Birdsong ripples through the air as Emilia approaches the park.
She tugs on the lead, bringing Mimi to a stop on the edge of the pavement, and fixes her eyes on the blocked-off gate, her hands curling into anxious fists at her sides. What would Ciaran say if he knew that she’d come here again? And what could she possibly achieve by going inside? But just like so many others who have been gathering outside the gates, she is drawn to the darkness, her mind seeking answers.
Mimi pulls on her lead, desperate to be walked. Emilia turns away from the gate, glancing over her shoulder one final time at the police cars before following the road around until she reaches a public footpath that cuts behind the park and into the woods beyond.
She lets Mimi off the lead, smiling as she trots into the nearby trees, then pulls her coat tightly around herself, her arms gripping her elbows as the wind billows through the trees, dead leaves swirling around her feet.
Emilia moves further into the woods, every so often calling Mimi’s name to make sure that she is following behind. But other than their footsteps and the rustling of leaves, it is completely quiet. The silence is eerie, the devastation of tragedy still lingering in the air.
Something snaps behind her and she spins around, her eyes searching desperately, fists clenching at her sides. But there is nobody there.
‘Mimi?’
Barks echo through the trees, a flash of her pink harness visible beyond the undergrowth.
She turns back around, shaking her head at the ground. She is alone.
But … that isn’t true.
She squints, focusing on the distance. There is somebody walking towards her. Somebody stooped over, their hood lowered over their face.
They stagger forward suddenly and Emilia gasps as their hood falls away. It is a woman. Her lip broken. Her mouth wide open in a silent cry. Her hands bound in front of her.
Isabella?
‘Isabella!’ Emilia cries, sprinting forward, Mimi chasing behind her, as adrenalin and fear fuse together in an overwhelming mixture.
She reaches her and Isabella’s arms flail forward, stumbling towards Emilia as she loses her footing. Emilia wraps her arms around Isabella’s shoulders, bracing her legs against the frozen ground.
‘Don’t touch me,’ Isabella screams. ‘Let go of me! Don’t touch me!’
Emilia releases her, holding her hands up in front of her.
They both freeze, Isabella’s breaths coming out in desperate pants, her mouth hanging open in a silent cry. And then suddenly her chest is heaving, her hands clenched together, fingers grappling with the frozen leaves, her sobs hoarse and desperate. And there is something else there, something other than terror and trauma.
Relief.
She has been found. She is alive.
Emilia shuffles closer but Isabella flinches. Emilia holds her hands up again. ‘I won’t touch you, I promise,’ she says quietly. ‘But I just need to get my phone from my pocket. We need to call an ambulance and the police –’
Isabella’s cries escalate, morphing into a flurry of words, unintelligible and blurred. But there is one Emilia can make out. She is saying a name.
‘Greg! Greg!’
Emilia tries to look her in the eye but they are closed tightly, her entire face screwed shut. ‘Gregory Weiss?’ she asks.
Isabella’s eyes fly open, the whites flooded with red. Maybe she has cried so hard her blood vessels have burst. Or maybe they did this to her. Just like her lip, bleeding and red-raw. She nods.
‘His body is here,’ she whispers. ‘We need to go to him!’
Emilia’s breath catches in the back of her throat. ‘Here?’
Isabella looks backwards over her shoulder. She raises her hands together, and points to where she came from, where the path that cuts through the woods goes over the crest of a hill and disappears.
‘He’s over there?’
Isabella nods wildly, gulping down air, unable to breathe.
‘Okay … I’ll go and then I’ll call the police, okay?’
She nods again.
Emilia stands but Isabella immediately cries out, her eyes wild and confused. ‘No, wait, don’t leave me!’
Emilia crouches down again, careful to meet Isabella’s eye. ‘Would you feel safer coming with me or staying here?’
Isabella blinks at her, her mouth crumpling with emotion. ‘What’s your name? Who are you?’
‘My name is Emilia. Emilia Haines. I used to be a police officer. And I’m going to help you. Okay?’
She nods, faster and faster, her tears once again silent, streaming steadily down her pale cheeks.
‘You’ll come with me?’
She continues to nod, but holds up her hands towards Emilia, glancing at the binding around her wrists.
‘Oh Jesus … I want to untie them but I think I need to leave them like this so the police can see. I don’t want to touch the rope. Do you understand?’
‘Yes,’ she whimpers.
‘You’re safe now … Can I help you stand?’
‘Yes.’
Emilia entwines her arm around Isabella’s shoulders and lifts her slowly to her feet. She scans the woods, searching for Mimi, then realizes that she is still beside them, her tail sloped downwards, her eyes wide.
They begin to walk together in the direction Isabella had indicated, taking steady steps, Isabella’s breathing loud and heavy. She begins to shiver, her teeth chattering, her lips so pale they are almost blue against her brown skin.
Emilia glances down – Isabella’s feet are bare.
‘Isabella, your feet …’
She stops, staring down, bewildered. As if she hadn’t realized either. She glances up again but as she does, her eyes widen, round and glassy. Emilia follows her gaze to the bottom of the slight hill and her mouth drops open.
There, in the distance, lying across the path, is Gregory Weiss. His skin ashen. A cascade of dried blood showing the path where it pumped from his temple down his white shirt. The bullet hole.
And his hands bound, just like hers.
Isabella’s scream rips through Emilia and the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She remembers that scream. The feeling as it burst out of her when she found Sophie. No matter how many times she turned away from her sister, the moment she glanced back, that scream would be tugged out of her involuntarily, as if her broken heart was trying to escape the confines of her body. As if it was searching for what it had lost, hoping that Sophie would answer its call.
Emilia spins Isabella around. ‘Don’t look at him,’ she whispers. ‘Don’t do it.’
‘I’m sorry!’ Isabella cries through ragged breaths as she collapses against Emilia’s shoulder.
‘It isn’t your fault. This isn’t your fault –’
‘Why did they choose me? Why!’
‘Choose you –’
A loud gasp – somewhere over Emilia’s shoulder – interrupts them, and she cranes her neck, her protective arms never leaving Isabella’s shaking frame.
A woman is standing just a few feet behind them. Her eyes are fixed on Gregory’s body, her face turning almost grey.
‘Is that … Is that –’
‘Yes,’ Emilia whispers, trying not to panic Isabella. ‘Call the police. Now.’
The woman finally looks at Emilia, as if she is just realizing that there are other people standing right there. She takes in Isabella. Her bloody clothes. Her bare feet.
‘Call the police,’ Emilia repeats. ‘And we need an ambulance!’
The woman nods, her fingers fumbling frantically at her pocket for her phone.
Isabella lifts her head and stares at Emilia, her eyes wide and panicked, darting around from sky to ground as she gulps for air.
‘I can’t … I can’t breathe!’ she gasps, her fingers tangling themselves in Emilia’s scarf.
‘You can, I promise you,’ Emilia says, forcing her voice to remain level. Controlled. This is like any other victim she interacted with as a detective. She must remain calm. ‘If you can speak, you can breathe. Here – come with me.’
Emilia pulls her away from the woman, away from Gregory. She needs space. She needs to focus.
Questions. She needs to ask Isabella questions – concentrate her mind.
‘Listen to me. Don’t look at him. Don’t listen to what that lady is doing. Listen to me. I’m going to ask you some questions, okay?’
She nods.
‘Isabella … Do you mind if I turn the video on my phone on?’
‘No,’ she whimpers.
‘Okay.’ Emilia turns on the camera and holds it down by her side, aiming upwards to capture Isabella. ‘How did you get here?’
She blinks rapidly, trying to process the question.
Her eyes glaze over, her mind forcing her inside, into the memory.
‘In a van … we were in a van.’
‘Okay, did you see the van? What did it look like?’
‘No … I was wearing a hood. Like a black cotton bag, over my head.’
Emilia glances down at her phone, checking that Isabella is still visible on the screen. ‘How long have you been here? Was it light when you were brought here?’
She shakes her head, her eyes suddenly focusing, a glint of anger in her eye. ‘It was still dark.’
‘And what happened?’
‘They led us here and then just dumped us on the ground. Then they took off my hood –’
‘They. A person? Or more than one person?’
‘Two … two people.’
‘The same people who took you to the Room?’
‘Yes.’
Emilia’s heart thunders. She was right. This isn’t just one person. One killer. If Luca is involved, he isn’t acting alone.
Sirens blare in the near distance. Police are coming.
‘After they left, what did you do?’
She blinks rapidly, tears that have been suspended on her lower lashes finally falling down her cheeks in hot streaks.
‘I waited,’ she whispered.
‘For how long?’
‘I don’t know. I just waited. It could have been hours. I just lay there, waiting for it to be over. Waiting for someone to find us. But once the sun came up, I realized that I could get out of my binds if I tried –’
‘They tied you up? Your feet as well?’
‘My ankles were tied together. But they were loosening and I managed to get out of them. I untied my feet and tried to run. And that’s when you found me.’
She exhales loudly, as if she’s been punched, winded, her expression a strange combination of horror and relief.
‘Isabella, you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but … what happened to you and Gregory inside that room? Why were you there?’
She shakes her head, her eyes screwing shut.
Emilia feels a pang of guilt – she’s pushing too far. ‘It’s okay, you don’t have to –’
‘They made us both confess something,’ Isabella whispers. ‘We had to make a confession.’
Emilia frowns, lifting her hand to gently squeeze Isabella’s shoulder. ‘And then?’
She blinks and stares straight at Emilia, her eyes empty. As if she is no longer there, her body an empty shell.
‘And then they chose which one of us deserved to die.’