I was about to answer yes and tell her about the masked man by the pool and the security cameras had been tampered with, but I decided against it. “No,” I lied. “I mean…I heard a bang coming from his office. It was locked, so I shot the handle twice with my gun because I thought he was in trouble and found him hanging. I shot him down to the floor.”
“Okay,” she said, slowly taking it all in, probably weighing up how much of my story was fact and how much was bullshit. “And that’s when the kidnappers arrived?”
I sighed. “Yes. They were masked.”
“And they drove you back to Castlehill?” she persisted.
“Well, obviously not all the way, because….” Then I turned to Lev and shot him another sharp look, “the train. The only way back is the train.”
“Right, you’re not making a lot of sense, Adina,” a male voice chimed in the background. “Oh, the police are here. Hang on.” The phone echoed and hissed, then she came back on and said, “The police will likely need to speak to you, so-”
“Do you need me to come back home?” I questioned, hoping she’d say no.
“I’ll stay in touch, but…” she sighed, “I understand it must be terribly shocking to find your father like that, but…it doesn’t look good to disappear.”
“I had to get out,” I told her to make it look like I ran off, which now made my kidnapping story look fake, even though it’s actually the truth. I was so confused, and I suspected the man sitting beside me could fill in some gaps in the mystery.
“You’ll come back for the funeral?” she asked, and I looked to Lev again, who shrugged.
“I don’t know,” I replied.
“What? You can’t come back for your father’s funeral?” she shrilled, horrified, but once again, all my ears heard was her faking it.
“I mean…yes, I will. Give me the date, and I’ll be there,” I stated, although not confidently, because I was so dazed. I had been kidnapped but brought back here, so it seemed somebody else had plans for me.
“I’ll message you,” she replied as the same male voice said something in the background, but I couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying. But what disturbed me was that his tone was warm and friendly, as if familiar to Leslie. Maybe he was a friendly police officer.
As soon as I swiped off, I turned to Lev, “Spill. I want an explanation.”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “We brought you back.”
“Kidnapped and drugged me and brought me back to Castlehill,” I corrected him.
“If you say so,” his answer was smug and annoying, riling me up.
“What the hell? It’s obvious, isn’t it? You drugged and kidnapped me,” I pointed my finger at his face, then stood up to lengthen the space between us because I didn’t want to be near him. “You set me up with those pictures to blackmail my father.Youdid that.”
“Yeah, see that part of the story I’m not familiar with, also it’s obvious that your father hung himself,” he said dryly as the sympathy he offered me earlier had vanished.
“But you did drug and kidnap me?” I needed validation to ensure that I was crazy.
Again, he shrugged casually, “Well, you were hardly going to come on your own, were you?”
“But I was coming back to Castlehill on Monday anyway,” I argued, frustrated. My head ached so badly that I had to shut my eyes to dilute the pain.
He made a rumbling sound, “Yeah, but you said you were coming, but you were considering leaving, weren’t you?” he smacked his gums, “And we couldn’t allow that.”
“What do you mean?” I pressed as nausea stirred in my stomach again, but I doubt I had anything left to throw up.
“I mean…Adina, we can’t let you leave Castlehill. You will stay here and finish your studies, like normal,” Lev said, standing up and stepping to the door.
“Says who?” I argued that my head ached so much that I thought it was going to explode.
“Says me. Well, to be accurate, says us,” he swung the door open to reveal that Ezrah was there leaning against the wall in the hallway, arms folded across his impressive chest, expression like thunder.
He swaggered inside like he owned the world, and it occurred to me the fishhook trap I had erected had been taken down, so what else had they touched? Did they find my knife that was in my bag? Probably, but I was too deflated to check.
“We can’t let you out of our sight, Boleyn,” Ezrah ordered. “So you must stay here at Castlehill until we allow you to leave. Got it?”
