Sarah
‘Ollie?’ Laura blinked up at her, stupefied.
Sarah nodded, her gaze swivelling to Joe. She caught his warning glance as he attempted to wrestle the handcuffs that were securing his wrists from under the leg of the table. Understanding that he didn’t want her drawing attention to him, she fixed her eyes back on Laura. ‘He went missing,’ she whispered, her throat thick with tears.
‘When?’ As she rose unsteadily to her feet, Laura’s expression was a mixture of disbelief and confusion. ‘Where?’
‘This morning. From my house. My garden,’ Sarah told her, her heart wrenching with unbearable guilt. Her sweet, innocent boy … please, dear God, let me find him. She prayed that Laura might empathise with her in some small way and give him back to her.
‘But …’ Laura glanced down, her forehead creasing into a frown. ‘She couldn’t have. She was here.’
‘Who couldn’t have? Couldn’t have what?’ Sarah asked desperately. ‘Laura, please, tell me where he is.’
Laura’s gaze was fixed dazedly on her mother, who was now on her knees, a hand pressed to her chest and apparently gasping for breath. ‘She’s been here all morning,’ she said. ‘I’ve been here with her. She couldn’t have.’
Couldn’t have taken him? Was that what she meant? Nausea roiling inside her, Sarah searched Laura’s face, icy realisation spreading through her as she noted the other woman’s shocked bewilderment. Laura truly didn’t know where he was. Ollie wasn’t here. She’d searched the house and the stables. The swimming pool, that had been the first place she’d looked, time seeming to stand still as she’d approached it, stared down into its deep, unyielding depths. He really wasn’t here. Dread clutched at her chest as harsh reality hit her. Her little boy was truly missing.
‘Joe?’ she murmured, feeling the blood drain from her body. Somehow he was there as her legs turned to butter beneath her, supporting her, shouting something to the police officers racing past her.
‘She’s armed!’ he yelled, flailing his arm in Laura’s direction as Sarah felt her world crumble. Circling both arms around her, he drew her to him as two officers descended on Sherry, prising her from her knees and leading the gasping woman away.
‘We’ll find him.’ He eased back a fraction. Scanning her eyes, his own dark with foreboding, he tried to reassure her. ‘We’ll find him, Sarah,’ he repeated, his voice raw with emotion. ‘I swear to God if it’s the last thing I do, I will bring him home.’
How? Sarah wanted to ask, but she couldn’t force the word past the acrid grief lodged in her throat.
‘Where’s your phone?’ he asked softly.
Dry-eyed with shock and ice-cold fear, Sarah simply stared at him, her mind racing in terror. Who had taken him? Why? An agonised moan escaping her, she leaned back towards him, buried her head in his shoulder, as if the solidity of him could make her nightmare go away. Had they hurt him? Don’t hurt him. Please don’t hurt him. A shudder ripped through her. She could feel her baby’s pain. Hear him. See him, no matter how hard she squeezed her eyes closed. Her little boy’s face, pale and petrified, his summer-blue eyes recoiling in fear. His small voice filled with terror as he cried out for his mummy. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t.
‘Sarah?’ Gently Joe lifted her chin, urged her to look at him. ‘Your phone, it’s ringing. You need to answer it.’
For a second, she didn’t understand. What did it matter? And then, reading the caution in his eyes, it hit her. Quickly she stepped away from him, scrambled it from her jacket pocket. It had rung off. Shit! Shit! She fumbled with it, pulled up the last caller number. She didn’t recognise it.
Joe eased the phone from her hands. A deep furrow formed in his brow as he studied it, and then his face paled. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he whispered. ‘Courtney.’
Fifty-Eight
It took a second for comprehension to dawn. When it did, Sarah felt as if the air had been sucked from her lungs. He’d recognised the number: his ex-wife, the woman who’d sought him out to tell him that she’d been pregnant with his child, that she’d lost the child, playing on his emotions, taking advantage of the fact that he would care, something she’d known without doubt. She’d refused to let go of him, pursued him, drawn him back time and again with tales of her woes. Joe hadn’t been able to walk away. She’d known he would struggle with his conscience. He’d been trapped like a fly in her web. An intricate web of deceit. Sarah had known what Joe couldn’t see. Realising that the man she’d cheated on him with was probably the biggest mistake of her life, Courtney had decided she wanted Joe back. Sarah had been the obstacle in her path, the thorn in her side she’d had to extract.
But she hadn’t been able to. And now … she had taken Sarah’s baby.
Her heart freezing, she looked towards Joe, who had her phone pressed to his ear, his face deathly pale as he tried again to call the number. Was it possible that the woman imagined that this was a way of luring him back? What then? she wondered; what did she hope to gain? And more importantly, what did she intend to do now?
Pulling the phone from his ear, Joe handed it back to her and then moved suddenly, shouting instructions to one of his colleagues as he raced to the hall, something about family liaison officers and making sure Sarah was taken home. Home to wait alone? Leaving him to … what? There was no way she was going to do that. Sarah followed him. She needed to be with him. She needed to be in the vicinity her son might be. She would know he was there. She would feel him.
‘Will do,’ the man shouted back. ‘Joe, you should know we’ve lost Laura Collins. She did a runner through the back door. Simon gave chase but he lost her. I’ll keep you posted.’
‘Great,’ Joe muttered, and ground to a halt at the front door. Dragging a hand over his face, he turned to face Sarah. ‘You need to go home. This might all be nothing. I’ll call you if—’
‘It’s not nothing.’ She held his gaze determinedly. ‘You know it’s not. Unless you gave it to her, how would your ex-wife have my mobile number? And why would she call me?’
‘I didn’t give her your number. I … I don’t know.’ He kneaded his forehead.
‘I’m coming with you. I have to.’ Determined that he wouldn’t stop her, she moved past him towards his car.
‘Sarah, please, just let me deal with this.’ He was close behind her. ‘If she has anything to do with this, which I’m struggling to believe, it’s highly unlikely she’ll be at home. Please trust me: you being there won’t help. It might even make matters worse.’
Incite her to do something? Was that what he meant? He was frightened, the fear in his eyes tangible.
‘She does have something to do with it, I’m sure of that.’ Sarah hesitated. ‘She lost her child, Joe. I’m going on nothing but my gut feeling, but it seems to me she wants me to suffer the same loss. I have to be there, don’t you see? If she’s … If he’s still …’ She faltered, her heart wrenching unbearably. ‘She might realise that he needs me, that he needs his mummy.’