** For authors notes, disclaimer etc. see chapter 1
** Please note the rating change on this chapter and for further chapters from T to M it's getting a little more explicit than I was expecting so rating changed to accommodate that.
Who done it 9/?
"Robbie calm down we don't know that it's hers the slipper nor the blood I mean it's a pretty generic looking slipper how do you know it's hers?" James asked still holding the piece of footwear in his hand as he watched Robbie try to force the door they had been considering breaking through.
"Look did I question how you knew that the chief super has been wearing her nightgown before she left the room? Sometimes you just know and I know it's Laura's just like you knew what you did about Jean we've got to get through this door James or at least through one of the fucking doors if they've hurt Laura what's to say they haven't done something to both of them and we're standing around debating our next move!" Robbie snapped thumping the door in frustration as it still refused to budge. He could feel that something was seriously wrong, that they'd got themselves into a situation that was out of control and they needed to find the girls because his gut was telling him that they had to get away from there before something terrible happened if it hadn't already.
"We need something to pick the lock with we're never going to be able to break through that door Robbie we've established that already. We need something sharp and…..Jean's room she must have something she's always putting her hair up and down she won't have come away without clip things and combs and crap like that come on."
"You go there I'm going to get my phone the reception was shit earlier but if we move around like I did talking to Laura we might just get a good enough signal to ring out and get some help."
"Good idea get mine from my room too even if it takes a while for someone to get here at least we'll know they're on their way." James agreed as they took the stairs two at a time and split up Robbie heading down the corridor in the direction of their rooms while he went the other way to Jean's.
Stepping inside he looked around making a beeline for the dressing table and sitting on the chair looking around at the things in front of him trying to work out where she would keep the sorts of things they needed. Running his fingers over the bottles and jars in front of him he lifted the small bottle of perfume his fingers had stopped on bringing it to his nose and inhaling the familiar scent.
"Where are you? You better be ok I swear wherever you are you better be safe because I'm not losing you before I've even had a chance to tell you how I feel." He whispered finally spotting a cloth bag in the corner of the dressing table with a metal handled tail comb sticking out of it. Pulling it toward him he rooted through it taking out the comb and a handful of hair grips as Robbie rushed back into the room.
"They're gone." He gasped trying to get his breath back as James stared at him not understanding what he was referring to, they knew they were gone wasn't that what they were doing? Trying to find them? "The phones James! Yours and mine they're gone, mine was on the bedside table and it's gone and I've searched your room and yours isn't there either."
"It must be it was on the bed I was checking emails on it two minutes before you knocked my door earlier, you must have missed it and did you check yours hasn't fallen down the side of the bed or something?"
"For fuck sake James of course I checked I pulled both my bed and yours apart and they are gone! How the hell are they doing this? How are they getting in and out without us ever seeing them, tell me I'm not the only one who is off the scale worried about Jean and Laura right now, you can't seriously still be thinking there's going to be some logical explanation for all this."
"No I don't I agree with you let's get down stairs and see if we can get through that door." James said quietly making a silent vow that if they did find any of the people who had been working on their so called murder mystery weekend earlier he would do whatever it took to make them tell him where Jean was and if they had hurt her he'd personally make it his mission to make sure they regretted it.
"Damn!" Jean snapped throwing the tea spoon in her hand onto the carpet and reaching for another running it down the gap between the shutters hitting the same spot that had bent the other handle and trying to force it through. She's managed to loosen the paintwork that seemed to be holding the shutters in place and finally felt like she was getting somewhere when she hit the latch and the handle of the first spoon bent completely making it useless. Now she knew that she had one more chance to try to make some progress because the two spoons were the only things she'd been able to find in the room that were of any help at all.
"I've told you already there's no point in trying to open the shutters or the door we know what we're doing do you really think we'd be stupid enough to leave a way for you to get out before we want you to?" Henderson said suddenly from the door as she jumped dropping the spoon and cursed the fact she'd been so wrapped up in what she was doing that she'd not heard him open the door.
Tossing the spoon on the bed she stormed toward him the anger and terror that was building in her at alarming speed outweighing her common sense as she reached to slap him and he gripped her wrist before her palm made contact.
"Let go of me." She shouted as he spun her against the wall beside the door pinning her against it holding both her hands above her head with one of his as he brought his face level with hers.
"I'll let go of you when I'm ready to, I tried being nice now maybe it's time to let you in on a few home truths. Right now you have absolutely no control over what's happening here, you can try to get out of this room, you can fight me all you want but what happens to you from now on is entirely in my control." He spat his free hand running down the her side as he briefly glanced the length of her body before meeting her eyes again and she felt bile rise in her throat as the terror she was already feeling peaked. "I suggest you find a way to do what I tell you when I tell you or you'll find I can get very, very nasty and you don't want that because by the time I'm finished with you you'll…."
"Henderson, not now we have bigger problems you can deal with her later we've lost two." Mrs Montgomery interrupted standing at the door with her hands on her hips ignoring the frightened glance from Jean as he released her hands and kept her pinned to the wall with the weight of his body.
"This isn't over I'll continue this discussion when I've dealt with your friends." He said with quiet menace as he left the room again and she heard the key turn in the lock before rushing to the bathroom gasping for breath as she leant over the sink trying not to vomit at her skin still felt like it was crawling just from having him so close.
"Oh god, oh god, oh god." She muttered her hands trembling as she splashed cold water on her face and tried not to let the implications of his words sink in too deeply. Setting aside the overt threats he'd made to her she now knew that she wasn't the only one in danger, that something was going on outside that room with the others and he was right she had no control over it and no way to help them as she finally lost the battle with the queasiness still overtaking her and gripped the sides of the sink praying that the others were coping better and having more luck staying safe than she was.
Gulping from the bottle of water she'd opened Laura move around the small gate house in an effort to see if there was any way to get out or any means with which to contact the others. So far she'd found two phone jacks in the wall but no sign of a phone to plug into them and all the doors and windows she'd discovered were firmly locked.
"Relax Laura you're over reacting, it's all part of the game, in the morning they'll come let you out then you can have Robbie arrest them for assault and you can all go home." She muttered trying to convince herself that it was all ok, that things had maybe gotten a little out of hand and someone in an effort to keep the weekend authentic had overstepped the mark but that was all it was, nothing really sinister and in the morning it would all be ok. Robbie would make sure it was and if he knew she was missing it may not even take till morning because he would demand that they bring her back to the main house right away.
"When we realised it was a group of cops we should have cancelled, it's too dangerous this was supposed to be one last go here and then move on if they get off the grounds and get help we're screwed. We'll be lifted from here they'll find the others and then it won't take them long to link it to Kent and Dorset never mind Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Cardiff and even Cork and Dublin you know what police computers are like now a couple of red flag similarities and everything we've worked so hard to keep buried is being used to hang us." The familiar voice outside the window was quiet but still loud enough for her to make out that it was the butler from earlier in the evening, that he was talking about them, and that he clearly wasn't happy.
"You were the one who took an instant shine to the fucking Innocent woman we all told you that it was a bad idea and we should ditch them and wait for the next group that booked but no you were thinking with your dick not your head and now we're stuck with them." The angry tone of the woman's voice she could hear made it almost unrecognisable but the small tug of familiarity told her it was the housekeeper and once that connection had been made the impact of what she was actually hearing started to sink in and she felt her stomach knot. "We have to follow through now and remember we had two barristers in the second group in Dublin and we panicked but by the end they were just as easy to play as all the others this time will be no different."
"It's already different you idiotic bitch, we've lost the two men, I think he's put the fear of god into the chief superintendent but I don't think it'll last she's a stubborn one I think it'll take actions rather than words to break her and that fucking doctor is locked in the gatehouse with what's in the basement in there we're going to have to deal with her sooner rather than later. We're losing control of this group and we can't afford to do that." Another male voice, younger this time and it was getting harder to hear as she was sure they were moving away and tried to move along the windows on the side of the building in an effort to keep hearing what was being said but failing as silence overtook the room again.
Pacing back and forward she tried to process what she'd heard, clearly Robbie and James had got away from them and they knew that she and Jean were missing so that had to be a good thing she told herself in an effort to calm the panic swelling in her chest. If they had broken away from what she now accepted where their captors then they would be trying to find her and Jean and that was definitely in their favour but the implication in the comments she'd heard about their fate made her pulse race as she quietly willed them to hurry up, to find them before it was too late and to not get caught themselves in the process.
