Free Double Take by Kendall Talbot

that newsreader’s wedding. She’s so lucky.”
    â€œLucky? Why?”
    Candice walked into the kitchen and switched on the kettle. “Oh, I don’t know. To go from the shy teenage tomboy you told me about to the woman she is now, I guess she’s been lucky.”
    â€œIt’s not all luck.”
    The instant he said it, he looked like he wanted to retract his statement. “Really? Why do you say that?”
    The toaster popped and he plucked the hot toast out and onto a plate. “No reason. It doesn’t matter.”
    â€œJack, tell me. I thought we had no secrets.”
    â€œIt’s not a secret, it’s just… I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone.” He placed the buttered toast on the table with jars of both vegemite and strawberry jam.
    â€œYou mean Rachel? When did you promise her?”
    â€œWhen we were kids. She told me something and made me promise not to tell anyone.”
    â€œThat was a long time ago, Jack. You know I won’t tell anyone.” Candice placed the two steaming mugs of coffee on the table and slid into the seat. She watched Jack’s face as he grappled with his thoughts. He’d obviously made up his mind, because by the time she’d taken her first sip of coffee, the tangle of emotions that worried his forehead had disappeared.
    â€œI was fifteen. Rachel had just turned fourteen. In fact it was her birthday. We’d been hanging out at the shopping mall with our friends, like we usually did, and eventually there was just her and me left.”
    Candice wondered if she was about to hear about Jack’s first sexual experience and suddenly felt foolish for pushing him into telling her.
    He spread vegemite over his toast. “She used to brag about her father all the time, how smart he was, the designer clothes he wore, stuff like that. Anyway, she told me they’d been…sleeping together.”
    â€œWhat? Oh, that poor girl.” Candice put her toast down. She wasn’t hungry anymore.
    â€œBut that wasn’t the worst part. I told her to go to the police but she wouldn’t. I couldn’t understand, but Rachel said she actually wanted it. She said she was glad, because it meant he was finally interested in her.”
    â€œDid you do anything?”
    â€œRachel made me promise not to tell anyone, so I didn’t. Maybe I should have.”
    â€œDid she talk to you about it again?”
    He nodded. “About six months later. She told me she was pregnant.”
    â€œOh dear.”
    â€œShe was distraught because she couldn’t get hold of her father.” He looked at his hands in disbelief. “I’ll never forget this. She actually thought he’d be happy about it. I tried to tell her he might not want the baby, but she wouldn’t listen.”
    â€œDid you tell anyone this time?”
    â€œNo. A couple of weeks later she told me she’d lost the baby, and I guess I just let it go. It wasn’t until her sixteenth birthday, when she rocked up with a brand-new car, that I found out the real truth.”
    Candice frowned as she waited for him to continue.
    â€œRachel had contemplated running away, but then she realised that was exactly what her mum and dad would’ve wanted. So she sought revenge instead. She videotaped her father demanding she get an abortion. She managed to get him to admit to everything he’d been doing to her and she recorded it all. Rachel had the abortion, but after that, whenever she wanted anything she just sent him another copy of the tape.”
    â€œThat’s just terrible.”
    â€œYeah. I wonder if she still has those tapes.”
    Candice recalled the most recent picture of Rachel in the paper. Rachel could be a model, her smile radiated off the page. She didn’t look like a woman who had ever suffered, let alone been through something so calculating and horrific. “She seems completely in