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

was like she remembered, the long low building surrounded by mature bushes and trees that were thick with foliage, making it difficult to see. But it didn’t take a genius to tell that the place was deserted if the empty driveway wasn’t evidence enough.

Owen pulled to a stop and switched off the engine. ‘What next?’

‘Let’s have a scout around to see if there’s any sign that they were here,’ Gaby said, climbing out of the car and heading for the front door, which remained closed under her touch.

‘I could break it open if you like? There’s a crowbar in the back.’ Owen offered.

‘I don’t like! You take the left and I’ll take the right. Meet you round the back in a mo.’

Peering through dusty windows was all part and parcel of being a police officer. But the last time she’d visited the farmhouse the door had been unlocked, the untold horrors within waiting to be found.

The back door opened under her touch, the hinges creaking under the weight of her hand.

‘Do you want me to go first?’

She gave him a speaking glance instead of bothering to reply. Yes, she’d love him to. In fact, he could search the premises all by himself and she’d stand outside waiting for him like the spare part he was starting to make her feel.

The hall was dark with that musty smell that comes with houses left unoccupied for too long. She left Owen to check the last bedroom on the left – nothing good would come from her revisiting it. Instead she scanned the kitchen and bedrooms on the right only to meet Owen back in the hall, a small teddy bear clutched between her fingers.

‘They were here.’

‘I know. Where to next?’

Gaby’s brows met in the middle, trying to see beyond the tragedy unfolding out in front of them. The Stevens family were well past breaking point, and a wrong move could push them over the edge. But one thing about Janice had always been her strength. She was living proof that forging some kind of a life following a disaster was possible. Even with Ronan’s desertion, she’d managed to keep her head and keep her distance. An interfering mother was the last thing he’d needed, so watching from afar, while the local vicar kept a weather eye, was the very best of decisions.

Gaby knew instinctively that, if it had been her in the same position, she’d have struggled to cope with the thought of her child living on the streets. But she wasn’t Janice Stevens. And with that thought, she knew that they were in trouble because there was no way she could ever think of herself in Janice’s shoes. She had no idea what the woman had been thinking going to the farmhouse and couldn’t begin to imagine where the trio were heading next. Instinct told her that Janice was a good person. After all, the judiciary was an unlikely profession for someone with criminal tendencies. In addition, if Ronan had broken the law, and that was a very big if, his mother would know all of the loopholes available to prevent him from serving a custodial sentence.

The truth was that Gaby had no idea what Ellie Fry was doing in the company of Janice and Ronan. She also had no idea why she’d run but she was determined to find out.

‘Let’s get back in the car and radio the station. The annoying thing is that we probably passed them on the way.’

Chapter 46

Ronan

Tuesday 4 August, 1 p.m. A55

The journey back from Caernarfon was quicker and far more comfortable than the journey out. It hadn’t taken his mother long to convince them both that returning home was the right thing to do. Ellie wasn’t talking, not that he could blame her. He knew of old that his mother was one of those people that had to take charge. In the battlefield she’d have been promoted up to the role of general and if politics had been her thing, she would have made prime minister, no question. As it was, she’d made partner in her firm within only a couple of years of joining the practice.

She wasn’t a bad mum, he mused, tuning out of the relentless chatter she’d started up within seconds of putting her foot down on the accelerator. But he’d always had the feeling that having children was something else that she had to excel at, only to fail simply because she tried too hard. It hadn’t mattered to him which school he’d gone to or that he didn’t have the best bike or a designer label on his trainers but she couldn’t see that even after everything that had happened to their small family.

He’d opted to sit in the back to keep Ellie company, not that it made any difference to her stony silence. After her brief outburst in the kitchen, Ellie hadn’t said another word. She’d only nodded briefly when his mother had taken it upon herself to explain that it was better to hand themselves in before the police turned up on their doorstep and she’d waited silently in the hall while he’d gathered together their stuff. Ronan felt a deep pain beginning to form somewhere in the vicinity of his breastbone at the fruitlessness of her situation. There was nothing he could do to protect her. Whatever happened next was completely out of his hands.

Instead of spending the short journey going slowly mad, he decided to use the time to try and unravel what he wanted to do with his life. There had to be a next step because he’d come to the decision last night, when he’d sat and watched over Ellie, that his life had to change. The problem was he’d never known what he’d wanted to do at school. Choosing A levels was the worst kind of hell – he’d only ended up deciding on maths, further maths, biology and chemistry because that was what he was good at. But as