‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Sherry hissed, and swung the front door open.
Not wanting her to think they’d been listening, Sarah improvised, wrapping her arms around Joe’s neck and yanking him to her.
Sherry huffed past as they kissed. ‘Your child has just woken up,’ she imparted. ‘You might do well to keep an eye on him.’
Thirty-Nine
Laura
Bile rising in her throat, Laura watched from the bedroom window as her mother strode down the garden path, Grant trailing in her wake. He would always be there, always in Sherry’s shadow, always in her debt. She’d guilted him into marrying her. When he’d wanted to leave, she’d guilted him into staying. Laura had no doubt that that was why she’d done the inconceivably wicked thing she had. That had been her aim, to keep a man who was desperate to walk away from her chained to her forever. She would always claim she was protecting him, protecting her daughter. She was a liar.Everything that spilled from her Dior-coated blood-red slash of a mouth was lies. Laura was sure she hadn’t been sleepwalking that long-ago dark night. She’d taken the sedative her mother had offered her before going to bed. She recalled doing that. Sherry always made sure she took her sedatives. Sometimes she didn’t swallow them, aware that her mother often didn’t go to Jacob if he woke in the night. Always leaving him to … Jacob’s sobs had woken her. He’d been crying. She couldhearhim. She heard him now, whimpering like an abandoned puppy.
The crying had stopped. Suddenly there was nothing but the rain drumming like fingernails against the windows, the wind whispering through the trees:You have to save him. The memory floated back, as others had, hazy and incomplete but slowly forming a picture. Ironically, it was her mother’s latest attempts to sabotage any life she might have that had triggered them. How horrified would Sherry be if she knew that?
She wanted to destroy Laura’s relationship, to keep her from forming relationships, from trusting herself enough to believe in herself. She’d achieved her aim. She’d poisoned Sarah’s mind against her. Her policeman boyfriend would investigate her. Steve would leave her.
Hearing the bedroom door open, she wrapped her arms more tightly around herself, trying to stop the incessant shaking. She continued to watch as Grant drove off, her mother’s mouth moving animatedly as she berated him – for failing to successfully do his part in keeping their secret safe, Laura assumed. She should have found the courage to challenge her. Right there in the garden in front of witnesses. She didn’t doubt that Sherry’s wrath would have exploded. She would have done more than allude to the fact that her daughter wasn’t responsible for her actions on the night Jacob had disappeared. She would have tried to convince everyone that she’dbeen responsible for what happened to the beautiful little boy Laura now knew she searched for in her dreams. But now her memories were returning, Sherry might just have been caught out in her lies.
‘How are you?’ Steve asked tentatively. Sensing him right behind her, Laura tensed. It wasn’t his fault. He’d done nothing to deserve any of this, but she couldn’t turn to him, seek the comfort in his embrace she desperately needed. She couldn’t offer him reassurances or explanations. There was no way to do that without revealing everything. If she stayed here, Steve and Ollie would both be in danger. If she left, though, her mother might still hold the threat of harming them over her. If Sherry suspected that Laura had remembered details that had evaded her until now, she would stop at nothing to keep her from telling.
‘Did he push you?’ she asked, her gaze still on the window. ‘Grant, did he push you?’
‘What?’ Steve laughed, incredulous. ‘No, he didn’tpushme. For God’s sake, Laura. He was trying to grab the ladder. He didn’t push the bloody thing.’
She glanced back at him. ‘Are you sure?’
His forehead creased into an uncertain frown. He couldn’t be sure. Nor could Laura, not one hundred per cent; it had all happened so fast. But wouldn’t that have been Sherry’s way of sending out a clear warning?
‘They’re going to take him away from me,’ she said quietly.
‘Who is?’ Steve asked, clearly bewildered. ‘Who are they going to take away, Laura?’
‘Sarah and her boyfriend. They’re going to take Ollie away. They don’t trust me after all that happened today.’
‘They do,’ Steve tried to reassure her, though he sounded far from convinced. Poor Steve. If anyone was a good man, he was. ‘Sarah understands you’ve had some problems,’ he went on, attempting to play down her unstable behaviour. Behaviour that to him must appear to border on insane. ‘She wants what’s best for Ollie, of course she does, but she doesn’t not trust you.’
‘She’s taking him home.’ Laura pointed out the obvious flaw in his argument. Ollie had been due to stay, but she could hear Sarah downstairs talking to him, enticing him with the promise of Joe coming to see him later. She’d heard her telling Steve that he was overtired after all the excitement. Steve hadn’t argued, agreeing immediately that it might be best if Ollie went home with her, which confirmed that he’d lost trust in Laura too.
She’d heard Joe talking to Sarah before her mother had barged out, all that Joe had said about his ex-wife. He was obviously a caring man. It was clear that he cared about Sarah and Ollie. She felt better for knowing that he would be around to protect the little boy.
She glanced down to where Joe had climbed into his car. He was watching the house, waiting, Laura gathered, to make sure Sarah and Ollie emerged safely. Did he know, she wondered, that someone was watching him too? Her gaze travelled back to the car parked on the opposite side of the road, two vehicles behind him.
Forty
Sarah
She’d debated whether to just ask Steve outright. It didn’t seem fair to heap yet another problem on his plate. But then she’d realised she had to, if only so she could stop obsessing about it, which she knew she was. On top of everything else, though, she would defy anyone to blame her, including Steve.
‘Hi. How are you?’ he asked when he picked up.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’m just on my way to nursery to pick Ollie up.’
‘How’s he doing?’ Steve asked, a worried edge to his voice. Clearly he was concerned that the events over the weekend might have upset him.
‘He’s fine,’ Sarah assured him. ‘I told him Laura had been feeling poorly. He seemed to accept that. He’s making her a card to cheer her up.’ She wasn’t sure when Laura might see the card, given the circumstances, but she thought Steve would feel better for knowing Ollie hadn’t been badly affected. ‘So, how areyou? How’s the head?’
‘Not too bad. You never know, the bang might have knocked some sense into it,’ he joked wryly. ‘About the stuff we argued about,’ he went on hesitantly. ‘I, er, get it. Why you were so determined to find out more about Laura before allowing her to become involved in Ollie’s life. I mean, she obviously does have some issues, and, well … I’m sorry for acting like a bit of a dickhead.’
Sarah smiled at his gruff attempt at an apology. ‘No problem. I get it too. You love her.’
