BooksBarbecue
Back The Game
Chapters (68)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. NOW
  4. One
  5. BEFORE
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. NOW
  26. Twenty-One
  27. BEFORE
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. NOW
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. BEFORE
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. Forty-Two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-Four
  53. Forty-Five
  54. Forty-Six
  55. Forty-Seven
  56. Forty-Eight
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. NOW
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. Fifty-Three
  63. Fifty-Four
  64. Fifty-Five
  65. AFTER
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Acknowledgements
  68. About the Author

Mark took the laptop from John’s knees and shifted away from him. On screen, a series of photographs were displayed. Each were blurred and in very little light, but he could see enough to realise what he was looking at.

A young girl. Woman. No more than eighteen, he thought. Her eyes were closed, no outward signs of injury. She was propped up against a tree, a rope beside her in further photographs. He kept looking through, hoping to see something that would suggest they weren’t real, but nothing came.

‘This is Holly?’ Mark said, hearing the anger in his voice now. John recoiled at the sound of it. Mark turned towards him. ‘Tell me.’

John nodded, teardrops escaping his eyes and falling down his cheeks. ‘I know it doesn’t look good, but you have to believe me, I didn’t want this. I thought they would just scare her.’

Mark shook his head, trying to take in what he was seeing and hearing. The insanity of it. He laid the laptop on the bed and stood up, one hand going into his pocket and grasping his phone. He’d ring the station and explain it all. At least they would listen to him now.

‘You know you’re going to have to come with me, John,’ Mark said, opening his phone from its lock screen and finding the direct number to the incident room. ‘We’re going to need to find Holly’s body and you’re going to tell us everything you know.’

‘And the other one as well,’ John replied, resigned to his fate it seemed. He shifted forward on the bed. ‘I’m guessing that’s how you found me.’

Mark frowned, his forehead creasing as he tried to work out exactly what John was talking about. ‘Who else?’

‘The other woman. The one he told us about,’ John said, as if Mark should have already known. ‘You saw me, right? Outside her house? That’s how you know it was me involved, with that woman you’re always with? I thought that was why you were…’

It took Mark a second, then he understood. ‘Natasha? What’s happened to her?’

‘He’s taken her. She’s the new player.’

Forty-Eight

She had been so close. To finding them. To stopping them.

She had been trying to call Mark – to tell him that she had names to give him. Young men, young women, all involved in an online ring.

It hadn’t taken much to infiltrate their little place. Just one person who could see it wasn’t just make-believe.

That they were really going through with their plans.

It ended with the feel of breath on her neck as she’d slept fitfully.