There’s someone in the room. She can hear the slow, rhythmic sigh of sleep the moment she steps through the doorway. She steps closer, her thumb over the end of her phone, smothering the beam. The curtains are cracked open an inch and a sliver of moonlight casts a pale puddle of light onto one half of the bed. There’s Renata, her blonde hair sucked of colour in the half-light, a grey shadow on the white pillow. She’s lying on her side, the duvet tucked under her armpit, her pale arm thrown over a lump in the bed. Kate blinks into the gloom, trying to work out what she’s seeing but her brain is in rewind, cycling back to Gozo, to her hotel room, to her laptop, to the video, to Tom and Jenna naked and fucking, writhing and twisting, grabbing and bucking and kissing. And there’s the pain again, the humiliation and the hurt and the betrayal and it’s ripping through her and she wants to lash out, to scratch and bite and slap and tear. She lurches forward, roaring with anger and tears back the duvet. How dare he? How dare he do this to her again?

Her thumb slips away from her phone and in a flash she sees a pillow, an arm wrapped around it, a knife hanging loosely from the fingertips and then she sees Renata, blinded by the light in her eyes, rising up from the bed. And then there’s pain, slicing into her stomach, and everything goes black.

Chapter 52

Now

FRAN

Fran is asleep, curled up on the concrete floor of the basement, her head resting on a deflated paddling pool, when the door is slammed open and the light comes on. It takes her sleep-startled brain a second to work out where she is and why the back of her head is throbbing, but then she sees pale ankles and slippered feet hurrying down stone stairs and a voice screams, ‘Tom! Tom!’ Fran sits up sharply, squinting under the harsh glare of the strip lights, one hand curved over her eyes.

Shit, she thinks, feeling around on the floor for the tape that’s fallen away from her cheeks, wrists and ankles. Shit!

But if Renata notices that Fran is no longer bound and gagged she doesn’t care. She stops at the bottom of the stairs and screams Tom’s name again. He’s sitting up too, his face sleep-crumpled, his hair wild and ruffled, his hands and feet unbound.

‘Help me!’ Renata screeches. Her face, hair and chest are spattered with blood, there’s a deep red stain on the front of her nightdress and her hands and arms are coated up to the elbows. She looks like Carrie, blood-drenched at the prom. Fran blinks up at her, trying to make sense of what she’s seeing. Is she injured? What the hell has she done?