‘Who?’ His arm pressed to his ribs, Steve took a step back as she stormed past him. ‘Sarah, what the bloody hell is going on?’
Continuing along the hall, she banged the lounge door open, glancing in, and then flew to the kitchen. It was empty. No smell of breakfast or coffee, no sign that anyone had even been in it this morning. ‘Where is he?’ She whirled around, back to the hall. ‘Where’s my baby?’ she screamed.
‘Ollie?’ Steve asked, the colour draining visibly from his face.
Oh God, no. Seeing his genuine bewilderment, the alarm in his eyes, Sarah’s heart froze. He seemed to have no idea what she was talking about. Snatching her gaze away, she turned to race up the stairs, pushing Ollie’s door open, as if by some miracle she would find him playing there, then flew to the main bedroom. The bed was unmade. Steve had clearly just climbed out of it. No Laura. Panic twisting inside her, she stepped inside, glancing around the room, for what she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t likely to find her hiding under the bloody bed.
Trying desperately to stay calm, she swung back to the door – and stopped, her gaze falling on an oval locket lying on the dressing table. Picturing Ollie making a tiny ‘o’ shape with his thumb and forefinger when she’d asked him about the photo Laura had shown him, her heart leapt. This had to be what he meant.
Tentatively she picked it up, took a breath to brace herself – she wasn’t sure why – and prised the clasp open. For a second, she thought the blue-eyed, blonde-haired little boy looking back at her was Ollie. That the tiny wisp of hair in the other side of the locket was his. She’d trimmed his fringe, after all.
It wasn’t Ollie, but seeing afresh the striking resemblance to him tore another hole in her heart. Did Laura truly imagine that Ollie was Jacob, that somehow she could replace him?
Gulping back the nausea rising inside her, she returned the locket and ran back to the stairs, coming face to face with Steve, who was making a painful attempt to climb them.
‘Where’s Laura?’ she demanded. She’d been sure she would find Ollie here. Been desperate to. She’d slipped away from the police, who’d tried to console her, assuring her they would find him. She knew they wouldn’t. They were moving too slowly, knocking on neighbours’ doors, for God’s sake, while her innocent child was with a woman who was plainly deeply disturbed. They needed to find Laura. That was where he would be. They hadn’t been listening. They’d offered her platitudes. He’d probably wandered off through the open gate, they’d said. He wouldn’t have got far. They would find him. Like Jacob? she’d wondered. The little boy who’d disappeared from the face of the earth?
Even after she’d shown them the bunny, still they’d tried to reassure her, offering her tea while they waited for a family liaison officer who would be able to keep her informed. Tea! As if that would help, as if she could drink it without choking. Dear God, she couldn’t do this.
‘I need to talk to Laura.’ Biting back her fury in the face of a man whose pallor was now the colour of death, she squeezed the words out and tried hard to remain rational. Laura wouldn’t hurt him; she loved him – that was the hope she was clinging to.
‘She’s … not here.’ Steve told her what she’d already established, his voice ragged, his breath rasping. ‘I took some painkillers, early this morning. I was out for the count. I didn’t wake up until I heard you hammering on the door. When I looked for Laura, I realised she wasn’t here.’
‘And you don’t know where she is? What time she went out?’ She stared hard at him, saw the rise and fall of his throat as he swallowed.
‘No,’ he admitted, his gaze drifting down and back. ‘What’s going on, Sarah? Where’s my son?’ He took a step towards her, the look in his eyes a mixture of terror and confusion.
‘Did she sleepwalk?’
He evaded the question, looking apprehensively away again.
‘Steve!’ she yelled, causing him to jolt. ‘Did she sleepwalk?’ She had to find her. Ollie had not disappeared from the face of the earth. He had not! She’d taken him. She was the only one who would take him, her fevered mind compelling her to. Where had she taken him?
‘Yes.’ He sucked in a breath. It appeared to stop short of his chest. ‘I found her in the garden.’ He moved away from her, his face etched with pain as he turned to sink heavily to the stairs.
Sarah wanted to go to him. Wanted to tell him everything would be all right. Wanted someone to tell her it would. Please God … where was her baby? ‘Did she say anything?’ she asked past the excruciating lump in her throat.
Steve ran his hands over his face, then nodded slowly and closed his eyes. ‘She usually searches for Jacob when she goes out there. She wasn’t this time,’ he said, his voice hollow. ‘She was looking for Ollie.’ He stopped, his eyes haunted. ‘She thought you were going to take him away from her. She said he was in danger.’
She knew it. She just knew it!
‘Sarah, wait!’ Steve called after her, struggling to his feet as she raced back to the front door. ‘Where are you going? Have you called the police?’
‘Yes,’ she shouted back. ‘They’ll most likely call here.’ Halfway to her car, she didn’t stop. She was acting on instinct, drawn to what she knew Laura was drawn to. She’d been reliving her life with Jacob through Ollie, that much was clear. Sarah’s heart beat like a terrified bird in her chest as she wondered: would she relive his last moments? Moments she was sure had something to do with water. Why else her morbid fear of swimming pools?
Fifty-Six
Joe
Hearing someone quietly talking, Joe kept still, trying to make out what was being said above the pounding in his head. ‘Wake up, M-M-Mother. It’s time to face the music.’ He heard that clearly. Laura, unmistakably.
Pain searing through his neck, he tried to shift his position, to see what the hell was going on, and then groaned inwardly. She had to be joking. He was secured to the leg of a table with his own bloody handcuffs. A weighty farmhouse table that stood in the middle of a large kitchen.
Guessing she would know he’d come round soon enough anyway, he shuffled across the flagstones, manoeuvred the cuffs up the leg and managed to pull himself to a half-sitting, half-lying position. Her back towards him, Laura was kneeling on the floor three or four yards away from him, Sherry Caldwell’s body half obscured behind her. His heart rate ratcheting up, he scanned the room. No sign of Grant Caldwell. How long had he been out of it?
‘Laura,’ he said carefully, ‘what’s happened? Is your mother all right?’
Jerking, as if she might have forgotten he was there, Laura didn’t answer immediately. Then, ‘She’s just sleeping,’ she said with an apathetic shrug. ‘She accidentally swallowed some of my tablets. It was a bit of a struggle to get her to take them, but she’s so much easier to t-t-talk to when she’s quiet.’ She leaned further over her. ‘Aren’t you, Sherry?’
Shit. Joe tugged uselessly on the cuffs. He knew he had no chance of getting out of them. His only hope would be to lift the table. It was possible, but only if he could get his weight under it. His gaze went back to Laura. ‘Is she breathing?’ he asked her, cold foreboding twisting his stomach as he considered what she might do next.