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

I pop the cap off with the bottle opener and then take a long swig of the ice-cold lager, feeling instantly refreshed, as well as experiencing the familiar rush of endorphins that I always get when I consume alcohol.

I wouldn’t class myself as an alcoholic, and I drink far less than I used to a few months ago, but I do have a fairly bad relationship with the demon drink. I find myself unable to resist it when times are hard like they have been over this past year, and that means there have been plenty of occasions where I have been under the influence when I shouldn’t have. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve got behind the wheel after several beers, and I know it is a miracle I haven’t killed myself or anybody else in that time. But there was one night when I came close to disaster.

It was the night after I found out Laura had lied to me about the baby’s due date.

That night, I’d consumed half a bottle of whiskey at my desk while the office was empty and then I had got in my car and prepared to drive home, although I had little intention of actually completing the journey. I was ready to end it all. I knew the exact wall I was going to drive into. I’d even calculated how fast I needed to be going to ensure I had no chance of surviving the impact.

It was as I was approaching the road that I needed to be on when I saw the blue lights in my rear-view mirror. A police car was right behind me, and while I moved over to let it pass, they stayed on my tail.

It was me they were after.

I thought about taking them on a high-speed chase through the country lanes near my house before eventually ploughing my vehicle into the wall when the police car made a quick manoeuvre and passed me before coming to a stop, blocking the road so I could no longer drive on. I considered running, but I was far too inebriated to have the coordination for that. In the end, I slumped back in the driver’s seat and accepted that I was going to be punished for this crime. My suicide would have to be postponed for a later date.

I had watched as the female police officer got out of her vehicle and approached my window, and I saw her expression when she registered how drunk I was. But most importantly of all, I saw the sympathy she had for me when I blurted out my story to her.

I told her everything.

“My wife had an affair.”

“She is pregnant with that man’s child.”

“I’m a loser for not doing anything about it.”

The police officer told me to get out. She made me wait on the back seat of her vehicle while she moved my car over to the roadside to where it wasn’t blocking the road. Then she drove us off the lane and down into a quiet country road where nobody was around.

She told me her name was Gemma.

She told me she knew what it was like to be betrayed by the person she loved.

Then she told me that I could kill my wife and lover and get away with it.

38

ADAM

TWO MONTHS EARLIER

It used to be Laura who was the one sneaking into hotels for illicit meet-ups, but now it’s me. I’m currently lying in a double bed on a Tuesday afternoon with a woman beside me who is not my wife. Do you think I feel guilty about it?

Not one bit.

‘I can’t wait until they are gone, and you are free of all the anger,’ Gemma says to me as she snuggles in closer to me and lays her head on my bare chest.

I smile because I know she wants the best for me, and it’s tearing her up inside that I am still carrying all the bitterness and resentment towards my wife and her lover. I also smile because I know it isn’t long now until we put our plan into action.

It’s the plan that has taken us months to agree on but is now almost ready to be implemented. Ever since that terrible night when Gemma pulled me over for being drunk at the wheel, the pair of us have been engaging in our own affair. But unlike my wife’s, this one actually has some substance to it. I’m in love with Gemma, and she is in love with me. She saved me that night by the roadside when she could have easily taken me to prison and made my life even worse than it already was. Instead, she took pity on me and has helped in turning around my fortunes. She has shown me that I’m not the one who deserves to be punished for what Laura and Bradley did. Instead, it should be them.

She has shown me a better way.

She has shown me a way in which I win, and they lose.

Likewise, I have also helped her. She confessed to me that she too had been going through some difficulties in her own life when she stopped me on the road that night. She was estranged from her partner and also suffering from a serious lack of recognition with her superiors in the police, leading to her feeling just as lost and lonely about things as I had been. It turned out we had both needed each other, and now we had that, life was so much better for us both.

Gemma and I have been carrying on our affair ever since we met, but I know Laura doesn’t suspect a thing. Why would she? She’s too busy worrying about her own secrets to think about anybody else’s. Every day her pregnancy bump grows larger, and every day we come closer to the time when she will give birth to another man’s child while pretending that it is mine.

We know the