That threat wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it made me wonder if I could still push the right buttons to make him tell me something useful after all. I leaned over the table to meet his eyes fully. “I’m why you want to stay in this cage until your last breath.”
He stood, forcing me up as well, but I didn’t move my gaze from his, not even when he stepped out from behind the table to get closer to me. “You’ll be my salvation, daughter dear. You’ll help me live out the rest of my life—”
“—Trapped, just like you trapped Mum?”
He charged me then, pushing me back into the corner under the camera where Day could no longer see us. He held me there, his arm like a steel bar against my neck. I leaned as far back into the corner as I could and took a deep breath, one I’d practiced taking over and over at home, and then I met my father’s gaze, watched him startle at my lack of fear.
“I can get to them anywhere,” he said, finally saying what he’d brought me here to say. “From out there, from in here, it don’t matter where I am. You’ll never see those boys again if you don’t help get me out of here.” When I still didn’t give in to my fear, he released the pressure on my neck and tried to act unfazed. “You’ll even come when I call like an obedient little thing.”
“Are you sure that’s what you want?”
He was still intent on proving he was in charge, apparently, as he moved his face so close to mine that I could smell his breakfast whiskey and feel spit on my cheek as he spoke. “You’ll say I was with you when those thieves were killed, got it?”
“This filthy brick-and-mortar cage is the only thing keeping you alive.” I kept my tone perfectly balanced and as soft as I could to keep anyone who might have been listening in from hearing my words. I watched something spark behind my father’s eyes as he took in my threat. Was it simply fear? I wondered. Was this what he looked like afraid? “Do you really think I’d help you get anywhere near my brothers? I told you that they’re no longer your concern. And don’t think for a moment I can’t stop your little plans.”
“You won’t see it coming.”
“I’ve already stopped Freddie from seeing your pathetic little note. I know Parsons followed my brothers home from school in a black van. And I know about that threat you had sent to me in the mail.”
His expression was equal parts surprise and confusion, so that he suddenly appeared more pathetic old man than monstrous killer. “What threat? ?You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He didn’t know about the threatening letter. Lock had been right after all.
“I know this. You in here means I leave you alone. But the minute you become a danger to my brothers, I will kill you myself.”
“Big words from a little bitch,” he spit.
“Think of it as payback for all the years you forced this bitch’s mum to live with a pathetic bully like you.”
The look he gave me next I’d seen only once before. I’d flipped a switch, it seemed. He came at me again, and I didn’t know if it was his slowed reflexes or all my training that did it, but I somehow anticipated what he was going to do. I knew where he’d plant his foot, that he’d push my shoulder back with his left hand and throw a fist at me with his right, and I knew exactly how to move my hands to stop him. I felt my feet slide a few inches apart to my most stable stance, just like Lock had taught me, then my hands were in the air, guiding his fist, my body taking the force of his push and using it to turn me away, so that his fist hit the wall.
It was a perfectly executed defense. I’d even managed to push us out of the dark corner. I looked up and the camera was pointed right at us. DS Day had to be on his way.
My dad cradled his injured knuckles to his chest and bore his gaze into my eyes. “Now that you know what your mom was, know this:? You are all the worst sides of her.”
I jerked my chin away, staring back up at the camera.
“She was rotten on the inside until she met me. I cleaned her up.” He tilted his head, forcing his face back into my view. “Who do you think will do that for you?”
I didn’t flinch away from him again, but I had nothing left to say either. I just glared back at him. There was nothing I wanted more in the world just then than for him to stop talking. I just wanted him to stop.
“You better get really good at lying, little girl. You think someone’ll love you if they know the truth about who you are? Who you come from? You think anyone would want to be near you if they knew you’ve got killing in your blood?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could say anything, the door burst open, spilling the three detectives and a uniformed officer into the cramped space. They tried to separate us, but my father had grabbed on to my arm and wouldn’t let go.
“You’ll end up just like her!” he shouted as they yanked him back.
“Are you all right?” DS Day’s face came between mine and Father’s, and then DS Moriarty was on the floor with the officers, who’d seemed like his friends just minutes before, forcing shackles onto his wrists again.