Free Cut to the Bone by Alex Caan Page A

end up on a record somewhere? Can I trust you?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said, knowing it was a lie. If anything she said could be used to help their case, of course it would be used. ‘You can trust me. Anything you say, it won’t come back to hurt you. I can promise you that, at least.’
    She mulled over his words as she swilled tea in her mouth. He watched her swallow, imagining the liquid moving down her jumper-covered throat.
    Zain arched his back, stretching his neck from side to side. The tea was beginning to taste sour, so he put his cup down gently on the wooden floor, lacing his fingers as he watched Millie.
    ‘You probably should start at the beginning,’ he said. ‘What were you doing at the party in the first place?’

Chapter Twenty-three
    Millie looked into the distance, pulling together her story. Zain thought the process of recollection was like inserting a DVD and watching it in your head.
    ‘Young man, has some cash, hormones raging. Invites his friends to occupy a hotel suite. It was an executive room on the tenth floor, the sort corporations book for meetings. He had the penthouse suite booked, too – that’s where the real party was, on the fifteenth floor.’
    ‘What was happening on the tenth floor, then?’
    ‘Food, cake. He even had jelly. They were casts – medieval – of forts and castles, but still just coloured jelly.’
    ‘And on floor fifteen?’
    ‘Open bar, champagne. An alphabet of drugs. A DJ. And to finish it all off . . .’
    ‘Escorts?’ said Zain.
    ‘Escorts,’ confirmed Millie.
    He smiled, kept his eyes on her, didn’t want her to think he was judging her, looking down on her in any way.
    ‘There were half a dozen of us, hired for the occasion. Dan had invited his YouTube friends, some specially selected fans. And the weirdest ones were old school friends of his. You should have seen him. He was lording it over them – the school friends, I mean – really showing off. I got the feeling he invited them as a form of revenge.’
    ‘I get that,’ said Zain.
    ‘He was manic. One minute he would be hugging them, kissing them, plying them with drinks. The next he would berate them, tell them how this was his party, they were somehow diminished because they were there. It was a strange night.’
    ‘How did you end up back on the tenth floor?’
    ‘I was getting a headache,’ she said. ‘We weren’t there to sleep with anyone – I have to be clear about that. We were there just to help them enjoy themselves.’
    ‘The headache, did something trigger it? Something you took?’
    ‘Would I admit that to a police officer? But no. I don’t do drugs. Ever.’
    ‘The atmosphere, then? The music? That’s what caused the headache?’
    She nodded. ‘The room on the tenth floor was empty by that time, but the doors were open to the balcony. I stood there, breathing in the air, trying to clear my head. I heard someone come into the room. It was Dan. By that point, he was wasted; he’d taken a bit of everything.’
    ‘What did he say? When he saw you?’
    ‘He said he’d followed me, saw me leave the main room. Said I was being paid to be up there and who did I think I was. I could tell he wasn’t right, and it frightened me. My first instinct was to head back up, not argue. But he blocked my way.’
    Zain saw the ire rise into her face, the same flashing anger he had seen before. This time it wasn’t temporary, it stayed as Millie carried on speaking.
    ‘He was out of it, shouting in my face, grabbing my wrists. Then he . . . he tried to kiss me. I pulled away. I know what you’re thinking: I’m an escort. I still didn’t want to; I was only there to play hostess. He made me retch, as in actually want to be sick. He was disgusted by it, as I was bent over, trying to heave my guts out. And he couldn’t handle it, started shouting how he owned me, how I was his.’
    Zain felt the words burn themselves into him. He had said the same about Ruby. She was