She stares at me, appalled. “I’m not leaving you here alone.”
I grab her, holding her close, a fierce wave of love coursing over me. “Whoever did this isn’t after me.”
“He wasn’t after Ceecee or Harry either and that didn’t stop him.” She stops, heaving in a breath, then another. She’s hyperventilating.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you. We’ll find him. We’ll stop him. I promise.”
“Why did he want me here?”
I don’t know. I don’t know and it eats away at me.
If he were going to attack, he would have done it by now. Rosa was on her own here for long enough to hurt her, to kill her, to abduct her. The man must want something else, something I can’t guess at, and that scares me more than anything.
The television in the lounge suddenly bursts into life. I whip around, ready to fight a dozen attackers but there’s nobody there. The picture flickers with a grainy image, an old 4:3 aspect picture that barely fills half the widescreen.
Rosa stares for a split second, then lunges for the remote on the sofa, clicking it over and over, jamming her thumb on the off button, then throwing it at the tv.
It takes longer for me. I stare at the images, watching a young girl and a middle-aged man sitting on the edge of a bed. The hand-held camera means the footage wobbles, dipping enough to make me instantly queasy.
Then the girl turns to face the camera full on and I dive behind the television, yanking the plug from the wall, shaking.
“Where’s it coming from?” Rosa asks in a wavering voice. “There’s nothing hooked up to it.”
I pick up the remote and slide the battery compartment open. Empty.
A rush of anger sweeps through me. Somebody’s fucking with her just because they can. Because it amuses them to wreck the life she made for herself, after everything she went through. To claw her back down into the muck.
“We’re going,” I tell her, deciding that whatever I can do for her I can’t do it from here. Not with some unknown player pulling her strings.
“No. Turn it back on.”
Her face is scrunched in concentration and when I don’t move quick enough for her liking, she dives past me, shoving the plug back in the wall socket.
The television bursts back into life and I have to look away. Sick knowing that this was in her past when I asked her to record a video for me. Like rubbing her face in the worst thing she’d ever been through.
“There,” she shouts, jumping forward to point at the screen.
I force myself to look, focusing on where her finger directs me.
The camera angle is low, the device must be resting on a chair. A man in his late teens or early twenties walks in and out of the shot, presumably the cameraman. He adjusts the straps on Rosa’s sundress, gets the man—her ‘uncle’—to move an inch to the side.
He disappears and a moment later, the footage wavers all over as he picks up the camera, hosting it to shoulder-height.
“What am I meant to be looking at?” I ask, looking away from the gigantic screen as she turns to face me.
“I think it’s Andy.” She drops to her knees, searching behind the television for something plugged in the back. “He must be streaming it somehow,” she mutters, drawing back and staring at the images with renewed frustration.
The picture stops, looping back to start from the beginning again.
“What do you mean?” I ask, confusion warring with panic. “Andy’s dead.”
“Him,” she shouts, pointing to the cameraman. “It’s why he looked vaguely familiar. It’s…” She turns to me, eyes wide, seeking confirmation, seeking reassurance.
“We need to get out of here.” I grab her arm and tug when she doesn’t immediately respond. “We’re right where he wants us.”
“But if it’s him—”
“Caylon can look into it. We need to go.”
