She actually recoils. “No. Well, yes. But I absolutely didn’t do it. I have an alibi. I’m getting it sorted.”
I can just nod at this point. Emma’s criminal past and present is the least of my worries.
“I know what you think of me,” she continues, softer. “Unstable, erratic, the human embodiment of a car alarm. Fine. But I love my brother, and I know Pete knows more than he’s saying. If James is terrorising him, he won’t talk to anyone. If we get Pete safe, he will. It’s the only way I find out what happened to Chris.” She swallows. “Please, Tom. Help me help him.”
The words knot in my throat. I want to blurt the truth: Chris isn’t a mystery to find — he’s a body in a video. A knife to the neck from James.
But I don’t.
Not without Pete. Not after what I saw. Not when telling her right now would be like smashing a stained-glass window with my bare hands.
I try forpractical instead. “If James is as dangerous as you say—”
“As I know,” she corrects, a little fierce. “And as you’ve started to realise.”
“—then going there without the police is stupid.”
“Stupid,” she agrees. “But necessary.” Her eyes shine with that manic determination I used to admire in contestants on The Apprentice right before they said something illegal. “If James is in a rage and thinks Pete’s called for help, we can’t afford uniforms on the doorstep. He’ll lock down, deny everything, cut the power, whatever he does. If we go now, we might actually reach Pete.”
“And what?” I ask. “Knock? Ask politely if we can collect our terrified friend from the bathroom?”
She leans forward. “You’ve been in that house. You know the layout. You can get us in. We don’t need the whole cavalry — we need ten quiet minutes and the right door.”
Every sensible part of me is shouting no. Call the police.
But calling the police would mean staying here — and staying here means the bathroom, the towel, the sound of Daniel’s breath in my ear. It means locks and statements and waiting for someone else to decide whether what happened to me was serious enough to matter.
Daniel didn’t just hurt me; he taught me something brutal and immediate — that help doesn’t always arrive in time, and safety is something you create yourself or not at all.
Emma’s plan is dangerous and illogical and probably exactly how people end up on the wrong side of a headline — but it is movement. It is doing something before someone else can do something to me again — or to Pete.
If I’m going to be scared, I’d rather be scared on my feet than waiting for another door to open behind me.
“Please,” she says, softly. “If I thought I could do it alone, I would. But I can’t.”
I breathe out. Decision makes a small, ugly click in my ribs. “Give me two minutes.”
I head to the study to grab my keys and I stop.
The desk looks wrong — not messy. Empty. I stare at the space where the laptop should be, and the cold creeps up my spine like a tape measure.
No laptop.
Daniel.
He must have taken it earlier, while I was unconscious or after. Silence rings in my ears. Every nerve screams — the video of James killing Chris — my proof, my leverage.
Gone.
“Everything okay?” Emma calls from the hall, voice light, like we’re late for a tasting menu rather than a rescue.
“My laptop’s missing,” I say, trying—and failing—to sound casual. “I think Daniel took it.”
“Daniel? An Ex?” she says, appearing in the doorway.
“Something like that.” I swallow. “If he’s stolen it, that’s…”
I think about the CCTV videos on the desktop. Would he look at those? No, he’s looking for money. He’s probably trying to break into my bank accounts as we speak. I need to call the police, report this mess, change the locks. Shit, so much to get on top of, but this can wait for an hour, until we bring Pete back safely to mine.
