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

‘He came out of nowhere. I didn’t even see him!’ Adam cries, and that’s the first time I’ve been able to make some sense out of the jumble of words that have poured out of his mouth ever since he got home.

‘Who did?’

‘The guy!’

‘What guy? What are you talking about?’

I know I’m bombarding him with questions, but I don’t know what else to do. I’ve never seen my husband like this before, and I’m worried. He’s usually so calm, and he’s usually the one who has to deal with my drama. Seeing Adam so worked up is almost as frightening to me as that thought I had about him not making it home at all.

‘The guy I hit!’ Adam cries, and I can see the fear in his eyes as he looks at me.

That does not sound good.

‘You hit someone? At the party?’

‘No, not at the party!’ Adam replies with a snarl as if it’s my fault for not understanding his predicament right now. ‘With my car!’

Now it’s my turn to start panicking.

‘You hit someone with your car?’

‘I didn’t see them. Honestly, I didn’t!’

‘Adam, what happened?’ I demand to know, and it must have been my stern use of his name that snaps him out of it because he suddenly stops pacing around and looks me in the eye.

‘I was driving down Moor Lane, and I swear I only took my eyes off the road for a second,’ he says with his voice trembling. ‘When I looked up again, he was right in front of me. I couldn’t get out of the way in time. He went straight over the bonnet. What the hell was he doing out on the lane at this time of night?’

‘Where is he now?’ I ask, trying to think practically even though I can already feel my carefully planned life starting to fall apart around me.

‘He’s still on the road,’ Adam replies, and for a second he looks like he is going to be sick. But our new carpet is the least of my worries.

‘Is he okay? Did you call an ambulance?’ I ask, terrified of the answer because I know that involving the emergency services will make it even more real, but what else is supposed to happen next?

‘No,’ Adam says meekly with a shake of the head.

‘What do you mean? You can’t just leave him there! You have to see if he’s okay! He might have seen you! He might have called the police!’

‘He hasn’t done any of that.’

‘How do you know?’

Adam takes a few seconds to answer me, but when he does, I wish he hadn’t.

‘Because he’s dead.’

3

LAURA

It’s been ten minutes since Adam came home and told me he had been involved in a hit and run just a couple of miles from our house. It’s been five minutes since I stopped screaming at him and begging him to go back to the scene. And it’s been two minutes since he persuaded me not to call the police.

‘I’ll go to prison,’ he had said as I stood shaking in the hallway with the phone in my hand and my finger ready to dial the third number nine in a row. ‘They won’t care if it was an accident. The guy is dead. They won’t just give me a slap on the wrist and let me go.’

While I was afraid my husband was right, I’d tried to tell him that the police would understand if he just told them the truth.

‘The guy had been standing in the road. There was no way you could have avoided him. As long as you weren’t speeding or driving under the influence, then they’ll see that it was an accident. But you can’t just leave him there. That’s a crime!’

I should have known by my husband’s silence then that there was more to it, but it was only when I went to press the last digit that would connect me to the emergency services when he told me the rest.

‘I had three beers at the party,’ he had confessed. ‘I’m over the limit. They’ll lock me up, Laura. I’ll get five years at least. Maybe ten!’

The phone had fallen from my hand at that point, but that wasn’t the reason why I hadn’t called anybody yet. The reason was because Adam was right. If the police did come to the scene of the accident and speak to my husband, they would breathalyse him, and they would find out he had been over the limit when he had hit that poor man. Then they would slap handcuffs on him and take him away, and I’d be left on my own, not just for tonight but for several years.

Except I wouldn’t be on my own. I’d have a baby to bring up.

I just wouldn’t have Adam around to help me do it.

We’re sitting on the sofa together now, but we’re far from close. Adam is leaning forward in his seat with his head in his hands whilst I’m trying not to have a panic attack in case I go into labour and make this night even more of a disaster than it already is. But we can’t stay like this for long. We have to decide what we are going to do.

‘Is your car damaged?’ I ask, feeling ashamed to even be going down this particular route rather than talking to the police, which would be the right thing to do.

Adam shakes his head.

‘That’s good,’ I say, which is laughable because there is nothing good about this situation. But perhaps there is a way out of this. If nobody saw him, and there’s no evidence of damage on the car, then maybe nobody has to know that it was my husband who killed that man by accident tonight.

But then Adam speaks again, and I realise that there isn’t a way out of this at all.

‘There are cameras on that lane,’ he says, looking up at me with tear-stained eyes. ‘Somebody will find the body and