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

Kat stands in the doorway eyeballing me from across the room, and I’m not sure what the purpose of her visit is. Has she come to check if I’m okay or has she come to have a go at me for betraying her brother? I guess I’m about to find it.

‘Can I come in?’ she asks me, rather politely I note, which makes me optimistic that she isn’t here to be mean.

‘Yeah, of course.’

I sit up further in the bed as Kat approaches and takes a seat in the chair that Adam has put beside the mattress. Usually, that chair sits in the corner of the room and is covered with piles of clothes for the washing machine, but ever since I came home from the hospital, Adam has cleared it and moved it closer to the bed. I thought he was doing this because he was going to be sitting in it himself and talking to me, but so far, he hasn’t actually used it. The chair has just sat idly beside me every day. Perhaps it is there to remind me that nobody is coming to visit me after what I did with Bradley. But now somebody is in that chair. Kat clearly has a reason to visit me. I just wait for her to speak so I can find out what it is.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asks me, running her eyes up and down my body which is mostly covered by the duvet that I have wrapped tightly around myself.

‘I’m feeling better every day, thanks,’ I reply, trying a little smile.

But Kat doesn’t reciprocate my expression. I guess she isn’t here to be nice after all.

‘That’s good,’ Kat says, nodding her head and finally fixing her eyes on me and not just my fatigued body. ‘I can tell Adam is worried about you. Even after what you were doing behind his back.’

‘Kat, I-’

But she cuts me off before I can defend myself.

‘Spare me the lies. You were having an affair, and you were using my cottage to do it,’ Kat says matter-of-factly. ‘How long was it going on for?’

I’m struck by how stern she is being with me and I’m nervous about giving her an answer. Of course I wasn’t using the cottage for my affair, that’s just what Adam and Gemma wanted to make it look like. But I don’t think trying to explain that to Adam’s sister in my position is going to go down well.

‘Kat, I’m sorry. You should never have been dragged into this.’

I do mean that. It was disgusting of Adam to involve his sister’s property in his wretched plan, never mind allow his sibling to be the one who would eventually find the bodies in the bedroom.

‘You think?’ Kat replies, shaking her head.

There’s an awkward moment of silence between us, and it’s made even more awkward by the fact that Kat doesn’t take her eyes off me for the entirety of it.

‘I’m glad you are here. I wanted to say thank you for saving me and Samuel,’ I tell her. I do mean that. I know that if it wasn’t for her, my baby and I wouldn’t be alive right now. I also know that if it wasn’t for her brother then my baby and I would never have been in such danger in the first place, but I’ll hold onto that thought for the moment.

‘Samuel didn’t deserve to be punished for your mistakes,’ Kat tells me, and I have to agree with her. I wish I was with my baby now. I hate that he is in the hospital and I am here.

‘I just came up because I wanted to see you one last time. I suspect Adam is going to divorce you when you are feeling better, and I can’t wait for the day when he does. You don’t deserve him. What you were doing behind my brother’s back was disgusting, and you don’t get to come home and play happy families after something like that.’

I go to speak, but Kat raises her hand to tell me she hasn’t finished yet.

‘I’m also here to let you know that I’m selling the cottage. I can’t bear to set foot in that place again after knowing what you and your lover were doing there in my bed.’

‘Kat, please-’

But Kat gets up from the chair and heads for the door, clearly no longer in the mood to chat. But she pauses before she goes and looks back at me with pure hatred in her eyes.

‘I just wish I’d listened to Martin and got security cameras installed like we talked about when we first bought the cottage. We could have caught you out sooner then. Never mind. The truth always comes out in the end.’

With that, Kat walks out of the bedroom and closes the door behind her.

I’m left to mull over her final words to me. But it’s not the part about the truth coming out that has stuck in my mind, although I hope she is right about that.

It’s the part about the security cameras.

She just said she and her husband almost installed them when they bought the cottage. It’s a shame they didn’t because then they would have captured the footage of Adam and Gemma taking me and Bradley there. But what if I pretended there were cameras.

What would Adam and Gemma do if they thought there was footage to hide?

55

LAURA

Adam is at the hospital visiting Samuel, leaving me currently home alone. He is keeping up appearances and making it look like he is the doting father, even though I know that he detests that baby because it’s Bradley’s and not his. But I’m glad he’s doing that because it gives me the opportunity to invite a guest around without him knowing.

I open the front door and smile at the man standing on the doorstep.

‘Hi, Detective. Come in.’

I step aside and allow the man into my home before quickly closing the door.

‘How are you feeling?’ Detective Cleevely asks me