31 Days of Autumn (39 page)

‘Do you feel differently about me?’ I asked
quietly, holding his gaze in the mirrored reflection, thankful to see his kind
green eyes looking back at me and not Alfa’s evil brown ones. My eyes drifted
to the nasty bruise and cut on my cheek and temple, where he’d knocked me out
the night Jenny died. The thought made me shiver, and Dan frowned.

‘What do you mean?’ he asked, putting down the
hairdryer and getting my mohair cardigan out of the wardrobe for me.

‘You didn’t get aroused in the shower.’ I
dropped my eyes, not wanting to look at his face as he replied.

‘Jesus Christ, Ellie! What do you take me for?’
he uttered, sounding hurt, as he draped my cardigan over my shoulders. ‘I spent
the last week imagining you being tortured, or probably dead. I’m overjoyed to
have you back, but sex is the last bloody thing on my mind. I’m not sure it’s
hit you yet, you’ve been so happy to see the children. I just want to make sure
you’re ok before we even think about rekindling that side of our relationship.’

‘I’m sorry, it’s just … you’ve never not
reacted before and … I need you to know that no one touched me, at least not
that I’m aware of, and I’d understand if they had that it might make you feel
differently about me.’ I swallowed hard. I was being polite. If it came out
that I had been molested, or worse raped, while I was unconscious, I’d be
really hurt if Dan turned away from me. He’d barely even kissed me since I woke
up.

‘Ellie,’ he sighed. He dropped to crouch at my
side and gently pulled my face around to look at his, sincerity written all
over his features. ‘
Never
think that. Nothing could change the way I
feel about you, but you have to understand how scared I was while you were
gone. The ramifications of this could weigh on both of us for some time, Oliver
too. My focus is on being there for you and him and doing whatever I can to
make life easier for you when it inevitably hits you, because I’m sure it will.
Sex can wait. We have the rest of our lives ahead of us to make up for a short
period without.’

‘I don’t want to lose you,’ I whispered, tears
filling my eyes at the thought of it.

‘Do I need to “Ellie Baxter” you?’ he asked,
with a gentle shake of his head and a smile. ‘You can't get rid of me that
easily, Ellie. We have an incredible sex life, but that’s not all it is for me.
I’m just happy to still have you in my life. The future seemed unbearable when
I thought I’d lost you. Let’s just take one day at a time. Sex will happen when
we’re both ready. I love you, baby, more than I could ever put into words.
You’re my heart, my home.’

I nodded and threw my arms around his neck.
He’d stolen my words as that’s just how I felt about him. ‘When can we go
home?’ I mumbled into the crook of his shoulder. ‘I want to go home.’

‘You’ve lost weight and you’re too weak, Ellie.
You need to stay here until they think you’re strong enough to leave. Come on,
let’s finish your hair because Brooke’s likely to pull the fire alarm to get
you out of your room, she’s that impatient to get in here to see you.’

He helped me back into bed when he was
satisfied that my hair didn’t have any damp left in it, then insisted on the
nurse reattaching my drips before anyone came up. She was just inserting the
second into the cannula in my arm when the door was knocked loudly.

‘I know you said to wait, but I can’t wait
anymore. I need to see her again. Don’t make me Quattro Handson you,
Davenport,’ Brooke shouted.

‘Again?’ I asked, looking up at Dan.

‘I let her and Molly in to see you when you
were admitted, no one else. I know you’d have been embarrassed if you’d seen
the state you were in, but it was Brooke,’ he shrugged. I smiled and nodded,
impatient to see them both.

‘I can hear you talking about me and if you
don’t let me in now, I’m kicking the door down.’

‘Or you could simply turn the handle and open
it,’ Dan retorted, doing just that as he blocked my view of my best friend. I
couldn’t wait to hug her, Molly too.

‘O, sorry, thought it might have been locked
given you haven’t had sex for days. Move out of the way, my girl needs me,’ she
announced.

‘I’m going to leave you with her while I go and
get a coffee. Please don’t get her too excited, she’s tired and needs her rest
and everyone else wants to see her, too.’

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, talk to the hand,’ she
muttered as Dan yelped and clutched his side. ‘Now shift, or you’ll get it
again.’

‘No getting out of that bed,’ Dan called over
his shoulder, giving me his firm, domineering look. I looked up at the nurse
and rolled my eyes. She just smiled and patted my arm.

‘All done, Ellie. Enjoy seeing your visitors,
they’ve all been very patient over the last several hours. I’ll be in and out
to check on you and if I think you need to rest, I’ll ban them all,
understood?’

‘I don’t suppose you and Dan are related by any
chance, are you?’ I asked with a smile.

‘Ellie! It’s me. Let me in, Dan, I’m not joking
now, you’re starting to piss me off.’

‘Nothing new there then,’ he retorted with a
shake of his head. ‘Molly, I’m trusting you to keep her under control.’

‘Like I could do any better than you,’ she
replied. ‘She’s a law unto herself.’

‘Fine, I’ll be back in a while,’ Dan replied,
casting one last look back at me. I nodded to let him know that I was ok with him
going. He stepped aside and Brooke barrelled in and threw herself at me,
knocking me back onto the pillows as she started to sob. I put my one arm
around her as Molly came to clutch my other hand with tears in her eyes.

‘Ellie Davenport, I love you,’ she said softly
with a smile. ‘I couldn’t remember when I last told you and I hated that, so I
promised myself it would be the first thing I said when I saw you again.’

I nodded, unable to say anything in return. I
just wanted to soak up this moment. It was enough just to have my two best
friends here, but that only served to highlight that one of us was missing,
which made my tears start, too.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Brooke eventually moaned. ‘You
didn’t deserve this, you’ve had enough go wrong in your life without this,
too.’

‘Thank you,’ I replied, resting my head against
hers.

‘I can’t believe she’s gone,’ Molly added
quietly. ‘It’s just not fair, none of this is fair.’

‘What happened down there?’ Brooke asked,
sitting up and wiping her face. I shook my head, a lump forming in my throat.

‘I … I can’t, Brooke. It’s too much, it’s …
it’s too soon.’

‘You can’t bottle it up.’

‘Brooke,’ warned Molly as I felt myself tensing
up. ‘Don’t push. Ellie will talk when she’s ready. Right now, we just need to
be here for her, ok?’

‘I don’t know what to do,’ she moaned. ‘I’m the
ear, I’m always the ear, and if she won’t talk, I don’t know what to do.’

‘I think you’ll find I’m the ear, you’re all
mouth,’ I reminded her, leaning in to kiss her. ‘I just need some time, ok? I
don’t want to deal with it right now. I just want to spend time with my family
and friends, I missed you all.’

‘We missed you, too. Everyone did, no one more
than Dan, he was a mess,’ Molly nodded. I grimaced, wondering how this was
going to affect us when we got home. Would I get needy and clingy, the type of woman
I swore I’d never become, or would Dan suffocate me, not giving me the space I
might need?

‘Talking of a mess, look at the state of your
nails and skin,’ Brooke scolded, lifting up my left hand to take a proper look.

‘So how about you put your beautician skills
into practice tomorrow morning?’ I suggested, grateful to give her something to
do that would make both of us feel better, without me having to relive the last
week in graphic detail.

‘Deal,’ she beamed. ‘Molly, could we get Mario
over, too?’

‘Mario?’ I asked, looking between them.

‘The senior stylist at the hotel,’ Molly
confirmed. ‘He owes me a favour, he could come and do a cut and colour and deep
conditioning treatment for you. You’ll be looking your usual glamorous self
before you know it.’

‘Thank you,’ I smiled. ‘That sounds perfect. Now
tell me all about my babies, what did I miss? Eva’s taken her first steps
already?’

Sunday 20
^th
September

Ellie

I’d had the best night’s sleep I think I’d ever had
in my life. I’d chosen to have a few weeks of tablets to heavily sedate me at
night. I was pre-empting night terrors, and given we were all sleeping in one
room for a while, I didn’t want to wake the children in the night and upset
them, too. Oliver was doing quite well, all things considered. He was so happy to
be with his brother again, the two of them had spent all morning racing around
and entertaining the nurses, but he had asked a number of times when Jenny was
coming home, crying and saying he was missing her. Much as I’d never forget
her, or how amazing she’d been with all of my children, Oliver especially given
she’d had more time with him one-on-one, I hoped that eventually he
would
forget her. I couldn’t bear to see him hurting now that she was no longer
around. Brooke told me that she’d left his favourite blue teddy bear light on
the night he arrived home and she’d slept on a blow-up bed next to him, in case
he’d woken up scared. When I’d woken up this morning, he was fast asleep in my
hospital bed, tucked up next to me. He’d never been clingy at night, never once
tried to come and sleep with Dan or I, so I could only put it down to the
events of the last week.

I’d spent the morning being pampered with a
facial, manicure, and my hair cut and coloured, then had the children on my
bed, reading them stories and giving them lots of kisses and cuddles. Dan had
sat in the corner, wanting to be near us while he tried to work, given he’d
been too distracted to do anything while we’d been missing. We hadn’t had a
chance to talk properly last night. I’d had visitors all afternoon, one couple
at a time, and we’d all hugged and spent time together. There hadn’t been one
dry eye, even though I tried not to discuss what I’d been through. It was bad
enough that they’d all suffered too, they didn’t need to know the specifics and
I really wasn’t ready to talk about it. I’d just confirmed that it had been
terrifying and that I was so relieved to be reunited with them all. No truer
words had ever been spoken. By the time they’d all left and I’d eaten dinner
with Dan and the boys, I’d been exhausted, and he’d insisted on me going to
sleep.

‘Right,’ Brooke announced as she stood with her
hands on her hips and addressed the boys. ‘Who fancies a trip to Hamleys toy
store, then a delicious afternoon tea of sandwiches and cakes with hot
chocolate?’

‘Me, me,’ shouted Oliver, jumping up and down
with excitement.

‘Me too,’ clapped Jonas, grinning from ear to
ear. Eva just sat watching, her big green eyes trying to take in all that was
going on.

‘Ok, let’s get your coats and shoes on,’ Molly
suggested.

‘You promise me that they’ll all be safe?’ I
asked Dan as he stood with his arms folded, waiting for them to go. I was so
nervous about being separated from them, in case anything happened.

‘Ellie, I’d promise you the universe if I could,
but after last week, you know that I can’t make a promise like that again, a
promise I know that I might not be able to keep. But what I can promise you is
that the men responsible are all dead, they can’t hurt us anymore. I can
promise you that Andy and Chris will be with Molly, Brooke, and the children at
all times, as well as Scott, who’s taken over while James is recovering.’

‘I just … if I lost anyone else, I …’ I shook
my head and exhaled slowly as I tried to stop tears from forming. I’d cried so
much, I hated being so emotional like this, but the thought of anyone harming someone
else that I loved was just too painful. Dan quickly strode to my side and took
my hand in his, then stooped and kissed my forehead.

‘Trust me, it’s hard for me, too. But if we don’t
want our fears rubbing off on our children, we have to try not to wrap them in
cotton wool. For them, life has to carry on as normal. Besides, we really need
to talk, without being interrupted every few minutes,’ he coaxed. I swallowed a
lump of anxiety in my throat and nodded. He was right. I needed to deal with my
worries myself, not let them affect anyone else.

‘You know I’ll protect them as if I was you,
like they were my own,’ Brooke stated in an unusually serious tone. ‘There’s
nothing I wouldn’t do to keep them safe.’

‘Nor me,’ added Molly, giving me a reassuring
smile.

‘Thank you,’ I replied, thankful I had such
amazing friends. I spent some time giving all of the children a tight hug and
kiss, telling them that I loved them and that they were to be good and do
whatever Brooke and Molly told them. I buttoned up Jonas’s coat and pulled
Eva’s hat down over her ears to keep her warm, given it looked overcast out of
my big picture window facing Hyde Park. Dan had certainly made sure we had a
room with a view. Molly put Eva in the buggy and then put on Jonas’s harness,
which he had a sulk about, but he was the worst for being at your side one
moment, then shooting off the next.

‘We’ll send you some pictures of them having
fun,’ Brooke smiled as she kissed my cheek.

‘Andy has my credit card and has full
authorisation to allow you to spend any amount on toys for them. I want to
spoil them today, so let them have whatever they want. Treat yourself and Molly,
too, for everything you’ve done for us in Ellie’s absence.’

‘Great,’ Brooke grinned. ‘But Hamleys? Really
not my idea of a toy shop. You’d better warn Andy that he’ll be purchasing some
sexy undies and a toy or two for Molly and me.’

‘The man’s faced terrorists and death on
numerous occasions, why do I get the feeling he’ll beg me never to go on a
mission with you again?’ Dan chuckled.

‘If anyone can crack him and shatter his one hundred
percent mission accepted record, I can,’ she giggled. I bit my lip as they
left, craning my head to see them disappearing up the corridor as Dan closed my
door.

‘Can I get you anything?’ he asked.

‘A time machine would be amazing,’ I whispered,
as I remembered that the last time we’d taken the children to Hamleys, Jenny
had been with us.

‘You know I would if I could,’ he sighed,
striding over to climb up onto my bed with me. He lay down, then put his arms
around me and pulled me down onto his chest. ‘I’d go back to that first winter
and I’d have been honest with you about who I was and saved us all of that
heartache. You wouldn’t have fallen in the loch, you wouldn’t have been alone
for your first pregnancy, and I’d have been there for Oliver’s birth and to see
his first smile and giggle. You’d never have fallen down the stairs or been
taken from me, either.’

‘I always used to believe that things happen
for a reason, but I’m not sure I do anymore. What was the reason for my parents
and Jenny being taken from me?’ I asked in a pained tone as I gripped the front
of his shirt tightly.

‘None,’ he sighed. ‘But if I had a choice, I’d
change anything that had ever caused you pain. Nothing hurts me more than
seeing you or my children suffering.’

‘I know that, I feel the same about you,’ I
whispered, wiping a stray tear that had breached my determination not to be shed
today. ‘How can you be sure the men responsible won’t come back and try
something again? You said they were all dead, but how do you know that? How do
you know that there weren’t more?’

‘Because there was only the ringleader and the
four ex-Military personnel, Ellie. James killed the two in the bunker with you,
as well as the one responsible for shooting Jenny. De … Andy shot the main guy,
the one who forced you to choose.’

‘I never thought I’d be happy to hear that
someone was killed, Dan, but I’m glad those two are dead. The others might have
been complicit, but they weren’t evil like Charlie and Alfa. They got off on
scaring us. You should have seen the looks on their faces when I was forced to
choose and they shot Jenny instead. I’ll never forget it, never.’ I shuddered
and he squeezed me tightly.

‘Neither will I. It was bad enough to watch on
video, I just can’t imagine how horrendous it must have been for you to be
there.’

‘Who was behind it? Brooke’s convinced it was Zac
after the coincidence of him being at the hotel a few days before. I just don’t
believe that, Dan. He was a liar, a cheat, a drug addict, and a thief, but
murder? He used to pass out whenever I cut my finger in the kitchen. He
couldn’t handle blood and violence.’

‘Arsehole, you forget he was an arsehole,’ Dan
added, kissing my forehead.

‘Was it him?’ I asked, looking up at Dan for
confirmation. ‘Did he do this because I left him for you? Is this all my
fault?’

‘It’s
not
your fault, Ellie,’ he sighed,
rubbing his free hand across his eyes. ‘It was nothing to do with you, it was
all about me, about making me suffer.’

‘I don’t understand.’ I tugged his hand down
and looked up at him, waiting for answers.

‘I think I’d better fill you in on the blanks,
on what happened from the moment we found James and Oliver,’ he nodded. I
listened as he recounted his journey through the woods, to the point where they
heard Alfa was leaving. He said that they thought I was in the van when the
detonation went off. I held his hand as he shuddered and closed his eyes, tears
trickling down his cheeks as he tried to explain the utter devastation he’d
felt in that moment, thinking he was about to lose me. ‘Jamieson was trying to
get inside the van to save you, Ellie. Andy and I were running so fast trying
to get there, for you, but the flames were starting to spread. I’ve never been
so terrified in my life. When Jamieson was forced back by the fire, I finally
saw him, the one responsible for everything. He looked straight at me, Ellie.
He gave up in that moment, he knew he was going to die. He had that same look
on his face that James did when he offered to sacrifice himself.’

‘So Zac was really behind everything,’ I
whispered, hardly able to comprehend he was dead. Much as I’d never be able to
forgive him for his treatment of me in the past, and for what he’d orchestrated
and put everyone through last week, including being responsible for Jenny’s
murder, burning to death? I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

‘Zac?’ Dan shook his head. ‘It wasn’t Zac,
Ellie. It was an old friend and employee of mine, Thomas Williams. Zac being at
the hotel in Scotland that day was pure chance.’

I listened attentively, and somewhat relieved,
as Dan explained that Ian had checked Zac out thoroughly after he’d been up at
the hotel. He was no longer in investment management advice, given he’d lost
his licence to trade due to his financial losses, so he’d retrained as a drug
counsellor. Apparently he’d weaned himself off drugs not long after I’d left
him, realising he’d hit rock bottom, and had stayed clean ever since. He was
now acting privately, hiring himself out as a sober companion to clients of
means who needed a counsellor and constant supervision for their children to
get them on the straight and narrow. He’d been in Scotland for a genuine
meeting with a potential new client, whose seventeen year old son had nearly
died of an overdose. I was glad that he’d sorted his life out and was giving
back, helping other people instead of thinking just of himself.

It seemed that “Damien Daniels” was the man
behind everything. Except that was a fake name. He was really Thomas Williams,
one of Dan’s old friends from university. Dan had hired him as his chief
programmer and he’d moved over to California when Dan did. By all accounts,
when Dan had been launching a new software system, around the time we were
separated, Thomas had become addicted to drugs and had screwed up so badly that
he’d cost Dan millions and set him back months. Dan had fired him instantly,
meaning he was blackballed in the industry. He’d lost a highly-paid job, his
fiancée left him, his house and car were repossessed, and he’d eventually come
back to England penniless. It seemed that he blamed Dan for his change in
fortune, also believing he was entitled to a share of Dan’s company, so taking
us and blackmailing Dan for our safe return was his way of getting even.

He’d groomed Jessica the receptionist for
information, and once Ian had identified the picture of “Damien Daniels” as
being Thomas Williams, apparently it was easy for him to trace Thomas’s
movements. Ian had verified that Thomas had amassed enough money to hire the
team that took us by approaching some of Dan’s clients, poaching business and
designing software systems for them for very hefty fees. In fact, Ian
discovered that he'd been meeting with some of Dan's former clients, the
Ospreys, in the hotel the very same day I'd bumped into Zac there. He was lucky
Dan hadn't accompanied us to tea with Florie or he'd have been recognised
immediately. Dan confirmed that Thomas was only one of a handful of men in the
world that could have designed a virus as sophisticated as the one that had
attacked his firm, probably to distract Dan while the team snatched us, but he
hadn’t anticipated the level of animosity Thomas would have had towards him to
consider him being behind everything.