As she glances appalled at the landlord again, the tears that spring to her eyes jolt me. Also annoy me. She obviously cares about my daughter, but does she think for one second that I don’t? Despite my best attempts, the calm facade I’m working to maintain slips. ‘I gavebirthto her,’ I growl, my gaze travelling from her horror-stricken face to her burgeoning belly and back. ‘Do you honestly think I would subject her to this, thatIwould try to manipulate her? It’sJackwho’s doing that, which surely you must be beginning to see. I wouldgladlydie to protect her. I didn’t, though. I stayedaliveto protect her.’
I glare at her, furious that she dares make assumptions about me, knowing nothing but the lies she’s been fed. She has the grace, at least, to look down.
‘My mother found her conscience.’ Mollified somewhat, I go back to the troubling subject of Lina, who I know wouldn’t have breathed a word about me to Evie, for fear of what it might do to her, plus fear of what I might do if she dared to. ‘She was trying to make it up to me, not that she was ever much of a mother. It certainly wasn’t out of affection or kindness. She didn’t give a damn about me. She washed her hands of me the day her darling Derek left. She couldn’t make herself believe the kind of man he was. Love really is blind, isn’t it?’
I pause, giving her a meaningful glance. She gets my drift, I think.
‘She was quite generous, actually. Hence her lowered living standards,’ I go on. ‘But it’s Evie she’s trying to protect. Evie she cares about. She thinks she can protect her from Jack. She’s very misguided.’
Kara grows a shade paler.
‘I am a trained sonographer, by the way. Your baby really is fine, don’t worry.’ I give her another smile. It’s supposed to be reassuring. She doesn’t look very reassured. ‘For the moment,’ I add.
I wait while that registers, and then move fast, beating her to the front door and slamming my hand against it as she reaches for the bolt.
‘Where’s Evie?’ she asks, desperation creeping into her voice.
I note the deep concern in her eyes.She really does care about her.‘At your house,’ I inform her. ‘The house I imagine Jack would quite like all to himself. She’s quite safe,’ I add. ‘For now, anyway.’
She trails terror-filled eyes over me. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ I take hold of her good arm and steer her back to the sofa, ‘she won’t be safe unless I expose the real threat to her. And that’s not me,’ I add, pushing her down none too gently. ‘But I don’t expect you to believe that any more than I would expect Jack to admit what he did. So I have no choice but to make him. And if you truly care about Evie and the child you’re carrying, then you’ll behave.’
I see the swallow sliding down her neck as she stares up at me, and I guess she has the message. ‘Does Evie really not know you’re alive?’ she asks.
‘Do you honestly think I would traumatise my own daughter on top of all that she’s already suffered?’ I snap, irked now by her assumption that I would just reappear in Evie’s life before I thought she was ready to handle it. ‘No,’ I answer adamantly, as she continues to stare at me, although it’s a small lie.
Evie hadn’t known I was alive until my mother, under duress, had told her earlier today. Currently she’s on her way to Worcester to meet me. At least I hope she is. I don’t want her anywhere near the house. I hope too that she believed my mother, whose thought processes have been somewhat erratic of late, which might give Evie cause for doubt.
‘Drink your orange juice,’ I tell Kara, who’s staring at me as if I’ve escaped from some mental facility.
Her eyes pivot to the glass and then back to me.
‘It’s a mild sedative, that’s all. Zolpidem. Quite harmless,’ I tell her. ‘I’m really not the bad guy in all of this, Kara, trust me.’
She makes no move to pick the glass up, so I snatch it up and thrust it at her. ‘Drink it!’ I order. ‘Evie is with my mother. You must realise Lina is stark raving bonkers. Do you really want to be responsible for what she might do now things are coming to a head? She told me I would be better off dead than picking up my relationship with Jack. Not that I imagined you would easilygive him up. And not that I want him, other than to be grovelling for mercy.’
My heart twists painfully as I recall how much I’d once loved him. How much I had wanted to be with him. How kind he’d been when I’d told him I’d had to fend for myself since the age of sixteen. How caring when I confessed that I sometimes struggled with my mental health. That, with my mother seeming to not give a damn about me, and finding myself homeless and alone, I’d once tried to take my own life. When Evie came along, he’d doted on her. We were a family, a unit. I’d felt safe… until I didn’t.
‘I digress.’ I snap my attention back to Kara. She’s staring at me cautiously, as if I’m some kind of monster. It pisses me off. ‘Who do you think’s been feeding you drugs?’ I ask. She doesn’t answer, but looks more terrified by the second.
‘My mother thinksEviewould be better off dead than with him,’ I add. ‘Now drink your juice so I can assess the injury to your wrist and then drive you home to avert a fucking disaster!’
Jarred into action, she takes the glass shakily, sips from it, coughs and splutters and spits the rest out. No matter. It’s a fast-acting drug and, anticipating her reluctance, I doubled the dose. I leave her a moment and, keeping one eye on her over my shoulder, collect the things I need from the worktop in the shitty little kitchen area. Haloperidol, the antipsychotic I’d found tucked in Jack’s wardrobe in this woman’s house; the box of sedatives; along with a packet of my mother’s antidepressants, mirtazapine. A cocktail lethal enough to kill a mule. And I imagine Jack will be as stubborn as one.
Waiting until she’s drowsy enough to be pliable, I check her wrist. There are no visible deformities and she appears not to be in severe pain with it. Quickly I go back to grab scissors from the drawer and race to the bedroom to fetch a spare sheet from the wardrobe. Slashing at it with the scissors, I fashion arudimentary triangular bandage and set about immobilising the wrist. I don’t want her suffering any more than she has to.
Once she’s comfortable, I check her pulse and breathing, then search her pockets for her phone, praying it’s there. Finding it, I quickly key in the code my mother had given me and then pull up Jack’s number. He will undoubtedly go back to the house when he realises the woman carrying his child has disappeared. I need him out of it.Please don’t try to find me, I type.Don’t call me. I can’t be with you right now. I’m okay. Being checked over at the hospital. I’m going to book into a hotel. I need some space.Reading the text over, satisfied that it should be enough to send him on a wild goose chase, I press send.
FIFTY
JACK
‘She’s been in a car accident,’ Jack spoke frustratedly into the pay-as-you-go phone he’d purchased while the police did whatever they had to do with his own. Having called the main Worcester hospital, he was now trying the county hospitals and getting nowhere. ‘Her name’s Kara Keenan. She’s about five six, shoulder-length auburn hair and striking green eyes,’ he said for the umpteenth time.
‘Are you her next of kin?’ the guy on the switchboard asked.
‘Yes,’ Jack replied. ‘I, er, don’t know.’ Was he? He wasn’t sure she’d listed him as such, but she had no one else to his knowledge.
