Lost Souls by Jenny O'Brien (android e book reader txt) 📕

Science had an answer for most things but that didn’t stop the feeling of compassion that caused Gaby to shift in her seat, her own pulse escalating a notch at the sight of Amy reaching for the folder. Science couldn’t give her insight into what was going to happen over the next couple of minutes and it was this that was causing her the greatest difficulty. Anita would either recognise Ronan Stevens or she wouldn’t.

Chapter 28

Ronan

Monday 3 August, 9.50 p.m. Caernarfon

Ronan couldn’t sleep but that was hardly surprising given the level of stress he was under. But there was nothing else for him to do and certainly nothing he could do in the shadow of darkness. The farmhouse might be isolated and back on to fields but he couldn’t turn on the light and risk being discovered by some intrepid rambler taking a shortcut across private land.

He lay there, with the musty-smelling duvet pulled up to his chin, trying to ignore the sounds coming through the gaps in the warped window frame. In the cave it had been deathly quiet – too quiet. Surrounded by limestone on three sides he’d also struggled to sleep. The stone floor had been difficult to get used to after the comfort of a sprung mattress and a fat feather pillow. So why couldn’t he sleep here? Okay, so the mattress wasn’t a patch on the one he’d had at home but he was both warm and safe, far safer than the last few weeks on that windswept headland. He was also intelligent enough to rationalise that the sounds were non-threatening. The screech of an owl on his way to find a late-night snack. The sway of the trees in the light breeze that had built up over the evening. The creak of the old house as it settled into its footings. There was an explanation for each and every one of the sounds but that did little to stop his escalating fears.

In Llandudno, at least he had the vicar to turn to in an emergency and the reality of his mother only a short distance away. He’d thought he’d been clever in taking Ellie here but there was nothing clever in the way he was feeling. They were isolated and alone, cut off from civilisation and he still didn’t have a clue as to the potential terrors that had made her run away from everything and anybody she’d ever known.

He shifted onto his side, burying one ear into the pillow, the duvet pulled up over his head, his mind returning to the girl. Going through her bags was a wasted exercise. It hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know. She lived with her mother but the tears sparkling on her eyelashes along with her quivering bottom lip led him to think that it wasn’t this nebulous woman who was the problem.

Stretching out to his full length, he curled his toes under the wooden baseboard, amazed at how many questions he’d managed to sneak under her radar after the chocolate rush had kicked in. Her innocent answers had told him far more than she’d probably intended. The relentless ballet training that took up most of her spare time, her mother running her to and from classes in her old Hyundai i10. He’d even discovered that she didn’t have a father and had never felt the need to find him. To an outsider, her life was that of a well-adjusted kid. But as soon as he started to scratch the surface to reveal the carefully concealed reality underneath, she shut up quicker than a liar faced with the truth. He frowned at the analogy, for the first time questioning her sincerity. After all, she’d sought him out and had been a constant presence by his side ever since. Did he trust her and if not what did he intend to do about it?

The long walk while carrying the weight of the world on his back finally caught up with him, his eyelids winning the argument and sweeping him into darkness, his thoughts scattering as dreams pressed.

Ronan wasn’t a great dreamer and come morning he could never recall anything useful about his time asleep. Images passed through his mind but gained no purchase, glittering pictures that held no bearing on his current situation. His breathing deepened and his lids flickered as he shed his worries along with his fears. He still had to find out the truth, whatever that might be – there’d be time enough in the morning.

The scream when it came wrenched him from his cocoon of duvet and had him stumbling to his feet. The room was pitch, the sheet of black at the window as telling as the illuminated dial on his watch that he must have drifted off to sleep. Disorientated for a second, he took a moment to gather his thoughts as memories swept in from all sides. The Great Orme. The girl. The train journey. His grandparents’ house.

Now instead of the scream, there were panting gasps punctuating the air in a staccato of grief. With a suppressed curse, he switched on his torch and crossed the couple of paces to her bedside, dropping to his knees as he tried to think of the kind of things his mother might say. The kid had obviously had a nightmare, which was hardly surprising after the day she’d had in addition to all that chocolate, he remembered, and then felt guilty at the thought. It was a good job she wasn’t throwing up as well. That would be all he needed – having to act as nursemaid to a kid and a girl at that. It wouldn’t be so bad if it had been a boy. He was used to having to deal with his brothers. But an all-boys’ school and a dearth of sisters added to his current feeling of woeful inadequacy.

‘It’s all right, Ellie. It’s only a dream. You’re safe. Completely