No Way Out Read Online Free PDF Page A

quite used to being naked. I turn her sweatshirt the right way round as she pokes her arms and legs into her underwear. I can’t help noticing that Tom is watching her, drawing his eyes up and down her young body.
    It reminds me of when Ellie was a toddler, how you would always volunteer at bath time, even though we had an au pair to help out. Father and daughter time, you’d said, leading her upstairs by the hand with the promise of a bedtime story. She loved it, and I was grateful for the time to myself. Time away from you.
    But once, unexpectedly, I’d come home early, and was drawn upstairs by your laughter and Ellie’s reluctant giggles – a hesitant little chuckle that sounded forced yet somehow necessary. You thought I’d gone out until late, but I wasn’t feeling well. I was going to surprise you both, creeping up onto the landing without a sound. The bathroom door was open a crack, but wide enough to tell me everything I needed to know. You were in the bath too, and Ellie, aged five, was beneath you. She caught my eye, begged me with her gaze as I retreated. I hurried quietly away, then banged the door from the garage as if I’d just come home. My call up the stairs had you and Ellie down shortly after – Ellie wrapped in a towel, a lollipop stuck between her lips.
    Unable to face the consequences, I never said a word.
    I pass Ellie her shoes. She shoves them on. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asks Tom, quite casually as if she’s done it all before anyway. He leers at her, pokes out his tongue just a tiny bit.
    ‘Depends,’ he replies, filling the kettle again.
    ‘On what, you bastard? Why don’t you just let us go?’ I stand up, but then sit down again when he takes a step closer.
    Tom smiles. ‘OK,’ he says, clasping his hands as if he’s in a business meeting. ‘I sent Daddy a little task. Let’s see how far he’ll go to save one or both of you. His choice.’
    ‘Save?’ I say, terrified. My heart clenches, struggling to beat. Nervously, I stand up, but Tom lowers me down again, almost gently. Ellie remains silent, staring up at him with empty eyes as if she’s resigned to our fate. It’s the same look she gives you sometimes, though I’m uncertain if it’s an imploring look, or a complicit one. She clutches her bandaged hand under her chin, whimpering.
    ‘Of course, you can always pick up the tab instead, if you like,’ Tom says. His face is close to mine. His breath smells of tea.
    ‘What are you talking about?’ I feel dizzy and unreal. I don’t understand.
    ‘If he won’t do it, you can instead,’ Tom says, remaining cryptic. ‘You can save Ellie.’ He glances at his watch, ripping into a packet of biscuits. He shoves one into his mouth.
    ‘Anything,’ I mumble. My small nod grows in intensity. ‘I’ll do anything to keep her safe.’
    I want to look at my daughter, but I can’t. I want to take her hand, tell her I love her, but the irony of those words screams through my mind. I didn’t keep her safe, did I? Even when you orchestrated alone time with her, I let you have your way, year after year. Denial was the safest place I knew.
    Tom grins. ‘Good. Time to get serious then,’ he says, dialling a number. Yours, I assume. He has to stand by the window to get reception. ‘Tell him he’s got three minutes to send me the picture. If he doesn’t, it’s in your hands.’
    I nod, grateful to be doing something, yet not daring to ask what it will be. As we wait for you to answer, my mind races, wondering how I can get a secret message to you, using words only you’ll understand. The thing is, I have no clue where we’re holed up, and no clue as to Tom’s real identity. Worst of all is the realisation that there are no secret words between us, no endearing language or anything hush-hush and special from our past that I could use.
    Tom thrusts the phone at my mouth, looming over me with the knife in his hand. He’s set it to speaker so we all hear the