STALKED AND STOLEN

Chapter 18

I crept across the foyer when I knew everybody was in bed. This side of the house was in darkness as my family slept and the staff had left for their quarters every night at one am. My chunky pink slipper socks slid across the glossy floor to the door of my dad’s study. I held my breath as I reached out for the handle and pushed the door open. After closing it quietly behind me, I rushed over to the large mahogany desk in the corner and turned on the lamp.

The light illuminated all the papers on my father’s desk. A picture of all of us on our holidays in Italy two years ago sat next to a paper calendar and the pen I’d bought him for fathers day. Rows of bookshelves stacked up two of the walls and filing cabinets with locks on the front took up the other two. He had something that I needed, and that was the Internet. It was something that not many people had, but I was lucky enough to know my dad did have it for his work.

I sat in the swivel chair and hit the power button on the large cream monitor, then the base of the computer. It made a bleeping nose as it powered up, and I heard the fan inside start up. I gritted my teeth, hoping it wasn’t loud enough for anybody to hear. I really wasn’t any good at being sneaky, I’d always been too honest to be sneaky.

I was so tired of looking at everyone in my home with suspicion, in a way, I wished Tommy hadn’t said anything about who I should trust. I’d spent two weeks staring at even a glass of water in horror in case I’d been poisoned. Mum and dad kept saying I didn’t eat because I’d been traumatised by my whole kidnapping ordeal, but it wasn’t, it was because I no longer trusted anybody who cooked for me. It would be easy to hold a grudge or be jealous, get a job with us and kill one of us. It knocked me sick. Tommy knew something, and I wasn’t going to quit until I found out what it was.

I typed in my dad’s long password that consisted of what, to me, were random digits and letters, and his home screen loaded up with a picture of me holding Sam when he was born.

I used the mouse and clicked onto the symbol that looked like a cartoon version of the earth, and said Web below it. A black screen flickered, then a white page loaded up with search and a box.

Tommy. Soldier. Attack. One punch kill, I typed in and hit the enter key. I wasn’t supposed to be on dads computer. He’d be furious if he caught me. He had a password on it for a reason, but I knew that Sam knew it. I knew he went on the computer when dad wasn’t home to play games and research all the geeky stuff he liked so much.

It took at least ten seconds before a list of pages loaded up. They were all newspaper articles , so I clicked on the first one.

‘Tommy Hart, twenty, of Blakelaw, North Heights, was today sentenced at High Court, and received seventeen years in prison for manslaughter.’

The subject wasn’t funny, but I snorted a laugh at his name. My kidnapper Tommy Hart. The funny thing was, I knew for sure that Tommy did have a heart.

‘Disgraced soldier Tommy Hart was today sentenced for the attack of Philip Wright in October last year. On the night of Saturday the twentieth, Hart was on leave and got into a fight with Wright outside Danny’s club in New Hill. Paramedics declared Wright dead on arrival at the scene, and Hart was arrested.

 Hart’s lawyers continue to insist the attack was self defence, and said they are understandably very disappointed at the outcome. They plan on appealing the verdict.

I swallowed a large lump in my throat. Reading it was different to him telling me it. It made it real, it made is scary. He’d actually killed somebody and spent time in prison. I hit the back button and clicked on the next article.

‘Tommy Hart to be released from prison. Four years ago Tommy Hart was sentenced at High Court for—’

My back snapped up straight and I almost wet myself when I heard voices outside the door. I hit the off button on the monitor and slid off the chair and under the desk. I closed my eyes tight like it would somehow make me invisible. I heard the door open and shut, then voices.

“I don’t want to talk about this now,” Justyna said. She sounded angry.

“We need to talk about what happened,” William said.

“Not now. Stop!” Justyna growled. “We not talk. We stop this now.”

“But what happened, what we did,” William continued.

“No!”

Even I jumped when justyna sharply raised her voice. I didn’t think I’d ever heard her shout. She was always such a lovely woman, she was family, so was William.

“I go to bed. You keep your mouth shut. We tell nobody. It was wrong, we find the trouble. OK?”

“But—”

“No! I will not speak of this again. We forget.” Justyna stormed out.

I crawled just a few centimetres forward and peeked my head out of the desk. I saw William right there next to me, my nose parallel with his shin. He leaned his body on the desk and rubbed his eyes like he was stressed and tired. My gaze ran from his ankles and up to his head, I hadn’t ever seen William in pyjamas, and yet, there he was, in a blue matching set. His greying hair slicked back. It felt weird seeing him like this, like seeing your teacher in the grocery store outside of school. It wasn’t right. William prided himself on his pristine appearance.

He shook his head and stood up straight, before he walked out and gently closed the door behind him. I waited a few seconds before I breathed out and crawled out into the room. I couldn’t work out what was going on. Could William and Justyna be the reason Tommy told me not to trust anyone in here, and that I wasn’t safe?

I shivered at the thought. It couldn’t be. Justyna was like my cool aunt. She loved me, and I loved her. And William, he was like a brother to my dad. He’d watched me take my first steps. He’d been on every family holiday since I could remember. He was like another dad to me. He was kind and smart, he’d even attended my parents evening at school when dad was out of the country.

It just couldn’t be, could it?

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