‘Sarah …’ Steve stopped her with an exasperated sigh. ‘We’ve already talked about this. Laura has some issues to do with her past, you know she does. She’s trying to deal with them. Can you not just—’
‘But what about the garden party?’ She cut across him, talking animatedly. ‘Are you seriously telling me you don’t think Laura’s meltdown as soon as her mother mentioned the swimming pool is something to worry about? You ended up falling off the ladder. It was frightening, Steve. It’s bloody terrifying knowing what I do now.’
‘It was an accident,’ Steve retaliated. ‘I fell, Sarah. These things happen. As for the rest, it’s probably all just—’
‘What? Coincidence?’ Sarah laughed incredulously. ‘Poor Laura being blamed when she’s obviously so innocent and vulnerable? Being picked on by her mother? She’s filled Ollie’s head with stories about superheroes who rescue fish. Are you telling me you don’t think that’s odd? She was going to take him to the swimming pool. This is not all just—’
‘You’re getting things out of proportion, Sarah,’ Steve interrupted impatiently.
‘For God’s sake!’ Her voice rose. ‘Open your eyes! I don’t know what or how, but this obviously all has something to do with Jacob.’
He hesitated before answering. Then, ‘He disappeared, Sarah,’ he said flatly, ‘without trace. If he’d been in the swimming pool, don’t you think the police would have noticed? If Laura had had anything to do with it, don’t you think they would have charged her? And don’t you think your boyfriend wouldn’t have dug that information up if they had?’
‘I … don’t know,’ Sarah replied, some of the bluster seeming to leave her sails. ‘All I do know is—’
‘And that’s the point, you don’t know,’ Steve pointed out angrily. ‘You’re making ridiculous assumptions, vicious bloody allegations, and you have no proof whatsoever.’
‘Of course I don’t have proof,’ she snapped. ‘How would I have? But if you put all this together with the decoration in the bedroom, his maimed bunny, the fact that Ollie and her ex-husband’s little boy—’
‘Oh for … You’re losing the plot, Sarah,’ he growled irritably.
But she wasn’t. Laura knew she wasn’t. She was putting the pieces together. Steve would realise it at some point and he would wash his hands of her, take Ollie away from her. But still he wouldn’t be safe. No child she cared about would ever be safe as long as she had secrets to tell. And if she did tell, then her life would be over. Her mother would make sure of it. She had to stop this. She had to keep Ollie safe. Wetting her parched lips with her tongue, she risked a glance out of the window.
Steve’s chest was heaving. He was angry, upset clearly. Sarah was eyeballing him furiously. ‘Ollie’s in danger! I can feel it!’ she cried, banging a hand against her chest. ‘If you won’t do something about it, then I will.’
Seeing her gaze shoot to the house, thinking she might be about to barge her way into it, Laura moved swiftly away from the window.
Fifty
Sarah
‘Sarah, come back!’ Steve called after her as she strode to her car.
‘And listen to you defending a woman who would harm your own son?’ Sarah shouted over her shoulder. ‘No way.’ Blinking back tears of sheer frustration, she dragged an arm furiously across her face – and dropped her car keys.
‘God!’ Her anger mounting, she bent to scramble them from the gutter. The neighbours’ curtains were twitching, she noticed as she straightened up. Were it not for the fact that she felt completely out of control, she would bang on their doors too. Ask Lucas’s mother if she really was careless enough to leave sharp scissors on the coffee table. That should ensure that she challenged poor innocent Laura’s lies.
‘Sarah, look … just come back, will you?’ Steve followed her, his tone more conciliatory. ‘Come inside and talk to Laura. I’m sure she can explain—’
‘No!’ Sarah shrugged him off as, catching up with her, he placed a hand on her arm. ‘Do you honestly think she’s going to tell you the truth?’ She searched his face. Even under the light of the street lamps, she could see his despair. He evidently did think she was the one with the problem. It was almost as if Laura had engineered the whole thing. Well, she might have Steve fooled. But Sarah wasn’t. Did he really think she was going to go in there and discuss all this with a woman who was obviously deranged over a nice cup of tea? ‘You can’t see it, can you?’ She narrowed her eyes, studying him hard. ‘You’re as obsessed with her as she is with Ollie.’
‘Me obsessed?’ He gawked at her in disbelief. ‘It’s you who’s obsessed. I’m beginning to think you need more help than she does.’
Sarah’s fury kicked in ferociously. ‘You’re right. I do need help, Steve,’ she seethed, inhaling hard to stop her tears from exploding. ‘I’m not getting any, though, am I?’
She looked him over with a mixture of disdain and bitter disappointment, then, willing herself not to lose it, she pressed her key fob and pulled her car door open, climbing in with as much dignity as she could.
‘Sarah … look, I’m sorry,’ Steve said, as she reached to close the door. ‘I’m overwrought. We both are. Please don’t go off like this. Come back and—’
‘No, Steve. I’ve said all I have to. If you want to fight me, that’s your prerogative, but I don’t intend to let my son near that woman ever again.’
‘You can’t stop me seeing him.’ A worried frown crossed his face.
‘Watch me,’ she retorted, yanking her door closed.
‘Sarah!’ He yelled after her as she pulled away. ‘For God’s sake …’
The revving of her engine drowning him out, Sarah glanced in her mirror to where he stood in the middle of the road, dragging a hand through his hair, frustrated obviously, but not half as frustrated as she was. Seeing him throwing his hands up in despair, she turned her gaze back to the windscreen and her heart lurched violently.
What was this idiot doing? She blinked hard against the searing white light that sliced through her vision. There was a car coming towards her, its headlights on full beam. Coming right at her. ‘Dear God!’ Reacting instinctively, she wrenched the steering wheel hard left away from it, her foot slamming down hard on the brake.
Her breath stalling, her eyes going back to her rear-view, it took a second for her to assimilate. When she did, her heart stopped beating. ‘Steve!’ she screamed, her world slowing, her blood turning to ice in her veins.
She banged her door open and raced back towards him. Tears obscuring her vision, a strangled cry escaping her mouth, she dropped to her knees next to him. ‘Steve?’
‘Fuck,’ he murmured. ‘That hurts.’
‘Stay still.’ Taking hold of the hand he was reaching towards her, Sarah gulped hard against the constriction in her throat.
‘Do you think I might be accident-prone?’ He laughed, then winced painfully. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered.