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

if we think it can. What are we going to do when you go into labour? We’ll have to go to hospital then, and it will be over.’

‘Not necessarily,’ I say.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What if you help me deliver the baby here? Then we don’t have to leave?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

‘I’m not. Why can’t we do it? Lots of people do.’

‘What people?’

‘You know, people who go into early labour. Babies get born all over the place, not just in hospitals. Do you know how many babies get born on the backseat of a car by the roadside? I do because I’ve looked it up.’

‘But we don’t need you to give birth on the back seat of a car.’

‘But we do need to avoid other people.’

Adam stares at me for a second, and he is probably trying to work out if I am serious, which I am. I am willing to have my baby in this cottage if it means my husband doesn’t have to get caught and go to prison.

‘I’ll think about it,’ Adam says.

‘Don’t think about it for too long,’ I tell him. ‘This baby isn’t going to wait forever.’

29

ADAM

I’ve underestimated my wife. She is fully committed to the cause. She is willing to give birth with just me to hand instead of several midwives with years of experience, so it’s obvious she is willing to do anything to keep me out of prison. This is good.

This is very good.

I’m back in the car again and headed for the police station to tick off the next thing on my ‘To Do’ list. Laura has been convinced to stay back at the cottage after my little explanation I gave her about not being seen with me in public so she won’t get into any trouble if I get caught. I know she is eager to get out of the cottage, but she is more eager to keep the pair of us out of prison, so she has reluctantly agreed to remain on the sofa until I return. I did say she could go for a walk if she wanted to get a bit of fresh air, but the rainy weather is back again, and I doubt she’ll fancy that. Therefore, I am free to focus on what I need to do today.

I am on my way to provide the police with some information which may be able to help them in their investigation into my wife’s disappearance. This is not information that I would have been able to provide at the time I reported Laura going missing, but thanks to recent developments, it is now something I am able to come forward with. After all, I’m just a worried husband trying to find his wife.

Why wouldn’t I tell the police anything that might help me be reunited with her?

I turn off the country lane and turn down the radio as I come to a stop at the traffic lights. I’ve just been rocking out to an old AC/DC album that I haven’t listened to in ages, and I must say, it’s a lot better than the music Laura played for me back at the cottage a short time ago. I used to love the song that she walked down the aisle to on our wedding day, but now I detest it with every fibre of my being. Thankfully, I’ve been able to get it out of my head by replacing it with guitar riffs and heavy drumbeats.

As I move on through the streets on this route that has become familiar to me, I smirk at the little stunt I played with my wife this morning. Telling her that I had taken her sim card out of her phone was a risky but calculated move. I know she could have been mad at me, but I firmly believed that she would back down as soon as I told her why I had done it. Telling her that I took it out because I was so scared of her contacting somebody was a good cover to use, and she bought it, hook, line and sinker. I don’t have to worry about her making calls on it anymore. She won’t betray me like that after she saw how worried I was.

Of course, now she has the sim card again, there is still the risk that she might go out and try to get on the internet, but I doubt she will. But if she does, she will simply find that her phone isn’t working as well as it used to. That’s because I took the sim card into the shower with me this morning and exposed it to water long enough for the electronics inside to be permanently damaged. I’ll never know for sure if Laura knew her sim card was missing or not, but if she did know, she won’t be worried about why anymore.

She has it back.

She just isn’t aware that it is of no use to her yet.

I had planned all along to damage her sim card, not just to stop her from making contact with the outside world, but because I know the police will be in touch with her phone provider to see if there are any hits from her device on a tower. They could use those pings to try and get an idea of her location, which obviously wouldn’t be good for me, but that’s one problem solved now.

I pull into the police station car park and turn off the engine whilst running over the order of things I need to say when I go inside this building. When I’m happy, I exit my vehicle and walk inside, transforming myself as I go from a man who has just spent the last twenty minutes singing away to seventies rock music into a man who is sick with worry about his missing wife.

I enter the station and speak to the officer behind the screen, asking for the detective who has just been put in charge