24. A Shot

Minutes before Luís Castillo’s murder

Dom

I was outside Leonie’s house. For the last year, this was my secret way in, over the gate into their garden, narrowly missing the pool and climbing the trellis to her balcony.

She should be expecting me. Apart from our very short and angry confrontation at school that day where I’d said I would come over, we hadn’t spoken all week.

For the last six days, I couldn’t get the pictures Leonie had sent Sam Yun out of my head.

She’d sent them to him. She wanted him to see her like that.

Since our stand-off, I’d gone home and spent my afternoon researching universities and their cybersecurity courses. I’d already been accepted to the most prestigious university in England, but there was one at our local campus, Drakon University, but my course, the best course, was a six-hour drive away.

And I didn’t have to wait for my grades to know I was getting in.

But something held me back from confirming my acceptance.

What if I came back and she had fallen in love with someone? What if this bicker became larger if we left it to fester? What if Sam Yun got more than just pictures next time?

So, after Dad and Uncle Anton’s encouragement an hour ago, I was climbing the tree beside her gated garden, ready to confess my love.

When I heard the shot.

I froze. Then pulled out my gun. I hadn’t been without it since the girls had been taken.

For Leonie, I’d already killed. I would happily do it again.

I threw myself over the gate, landing at a crouch beside her pool as I often did when I picked her up for our midnight drives.

Luís had told me, man to man, a few weeks ago to leave his daughter to sleep. Leonie and I had laughed about it and said that after I finished my exams I’d just park further down the road.

There was no noise from the house. It was midnight on a Thursday, and there was no way Leo would be sleeping. The lights were all out apart from the soft glow on her first-floor bedroom, her parent’s room and their kitchen on the ground floor.

I ascended up to her balcony like I had a hundred times before but never with such urgency.

“Leonie—Leonie!” I hissed, lifting my hands to the window to see through.

Her lamp was on, her bed unmade.

The kidnap attempt.

Just months ago, someone had taken her from outside the shopping mall. In broad daylight.

Maybe they’d come back.

But both her father and mother were in. I’d checked on their newly installed security cameras and been alarmed by the lack of staff. It was like the Castillos had a clear out, a family night planned. Which was unheard of.

My hand was sweaty as I pulled up the window. Even that had an alarm.

But it wouldn’t work tonight.

In her room, I whispered her name again, before I heard the horrified, agonised screams down the hallway.

My body was in motion, running down the marble staircase to the cries. I’d played hide and seek in this house at every family gathering for the first twelve years of my life. Not much had changed in the last six. I could walk this house blind.

But the intruder couldn’t.

A figure in the dark ran down the hallway towards the back and I would have gone after them if I didn’t hear the weeping, the scream of, “Mum, no!”

I’d never moved so fast. In their kitchen, Leonie was on her knees, a hand grasping a gun, as her mother held one to her temple, tears streaming down both their faces.

And, before them, lay Luís gurgling on his own blood.

“It’s me,” I said, arms up as Leonie turned around at the noise of my footsteps on the broken, bloody glass. She had walked right through it, her feet cut and bleeding. By impulse, she had lifted the gun in her hands to me, untrembling.

As she saw me, her shoulders relaxed somewhat and she gave her attention back to her wailing mother.

I came to Leonie’s back and bent to take the gun from her hand. Her grip was strong as she stared at her mother, tears falling down her face without a sound. “Mum, don’t. Please.”

Her mum was sobbing, her attention only on Luís. “I can’t— I can’t do it.”

And she pulled the trigger.