Now to breaking news. Joshua Stanton’s wife Natasha has gone missing from his luxury liner moored in the bay overnight. Mr Stanton awoke to find Natasha missing and the boat covered in blood. Just whose blood still remains a mystery.
My eyes widen in horror. What?
The footage goes to an aerial shot from a chopper, of divers searching the water around the boat. Ben, Max and the bodyguards are on the shoreline talking to police. Television cameras and reporters are everywhere. Oh my god, what the fuck is going on?
Joshua Stanton is apparently so distraught he has been taken against his will to County Hospital where concerned family members are by his bedside. Police are still unsure exactly what unfolded here but eyewitnesses report that the Stantons were last night involved in what appears to be a very public domestic dispute over Natasha’s affair with her bodyguard.
Oh no. My hand goes over my mouth. Oh my god. I stand and start to pace. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. I hold my hands together as if to pray. Joshua, oh my darling. I’m ok. I’m ok. My fury ignites and I start to pound on the door.
“What do you want?” I scream.
“Name the price, asshole,” I yell. I pound on the door with all my might. The vision goes to the news story of us on another channel and I quickly run for the remotes and start picking them all up and aiming them at the television showing that story to work out which remote works with it. I finally find the right one and I turn it up. It shows the aerial vision of the boat again and then it goes to vision from the night before and footage from someone’s phone of Joshua and me fighting in the carpark. My stomach drops.
Joshua-did they hurt Joshua and that’s why he’s in the hospital? I start to bang on the door and then I run to the window. I am on a farm, paddocks as far as I see. No neighbours. I try to open the window but I can’t budge it. I start to cry in frustration as I struggle with the heavy window. Oww, my arm is hurting. What happened to my arm anyway? I slowly unwrap the bandage and gasp when I see the huge cut across my wrist with large black stitches. God, it’s a bad job. My tears of fear start to fall. Whoever cut my arm didn’t care if I bled to death as that’s a main artery. With shaking legs I walk into the bathroom and close the door. I throw down the lid and sit on the toilet. What do I do? For fifteen minutes I sit, frozen with fear.
Break the window. Yes, break the window. I look in the bathroom cupboard for something strong enough to do it with. Nothing but plastic bottles. I walk back out and look through the room for something, anything. God, why didn’t I pay attention when I watched McGuiyver all those years ago? There is a plant in the corner in a ceramic pot. I remove the plastic pot from the ceramic one and pick up the heavy pottery piece. I go back to the bed and take a run up and throw it at the window but my arm hampers my throw and it hits the window sill and bounces off. I pick it up again and the door opens.
“What are you doing?” a huge man growls as he grabs my arm. I cower away from him, unsure of his intentions.
“What do you want?” I cry.
“I want you to shut your stupid mouth,” he sneers.
“Help!” I scream as loud as I can over his shoulder into the house. “Help me!”
He raises his hand and hits me hard across the face and I fall to the floor and then he kicks me in my stomach and I scream in pain.
“Scream again and I will fucking kill you,” he growls as he picks my head up by the hair and slams my head against the ground.
I see the side vision of the door shutting behind him and the sound of it locking.
Tears roll down my face sideways to the floor. “Help me,” I whisper through my pain. “Joshua, help me.”
Joshua
I sit at the table next to Arthur, my lawyer, and opposite two police officers.
One policeman places two vials in a ziplock plastic bag onto the table in front of us. “Can you explain this, Mr Stanton? Can I call you Joshua?”
My eyes narrow at the vial. “What is it?” I ask.
“You tell me,” he says flatly.
I shake my head. “I’m not playing fucking charades. What is it?” I snap.
“Rohypnol,” he says matter-of-factly.
I frown.
“We found eight vials of it at your property Willowvale,” the policeman continues.
My eyes meet Arthur’s and I shake my head.
“I don’t know how they got there,” I reply.
“Course you don’t, that’s why your fingerprints are all over them.” He fakes a smile.
“This is preposterous,” demands Arthur. “He was drugged himself.”
“Did you murder Miss Marx and then take Rohypnol to cover your crime, Joshua?” the policeman sneers.
I screw up my face. “No, I did not.”
“Tell me about the prostitute in Australia who was murdered,” the policeman asks as he sits back in his chair.
Arthur frowns at me in question.
Fuck. I swallow the lump in my throat. “I was being blackmailed by a prostitute. She had footage of me and her having sex and was threatening to go public. She was blackmailing many men and apparently one of them got sick of it and she was murdered. I don’t know much about it,” I reply.
Arthur rubs his face in frustration. He didn’t know that before now.
The policeman cocks his head to one side. “Like you know nothing about the Rohypnol in your house.”
I screw up my face. “It’s obviously been planted there. You can’t be that stupid,” I snap.
The policeman sits back on his chair and folds his arms in front of him. “We can do this the long and hard way or you can just admit it to now and go for a more lenient sentence. Either way we will have you charged with murder.” He sneers as his eyes hold mine.
“Enough,” Arthur snaps. “Application for bail is pending. There will be no further questioning until then.”
“We are not finished.”
“Yes, you are!” Arthur snaps as he bangs a folder onto the table in anger. “My client is innocent and unless you are going to ask some genuine questions and not seek a guilty plea we won’t be a part of this conversation.”
The policeman narrows his eyes at me.
Arthur stands. “Joshua, I will see you in the bail hearing soon, son.” His eyes stare at the policeman. “Show Joshua back to his cell.” His eyes turn to me. “And Joshua, don’t answer anything they ask you without me being present.”
I nod gratefully. Thank fuck someone around here knows what the hell is going on.
The policeman stands furiously as Arthur leaves the room and I sit in silence. One of them pushes a security button alerting someone to come and get me
The taller policeman leans over the desk and sneers. “Just because you have money doesn’t mean you can get away with murder twice. We got you Stanton and the evidence is rock solid.”
I glare at him.