Hit Read Free Page A

consider to whom the video might be delivered.
    ‘Hey! I’m talking to you!’
    With that he lunged forwards and grabbed Meaghan’s wrists from behind her back. The phone slipped from her hands and dropped to the hardwood floor with a loud thwack, the battery separating from the phone and skittering a few feet away.
    No!
    ‘Ouch! Wait!’ she protested. The man had a painful, vicelike grip; and, to her alarm, he wasn’t easing off. His face was mere centimetres from hers as he held her wrists, and she could see that he was very unhappy with her—a little too unhappy. With his sun-kissed hair, white teeth and tan, he looked to Meaghan like a handsome male model or a movie star. He certainly didn’t fit her idea of a security guard. But his eyes were angry, and Meaghan could not yet register why he would be so cross with her. What had she done to him?
    ‘I said , what do you think you’re doing?’ he bellowed angrily.
    She flinched and closed her eyes. ‘Oh…I…you don’t understand…’ she began feebly. Slowly he eased his grip on her, nonetheless keeping her cornered and bearing down on her without a trace of friendliness. She smiled coyly in response, in a way she hoped would be disarming. ‘There must be some misunderstanding,’ she continued, deciding it was far too risky to admit what she had seen. ‘I’m looking for the deck. Is it this way? I didn’t take anything if that’s what you’re thinking.I’m a guest here, with Mr Groobelaar of Trident Realty—’
    And then, to her shock, the man deliberately stomped his foot down on her mobile. She heard pieces of the phone crunch and scatter in the hall.
    Oh!
    Sickening adrenaline rushed through her as the realisation hit.
    He is with them. He knows there is a dead girl in the next room.
    Meaghan could see by the look in this man’s eyes that there was no room for outrage. He knew perfectly well what he was doing, and what was happening behind that closed bedroom door—and he also knew that she knew. Meaghan was now very much afraid. She knew the significance of what she had been recording. Though she still couldn’t recall the name of the shirtless man in the room, she knew that he was important, that he was famous, and that he was in a room with a dead underaged girl. And she’d seen it. Meaghan had watched enough movies to know that people were killed for knowing less.
    The blond man grabbed her forcefully by the shoulders with both hands while Meaghan panicked inside.
    ‘Don’t you know it’s not polite to spy?’
    She was hauled down the corridor away from the bedroom door, with her shattered phone lying in pieces on the hallway floor, the onlyevidence of what she had seen now destroyed. Shocked by the stranger’s aggression and looking for any chance to escape, Meaghan was being half dragged, half carried away down one corridor to the next, before being pushed through a doorway into a cold, dark space.
    It was a garage. The lights flickered and came on with a hum. Meaghan’s eyes widened. The garage housed several luxury automobiles: a Jag, a BMW four-wheel drive and what she thought was a Ferrari or Lamborghini or something. She didn’t know cars well, but she knew an expensive car when she saw it. These people were very, very rich.
    ‘Are you going to calm down now?’ the man said.
    She stood rigid, unsure of what would happen next.
    I just saw a dead girl. A dead girl…
    ‘No one is going to hurt you,’ he said, palms extended as if to offer a truce. Under the present circumstances, though, she wasn’t so sure she believed him. ‘Now just get in. Please…’ He opened the passenger-side door of the four-wheel drive and signalled for her to step in.
    She stood her ground.
    ‘Relax, babe. I’m only driving you home,’ he said, and smiled for the first time, his teeth dazzling.
    ‘But my shoes are at the pool,’ she protested and looked down at her feet. ‘I took them off earlier. It will take me two seconds to get