Chapter 195

The footsteps are not slowing down.

I have approximately three seconds to make a decision, and the decisions available to me are: stand here holding a stolen photograph in my father’s study – which I’m not supposed to be in – like a complete amateur, or hide. Quickly.

I scramble towards the desk as fast as I can just as the steps stop just outside the door.

Urgh, this is so undignified, I think as I tuck my legs together under me.

The space is smaller than it looks from the outside and I have to pull my knees up and angle my shoulders sideways. I catch my elbow on the wood in a way that will bruise, but I am fully underneath it and out of the immediate sightline of the door by the time the handle turns. I press myself against the back panel and breathe through my nose and try to stay as silent as I can while my heart tries to beat right through my chest.

“Please be someone else,” I whisper a quick prayer. “Literally anyone else. Even bigfoot would be