Elodie Fray
There’s snow on the ground. It’s freezing but the sun is a golden ball of light in the cloudless sky. Jack takes my mitten-clad hand and we walk slowly across the icy path to a Land Rover which isn’t his. A rental, I assume. He helps me into the passenger side, but I take my time, breathing in the fresh, cold air. It’s the first time I’ve been outside in three months, but I can’t make a big deal about it because this is a date and I’ll spoil the illusion for him if I dare to add a dose of reality. As he walks around the front of the car, keeping his eyes firmly on mine, I smile and ever-so-gently try the door. It’s locked. I’m undeterred. I’ll have my moment. As long as I hold my nerve and my patience, I’ll have my moment.
We drive down winding country roads; I see only two other cars and even though they pass by us in a second, I try to make eye contact. Not that it matters. I am all but hidden beneath a fur hat with earflaps and a pair of oversized sunglasses. Jack’s idea. For the cold, he’d said; for the bright sun bouncing off the snow, he’d said. I played along, thanking him, pretending I had no idea they were meant to disguise me from the public.
As we drive, I fight the urge to rip them off and bang on the glass and scream, ‘I’m here. I’m alive. I’m alive.’ I think maybe if the car door was unlocked, I’d throw myself out, not caring what chance of survival I had.
‘So,’ I say, ‘where’re you taking me?’
‘It’s a surprise,’ he says.
‘Boo,’ I say, the word leaving my lips puckered in a kiss. ‘I’m in a lot of layers so I take it there won’t be skinny-dipping?’
He smiles. ‘You hate skinny-dipping.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not.’
Jack is thinking about me naked. His breath is coming a little harder and he keeps darting heated looks at me. Good. I want him thinking about sex – it’s the most effective form of distraction.
Jack parks on a dirt track, one of the many small, icy lanes we’ve driven along to get here. I mean, I knew we weren’t bound for some fancy restaurant – Jack has some trust in me but not enough to test it out in a crowd, especially one which didn’t allow for hats and sunglasses – but all I can see for miles and miles is marzipan fields and winter-bare trees that look as though they’ve been dipped in icing sugar. He opens my door and I step out. The air is so cold, I know it won’t be long until my cheeks are skiing-in-the-Alps pink, and I’m grateful for the thick coat and jeans he gave me before we came out.
Taking my hand, he leads me to the back of the Land Rover and opens the boot. For one terrified second, I balk, thinking he’s going to throw me in. Then he leans down, picks up a rucksack and— ‘Holy fuck.’ I take a step back. ‘Is that a gun?’
His laugh is easy, carefree. ‘Rifle. Don’t look so panicked, I’m not going to hurt you.’
‘Jack …’ My heart beats fiercely.
‘Come on.’ He tucks the weapon into the side of his rucksack and throws it over his shoulder before holding his hand out to me. ‘We’re hunting.’
‘Romantic.’
‘Memorable,’ he corrects. ‘Let’s go.’
I take his hand and let him lead me into the woods.
Trying to stay calm as we crunch across snow, I tell myself if he wanted to kill me, the Wisteria basement would be ideal; concealed from the public, there’s no chance of being discovered, he could throw my corpse in the sea and no one would have a clue. He isn’t stupid enough to bring me out in the open to end my life. And I’ve been good. I’ve been perfect. I haven’t given him any reason to want me dead. Not unless he’s learned to read my mind. Still, I’m acutely aware of my half-moon scars. Of what he is capable of.
‘Nervous?’ he asks as we walk.
‘No,’ I lie.
He raises a brow.
‘I don’t like guns,’ I admit.
‘How do you know? Ever been this close to one?’
Only the handgun lying next to your dad’s body, I think. ‘No.’
‘Well then.’
‘Where’d you get it?’
‘One of Jeffrey’s.’
‘I thought his guns were illegal here? I thought the police confiscated the ones they found?’
‘They didn’t find this one.’ We follow a barely visible trail deeper into the woods, away from civilisation. If anyone were to see us – Jack in his cream turtleneck and navy wool coat, me in my dark green duffle and knee-high boots – we could be mistaken for a couple enjoying an intimate winter walk. ‘Jeffrey took me hunting, you know.’
‘When?’
‘On our solo trips to Wisteria.’
‘I thought he kept you in the basement room? You said he only made you pose for photos?’
He shrugs. ‘There were a couple of occasions we went out and did stuff. I took a real interest in hunting and he liked to show me how skilled he was with a gun.’
How much of what Jack told me is true? Did Jeffrey ever really keep him in the basement or was that some twisted story to gain sympathy? He’s an architect – it’s possible Jack built that room just for me. As we pick our way across the snow-covered earth, I take deep breaths, squashing down the need to escape.
We stop just before a clearing. Jack crouches slightly, motioning for me to do the same.
‘Look,’ he whispers. I follow his gaze. Thirty, maybe forty metres ahead, a deer forages, oblivious to our presence.
‘Pretty,’ I say even as a knot twists in my stomach.
‘I want you to shoot it.’
I stare at him. ‘Me?’
‘Yeah. You should know what it’s like to take a life. It’s powerful. An experience we should share.’
The way he refers casually to murdering Noah makes my skin heat with revulsion, despite the cold. I look down, brushing imaginary snowflakes from my coat so he can’t see the disgust on my face. For the millionth time, I wish I’d never agreed to come to Wisteria. Then I remind myself that even if I’d insisted I didn’t want to go along with his plan, Jack would’ve taken me to the cottage by force. He acted like I had a choice, but I never did. Just as I don’t have a choice now.
‘Here.’ He hands me a set of binoculars he’s taken from the rucksack. ‘Watch her. Get to know her.’
I hold the viewer to my eyes, magnifying the warm rust colouring of her fur, the white smattering of spots along her body, the long lashes framing her large dark eyes. She grazes, using her nose to shift the snow, uncovering patches of grass.
‘She’s beautiful,’ I say, lowering the binoculars.
‘Even beautiful things aren’t exempt from the kill,’ he says, fixing me with a penetrating stare. He takes them from me, then looks through them himself. He doesn’t move a muscle, he’s tense and alert, his focus entirely on his prey.
I hold still too, even as my thighs burn from crouching, but my gaze darts all around, noting any possible escape routes if I get the chance to run. I think about screaming as loud as I can, but if there’s no one around to hear it, Jack will just drag me back to the car and I’ll never be allowed out again.
‘You’re nervous,’ he says.