Nick pulls back the door and nods. ‘You’re right. We’ll work it out.’ He leans forward, pressing his lips against mine, and I try not to flinch.
I climb into the car and stuff my hands under my thighs as the urge to bite my nails builds inside me. All I can think about is the window – the gap in time that I have right now that is shrinking by the day.Matthew is remembering more and more. Soon he’ll remember everything, and I don’t want to be around him when he realizes the truth about the fire, about everything. Right now he’s stuck in hospital and if I leave, there’s nothing he can do to stop me.
Then there’s Nick. I can’t pretend things are normal between us any more. How long before he starts wanting to know where I am and what I’m doing every second of the day? Before he crushes me with his need to protect me?
I have to get away.
This won’t be like the last times. This can’t be another change of job and hairstyle. I have to go deeper than that if I want a real fresh start away from Matthew and Nick and the memories. And the only way I can do it is if I stop running from what happened twelve years ago.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Nick asks, breaking the silence in the car.
‘Nothing.’
‘You must be thinking about something, Sophie.’
I shrug. ‘I was thinking about Matthew, I guess.’
He huffs and I can tell it was the wrong answer. The need to escape builds inside me until I have to bite my lip to stop the scream from coming out.
Chapter 37
Jenna
The colours of daytime TV flicker in front of my eyes. I’m staring at the screen but not watching. The sound is down low, almost on mute. My head feels heavy and keeps drooping, but I know it’s useless trying to sleep.
I’m too fidgety, my thoughts restless.
My phone trills from the space on the sofa beside me and I pounce on it, hoping it’s Rachel, but it’s not. It’s DS Church. I stare at her name and even though my finger hovers over the Accept button, I let it ring out, just as I did when a hospital number flashed on the screen earlier today, and then Nancy herself tried to call. I know I should’ve answered, but I can’t think about going back to work right now.
The ringtone stops. DS Church’s name disappears from the screen. She can’t possibly have anything else to update me on from this morning, which means she’s got more questions, and I’m not sure I want to answer them right now.
She thinks I had something to do with your accident.How long before she finds out I was in town the same afternoon? I should come clean and tell her I forgot that I was there, but even in my head it sounds suspicious, and I can hear her question in my thoughts: ‘So you never normally leave the hospital during your shifts, but on the day your stalker was pushed in front of a bus, you did leave the hospital, you were in the area, and you had nothing to do with it?’
Credits roll up the TV screen. Whatever was on has finished. There’s not long before I need to collect Beth and Archie from school, but I can’t sit here any longer. I jump up from the sofa and slip on my sandals. Rachel might be able to ignore my calls but she can’t ignore me in person. She’s my connection to you. I find her address on the PTA handout she gave me and type it into Google Maps as I’m walking out the door, keys in hand, towards my car across the road.
My mind is focused on my phone and on what I want to say to Rachel, but still I sense a change around me. A whisper of alarm that I’m not alone on the road. I barely have time to register the footsteps behind me when a force hits my back – two hands and the weight of someone shoving me hard.
I’m thrown forwards, my balance gone. A scream lodges in my throat, but no sound comes out.
I hit the pavement. Knees first, then my hands. Momentum keeps me going and one elbow hits the ground, then my shoulder and finally my head. A thump against my skull, enough to hurt but not enough to do any real damage.
I lie still for a second, maybe two, as my brain tries to catch up. There’s a part of me that wonders if it was an accident – did I walk into the path of a cyclist?But even as the thought turns in my mind, I know that’s not what happened. I was pushed and it was no accident.
Panic grips my chest and I gasp. I’m being mugged.
I turn and scramble backwards, but there’s no one there and my bag is gone. The street is empty. I pull myself up and stare down the road, then I run across to the park and peer through the entrance, searching for any sign of who pushed me. The only person I see is a man walking with his back to me, heading towards the boating lake, but he’s far away and I’m not sure if he could’ve run that distance in the time it took me to get up. I stare at him for a while longer and for a split second I feel like there’s something familiar about the way he’s walking, but the thought disappears before I can grab hold of it.
I walk slowly back to where I fell and pick up my phone and car keys from where they flew out of my hands. My phone is undamaged, and so am I, for the most part. I gingerly prod at the small lump on the side of my head. It hurts, but not badly. One of my knees is pricked with blood and there’s a small cut on my hand where I landed on a sharp stone, but I’m OK. Shaken, but OK.
Then the feeling comes over me – the spider. I’m being watched. Adrenaline explodes inside me and I jump into my car and drive away as fast as I can, only stopping when I park outside Rachel’s house.
Months of fear rages to the surface, reminding me I’m not safe, I’ll never be safe until you’re dead or in prison.
My heart pounds so fast in my chest that my head starts to spin. My breathing comes in quick pants. I try to process what just happened. Someone pushedme to the ground and stole my bag. But you’re in hospital. It wasn’t you.
A thought begins to unfold in my mind as though it’s wrapped up in a kids’ pass-the-parcel game and I have to keep tearing and tearing at it. Then it’s there, pushing through the panic, and I gasp. What if you’re not working alone? What if someone is helping you?
It’s a ludicrous thought. Not one stalker, but two. I can picture DS Church’s eye roll already, and yet it makes sense, doesn’t it?
