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

Adam seems genuinely touched by my display of love, but I’m not thinking sentimentally right now. I’m thinking practically. He needs me, and I need him. Therefore, he can’t go to prison, and I can’t stay here on my own.

‘Give me two minutes,’ I tell him as I head back towards our bedroom. ‘Go and get the car started.’

6

LAURA

The car engine is already running as I step out of the house with my backpack on my shoulders. I can see Adam loading up some hastily packed bags of food into the boot, and I join him at the back of the car where I unload my baggage and make a quick check on our inventory.

Alongside the rucksack and backpack full of our warm clothes, we have two ‘bags for life’ filled with packets of pasta, tins of soup and a couple of jars of sauces that I don’t recognise, which means they have probably been at the back of the kitchen cupboard for years. But it doesn’t matter. We can make a proper plan for food later. The main thing is we aren’t going to starve in our first days away from home.

Wedged in beside the bags of food is the small satchel containing Samuel’s belongings and I can see the teddy bear’s arm sticking out through the zipper. Part of me wants to reach down and release the bear because it might be uncomfortable, but it’s an inanimate object. It can’t feel pain.

Lucky thing.

‘Have you got your phone and your purse?’ Adam asks me as he closes the boot.

‘Yep,’ I say. ‘My handbag’s in the front.’

‘Okay,’ Adam replies, patting down his trouser pockets to presumably check that he has his own phone and wallet.

‘Right. I think that’s everything,’ he says. ‘Everything we need anyway.’

We both take a moment to look at our dark house, and it’s a sobering experience for the pair of us. Is this the last time we will ever see our home? Maybe. Or maybe we’ll get lucky and the police won’t track Adam’s car from the CCTV. Then we can move back in again in a few days’ time. Maybe this whole mess isn’t as bad as it seems.

Maybe everything is going to be alright.

‘We should go,’ Adam says, and I nod my head, moving towards the passenger side door as Adam double-checks the door to the house is locked, and then we are all set.

But just before Adam starts the engine-

‘Turn your phone off.’

I notice he is already turning off his own device.

‘Why?’ I ask, reaching for the handbag by my feet.

‘If the police are looking for us, they could track us through our phones. We need to keep them switched off so they won’t know which way we went. We can turn them on at the cottage, but they’ll have to be on aeroplane mode in case we connect to a phone tower. I know there’s no service up there, but there’s no point taking any unnecessary risks.’

I’m surprised by Adam’s presence of mind to think of such a thing, as well as a little unnerved by it. He really is thinking several steps ahead. But I do as I’m told and turn my phone off before dropping it back into my handbag as Adam engages the engine.

I keep my eyes on our home as Adam reverses off the driveway and I only stop looking when we have driven out of view of it. Then I fix my eyes on the dark road ahead and tell myself to think to the future and not the past.

‘What are we going to do about money?’

Adam’s silence suggests that was one thing he hadn’t thought about ahead of time.

‘We should get some out,’ he eventually replies. ‘Preferably as close to home as possible.’

‘Okay,’ I reply. ‘How much do you think we need?’

‘What’s the limit to take out these days? £500?’

‘Something like that.’

‘We’ll take £500 each then. We can always get more later.’

‘What if they freeze our bank accounts?’

‘It would take a few days for them to do that, even if they were on to me. I can visit a branch tomorrow and get more out.’

I nod my head as I stare at the row of houses passing by the window. Most of the lights are still on inside because it’s only half-past ten, but some of the houses are in darkness, and I think about the people who live inside them. They are probably in bed now sleeping soundly on their pillows and looking forward to a new day tomorrow. I’m so envious of them. I wonder how long it will be until I get a good night’s sleep again now. Will I ever get one, or will I always be keeping one eye open for fear of the police coming through the door and dragging me into custody?

It’s funny.

I thought being a new mum would ruin my sleep, but it turns out all I needed to do that was to go on the run.

‘There’s a cash machine up here, isn’t there?’ Adam asks, pointing up the street as we keep driving.

‘Yeah, I think so,’ I reply, not completely sure. It’s been a long time since I needed to use one. There isn’t as much of a need for physical money anymore when most things can be paid for by the tap of a credit card. I do most of my shopping online these days too, so the concept of withdrawing cash and handing it over to a store assistant seems very old fashioned now. But I guess that’s how we’ll be buying things for the foreseeable future. Criminals love cash because it’s harder to trace and I guess we should re-learn to love it too because that’s what we are now.

Criminals.

‘Here we go,’ Adam says when he sees that the cash machine is in fact where he expected it to be. He parks the car in front of it and then turns off the engine.

‘Can I have your card?’ he asks me, and