Chapter 20: Ask Him Who Said It

Freya's POV

Brecken was on his knees on the stage in front of four hundred people, and I put my hand on his hair.

"Get up," I said.

"I can't."

"Then stay there. It's not for me."

I took my hand away.

I did not want anyone to mistake it for anything but what it was.

Below us the hall had started to roar.

Reporters were running up the aisle with their phones held high, and the women in pearls were all talking at once.

Then the chandeliers flickered, and a speaker above the stage cracked.

A voice came out of it, small and clear.

It was Bethany's.

It was the confession from the kitchen corridor, played out loud to four hundred people.

The hall went silent so fast I heard a glass tip over in the back row.

Bethany's voice went on, cool and proud, and every word of it was hers.

Then a man's voice, calm, said: "That is the thing Freya has been asking all of us for."

Somebody in the balcony began to sob.

Brecken's chief stood at the edge of the stage with a black pen in his hand and a cable running from it to the sound desk.

He had taken it from Jakub in the corridor, and plugged it in himself.

He lifted his chin at me.

"The recording is Czech evidence now," he said. "The police have it."

The main doors opened.

Two officers came in with Bethany between them.

Her wrists were cuffed in front of her.

Her white dress was torn at the shoulder, and her hair had come loose, and her face had stopped being any face I knew.

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