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

find her number, which I have saved under the name of a local dry cleaners just in case Laura does remember and the police search my device for any connection between the two of us.

I hear the ringtone in my ear and wait for her to answer, but it doesn’t connect, and I hang up when I get her voicemail message. She might not be ignoring me. She is probably at work. But there are more important things that need to be done right now than carrying on with everyday life.

I decide that I can’t just keep pacing around the kitchen for the rest of the day so I leave the room and head for the stairs again. I’m going up to see Laura, not because I am worried that she needs me since my last visit but because my paranoia is going into overdrive and I want to try and dispel my fears for another few minutes. If I go and talk to her and she acts normal with me, then it at least tells me that she has still forgotten what I did and then I don’t have to worry for a little while longer. That usually only works for about two minutes though before the fear seeps back in and I have to return for confirmation again.

I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. I’m terrified of Laura remembering what happened. I can’t spend the rest of my life in prison.

It was supposed to be her who was punished, not me.

I reach the bedroom again and slowly open the door, being quiet in case she is sleeping. But there is no need to be worried about making any noise. Laura is sitting up in the bed and looking right at me. She hasn’t slept at all since she came home, which worries me a little.

It’s almost as if she is afraid to close her eyes around me.

‘Just checking you’re okay,’ I say to her as I stand in the doorway. ‘Do you want anything? Another drink, maybe?’

Laura shakes her head. ‘I’m fine.’’

The weird thing is, she actually looks like she is. To look at her, you wouldn’t know that she had been through a battle for her life. Samuel is still in hospital surrounded by machines and doctors, but Laura now just looks like somebody having a lazy afternoon in bed.

‘Okay, well let me know if you need me. I’m just downstairs,’ I remind her again, and I study her face for any sign that she might actually be remembering what really happened between us. But she gives nothing away. I guess she really has lost her memory of recent events. Maybe it will never come back. Maybe I have nothing to worry about.

‘Adam,’ Laura says, just before I can close the door.

‘Yes?’

‘Try and get some rest. You look tired.’

I smile at my wife and nod my head before closing the door.

I should feel pleased that she cares about my health. That means she cares, and that means she doesn’t remember. But as I head downstairs and go back to the kitchen where I expect to spend the next hour pacing around nervously again and waiting for Gemma to call, I can’t shake the feeling that something is about to go very wrong for me.

54

LAURA

I heard the knock at the front door a few minutes ago, before I heard the chattering in the downstairs hallway and finally, the sound of the kettle boiling in the kitchen.

Kat is here again.

She has been coming to the house every day since I got back, presumably to offer her brother support and make sure he is doing well during this difficult time. Adam and his sister have always been fairly close, as evidenced by the fact that Kat was willing to give us a spare key to her holiday cottage for us to use at our own convenience. But she was never around at our house this much before. I imagine she is feeling a little guilty about the fact that it was her cottage that almost killed her brother’s wife and child, as well as shocked that Adam has ended up married to somebody who was using that cottage to carry out an affair behind everybody’s backs. At least that’s how I’m sure the story goes. But I imagine Kat also hates me for the affair, even though it actually ended a lot longer ago than she thinks. I presume that because she hasn’t come up to this bedroom to say hello to me in all the times she has visited the house since I came home from the hospital.

I don’t expect today will be any different. She will probably just stay downstairs with Adam, have a cup of tea and ask him if he is okay and if he is going to get a divorce when I am feeling a little better. But I don’t begrudge Kat for behaving like this towards me. Of course she would take her brother’s side in all of this. Not only is he her flesh and blood, but she doesn’t know the full story. Nobody does besides me, Adam and Gemma. Kat thinks that Adam is worthy of sympathy for being married to someone like me when really it is me who deserves all that sympathy. The problem is, I don’t know how to get it. I spend all day lying in this bed trying to think of a way that I can catch Adam and Gemma out and provide the evidence that is necessary to ensure they go to prison for what they have done. But I’m still working on it, and so far, I have nothing.

I hear the sound of footsteps on the staircase and prepare for another visit from Adam. I don’t actually mind this one because I could do with another glass of water. But then I see the bedroom door open, and it isn’t my husband looking to come in.

It’s his sister.