The Role Model: A shocking psychological thriller with several twists by Daniel Hurst (big ebook reader txt) 📗

into a room with him?’ Chloe asks, watching me tear open one of the sachets and pour it into my drink while still ignoring her own.

‘Yeah, he is staying there apparently. So that’s where I gave him the money.’

I use my spoon to stir the sugar in, and I can feel the heat from my cup as I do. But I can also feel the heat from Chloe’s glare across the table, and I just know that she assumes there is more to the story than what I am telling her.

‘That was all you did?’ she asks me, and my spoon clinks loudly against the bottom of my cup as I accidentally drop it.

‘Yes,’ I reply, hoping that she didn’t read too much into my sudden nervousness when she asked the question.

‘So then what’s with the dress and heels?’ she queries. ‘You look like a hooker.’

‘Chloe!’ I say as I notice the old man sitting behind her turn around and glance in our direction.

‘What! You do! Why the hell are you dressed like that to meet a guy in a hotel room?’

‘Keep your voice down.’

‘I will when you tell me what’s really going on.’

I’d decided to bring her in here because I assumed that she would ask me fewer questions in a busy public place than she would do if it was just the two of us at home. But that was clearly misguided thinking. Chloe doesn’t care where we are.

‘I told you what happened. I met Jimmy, and I gave him the money,’ I try again before taking a sip of my coffee though it does nothing to make me feel better.

‘Did you sleep with him?’

‘Chloe!’

I’m stunned by the blunt nature of her question and do my best to make the surprise of it cover up for the fact that she has hit the nail right on the head.

‘Well, did you?’

‘No!’

‘You’re lying! I can tell!’

The old man isn’t the only one who has overheard us now, and I see several other patrons in the café turn and look towards our table. Now I’m regretting coming here, but it’s a little late for that.

‘Why are you being like this?’ I ask my daughter, leaning across the table and keeping my voice low. ‘Why can’t you just trust me?’

‘Why can’t you ever tell me the truth?’ she fires back but something in the way she said that suggests to me that she isn’t just referring to this particular incident.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘I mean that I know you have lied to me before, and you keep doing it now. But I’m not a kid anymore. You have to start treating me like an adult.’

I try to think about what she could be referring to, but then I see how upset she is getting, and I reach across the table to take her hand.

‘Chloe. Calm down. I’m sorry. I don’t know what you think I have done, but I mean it when I say that I have hardly ever lied to you unless it was to protect you from something.’

‘So what are you protecting me from now?’ she asks, moving her hand away before I can hold it.

‘Everything!’ I say, and this time it’s my turn to raise my voice.

More glances from other tables in the coffee shop convince me that it is time to go, so I stand up from my seat and leave my almost untouched drink behind.

‘Come on. We’re going home,’ I say, signalling to my daughter to leave her drink too.

‘I’m staying here,’ she replies stubbornly, and I get a flashback to when she was a little girl refusing to leave the playground or go to bed on time. But unlike then, when I was perhaps softer than I should have been, I’m not in the mood for messing around now.

‘Get up now, Chloe,’ I say, my voice low but firm. ‘I mean it.’

My stern tone seems to do the trick, and Chloe reluctantly leaves her seat and follows me out of the café, where we pass the tables full of people who are no doubt happy to see us leave so they can go back to enjoying their drinks in peace.

Back out on the street, I flag down a taxi and turn to my daughter as it pulls up to the kerb beside us.

‘Don’t say another word. We’ll talk when we get home.’

It’s a sign of how rarely I ever get like this with my daughter that Chloe complies, no doubt surprised at how forceful I am being with her right now. But as we climb into the back of the taxi, I don’t feel guilty for being so strict. Not after what I have been through for her both today, over the last week, and indeed for the last ten years.

Neither of us speaks as the taxi takes us home, and it’s less than five minutes later when the driver drops us off at our front door. I pay the man while Chloe heads up the driveway before I follow her into the house and finally close the door.

I expect the questions and accusations to start right away from my daughter again now we are home, but to my surprise, Chloe still doesn’t speak and simply goes into the kitchen where I hear her rummaging around in the fridge.

I’m tempted to go upstairs and change out of this ridiculous dress, but I decide to go and finish this conversation with her before the atmosphere between us gets any worse. After all, we need each other, now more than ever.

As the search for Rupert intensifies, if we can’t support one another then what’s the point of anything?

Entering the kitchen, I’m surprised to see Chloe holding a full bottle of wine in her hand. I recognise it as the bottle that I had earmarked for when I got back from my ‘meeting’ with Jimmy today, but it seems my daughter has her eye on it too.

‘Drink?’ she offers, as if she is the adult in this interaction.

I