Run Away With Me : A fast-paced psychological thriller by Daniel Hurst (ebook reader ink txt) 📕

Laura how stressed I am about the situation we find ourselves in, and that is important because any sane human being would react to this situation in the same way if they had killed a man. They would be scared, they would get frustrated, and they would probably smash something like I just did with the plate in the sink. Laura might be worried about me, or she might just be mad, but one thing is for sure. She will understand why I am behaving this way.

I’m behaving like a man who is scared of going to prison.

But it’s all an act. I’m not going to prison, and there has been no crime, or at least no hit and run. I have made up the whole thing. The story of the man who hit my car on the country lane was a figment of my imagination. I hadn’t been drinking that night, I wasn’t involved in a hit and run, and I’m not currently wanted by the police.

We’re not on the run right now because there’s nothing to run from. But Laura doesn’t know that, and that’s the way it needs to stay for a little while longer.

Keeping my head down as I stride across the muddy field, I can hear the raindrops loudly bouncing off the hood of my coat. I decided to take an alternative route to the dirt track because I suspect that Laura is currently watching me from the cottage window, and it will look like I’m really mad if I’m just marching across the grass instead of sticking to the path. I bet she is feeling bad now for pushing me into storming out and I expect there will be a big apology waiting for me when I get back. I look forward to it. But the time for me listening to and accepting her apologies has long since passed.

The rain is getting heavier as I walk further away, if that is even possible, but I don’t mind. I’m actually enjoying this beating I’m taking from the weather in a weird kind of way. It’s a reminder to me of the power of Mother Nature.

It’s a reminder that there are still some things in this world that I can’t control.

My trip to the police station was a successful one, and I accomplished what I went there to do. I’ll probably have to go back again in a day or two, but that’s no problem. I’ll just tell Laura I’m going out to check the news again. But this time I’ll come back with bad news. I’ll tell her that the newspapers are full of photos of me and that the police are actively working to ascertain my whereabouts. Then Laura will be in no doubt about the preciousness of the situation we find ourselves in. She will know that leaving the cottage then will be a risk she simply cannot afford to take.

I reach the crest of the hill and look out across the gloomy valley before me. The driving rain and low levels of daylight are doing their best job of concealing the spectacular view, but I can still just about make out one other property in the area. I see a farmhouse nestled in the trough of the valley, and I imagine what it must be like to live in a place like this all year round. There’s no doubt it must be bleak in winter. The rain is bad enough, but the snowfall around here must be something else entirely. You could get cut off for days if you didn’t have the right vehicle to navigate the tiny roads and even then, it might not be enough. On the other hand, I imagine the summers are very pleasant in these parts and waking up to this kind of view with a clear blue sky above your head must be a very special thing indeed. But there is something about being up here when it’s less desirable. Like whoever lives in that farmhouse in the distance, only the strong will survive out here, and I consider myself as strong as they come.

I know that it is at least a forty-five-minute walk to get to that farmhouse because I’ve done a trial run before. I needed to know exactly how long it would take Laura to get to the nearest property if she did decide to leave the cottage and seek help. But in this terrain, and with the weather at this time of year, I doubt she would even think about making the journey. She’d have to make it to the top of this hill to even know there was another property beyond it. Instead, I bet she will stay in that cottage where it is warm and dry, and that is exactly what I want because that is where I need her to be until this is over.

I decide to turn back and return to my wife, but I take one last look at the farmhouse as I go. I think about the person or persons who live there and about how they probably picked this part of the world to live in because there is never any trouble around here.

That thought makes me smile because they couldn’t be more wrong. There is going to be a lot of trouble here in the coming days, and it won’t be long until this peaceful place is overrun with police officers, journalists and busybodies sticking their noses in.

The locals will be shocked at the turn of events in this sleepy part of the country. But their level of surprise will be nothing compared to that which my darling wife is going to experience. She is in for the shock of her life when she finds out the truth.

That’s because I’m not the one the police are looking for right now.

She is. 

16

ADAM

2 HOURS EARLIER

‘I need to report my wife as missing.’

It’s a simple eight-word sentence, but it has been months in the planning before I was