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The Best Defense
Emelia
Three Days Later
“Thank you very much for your time, Ms. Reynolds.” The young guy in the cheap suit, Marshall, leaned forward and thrust his palm out in my direction.
“Thank you.” I watched as he shook my hand before pushing his digital recorder back into his bag. “I’ll get this written up and run it past my editor.”
“When do you think you’ll publish the piece?”
My heart beat faster as I tried not to imagine the fallout of the interview. I wanted to make sure we were out of the country before my latest ordeal was plastered all over the tabloid newspaper. To finally get out of the country that had inspired so much pain was an empowering thought.
“It shouldn’t take long to get approval.” Marshall grinned. “My boss is ecstatic to be the one to splash this story across the country. ‘PM brought down in shameful sex scandal’, is just the sort of headline our readers devour.”
“Sex scandal?” I scowled at his choice of words. “He forced himself on me. I’d hardly have described it as a ‘sex scandal’, more like a crime.”
“Yes, yes, I know that.” He dismissed my concerns with a flick of his hand. “We’ll explain all that in the feature, but the headline needs to be punchy and salacious. It’s what our readers expect.”
Punchy and salacious?
Those weren’t the kind of words I’d had in mind when I’d taken my tale to the press, but the truth was, I hadn’t exactly been searching for the best quality journalism. I’d been looking for the most generous remuneration, for the chance to feather our nest for the future.
After processing my daughter’s genius at being able to record the whole conversation in the picnic area, the plan to monetize Wilson’s ‘confession’ had been my idea. We’d survived his onslaught in Scotland and had immediately fled south, ditching our vehicle in favor of another stolen one as soon as we could. Leaving the unconscious bodies of the prime minister and his men on the forest floor, we’d got back in the purloined car and hit the road. We knew everyone we’d left would wake up sooner or later and assumed the helicopter pilot would be close by to help them. No one was dead and Wilson would be all right. Wilson was always all right.
Men like him always are.
The thought rebounded as we plowed the darkness back down the spine of England, our focus fixed on finding sanctuary. My life had been carved into hard and inconvenient chapters that could briefly be melded around Sam—life before Sam, life with Sam, and life after Sam. I was ready for something else, something more—a life where Sam was only a distant memory, and I sought compensation to help us accomplish that goal. What Laurel had managed to record would ensure we got every penny we needed.
We listened to the evidence she’d recorded over and over on the way back to London, making sure Laurel uploaded a copy to the cloud. That ‘spare’ copy was our insurance policy if anything happened to her phone. It guaranteed the money to escape from the country and, I hoped, would help to bring down the bastard who’d used and abused me. While I reached out to the various news agencies with our tempting offer and waited for their responses, we landed back on the only other person on the entire planet we could truly trust.
Sally.
Watching Marshall pack up his things, my lips curled at the memory of my friend. She’d been nothing but amazing to me since we’d been stranded on the 08.42. Sally had been my rock. She’d had my back from day one, supporting me with dreadful people like Maureen, and even when we’d disagreed about the ambulance, I knew she understood my reasons and respected me. She’d been an ally all along, helping at the rental house, then taking Laurel and me in after our abrupt abduction on Wilson’s orders. Sally was a stalwart comrade—kind and strong. She was the best kind of friend a woman could ask for.
“So, how long?” Prompting Marshall, I was suddenly back in the room with the young journalist, the recollections of the last few weeks pushed briefly to the back of my mind. “Will you let me know when it’s going to be published?”
“It’ll go to press as soon as it’s approved.” His smirk stretched wider.
“And my money?” Rising to my feet, I realized what his answer meant.
We didn’t have long.
I’d taken Laurel to the Irish Embassy the day before to expedite our European passports. It had cost a fortune, but it was worth it. I’d return whatever money was left from Wilson to the man himself. Once we were out of the country, I’d have no need for his dirty cash. The earnings from the interview would be sufficient to keep us going until we could find our feet again, and Nathanial said he had a few assets we could sell that would help. Suddenly, I had a shot at a future, a chance to be happy—maybe for the first time in my life.
“The money will be wired to the account number you gave us today.” Marshall checked his watch. “It might already be there, but if not, call my office and chase it with Hilary.”
“Fine.” Reaching for my phone, I quickly logged into my internet banking, reassured to see the additional digits were already there. Relief swelled as I registered our new reality. “Thank you.”
“Good to meet you.” Once more, his palm was thrust toward me.
“You too.” I grasped his hand, smiling as our gazes locked. “Thanks for arranging all this so fast.”
He smiled, gesturing for me to go ahead of him and I wandered from the hotel lounge, turning into the main corridor as though in a dream.
We hadn’t heard from Wilson since we’d returned from Scotland, and despite Nathanial’s insistence on tuning into the news broadcasts at regular intervals, there’d been no updates about the leader of the country going missing. We assumed, therefore, that he and his chums had woken and found their way back to London. No doubt, he was looking for us, was trying to track our phones and watch our movements. I, of all people, knew he was capable of that and much worse. I’d known his cruelty before and could only imagine what his wrath would be like. There were no lengths men like Wilson wouldn’t go to in order to get the evidence from Laurel and shut us all up.
We were irritations, sores that refused to heal, nuisances he couldn’t abide. All logical lines of thought aligned to one conclusion—if he hadn’t been hellbent on killing us before then he would be now.
Whatever we were going to do and wherever we were going to go, we had to move fast.
***
“IS THIS GOING TO WORK?” Laurel’s voice flickered with uncertainty as we waited in line.
“Yes.” There were no doubts in my mind as I approached the immigration guard. We hadn’t maneuvered our way out of England and onto the ferry to the Netherlands to fail at the final hurdle. Just like all our other madcap plans, it was going to work. It had to.
Handing our passports to him, I felt Laurel shift at my side. The dour-faced guy studied the documents slowly, his gaze rising to check our faces against the photos.
“Bedankt.” His thick Dutch accent radiated past me as he slid the passports back. “Thank you. Next.”
I snatched the legal documents back and hauled Laurel away, but we paused soon after his security lodge, waiting for the third member of our party. A gust of wind blew past us as we loitered, the cold breeze our first welcome to the new country, but its curt greeting didn’t deter us. I had hope, however thinly it felt between my fingers, and holding onto Laurel, I grasped for it. We weren’t out of the woods until all three of us were safe on Dutch soil.
Glancing back, we watched Nathanial walk forward from the front of the line and present the immigration guy his document, my thoughts returning to the journey there. We’d managed to sit down with Laurel and tell her about his familial connections to Wilson, and as ever, Laurel had taken the news with incredible maturity. Her acceptance had strengthened the bonds of our new-found family, but we could only be ‘a family’ if our plan worked. Instinctively, I held my breath.
Nathanial’s old police friend had come up with a forged passport for him. I hadn’t asked him how. I was only grateful it had happened. The police, like the government, had its ways and means, and few of them were fair and reasonable. I didn’t know who the colleague was, or whether they’d meant more to him than he’d revealed. None of that was my business. It was the past. I only cared that their help could facilitate Nathanial’s escape to the Netherlands, where we would soon travel north to Scandinavia, or at least that was what I dared to believe—the next minute would determine if that was true.
“Mum.” Laurel gripped my hand as we tensed, waiting to see what would happen.
“He’ll be all right.” My reply was whispered in one long exhale.
He has to be all right.
As if I needed further proof that time was sent to taunt me, his absence from view lengthened, a period where nothing happened at all. No words were exchanged and there was no movement except the hammering of my heart.
Come on!
Silently, I willed something to transpire, longed to see his face as he paced along to join us, but there was nothing. No guards rushed to drag Nathanial away, and yet he still didn’t appear with his documents approved. Only the squeeze of Laurel’s fingers reminded me I was alive at all. Everything else was suspended in stupefied tension.
“Why is it taking so long?” Laurel’s question summated the cause of my rising anxiety.
“I don’t know.” I glanced her way, unsure if I’d said the words aloud or not.
What if Nathanial’s forged passport didn’t make the grade? What if Immigration knew it was counterfeit? What would happen to him?
What will happen to us?
My heart sped up as I considered the questions. I had no answers. I never had any answers. There were only ever questions.
I hoped Scandinavia would bring answers, though. A life where there was joy and solution.
I prayed for that.
“Our passports didn’t take this long, Mum. Something must be wrong.” Laurel peered around at the other passengers entering the country. “What do we do if he’s—”
“There.” Relief flooded my brain as Nathanial strode around the booth toward us. It was like King’s Cross all over again—he’d made us wait, but in the end, he was there for us. With us. “He’s there.”
Laurel turned, smiling as she acknowledged his arrival. “You took your time!”
“Yeah.” Nathanial rolled his eyes. “His computer stopped working and I had to wait.”
“We worried something had happened.” I lowered my voice.
“It’s okay.” He reached for my free hand. “It’s all going to be okay now, Em.”
Tugging me away from Immigration, he swept the three of us away from the dock and gestured to the sky. A slit of brilliant blue broke through the clouds overhead, promising that my prayer might come true after all.
The answers were coming.