Destroy Me by Karen Cole (red queen ebook .txt) 📕

missing, but you can’t just barge in here like this and accuse Meg of God knows what. You must realise you’re being ridiculous. How do you think Meg could have taken him, for Chrissake? Think about it. Look at her. She’s paralysed.’

I hear the words and I know they make sense, but I’m too far gone now and besides, I know that Meg is involved. She’s Daisy’s mother. I know that for sure.

I slip out of Sophia’s grasp and fumble in my pocket for the note. Hands shaking with agitation, I thrust it in Meg’s face.

‘You wrote this, didn’t you?’

Meg doesn’t answer. Did I imagine it or is there a flicker of something, maybe alarm, in her eyes?

‘What’s that?’ Sophia snatches the note from me and reads it with a look of increasing disbelief.

I HAVE YOUR SON. DON’T GO TO THE POLICE OR TELL ANYONE ELSE IF YOU WANT TO SEE HIM ALIVE AGAIN.

‘Where did you get this?’ she asks me.

‘Ask her.’ I gesture towards Meg who is slumped in her chair. She seems to have shrunk in the last few moments. I try to snatch the note back from Sophia, but she pulls it out of my reach.

‘Do you realise how crazy you sound?’ she fumes. ‘This is handwritten, for a start. How do you think she wrote it? She can’t move her arms.’

‘I don’t know,’ I admit. ‘Maybe you wrote it for her.’

She snorts with outrage. Her face red with fury. ‘You’re insane,’ she says. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you wrote that yourself. I’m going to call the police if you don’t get out of here in the next ten seconds.’

She starts counting. ‘One, two, three—’

‘Wait,’ says Meg’s machine voice loudly. She seems to have turned up the volume somehow.

We both turn and stare at her.

‘Don’t call the police, Sophia,’ she says. ‘I didn’t write that,’ she says. ‘But I know who did.’

Sophia looks completely bewildered. ‘What are you—?’ she begins.

‘We’re out of milk,’ Meg interrupts. ‘Why don’t you go out and buy some? And get me some cigarettes while you’re there. I feel like I’m going to need them.’

‘But you don’t smoke. You gave up.’

‘Just do what I ask please, for once.’ The machine voice is perky as ever, but I guess Sophia senses the serious intent. She hovers uncertainly in the doorway, casting a sharp, suspicious look my way. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Perfectly. I need to speak to Catherine alone. Don’t worry, I’ll be all right.’

Sophia shakes her head. ‘Okay then – if you insist. You’re the boss.’ She turns on me and hisses, ‘If you so much as lay a finger on her, you’ll have me to answer to.’

I wait until I hear the click of the outer door closing and the clack of her heels on the pavement outside. Then I say bitterly, ‘I know who you are. Your real surname is Foster.’

‘It was Foster,’ she agrees. ‘I changed back to my maiden name, Darley, when we got divorced. My husband couldn’t cope with my disability.’

I ignore her. I’m not interested in the break-up of their marriage.

‘You were married to Doug Foster,’ I continue. ‘I saw your photo at his house. Daisy Foster was your daughter.’

She doesn’t answer.

I breathe in sharply. ‘And you know who I am, don’t you?’

There’s a flicker of hatred, swift but unmistakable, in those expressive eyes, and finally she speaks. ‘Yes. You’re Catherine Bayntun. You killed my daughter.’

There it is, after all this time. This had been building like magma underground. The pressure has been so intense lately, it’s almost a relief to hear the words spoken out loud.

‘How do you know?’ I ask. There’s no point in denying it. We’ve gone beyond that.

‘Charlie told me,’ she says. ‘A few months ago, she told me everything. She wanted me to know what you both had done before she died. She told me it was the reason she sought me out and offered me this flat in the first place. As a kind of compensation.’ Meg makes a gurgling noise in her throat. ‘As if anything could compensate for what we lost.’

Tears well up in her eyes and trickle silently down her cheeks.

I harden my heart against an instinctive feeling of pity. She’s mourning an old loss. My loss is fresh and urgent. ‘I know you must hate me, and I don’t blame you,’ I say. ‘But it was an accident. We were young.’

‘You’re wrong,’ she says. ‘I don’t hate you because you killed her. Accidents happen. People make mistakes. I could forgive that. What I can’t forgive is the fact that you decided not to take responsibility for those mistakes. You could have called an ambulance and you didn’t. Daisy was still alive when the ambulance arrived. She would have lived, if they’d arrived sooner.’

I stare at her appalled. ‘No, that can’t be right. We took her pulse. She was already dead.’ Everything is slipping. Blackness curling at the edge of my mind. I want to throw myself down on the floor at her feet and howl.

Somehow, I claw myself back to reality, to here and now. What happened, what we did was terrible – worse than I even knew. But that’s all in the past and Dylan is in danger right now. I must do everything in my power to persuade this woman not to hurt him and to return him to me unharmed.

‘I’m sorry. I’m really so sorry. But all that happened, it had nothing to do with Dylan,’ I continue shakily. ‘Dylan is just a child. He’s innocent. Punish me if you like, but not him . . .’ My voice cracks and I can’t speak any more for all the fear and anxiety threatening to overwhelm me.

‘I don’t know where your son is. I haven’t got him.’

I’m confused. ‘You must have. You gave the police the photofit of me. You sent me those photos, you killed Charlie.’ But even as I say the words, I know that they’re impossible.

‘I gave the police the description of you. But nothing else