Page 80 of The Trap by Catherine
That’s what Jack Keane had told her Lena Paczkowski had said before she’d succumbed to her injuries. That’s where she’d been.
And he’d saidwe.
We call it the Pink House.
“Who else is there?” she asked.
He moved away from the car, taking a step closer to her.
“Just imagine, knowing.” His voice was gentle, quiet. “All the mystery, all the unanswered questions, the torment, the torture of the last... how long has it been? A year? A little more? All that gone. Dispelled. Banished, for ever. And in its place, peace.” He paused. “And in your arms, your sister.”
He took another step closer, then another, and by then he was close enough to reach out and touch her arm.
Lucy didn’t recoil.
She was too transfixed by the idea of the moment he’d just described, too drunk on the promise of it to react to anything that was happening in the here and now.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” he whispered. “You can stop trying. Stop searching. Stop hurting. Come with me and I’ll make all of that go away.”
She looked up at him, into the shadows of his face.
“All you have to do,” he said, “is get in the car.”
And, in that moment, she knew she would.
She was always going to. This was the inevitable end of the inexorable path she’d set herself on.
An overwhelming tiredness settled on Lucy’s shoulders like a heavy blanket, enveloping her. She was empty, drained, depleted to the point where she had nothing left. She had lived this life as many days as she could manage. She had been eaten away by guilt. She had done everything she could to try to get the answers. To stop wanting them in the first place. To pretend she could work around the gaping hole her questions had left in the middle of her life.
If this was the only way...
“OK,” she said. “OK.”
He raised his eyebrows, apparently surprised, but recovered quickly.
“There are some conditions,” he said. “You can’t bring your phone and you have to give me your bag.”
She slipped the bag off her shoulder and handed it to him. “What are you going to do with it?”
Instead of answering her, he held out a hand, flat, for her phone.
Her gut screamed that she should do something before she relinquished it. If this really was him, it was going to get left behind. He must take them off the women and throw them away. So she should throw it herself, now, so that it didn’t completely break—into the hedges off to the side, so he wouldn’t waste time looking for it, he’d just take her and go and the phone would be there for someone to find. Before she did, she should do something that would help the guards find her. Could she start a voice recording? Initiate a call? Ring Denise and throw the phone and let her figure out what had happened? She could shout out details as they walked to the car. What it was like. What he looked like. The reg. Maybe Denise would hear, if she picked up immediately. Or maybe she could send a text, to Chris.
But then she remembered that it was off. Still off. There wouldn’t be time to turn it back on.
There was a rushing sound and then the phone was gone, flung into the night.
He’d hit it out of her hand.
The smash it made when it landed left no doubt that it was in pieces now.
“We really need to go,” he said. “Come on.”
She followed him to the car, going for the passenger door, but he slammed it closed in front of her, almost catching her fingers, and directed her to the back seat instead.
“Lie down,” he said. “On your side. Bend your knees.”
“Why?”
