but the horrors of what she had been through helped her to compose herself. The bag was tied around her neck,
leaving a small gap at the bottom. If she breathed steadily, she would be fine, leaving herself with enough energy to fight if the opportunity came. If she panicked now, she would quickly tire
before she had a chance to assess what was going on.

She may have made many mistakes in the past but she at least tried to learn from them.

‘Walk,’ a male voice ordered, so Jessica obeyed, allowing whoever it was to direct her down the stairs. It didn’t sound like Glenn’s but she couldn’t figure out who
else the voice could belong to, her hearing muffled by the bag, judgement clouded by the way her heart was beating so quickly.

Her worst fear was that Moses was involved. If he was bold enough to touch her when she was able to fight back then what might he be like when she was helpless?

Be calm. Concentrate.

The footsteps were soft on the carpeted floors but Jessica was attempting to work out how many people there were. The male voice belonged to the person with a hand on her shoulder but she tried
to blank his movements, as well as her own, paying attention to the other sounds.

It was difficult to know for sure as it had happened so quickly but she thought there must be at least two people involved because of how her wrists were tied.

At first Jessica could hear nothing but her own movements but then she caught it: a soft creak of the banister. She was being led one step at a time down the centre of the staircase but, behind
her, someone was using the handrail. It was gentle but there was a definite groan from the antique wood, a protest at the years of being shunted back and forth supporting any number of people
ascending and descending.

As they reached the bottom, Jessica tried to figure out where she was being taken but there was no attempt to disguise the route to the front door. Whoever was holding her told her to be still
and then she heard the clunk of the bolt opening, before being instructed to walk.

Even through the bag, Jessica could feel the change in temperature. The cool night air sent a shiver rippling through her, the bright white of the moon creeping through the small holes in the
material and disorientating her even further.

First there was the solid crunch of the concrete and loose stones underneath her feet, then the squelchy, slippery surface of the lawn. Jessica closed her eyes, blocking the dazzling mix of
light and dark that was making her dizzy, focusing on the sounds around her.

She listened for the second set of footsteps splashing through the mud, trying to figure out if it sounded like someone with thick, clumping footsteps, or if it was daintier. Jessica was
struggling to keep her footing, the way her hands were clamped behind her back making it difficult to balance across the wet, uneven terrain and almost impossible to discern the individual
movements of anyone other than herself.

Still she stayed calm, waiting for the persuasive pokes and prods in her back and shoulder that were directing her further away from the house.

‘Wait,’ the voice insisted and Jessica again did as she was told. Perhaps it was Glenn, after all. It had the husky roughness she associated with him but was slightly higher in
pitch.

A gate squeaked open and a hand snaked around her waist, pulling her forward.

‘Wait,’ they repeated after she stepped through.

Underfoot, she could feel thin, sodden twigs and knew she had been brought to the woods. Somewhere in the distance, an owl hooted but there were other noises too; creatures scurrying in the
undergrowth, snaps and crackles from the far reaches of the darkness.

Jessica’s shoulders were beginning to cramp from the harsh angle they had been secured in. She tried to wriggle her fingers but could feel nothing but pins and needles. Her training in how
to put on handcuffs had been such a long time ago that she could barely remember it, but it was something hard to get wrong. The biggest mistake people made was putting them on too tightly. The
fact she was already feeling numb meant the ties had been pulled far too forcefully. She clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to stimulate the circulation but only making her shoulder pain
worse.

She could feel her heart thumping faster, realising that a few more minutes in the restraints meant her hands would be useless if she was ever released.

‘They’re too tight,’ Jessica whimpered, trying to sound as girly and pathetic as she could. She needed whoever it was to underestimate her, perhaps even feel sorry for her.

‘Keep moving.’ The voice was definitely Glenn’s.

‘They’re hurting me, Glenn.’

Jessica knew it was a risk but she wanted to humanise both herself and him. She still didn’t know who the second person was, or if there was even a third or fourth. It was easy to commit
acts upon someone whose face was covered. Only true monsters would look into a victim’s eyes and still not care what they inflicted upon them.

The base of a hand pressed into the lower part of her back, pushing her forward.

‘I can’t feel my fingers, Glenn,’ Jessica pleaded again.

‘Shut up and keep walking.’

‘I am walking but my arms are going numb. They’re too tight, it’s hurting.’

‘Not long now.’

‘Where are we going?’

This time the shove in her back was more pronounced, Jessica’s feet knocking together, making her stagger. Instinctively she tried to move her hands to stop herself falling but that only
made the plastic dig in further and it was too late. She slipped, stumbling forward face-first, bracing herself for the impact. Before she felt the blow, she realised someone was holding her up
from behind, clenching the waistband of her trousers to stop her falling. They didn’t say anything but Jessica’s eyes popped open, the gentle haze of moonlight still befuddling her as
it seeped through the minuscule holes in the bag.

The person holding her trousers didn’t let go, hauling her up and then pushing her forward. She might have lost weight but she wasn’t that small and the display of strength was as
impressive as it was worrying. Assuming it was Glenn, he had lifted her one-handed without so much as a grunt of exertion.

Despite her awareness of the situation, knowing she shouldn’t panic, Jessica was beginning to feel her body’s instincts taking over. She was gasping for deeper breaths even though
she knew she shouldn’t; she was battling against the harsh ties, even though it was making it worse.