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

a couple of scraps of bread in the bottom of the bag, which I drop into the toaster before slumping into my seat at the kitchen table. As I wait for the potentially mouldy bread to toast, I look at my mobile phone, which is something I have been doing a lot less of lately. I’ve found it’s easier to avoid the news, as well as all the gossip on social media, if I just either turn it off or limit my usage of it to the bare minimum. But I’m also learning that we are social creatures, and there is a limit on how much we can isolate ourselves from the outside world before our brains demand that we give it something to remind us that there is a bigger world out there.

Maybe that’s why I ended up on the news website, or maybe it was because I was holding out hope that this would finally be the day that the top story wasn’t something to do with my daughter’s crimes or a profile on how she became the way she did. Plenty of ‘experts’ have come out in the weeks since Chloe’s sentencing, all of them trying to explain to the general public how a seventeen-year-old woman could commit such a brutal act and try and get away with it, and there have been plenty of theories, although none of them hit the nail on the head.

None of them mentioned that it is because she saw her mother kill a man when she was a young girl.

I suppose I should be grateful for that, although part of me almost wants the truth to come out because at least that way, it will make all the experts profiting from our misery look like complete idiots for not suggesting it.

As the webpage loads on my phone, I hold my breath, preparing to see what the top story is today.

I keep holding it even when I see what it is.

MISSING NEWCASTLE STUDENT FOUND SAFE & WELL

I click the link to the article in disbelief before pouring over the details of it. While I hadn’t been hopeful about the news today, this is definitely positive. It turns out the student had been taken by his stepfather and kept locked away in a house just outside the city, apparently in a revenge mission because the older man had broken up with the student’s mother. While there’s no doubt it is still a harrowing story, I can’t help but feel happy. That’s because Chloe was telling the truth.

She didn’t kill this man.

She isn’t as dangerous as I thought she was.

I feel terrible for not believing her and wish I could speak to her now to apologise, but I can’t. A phone call in three days will be the next time I am able to have any contact with her, so I will have to wait until then.

I can smell my toast starting to burn, so I’m just about to get up and remove it from the toaster when my phone pings to let me know that I have a new email. Automatically following the sound of it into my inbox, I see the new message waiting for me at the top of the screen.

I also see who it is from.

Jimmy.

Clicking on the new email, the message opens up, and I am able to see the contents.

Subject: Rupert Hall Murder – Burial – One year warning

Hi Heather. Remember me? If you’re reading this then I am dead, and your daughter is serving her sentence for her crimes. But I’m guessing you are not. That’s because I didn’t send the police the video of you burying Rupert. I’m sure you are grateful for that, but I wouldn’t get too excited just yet. That’s because I do have the video (attached here), and it will be going to the police in exactly twelve months’ time. There is nothing you can do to stop it. Consider this my final act of revenge from beyond the grave.

Enjoy your year.

Jimmy.

My hand is shaking as I click the link on the email and see the video start to play. It’s very dark and very grainy footage, or at least it is until the camera operator zooms in and brings things more into focus. That’s when I see myself standing in the woods, the spade in one hand and the pile of dirt beside me. I keep digging for several minutes, and I hear my toast pop up as I watch, but I don’t take my eyes from the screen as the video continues to play. Then, at the six minute mark, I see myself stop digging and crouch down before pushing Rupert’s body into the hole. The video ends with a zoomed-in close-up of my face staring down at the corpse and breathing heavily.

I lower my phone onto the table and catch sight of the black toast sticking out of the top of the toaster. It’s burnt to a crisp.

Ruined.

Just like I am.

I don’t bother to read Jimmy’s email again. It was pretty self-explanatory, and its message is burnt into my brain now almost as much as the heat from my toaster has burnt into the bread.

In twelve months, this video will be sent to the police, just like the video of Chloe was sent to them. And just like they did with her, they will come to arrest me. I’ll be dragged through the courts. I’ll be sentenced for a long time. And I’ll probably not see my daughter again until she is at least my age now.

I don’t know what to do, but I know I can’t stop it.

Do I run? Do I confess and start my sentence earlier? Should I try to make amends?

Or should I just make the most of the time I have left?

I have to give it to Jimmy. I was feeling drained of life when I was lying in bed a few moments ago, but now I feel as if