Blood Ransom by Sophie McKenzie Read Free Book Online Page B

on the island . . . not about to be operated on?’
    ‘No. Now come inside.’
    I stumbled into the house after him. It was cold and dimly lit, with whitewashed walls, but I barely noticed.
    ‘Why did you trick me into coming here?’ My voice sounded hoarse as a terrifying stream of possibilities rushed through my head. ‘What are you going to do with me?’
    Paul came inside after us and shut the door. He grabbed my arm. ‘This way.’
    ‘I was just following orders,’ Milo muttered. He wheeled himself past me.
    I felt sick.
    ‘ Whose orders?’ I called after him. ‘For God’s sake, Milo, you can’t do this. People will come looking for me . . . My parents . . . The police . .
.’
    ‘Actually, they won’t,’ Milo said. ‘I took your purse and card from your bag before you got into the boot of the car. We left them on the jetty, so that it looked as if
you’d drowned . . . deliberately . . .’
    ‘ Killed myself?’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘No one’s going to accept that.’
    ‘They will,’ Milo went on. ‘There was an eyewitness . . .’
    ‘ What? ’ I thought back to the desolate patch of coastline where I’d smuggled myself onto the boat. ‘Who? How? ’
    ‘I need to get her into her room,’ Paul said, his hand still gripping my arm.
    Milo nodded. ‘You’ll find out more in the morning, Rachel.’
    ‘No, wait!’
    But Paul was already pushing me along the corridor. We reached a door on the left and Paul opened it and shoved me inside.
    The door shut – then locked.
    I stood stock-still, trying to make sense of what had happened.
    I looked round the room. It was empty and painted a dirty off-white. There was no furniture apart from a narrow camp bed which was pushed against the far wall. No windows.
    I went over to the bed. The mattress was stained but a thick wool blanket had been laid on top of it.
    Milo had tricked me . . . had faked my death.
    Anger rose from deep inside me. How dare anyone do that?
    And why ? It didn’t make sense.
    I wrapped the blanket around myself, my anger shot through with confusion. What was Milo playing at? Was Daniel really not here? And what about Elijah? Was he on the island?
    My heart seemed to shrink inside me as I thought it through. Faking my suicide meant that no one would know I’d been taken. Everyone would think I was dead. I imagined the shock for my
parents . . . the pain that they and Theo and Lewis would feel when they heard the news. Surely they wouldn’t believe it? Would they?
    I closed my eyes as sheer terror gripped me. My hand closed on the tiny silver ‘t’ on the chain round my neck but, tonight, even that didn’t comfort me.
    I’d been betrayed and was locked up on an island for reasons I didn’t understand.
    No one knew I was here. No one even knew I was still alive.
    I was totally alone.
     
    22
Theo
    My flight touched down just after noon – though it felt much earlier to me, still on US time.
    As I made my way through passport control at Edinburgh Airport, anxiety surged through me. What if the UK authorities realised I was using a fake passport? What if there was a picture of me on
their files that would flash up next to my false identity? What if Lewis didn’t make contact?
    In the end, none of those things happened. I sailed through security in Edinburgh and there was a text from Lewis waiting when I switched on my phone.
    GET A TAXI TO THE HUDSON HOTEL. I’LL MEET YOU OUTSIDE.
    I found the taxi rank and set off.
    After sunny Philadelphia, cloudy Edinburgh was a bit of a shock. The air was mild enough, but the sky seemed to press down on me, reminding me – now I was actually here – of the
enormous task that lay ahead.
    I saw Lewis before he saw me – he was leaning against the wall of the hotel, in jeans, sunglasses and a leather jacket. He looked exactly the same as before, his hair cut in a short dark
crop and that slight air of danger about him. Except, I realised, we were now the same height. Six foot