Run Away With Me : A fast-paced psychological thriller by Daniel Hurst (free e novels TXT) 📗

I can’t wait.

Since entering the police station and speaking those words, I have been given a checklist to fill in which will provide the police officers with more information to work with as they begin their search for my wife. The first section is easy enough. Name. Date of birth. Current address. The second part is just as simple. Height. Eye colour. Hair colour. Weight.

I add several pounds onto that last one.

Laura is pregnant, after all.

It’s the third section where things get more interesting. This part is asking me to record the habits and personality traits of the missing person. Do they smoke? Drink alcohol? Frequent certain places at certain times? Are they outgoing or shy? What are their spending habits? Are they religious?

I’m having fun putting all the details of Laura’s life onto this form. It’s making me think of my wife as some kind of a character rather than a real human being. I bet the police get all sorts of interesting answers in these reports. You could learn almost everything that you ever needed to know about somebody just by having them fill one of these in for themselves. But it’s not Laura filling it in, it’s me, which means I don’t have to be completely honest. I can tick whichever box I want to in order to make her the person I need her to be.

After answering the question about whether Laura chews gum, (what does that have to do with anything?), I move on to the section that relates to the details of the day Laura went missing, which I am classing as some time during the early hours of this morning. I’ve told the police I was asleep in our bed and Laura was gone when I woke, which means she could have left at any time between midnight and 7 am.

The form is asking me to say what clothes Laura was wearing when she was last seen, but I have no idea because I was “asleep”, so I just mention this beside the boxes and move on.

I complete the section about where the missing person was last seen, which was our home, and then advance to the last part which relates to the health and condition of the subject.

I indicate that Laura is pregnant and make sure to concoct a lie about her becoming increasingly distant over the last few weeks as well as mentioning an episode when she got violent with me which I never reported at the time.

It’s easy to paint a picture of somebody when they aren’t the ones who get to hold the paintbrush.

I write ‘None’ in the box for family because with both her parents gone and no siblings, I’m all she’s got. Lastly, I tick the box where they ask me if I am willing to provide something that will have my wife’s DNA on it. I’m sure I can find an old hairbrush in the house somewhere.

With the form complete, I get out of my seat and return to the desk where I slide the piece of paper under the Perspex screen to the police officer sitting on the other side. They thank me and tell me to take a seat where another officer will be with me shortly, and I do as I am told.

As I wait for the next part of this charade, I think about how this is going as I was told it would. It has certainly helped to have somebody in the police force working with me to pull this off. They know exactly what I need to do and the order in which I need to do it to make it seem authentic and so far, everything is going as planned. The only problem with removing all risk and random chance is that it’s not quite as exciting as it could be, but then I’ve certainly had my fair share of risk over the past few months. Now it’s time to play it safe and stick to the plan, and that’s exactly what I intend to do.

I watch the numerous police officers working behind the screen on the reception desk, and they all seem to be busying themselves with rather a lot of paperwork which seems a waste of all their training and talent. No wonder there is so much crime in this country if the people who are supposed to be stopping it are too busy sitting behind a desk pushing documents back and forth into paper trays. I don’t think the answer to solving terrorism, knife crime and domestic abuse lies in printing off more paper and getting somebody to read it all, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the police know what they are doing.

But from what I’ve heard from my inside source, they haven’t got a clue.

I keep that thought to myself as I see the middle-aged female officer approaching me with a warm smile. She greets me and asks me to follow her, so I do as she says because I’m a good husband who is just worried about finding his missing wife. If this policewoman knew what I was really up to then she wouldn’t be such a gracious host, but she doesn’t, so she keeps on smiling and now she is offering me a hot drink or a cup of water. I decline, pretending it’s because I’m not thirsty, but really, it’s because I don’t want to stay long. I have to get back in the car and get on my way to the cottage again.

I have to get back to my missing wife.

17

LAURA

Adam came back from his walk soaking wet, and now he is in the shower warming himself up. He’s probably going to get ill after being out in that weather for so long, but he doesn’t seem to care. He said he needed the fresh air and that he feels better for it. I’m