Chapter 22 Kate

22 KATE

NOW

It’s just past ten at night, and she’s waiting at the jetty for Jade, as per their text messages. It’s still beautifully warm, the night sky shimmering with galaxies, but she hugs herself out of worry. The way Rob pounded across the restaurant… it was so aggressive, like a bull to a red rag. After dinner, she walked past Jade’s villa several times to check that she was all right, but there was no sound from inside, and she didn’t want to knock.

Floodlights illuminate long shadows moving through the water below the jetty. Sharks, she thinks, coming out to feed.

She checks her phone quickly, in case Jade has texted to cancel. No new texts, but there’s a new email in her inbox from Jacob Levitt.

Darcy’s ex-husband.

Her heart racing, she opens it quickly, half-expecting it to be one of those spam messages asking for money or nudes. It isn’t, but the content is no less confusing.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Dear Kate,

I appreciate you’re on holiday but I’m writing with regard to a software issue at my company. In particular, I want to get some information about Adrian Clifton. Could you email or call me at the number below as soon as you can?

Thanks, Jacob

She stares at the message, her mind spinning. A software issue? Why is Adrian Clifton mentioned? Did Darcy tell him?

And how the hell did he get her personal email address?

She reads it again, and again, before quickly responding.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Dear Jacob,

I’m a bit alarmed by this email. Can you clarify, please, what you mean by “software issue,” and what information you think I can provide about Adrian Clifton?

Best,

Kate

Footsteps sound behind her, and with a sigh of relief she sees Jade’s slender form moving along the path. She has changed into a simple white bikini set and pink sarong. Quickly, Kate puts her phone in her pocket, forcing her shock at the email to the back of her mind.

“Hi,” Jade says. “Rob’s asleep.”

“Good,” Kate says with a smile. She had worried that Jade would turn up bruised and battered, but there’s no sign of fresh injuries, at least not anywhere visible. “Shall we walk and talk?”

They walk along the beach on the east side of the island in silence, glancing at the resort on the other side of the lagoon, where a platform is illuminated by a purple light. Kate doesn’t want to dive into questions, but rather lets Jade walk with her, letting her know she’s not alone. Allowing her the space to share if she wants.

“It started about a year ago,” Jade says, once they’ve moved far away from the villas. “It seemed like an accident at first.”

“What did?” Kate asks.

Jade stops and looks out over the lagoon, holding her arms across herself. “He… hit me. A total one-off, never-happen-again kind of thing. And then it did happen again, but it was months later. And then again, and again.”

That bastard , Kate thinks. She feels so very sorry for Jade, but it’s more than that—she sees exactly where Jade is headed if she doesn’t do something.

They walk slowly, toeing the tide, pausing when a loud cheer arises from the restaurant in the distance. A celebration—exactly what they should be doing.

“Do you have family you can turn to?” Kate asks gently.

Jade shakes her head. “Not really. Everyone thinks Rob’s amazing. He could charm the horns off a bull. They’d say I’m making it all up.”

“Because he’s older?” Kate asks, and Jade nods.

“I’m just a nail technician,” Jade says, though she sounds like she is mimicking someone who has previously mocked her. “My dad’s a recovering alcoholic. He loves me, I know he does, but I know exactly what he’d say if I told him the truth about Rob.” She sighs. “It’s complicated.”

“Family always is,” Kate says knowingly.

“Mom has her own thing going on,” Jade says, hoisting her sarong up around her knees. “As far as she’s concerned, I should be grateful someone like Rob wants to give me the time of day.”

“What about friends?” Kate asks. “Anyone you can maybe stay with for a while?”

Jade looks deflated. “I moved to London to be with Rob,” she says. “I haven’t made any new friends there yet. I mean, there’s the girls at work, but we’re not besties. Rob always wants me to spend my free time with him. I did have a best friend back home, but she’s not speaking to me now. I’ve managed to push everyone away.”

They walk in silence for a few moments. Jade is skittish, jumping at the slightest sound.

“I want to tell you something,” Kate says. “But if I do, I need you to promise you’ll keep it entirely to yourself.”

Jade nods. “I promise.”

“When I was about your age, I experienced something that changed the course of my life,” she says carefully.

“Were you married?”

“No. I was a student at the time, studying for a master’s degree in archaeology at Leeds University. I’d won a scholarship. It was a huge deal for me. It was an escape route from my family, you see. As part of the degree, I was to go on a field trip to a site in Dover. There were fourteen of us. The night before, we all had to stay in hotels in the area. Me and a couple of others stayed in a guesthouse on the edge of the town.” She draws a breath, remembering it sharply, bright as the day it happened. “My taxi driver got lost, I’d been delayed on the train, so by the time I checked in it was just after midnight.”

Kate tells her, in broken, stuttering fragments, about the man at the reception desk, about waking the next morning, finding Professor Berry. About racing for help, but finding that every single guest had been murdered.

Jade stops walking, her mouth open in horror. They stand by the very top of the island where darkness falls on both their faces, deepening the hollows of Jade’s eyes, and for a moment she looks cadaverous.

“You slept in that guesthouse,” Jade says slowly, visibly shaken by what Kate has just shared. “And all those other people… they were already dead?”

Kate nods, feeling a familiar kick of fear in the pit of her stomach.

“Oh my God,” Jade says. “Kate… I mean… that’s horrific. I can’t even… Did they… did they ever find who did it?”

“Oh yes,” Kate says. “It was the man who checked me in. He was a sex offender.”

Jade is still gobsmacked. “But, why? Why would someone do that? Kill people in their beds?”

Kate shrugs. “Nobody really knows. They say he just snapped. He’s dead now.”

“Shit,” Jade says, her voice a little louder. Suddenly she grabs Kate’s arm, as though realizing something even more terrifying. “Wait. Why didn’t he stab you ?”

Kate thinks back to the trial. Long, surreal days in that small courtroom, watching the hunched figure in a cheap suit on the stand, coughing into a tissue.

“He could have, if he’d wanted to. He had the key to my room. A psychologist said that he allowed me to live because he wanted me to spend the rest of my days knowing that every breath I drew and every thought I had was enabled by him.”

Jade narrows her eyes. “That’s evil.”

Kate nods. “It is.” She stoops to pick up a pretty white shell, thumbing the smooth inner part. She feels glad, as always, for the years that are between her and that night. For the small ways they’ve eroded the horror of it, just enough to allow her to cope.

“It’s been over twenty years,” Kate says. “The anniversary of it is tomorrow, in fact. Most of the time, I feel like I’m over it. I’m happy. I’ve had a nice life. I could have been murdered, like the rest of them.”

THEY TURN AND HEAD BACK along the beach in a pensive, troubled silence.

“Like I said,” Kate says after a while, “it changed everything. And it’s made me realize that life is short.” She stops and looks at the shell in her hand before pressing it into Jade’s.

“You need to act quickly,” she tells her. “If you hesitate any longer, it may cost you your life.”

Jade nods, but she looks terrified.

“I don’t know where I’d go,” she says. “I don’t have anyone other than Rob. I pushed everyone away. My salary goes into a joint account. Rob put a tracking app on my phone. He can see everything I do.”

“I have a small savings account,” Kate says, gauging Jade’s reaction.

Jade looks surprised, her eyebrows raised. Her mouth opens, but she seems too stunned to speak.

“It’s not much,” Kate adds. “But it’ll be enough to get you out of there, a few months’ rent somewhere else.”

Jade looks away, her hands clasped together. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You should take it,” Kate urges. Then, with a sharp breath: “Before it’s too late.”