Page 61 of The Bridesmaid

‘Are you OK, Adrianna?’

‘I … I’m frightened.’ He’s the only person I could admit this to. ‘What if the police were right? What if one of my bridesmaids wants to hurt me?’

Another pause. ‘Come back to New York,’ he decides. ‘We’ll postpone the wedding.’

‘We can’t,’ I shake my head. ‘One hundred guests. They’re all important people.’

‘They’d understand.’ Mark’s voice is as calm and reassuring asusual. It’s such a relief to have someone who doesn’t do dramatics.

‘It’s not just the guests,’ I say. ‘Dad’s entire business relies on us getting married in two days’ time. Everything in the entire portfolio is bankrolling our wedding.’

‘Leopold never told me.’ Mark sounds bemused. ‘Why would he need a high-risk strategy like that?’

‘It’s just … his way. Dad loves adrenalin stakes in business. It always pays off. And the wedding will boost Elysium into the stratosphere. Every wealthy celebrity around the globe is going to want to book in.’

‘I meant, how could he put you under that kind of pressure?’

I pause. I’d honestly never thought of it that way before. ‘It’s just … the price of being a Kensington,’ I tell him. ‘Your life is for sale.’ I sigh. ‘On that note,’ I add, ‘Dad is getting crazy about security. He wants three bodyguards to stand in theactualaisle.’

‘You don’t want that?’

‘I don’t think it’s necessary. And no bride wants armed goons lurking on her big day. But, Dad is insisting.’

I’m distracted by a strange noise, out on the balcony. Like a tapping sound.

I frown, lowering the phone receiver slightly.

‘Adrianna?’

‘I’m here.’ I step slowly toward the sheer glass doors, expecting to see a bird, or lizard or some other tropical creature. But as the wider balcony comes into view, I notice something strange. Out on the terrace, by the glistening flow of the infinity pool, is a notepad. Silky’s notepad.

It’s open, showing vivid pencil sketches of dark and unsettling subject matter.

‘Wait just one second,’ I tell Mark. I step out onto the balcony,retrieve the notepad and return to the phone by the bed.

The drawing shows Kensington Manor School’s ornate exterior with a line of sad, thin girls shuffling toward the entrance, legs and arms bare. Girls in uniforms, their faces disturbingly overlaid by masks. Religious iconography. Three dolls, their hair cut away, blaze in a fire.

In the center is a figure. A girl. Cut into three pieces.

Trinity.

‘Dri?’ Mark’s voice sounds like it’s underwater.

I flip a page. The next is filled with unsettling images of food. Little sketches, and ugly vignettes of animal insides, laid on white plates with neatly set cutlery. Finely drawn veins and tubes poking from the lumps of meat. Bottles of split milk with floating lumps.

My stomach constricts at the memory. The teachers would force us to eat this. Part of learning ladylike manners was being bred to swallow anything on your plate without complaint.

I realize something. Someone must have got onto the balcony. And left this notepad for me to find. Was it before or after the cake destruction?

Lowering the phone, I scan the length of the long terrace.

I blink, once. Twice. I don’t want it to be real, but it is.

Standing at the far end is the figure of my nightmares. A darkly-cloaked person, wearing a featureless white mask.

I don’t quite know how the phone receiver drops from my grasp, only that it’s on the floor, Mark’s voice blaring tinnily across the Italian marble.

I’m screaming so loud a flock of parrots in the jungle below take flight, as one haphazard flurry of green and red wings.