Silence filled Melody’s room like quicksand, slowly drowning its only occupant. Jerome sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the locked door. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Definitely minutes, perhaps half an hour. He’d tried throwing his weight at the door but the door opened into the room, and so there was no chance of breaking it down. A search of Melody’s possessions for a tool to help him remove the door lock had proven fruitless, with not even a pair of tweezers in sight. He’d then resorted to screaming for help until his throat was raw. No one had answered.
Getting up from the bed, Jerome paced over to the window. The thought had already crossed his mind several times, but it presented itself again: there was only one way he was getting out of this room. But he couldn’t do it. From the window, there was a drop of about twelve feet onto the porch roof. Even if he managed to land correctly, there would be the risk of slipping in the rain and breaking untold amounts of bones. Then there was the risk of not landing correctly, of smashing straight through the porch roof. Then there was his morbid terror of heights.
Jerome returned to the bed. He eyed Melody’s tablet. She had been there the night of Franklyn’s attack on Marcia—a fact that Pamela had neglected to mention. What did that mean? Did he even want to know? Picking up the tablet, he sifted through Melody’s photographs once more and came to rest on Franklyn’s haunted face. Who sneaked around, stealing pictures like that anyway? It was creepy.
He stared at the door. Was Melody behind everything? Had she killed Franklyn? But if that were true, then it meant Pamela was covering it up.
A dragging unease clawed at his stomach. He couldn’t sit here any longer. Helen was downstairs, slowly bleeding to death. Emily was out in the forest, getting herself into all sorts of troubles while a psychopath was stalking Meadow Pines.
Jerome leapt up from the bed. Unlocking the catch, he slid the window open. A cold mist of drizzle draped his skin. Sticking his head through the gap, he looked out over the darkness of the treetops. Then, attempting to ignore the terror climbing his throat, he peered down. The world spun around him.
Pulling himself back into the room, he pushed the window up to its fullest extent. He took a breath, held it, then let it out.
“Emily, I hate you!” he said between clenched teeth.
Feeding one leg through the window, he straddled the sill. Then, swivelling himself up and around, he fed the other leg through, followed by the rest of his body. He dug the tips of his shoes into grooves in the stonework and pulled his head out. Now, all he needed to do was to hang and drop. Stretched out to his full height, that would leave just under six feet between his shoes and the porch roof. Simple enough. Just as long as he didn’t look down.
Behind him, treetops swayed in the night time breeze. The air around him felt infinite. Shutting his eyes, Jerome let one foot slip, then the other. His hands now bore his full weight. Cold fear hit him. He tried to bring his feet back to the wall but found his limbs had become paralysed. Panic hit him in waves. His heart punched against his breastplate. His fingers began to unpeel themselves.
With a cry, Jerome dropped from the window. Before he could catch his breath again, he hit the porch roof, slipped in the rain, and tumbled over the side. One hand shot out and gripped the guttering. Jerome swung in a wide arc and slammed into the porch railings. When he opened his eyes again, he was sprawled at the foot of the porch steps, nursing bruised shins and a graze on his right cheekbone.
“Fucking hell,” he said.
He was on his feet in seconds. The back door was locked. Rounding the corner of the house, he headed towards the Hardys’ living room window. Edging along the wall, he peered in. Helen was sprawled on the couch, her head propped up with pillows. Her bandages had been changed again. In the opposite armchair, Pamela sat with her legs crossed and a book rested on her knee. Jerome’s eyes narrowed. Now, it was obvious who’d locked him in Melody’s room. But the question was, why?
Anger heating his insides, he headed towards the front of the house, pushed open the gate, and entered the garden. Emily had left the front door unlocked.
He cleared the corridor in seconds, cut through the dining hall and entered the kitchen. By the time he headed out again, he was carrying a large butcher’s knife and a battery-powered storm lantern. At the dining hall door, he stopped and listened for signs of life. Satisfied that Pamela was still in her quarters, he pitched forwards and raced out of the house.
He didn’t know where he was going. There were several acres of land to search. He paused in the garden, clearing his mind, trying to think like Emily. Where had she headed? She had been looking at Melody’s tablet. She had discovered Franklyn’s picture, realised that Melody had been present the night Franklyn had died. Something else ... but what? Franklyn’s tattoo. The chaos star that was carved on the tree.
He cleared the garden and bolted across the meadow, crushing wildflowers beneath his feet. It took him a minute to locate the trail. Then, lantern held in front, he followed the muddy track into the forest. The rain had eased off, sparing him a soaking in his t-shirt and jeans. The cold, however, was less forgiving, stinging his bare arms and travelling down his neck to the base of his spine.
The trail twisted and turned. At every corner, Jerome peered beyond the peripheries of the lantern light. Darkness circled him like a ravenous pack of dogs. When they got back to London, the first thing he planned to do was to run out into the street and inhale big lungsful of traffic. He didn’t care what nature lovers had to say about the great outdoors; to him, it was a dangerous, cruel place which no good could come out of.
The trail opened up into the clearing. Oscar’s body still lay under the oak tree. Jerome looked away. Images of Oscar’s reanimated body crawling out from beneath the tarpaulin taunted his mind. Too many horror movies, he thought, as he strode past.
Emily wasn’t here. He swung the lantern, catching a large mound of freshly dug soil in the light. Inching forwards, his eyes fell upon the shallow grave and the shovel lying next to it. Fear shivered through his body.
“There’s nothing there,” he assured himself as he peered over the edge and into the muddy water below, half expecting a skeletal hand to reach out from the depths and drag him down. What had Emily found here? Or who? In either case, Jerome didn’t want to know. He turned around, nausea and fear making his head spin. Where was she? Where else was there to go?
If you get lost in a forest, you stay in one place so people can find you. Emily had given him that little nugget of safety information on the drive down. He couldn’t imagine that she would take her own advice. But he couldn’t imagine her wandering aimlessly through the forest either. There were three possible locations where she might be: the tool shed, the lake, and the Land Rover crash site. He immediately crossed off the tool shed—she’d already been back there to fetch the shovel. The lake was closest to him, with the Land Rover on the other side of it.
Tightening his grip on the knife, Jerome exited the clearing and continued along the trail. He would be at the lake in ten minutes. He just hoped he’d find Emily there, safe and sound.