Kelly picked up and he breathed into the handset.
‘Dad? Are you OK? Dad?’
‘Kelly? Thank God.’
‘Dad? What is it?’
Chapter 46
Kelly took the call in the kitchen.
Johnny was upstairs seeing to Lizzie, who’d woken up. She was coming down with a cold. Another one.
Kelly couldn’t hear her father properly and moved around the downstairs to get better reception. But she still couldn’t make out what he was saying. It was late and it was unlike her father to panic so she knew something was up.
‘Dad?’
‘Kelly?’
Then an unidentified woman came on the line. She told Kelly her dad had been knocked over.
‘Knocked over?’
Kelly went into overdrive and gathered shoes and a jacket to throw on. She prepared to rush upstairs to tell Johnny she was leaving and hopped about from one foot to the other, trying to get socks on. She managed to get a location out of the woman. He was lying on the pavement in the middle of Keswick near Hope Park after his ordeal. As far as she could tell, he’d been knocked clean over by a jogger then nearly run over by a car which drove straight off.
A potential hit and run.
A hollow feeling crept into Kelly’s stomach, and she looked towards the terrace, as a noise drew her attention.
She peered up the stairs and flicked off the lights.
‘I’m on my way; have you called an ambulance?’
‘Yes, but your father is trying to get up; he won’t stay still. He’s saying you must be careful.’
Kelly tucked the phone under her chin and her eyes focused.
The lounger outside had moved.
She had left both of them close together when she and Johnny had brought in the blankets.
They’d kissed.
She’d regretted it but loved it at the same time. He was doing it again. No, she was allowing him to do it again.
Thoughts of Johnny’s lips on hers melted into insignificance as she sank back into the shadows of her own home. Then she thought of her daughter upstairs.
Her head tingled with alertness.
The tiny hairs on her arms stood up and her breathing slowed.
A movement on the terrace caught her eye and she saw a shadow cross the space and enter her lounge from the open door. She pressed her back into the wall and found the curtain with her hands. She manoeuvred her body into the alcove near the front door, where she hung coats, and covered herself with one.
And watched.
A figure, dressed in black, wearing a mask, crossed the floor and peered upstairs.
She heard a door open and close above her and tried to make a decision based on what was best for Lizzie. Should she scream and alert Johnny, thereby forcing him downstairs and leaving Lizzie exposed? Or should she tackle the intruder herself, thereby putting herself in danger but protecting her daughter?
