“She had a lucky escape.” I glare at him, not that it gives me any satisfaction.
“Shame her luck didn’t rub off on you.”
He produces some zip ties from his pocket. I shuffle backwards across the floor, until my spine collides with the wall.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he says, coming closer. “I’m going to tie you up, and you’re not going to make a sound. Not that there’s anyone around to hear you.”
I can’t believe that I didn’t think to scream. The taxi driver might still be outside. It’s my only chance of anyone getting me out of here before he goes to Declan.
I open my mouth to scream, and his fist connects with my jaw.
Then the world goes black.
16
DECLAN
I spendthe rest of the day in my study.
Avoiding Amelia.
Because I can’t bear to see the pain in her eyes whenever she looks at me.
I could stop it. I know I’m the only one who can make all this hurt go away, but something inside me is too fucking stubborn to back down, too stuck inside my own head with images of the woman I love and my son. Together.
When I finally emerge from the room like a mole venturing above ground, the foyer is in shadowy darkness. I flick the light switch and peer upstairs, instinctively listening for movement from the guest room.
Nothing.
I can’t smell anything from the kitchen. The house feels deserted, unloved, weary of this business arrangement masquerading as a marriage.
The kitchen is normally warm and welcoming this time of the day when the evening meal is being prepared, music is drifting from the sound system, and Orla and Amelia are chatting.
But today it is empty.
I find Orla in the unlit conservatory, doors wide open, with her bag of knitting on her lap. I switch on the overhead lamp and shiver at the chill in the room. I close the doors and turn around to face my mother-in-law.
“Are you alright? Did you ask Amelia to prepare dinner?”
She squints at me from behind her glasses. “Did you ask her to go choose a Christmas tree with you?”
“I haven’t had a chance yet. I’ve not seen her all day.”
“Have you been up to her room?” The accusation in the question is unmistakable.
Her room.
She has noticed the distance between me and my wife, and she doesn’t approve. Of course, she doesn’t. I married a woman young enough to be my daughter, and now I’m treating her like the housekeeper again.
I don’t wait around.
There’s nothing I can say to justify my actions. Orla will listen to both versions of events and tell us to work things out like mature adults instead of skulking around one another like aimless shadows.
I knock on the guest room door. No answer. There are no lights framing the door like a halo, and no sounds on the other side either.
Earlier in the day, when I thought that Amelia had gone, I barged into the room like a boisterous child playing hide-and-seek. But it feels different now. The panic this morning was fabricated, something else to beat myself up with.
Now it feels real.
