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

I pick up my handbag from the footwell and pull out my purse. I take out the shiny piece of blue plastic and hand it to my husband before he opens his door and gets out.

‘Be right back,’ he says before slamming the door and leaving me alone.

I watch through the windscreen as Adam reaches the cashpoint and takes out his own card to use alongside my own. As he works with his back to me, I think about the money he is withdrawing and about the things we had planned to spend it on before tonight had happened.

We’ve both always been good with money and saved a decent portion of our wages each month once all the necessities of life have been paid for. That has allowed us to build up a healthy amount of savings which we figured we would need as our family grew and with it a need to move into a bigger home. But now it seems we are going to need those savings for something more than simply paying the mortgage and keeping the fridge full.

We’re going to need them for keeping ourselves one step ahead of the police.

My stomach lurches when I think about the thought of a police officer standing on the doorstep to our home and knocking on the door to question us about the hit and run investigation. But it lurches even more when I think about how we won’t be there to answer any of those questions, because then we will be found guilty in absence and the hunt will begin.

I wonder how the police will go about trying to track us down. Will there be a TV appeal like they have in the police dramas that Adam and I love to watch? Will our faces be splashed across the front pages of the national newspapers for all the public to see? And will our private lives be dissected on news broadcasts and talk shows as people speculate on who we are, what we have done and where we have gone?

It’s a scary thought to be on the run from the law, but it’s almost as scary to think that millions of people might know my name in a few days and be talking about me on their lunch breaks or with their partners over their evening meal.

“Do you think they did it?”

“Would you run?”

“When will they get caught?” 

Adam and I have always been fairly private people. We aren’t the type to court drama or attention, and we certainly have never sought the spotlight in any of our endeavours. Yet here we are, potentially only several hours away from being one of the most talked about couples in the country.

What will our families think? What about our friends? And what about Samuel when he grows up and finds out what his mum and dad did just before he was born?

As I watch Adam at the cash machine, I suddenly realise I can’t go through with this. This has gone too far. We’re making things worse, not better. I can’t bring Samuel into this world with the risk of both his parents being in prison for the first part of his life.

With the sudden rush of clarity that thought brings me, I decide to put a stop to this before it can go any further. I reach for the door handle and pull, planning to get out of the car and tell Adam to stop withdrawing a chunk of our savings and instead just drive me home where we can do the thing we should have always done.

Be honest and call the police.

But the door doesn’t open. It’s locked. Adam must have pressed the button on the car keys just after he got out. He has a habit of doing it when I am sat inside it because he saw a story once on the news about a woman who was mugged inside her vehicle while she waited for her partner outside a shop. While it’s sweet that Adam always worries about the same thing happening to me, it isn’t helping me right now. If I can’t get out of the car, then I can’t stop him taking more money out and bring a halt to this crazy plan of ours.

I knock on the windscreen to try and get his attention, but he doesn’t seem to hear me, so I think about pressing the car horn. I know you’re not supposed to use the horn in a built-up area at night unless you really have to in case you wake people up, but that’s the least of my worries right now. I’m trying to figure out what is best for my family, not some stranger who may or may not be sleeping nearby.

I’m just about to toot the horn that will probably cause my husband to jump out of his skin when I see him turn around and walk back towards the car. I guess he’s already withdrawn the cash. Never mind. That’s not important. The important thing is we drive back home from here and not out into the countryside as we had originally planned. We’re still close to home. There’s still time to try and put this right.

There’s still time to give Samuel a chance at having a normal start to life.

The driver’s door opens and Adam gets back into the car, holding my card and a wedge of £20 notes in his hand.

‘All done,’ he says as he hands me my card and stuffs the money into his wallet.

‘Adam, I’m sorry, but I can’t do this,’ I say, my voice shaking. ‘I know I said I could, and I know I stopped you from calling the police, but this is wrong. We shouldn’t be thinking about what’s best for us. We should be thinking about what’s best for Samuel.’

Adam looks at me and even though it’s dark in this car, I can see the disappointment on his face.

Am I a bad wife for not going