‘You’d better come through to the lounge,’ Steve suggested reluctantly.
‘No. We’ll talk outside,’ Sarah replied. ‘It’s you I want to talk to. Just you.’
It went quiet for a moment, and then Laura heard the click of the latch on the front door. He was going along with it. What would Sarah say to him? What did she have to tell him that had brought her charging around here at this time of night?
Stepping out of the lounge, she checked the hall was empty and then made her way carefully to the stairs and flew up them. Her mind ticking feverishly, trying to think back to the conversation they’d had in the car, anything Sarah could possibly want to discuss with Steve out of earshot of her, she went to the front-facing window of the main bedroom and eased it open.
Sarah was talking fast, her words coming out in a garbled rush. Laura strained to hear. She couldn’t make sense of what she was saying at first. And then her heart skipped a beat. She was talking about Christopher, the incident with Liam in the swimming pool, and the little boy at the school.Oh God, no.How much did she know? How had she found out?Joe.Of course. She would have spoken about her worries to him. He would have got hold of the information. Laura swallowed back a hard knot of fear in her throat.
‘Sarah …’ Steve stopped her with an exasperated sigh. ‘We’ve already talked about this. Laura has some issues to do with her past, you know she does. She’s trying to deal with them. Can you not just—’
‘But what about the garden party?’ She cut across him, talking animatedly. ‘Are you seriously telling me you don’t think Laura’s meltdown as soon as her mother mentioned the swimming pool is something to worry about? You ended up falling off theladder. It was frightening, Steve. It’s bloody terrifying knowing what I do now.’
‘It was an accident,’ Steve retaliated. ‘I fell, Sarah. These things happen. As for the rest, it’s probably all just—’
‘What? Coincidence?’ Sarah laughed incredulously. ‘Poor Laura being blamed when she’s obviously so innocent and vulnerable? Being picked on by her mother? She’s filled Ollie’s head with stories about superheroes who rescue fish. Are you telling me you don’t think that’s odd? She was going to takehimto the swimming pool. This is not all just—’
‘You’re getting things out of proportion, Sarah,’ Steve interrupted impatiently.
‘For God’s sake!’ Her voice rose. ‘Open your eyes! I don’t know what or how, but this obviously all has something to do with Jacob.’
He hesitated before answering. Then, ‘He disappeared, Sarah,’ he said flatly, ‘without trace. If he’d been in the swimming pool, don’t you think the police would have noticed? If Laura had had anything to do with it, don’t you think they would have charged her? And don’t you think your boyfriend wouldn’t have dug that information up if they had?’
‘I … don’t know,’ Sarah replied, some of the bluster seeming to leave her sails. ‘All I do know is—’
‘And that’s the point, youdon’tknow,’ Steve pointed out angrily. ‘You’re making ridiculous assumptions, vicious bloody allegations, and you have no proof whatsoever.’
‘Of course I don’t have proof,’ she snapped. ‘How would I have? But if you put all this together with the decoration in the bedroom, his maimed bunny, the fact that Ollie and her ex-husband’s little boy—’
‘Oh for … You’re losing the plot, Sarah,’ he growled irritably.
But she wasn’t. Laura knew she wasn’t. She was putting the pieces together. Steve would realise it at some point and he would wash his hands of her, take Ollie away from her. But still he wouldn’t be safe. No child she cared about would ever be safe as long as she had secrets to tell. And if she did tell, then her life would be over. Her mother would make sure of it. She had to stop this. Shehadto keep Ollie safe. Wetting her parched lips with her tongue, she risked a glance out of the window.
Steve’s chest was heaving. He was angry, upset clearly. Sarah was eyeballing him furiously. ‘Ollie’s in danger! I can feel it!’ she cried, banging a hand against her chest. ‘If you won’t do something about it, thenIwill.’
Seeing her gaze shoot to the house, thinking she might be about to barge her way into it, Laura moved swiftly away from the window.
Fifty
Sarah
‘Sarah, come back!’ Steve called after her as she strode to her car.
‘And listen to you defending a woman who would harm your ownson?’ Sarah shouted over her shoulder. ‘No way.’Blinking back tears of sheer frustration, she dragged an arm furiously across her face – and dropped her car keys.
‘God!’ Her anger mounting, she bent to scramble them from the gutter. The neighbours’ curtains were twitching, she noticed as she straightened up. Were it not for the fact that she felt completely out of control, she would bang on their doors too. Ask Lucas’s mother if she really was careless enough to leave sharp scissors on the coffee table. That should ensure thatshechallenged poor innocent Laura’s lies.
‘Sarah, look … just come back, will you?’ Steve followed her, his tone more conciliatory. ‘Come inside and talk to Laura. I’m sure she can explain—’
‘No!’ Sarah shrugged him off as, catching up with her, he placed a hand on her arm. ‘Do you honestly think she’s going to tell you the truth?’ She searched his face. Even under the light of the street lamps, she could see his despair. He evidently did think she was the one with the problem. It was almost as if Laura had engineered the whole thing. Well, she might have Steve fooled. But Sarah wasn’t. Did he really think she was going to go in there and discuss all this with a woman who was obviously deranged over a nice cup of tea? ‘You can’t see it, can you?’ She narrowed her eyes, studying him hard. ‘You’re as obsessed with her as she is with Ollie.’
‘Meobsessed?’ He gawked at her in disbelief. ‘It’s you who’s obsessed. I’m beginning to think you need more help than she does.’
Sarah’s fury kicked in ferociously. ‘You’re right. I do need help, Steve,’ she seethed, inhaling hard to stop her tears from exploding. ‘I’m not getting any, though, am I?’
She looked him over with a mixture of disdain and bitter disappointment, then, willing herself not to lose it, she pressed her key fob and pulled her car door open, climbing in with as much dignity as she could.
‘Sarah … look, I’m sorry,’ Steve said, as she reached to close the door. ‘I’m overwrought. We both are. Please don’t go off like this. Come back and—’
