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

I’m disappointed when he doesn’t say it back. But that’s okay. He’s distracted. He’s always said it before and I’m sure it won’t be long until he says it again.

18

ADAM

I’m standing on a ladder fiddling around with the cable attached to the satellite dish on the side of the cottage, even though I know that there is nothing wrong with it. Laura isn’t watching me so at least I don’t have to pretend even more than I already am, but I still have to be up here for a decent amount of time so that she believes I have given it my best shot. I estimate I’ll give it another five minutes before I go down and tell her to try the TV again before feigning my surprise that it still isn’t working and then telling her that I am out of ideas.

Thankfully, the rain has stopped so I’m not out here working in the wet, but the strong wind is still whipping around me, and I have to be careful that I don’t lose my balance and tumble from this ladder.

A broken leg would really mess up my plans.

As I fiddle around with the black wire that’s sticking out of the back of the aerial, I look out across the sweeping valley from my high vantage point. It’s a picturesque scene that wouldn’t be out of place on a postcard, and I think about how much people would be willing to pay to enjoy this view that I am getting for free. I don’t know exactly how much my sister forked out for this cottage, but it can’t have been cheap, which makes it all the more surprising that she doesn’t use it more often. From what she has told me, she has only been out here once this year and the last visit was seven months ago. She keeps it maintained and ready to go whenever she does visit, but it does seem a massive waste of money to have a place like this sitting empty for most of the year. She could have rented it out to holidaymakers at least.

Of course, it’s my knowledge of how little my sister uses this cottage that has enabled me to use it in my plan, so I’m not complaining. I just wonder why she ever decided to buy this cottage if she wasn’t planning on coming here more often. I do remember that she had her reservations about how much use it would actually get, and it was her husband, Martin, who was the main driver behind the idea of buying this little getaway. Perhaps my sister’s lack of enthusiasm for visiting here more often is her way of making a point to her partner about how much of a waste of money it was.

I smile at the thought of my sister refusing to come up here for a weekend with the family just to prove a point to her husband. We are both stubborn. We get that trait from our late parents. But whilst my sister’s stubbornness generally only extends to benign family affairs, I put mine to use in much more imaginative ways. It’s actually my stubborn attitude that led to me making this plan to bring Laura up here.

I stop fiddling with the wire when I feel that enough time has passed and then descend the ladder to go inside and take part in the next element of this charade. I re-enter the cottage and see Laura exactly where I left her, sitting on the sofa holding her glass of cranberry juice and staring at a television screen full of static.

‘Any change?’ I ask.

‘Nothing.’

I feign a sigh of frustration before putting my hands on my hips and giving my best impression of an engineer who has tried everything to fix the problem but is now at a loss to explain it.

‘I don’t know what else to do,’ I say, shaking my head. ‘I really thought it was just something with the dish, but everything looks okay up there.’

‘It’s so annoying. Do you think your sister knows it’s broken?’

‘I’m sure they would have fixed it if they knew about it,’ I reply. ‘Maybe the bad weather up here has knocked something out. I don’t know.’

I make it clear to Laura by my demeanour that I’ve now tried everything and am unable to get the TV working, and she seems to grudgingly accept it.

‘This means we’re not going to be able to check the news from here,’ she says, gesturing frustratedly at the screen. ‘We’ll have to go into the village every day now just to check.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll go. You can stay here.’

‘I don’t want to stay here. I feel like I’m living in a bubble. I haven’t been in contact with the outside world for twenty-four hours now.’

‘That’s because we’re not supposed to be in contact with it,’ I remind her.

‘You know what I mean,’ she says.’ I get that we’re lying low, but I need to know what’s going on outside of these four walls. Don’t you?’

‘Of course,’ I say as I approach her on the sofa, knowing that I have to choose my next words very carefully now. It’s imperative that Laura stays here in this cottage for the next couple of days until this is all over. But I also can’t let her feel like she is trapped. I have to make her think of it as being her decision to stay here and not mine.

I take a seat beside her on the sofa and remove the glass of cranberry juice from her hand, placing it down on the coffee table and then holding her free hand tightly now.

‘This is just another obstacle that we will get around,’ I tell her, looking her in the eyes. ‘There’s nothing we can’t do together, okay?’

Laura nods. ‘Except get the TV working.’

I laugh. ‘Except get the TV working.’

I lean in for a