Paparazzi by Jo Fenton (best free e reader .txt) 📕

times I was near him and he ignored me. When I saw him with HER, and his besotted behaviour made me sick. That should have been me.

I need to decide what I want.

Chapter Forty

A door opens in the distance. I hear crying. Then Troy’s voice.

“Emma love, it’s going to be fine. Daddy’s here.”

“Why should it be fine? I have some demands you haven’t heard yet. You need to obey me, or she’ll die.” Penny’s voice is harsh. Maybe a little anxious. I can work with that if I must.

I’m able to suppress my reaction to being back here by focusing on the case in hand. That is, until there’s a sound like a gun firing outside. It’s most likely a car backfiring, but its effect is dramatic. With my heart beating out of my chest, a thundering in my ears, an inability to swallow and legs that won’t support me, I sink to the floor and wrap my arms around my knees. Penny and Troy are still speaking, but my brain won’t process the sounds. My ability to do my job has deserted me.

I don’t know how long I’ve been like this, but suddenly the back door opens softly. I’m exposed here, so I look up. I’m unable to do much more, but relief floods through me when I see Joanna and Will walk in. She rushes to my side, while he goes to the door and listens through the crack.

“What happened out there?” I try to whisper but my mouth is so dry, only a hoarse croak emerges.

“There’s some drugs thing going on down the road. We heard the gunfire just as we were emerging from the alley. Will saw a body on the ground, but we didn’t linger. We came straight here.” Joanna whispers directly into my ear. The voices from the other room are testament to the thinness of the walls.

I’m still unable to take much in. The trauma from my previous horrific experience in this place is now vivid, and taking over my whole body. Joanna is still crouching down next to me, and rests a hand on my shoulder.

“They’ve got the little girl in there. Will is going in. He’ll try to diffuse the situation. If he fails, I’ll join him, but I think we need to play it by ear now.” What she means is that I’m now useless, so our previous planning has fallen apart, but I’m too distraught to argue with her.

“Sure. Will, be careful. Penny at least is likely to have a knife of some sort. She admitted to having killed Linda, and Troy’s parents.” Pulling myself together enough to whisper this information to my friends takes immense effort, but it focusses my mind slightly, and I feel the panic recede just a notch. So when Will opens the door into the main area, I’m alert enough to listen again. Joanna squeezes my hand, but I sense her anxiety now that her son is in there.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Penny’s voice from the other side of the wall is sharp and angry. “You’re part of White Knight, aren’t you? Why aren’t you investigating my stalker?” She laughs, but it chills me more than her anger.

“Which stalker is that, Penny? Is that the one from your imagination, or were you the one doing the stalking?”

“Aren’t you the clever-clogs! I needed to find out more about Troy’s whereabouts. I figured you’d be less likely to suspect me if I was a victim too. I got quite a bit of useful information from you lot.”

“Maybe you’re less clever than you think you are.” Will sounds cool and calculating. “If you hadn’t raised your profile, we might never have thought of you. The unobtrusive photographer of bands. The paparazzi. Why should we suspect? But no. You thought a double-bluff would work. So here we all are.”

“You’re only here because I gave Troy instructions on where to find me. You didn’t work it out for yourself.”

“No? So how did we find out that you’d murdered your ex-housemates in Huddersfield? A neat mixture of revenge against them and another ‘blind’ so we wouldn’t suspect you.”

The momentary silence suggests Will’s hit a nerve. There’s a slight scuffle, then…

“No, you don’t, you bastard. You’re not spoiling my plans. We’re evenly matched, but I bet me and Nigel could take out you and Troy easily enough. Nigel’s been desperate for years to get his own back on Troy. Stupid git told me all about it over drinks last year; how Troy pinched his girl out from under his nose. I knew then that Nigel would help me.”

I glance at Joanna. My courage has been slowly returning to me throughout this conversation, and it’s time for us to go in and destroy Penny’s misconception.

Joanna opens the door and enters first. I send up a quick prayer for my weakness to not return, then follow her in.

“Seriously? What the hell are you lot doing here?” Penny looks disgusted at first glance, but I see a glint of fear in her eyes.

“We’re here to make sure justice is done.” I’m pleased with how calm my voice sounds. Inside, I’m quivering like a jellyfish. “Nigel, let go of Emma and let her go to her dad.”

Nigel looks over at Penny, but before he has a chance to argue Will is behind him, wrests the knife from his grip, and has him in a headlock.

Troy seems suddenly released from stasis as the immediate danger to his daughter is removed, and he runs to her and lifts her into his arms. I signal to him to take her out of here and back to Gaz’s car, and press a few buttons on my phone.

Will doesn’t release Nigel even when Troy is gone.

“Drop your knife if you don’t want your friend to suffer, Penny,” Joanna says calmly. “I don’t suppose I’ve mentioned it before, but my son is a master of martial arts. All those trips out on Saturday mornings and school nights appear