The Gathering Man (A DI Erica Swift Thriller Book 7)

by M K Farrar

  “As long as you like.” He gestured around him. “You could live here, if you wanted.”

  A world of freedom suddenly opened up around her. She was sixteen. She could move out. The thought of no longer having to listen to her parents’ fighting made her almost heady with relief. Maybe things would change then. She’d be independent and grown up. Perhaps, after she was out of that house, she’d even manage to get control of her hair pulling. She pictured herself as a free young woman, all her hair, eyelashes, and eyebrows all grown back, able to do and go wherever she wanted.

  But there was one problem—she still had to go to school, and that might make things difficult. No one could ever know.

  Mum and Dad will want to know exactly where I am.

  They won’t ever let it happen.

  Her shoulders slumped, and she let out a sigh. “My parents aren’t going to like it. They’ll never let me go.”

  “Do you have to tell them?”

  “How can I not? They’d call the police and send people looking for me. The minute I go into school, they’ll find me.”

  “So quit school.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You can’t mean that.”

  He took her hand and pulled her down to sit with him.

  “Bethany, have you ever wondered if things could be different?”

  Unexpected tears filled her eyes, and when she spoke her voice seemed to get caught in her throat. “All the time.”

  “Then maybe it’s time to actually make those changes. You could be someone different. You could become more than you ever thought you’d be.”

  “I could?”

  “Of course. We all have that potential inside us. I see it in the others, too, like an inner radiance. But, Bethany, yours is the brightest. You don’t see yourself as I see you. You’re something special, and I’d hate for that to go to waste. The way people treat you, at home and at school, is so wrong. It really makes me furious. I don’t want you to exist in a world where people treat you in such a way.”

  She shook her head and glanced down. “Neither do I. I want things to be different, too. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “Then let’s make those changes.”

  “How?”

  He paused for a moment, his gaze becoming almost dreamy as his line of sight drifted somewhere over her shoulder. “There was a girl here before you who was special as well. You remind me of her in so many ways. Her name was Stacey, and she was incredible, even though she’d been through real trauma in her life.”

  She experienced a stab of jealousy at the way he spoke of her, but then Bethany noticed he’d referred to this girl in the past tense. “What happened to her?”

  “She transitioned.”

  “Transitioned?”

  “Yes, became of a higher power. She gave up her earthly body to help us all.”

  “How did that help us?”

  “By bringing us all closer to God. She gave us her energy, so our souls shine even brighter, and one day, the day will come when we can all join her.”

  “I’m not sure I believe in God,” she admitted.

  “It doesn’t matter. God believes in you. He believes in what we’re doing here.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “Because He speaks to me, and I listen. People these days are so caught up in wanting to be heard, in wanting to be noticed, they forget to just stop all the noise and really listen. I hear what God wants and what He needs for us to join him.”

  “Don’t you need to be dead to be in Heaven with God?”

  The whole thing sounded ludicrous, and a part of her wanted to just end the conversation, but she also found herself wanting to continue to sit here, talking to him. There weren’t many people in this world who she felt actually saw her—the real her—not the one beneath the bald eyebrows and strange pink eyes. All those imperfections seemed to vanish, and she felt like the girl she would have been had her life not fallen apart. It wasn’t in a creepy, romantic fashion either. It was more like a fatherly relationship than anything else. God knows, her own father had never been much good to her. All he’d ever done was create tension in the house and make her feel like she was nothing but a disappointment to him.

  Her dad wasn’t like that with Florence. With her, he was free with his smiles and hugs, always opening his arms to scoop her up, or ruffle her hair, or kiss the top of her head. He’d tickle her until she squealed with laughter and begged him to stop, and Bethany would catch him smiling then, too. Bethany didn’t know why he didn’t act that way towards her. Maybe it was just that she was so much older than her sister, but then she couldn’t remember him being that way when she’d been younger either. There were times when she wondered if it was because she reminded him more of her mother than she did himself. Where Florence had his dark colouring, she was fair like their mum. Bethany was more reserved like her, too, ‘taking life too seriously’ he used to say, even though she thought he was hardly free and easy himself.

  “Don’t think of it like dead,” her leader told her. “It’s more like you’re just in a different form. You said yourself that you wanted to be different.”

  “I meant different as in a different person. Someone who isn’t dealing with all of this.” She waved her hand in the general direction of her face.

  “Releasing your hold on your physical being is simply a step to becoming a different person. We need to stop clinging so hard to the physical. It simply isn’t what’s important. It’s who we are that matters.”

  “The girl you were talking about, did she buy into all of this?”

  “If by ‘buy in’ you’re asking if she believed, then yes, she did, fully.”

  Her cheeks flooded with warmth at her choice of words. “Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Everyone loves Stacey, and we know we’ll see her again. We each carry a part of her inside us, making us stronger, so when the time comes that we all ascend, we’ll do so together. Don’t you want that, Bethany? To be always surrounded by people who love you?”

  “Yes, I do,” she admitted.

  “Then let us help you.”

  She sucked in a shaky breath. What did she have to lose? “Okay, I’ll do it.”

  His face broke into a smile. “That’s wonderful news. Everyone will be so excited. You’re going to need to keep it a secret and stay out of sight. No one can know you’re here, apart from our group.”

  It wasn’t as though she had any friends who would be asking where she was.

  “Can I go home first? I’d like to get some of my things, and I need to say goodbye to my sister, too.”

  Her eyes filled with tears at the thought of Florence. Her sister would be fine without her, though. She’d probably even flourish. Who needed a big sister like her to drag a little girl down? If Bethany stayed around, she’d probably end up being the reason her sister was bullied at school, just like she’d been. Without the noose of a loser older sister hanging around her neck, Florence would probably bloom. She’d be the kind of girl Bethany had always wanted to be—pretty and popular. She was basically doing her sister a kindness by leaving.

  “Yes, but you mustn’t let anyone know what you’re doing or where you’re going. It’ll ruin everything if you do.”

  “I’ll be careful, I promise. No one will know a thing.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I knew I can count on you.”

  BETHANY SLIPPED BACK inside her house, moving quietly so as not to attract her parents’ attention.

  “That you, Bethany?” her mother called out from the lounge.

  Her stomach knotted. She didn’t want to be asked lots of questions about where she’d been, convinced her lies and her plans would be written across her face.

  “Yeah, it’s me. I’ve got a headache. I’m going to go straight to bed.”

  “Oh, okay. Take some paracetamol if it gets too bad.”

  “Yeah, I will. Night.”

  “Night, love.”

  Bethany
paused for a moment, giving her mother time to get up and come and check on her, if she was going to, but it sounded as though she was engrossed in whatever she was watching on television. Was her dad in there as well? If he was, he was most likely asleep on the sofa.

  She hurried upstairs and went into her room. Her heart knocked against the inside of her ribcage, and she felt strangely distant from the real world, as though she’d taken some kind of drug. It was only adrenaline, though, and the magnitude of what she was about to do swept over her, leaving her teetering as though standing at a dizzying height.

  What should she take with her? Not too much. She could hardly sneak out if she had a suitcase bashing against her legs as she walked. She’d just take the basics—a few changes of underwear, a couple of changes of clothes, her toothbrush and toiletries. Her gaze caught on a photograph of her and Florence when they’d been younger. They were both sitting on a picnic blanket, and Florence was between Bethany’s legs and Bethany was squeezing her sister in a big hug from behind. Both girls wore giant cheesy grins, happiness radiating from them.

  Pain squeezed Bethany’s chest, catching her breath with the strength of it. She’d had hair then and looked normal. She barely recognised herself anymore. How had things gone wrong so fast?

  The pain she felt wasn’t only for herself. It was for Florence, too. Was it wrong of Bethany to abandon her sister? But her parents treated Flo differently, and she was sure that without her in their lives, they would all be happier. Maybe her parents wouldn’t fight so much if she wasn’t there to stress them out with her stupid habit.

  She imagined them all living better lives without her in it. They might be upset at first, but once things calmed down, they’d all come to the realisation it had been for the best.

  Moving quietly around her room, she picked out a couple of her favourite outfits and stuffed them into her bag. She stopped and stared longingly at her collection of stuffed toys. She couldn’t take any of them with her, could she? She’d pictured herself being an independent young woman, no longer living at home, and having stuffed teddy bears didn’t exactly marry with that image. Instead, she took down the photograph of her and Florence and slipped that into her bag as well. She’d have to wait to grab her toothbrush from the bathroom. If she got it now, her parents might notice it was missing when they went to bed.

  She turned off her bedroom light and slipped under the covers, still dressed in her leggings and oversized hoody. It wasn’t unusual for her to sleep in such an outfit, so her mother wouldn’t think it strange if she came in to check on her.

  An hour passed before the familiar sounds of her parents locking the house up for the night drifted up the stairs.

  She held her breath for as long as she could, the duvet pulled up around her chin. Footsteps fell heavily on the stairs—her dad—then shortly followed by the lighter steps of her mother. Water running. The soft murmur of voices. The hum of an electric toothbrush. Would they come in to check? Even though there was nothing suspicious about what Bethany was doing right now, she still felt sure her mother would know.

  The footsteps paused outside her bedroom and then continued down the landing. The gentle click of the master bedroom door signalled both parents were finally in bed.

  Bethany allowed herself to exhale.

  How long should she wait? Her dad got to sleep within minutes, but she knew her mum could be a bit more restless. She’d quite often get up to go to the toilet again within about an hour or so of going to bed.

  Bethany fought sleep, worried if she closed her eyes for too long, she’d wake up again and it would be morning.

  Finally, she slipped back out of bed and picked up her bag.

  She crept into her sister’s room. Tears filled her eyes, and her lower lip trembled. She didn’t want to say goodbye to Flo, but she had to.

  She leaned down and kissed the little girl on the temple. Flo stirred in her sleep, and then her eyes fluttered open. She had a plug-in nightlight which made it light enough for them to see one another, and Flo frowned at the sight of her sister in her room in the middle of the night.

  “Bethy? What are you doing?”

  Bethany placed her finger to her lips. “Shh. You’ll get me in trouble.” She couldn’t tell Flo she was here to say goodbye. It would only upset Flo and then she’d go and tell their parents. Bethany thought of something. “I just wanted to give you a present.”

  “You did?”

  “Yep.” Bethany unhooked the necklace she’d been given on that first night in the meeting. She pushed it into the cup of Flo’s small palm, not wanting to hook it around her neck in case it choked her during the night. She would never forgive herself if she did something that caused her little sister harm. “This is for you. Put it on in the morning, okay, but don’t let Mum and Dad see it.”

  “So it’s like a secret present?”

  “Exactly.” She leaned in again and kissed the top of Flo’s head, inhaling the clean, apple shampoo scent of her. “Now go back to sleep. It’s late.”

  Flo nodded and curled up on her side, the hand with the necklace balled beneath her cheek.

  Bethany gulped back fresh tears and slipped from the room.

  This was it. No point in going back now.

  She had her own front door key so was able to unlock it. She stepped out into the night, the cool air and relative quiet hitting her like a slap. She’d never been out this late on her own. The only time she could think of where she’d even been out at this time with her parents was when they’d come back from a holiday in Portugal and the flight had been horribly delayed, so they hadn’t made it back home until the early hours the following morning. It had felt strange then, and that was when she’d been younger and had her parents to depend on. The oddness was overwhelming now.

  Bethany put her head down and tightened her grip on the straps of her backpack and got moving. It would take her a good twenty minutes to walk back to his house, something that didn’t feel like long during the day, but felt like an endless amount of time now. She didn’t dare jump on a night bus, someone might question what she was doing.

  She did her best to stay off the main road, but in some places, she had no choice but to take one. She raised her hoody up over her face so as not to be seen. She was smart enough to know there would be CCTV cameras around and she didn’t want them to track her progress. The shops lining the high street were all closed up, graffitied shutters down over the windows. Taxis drove past, followed by the wail of an ambulance. She wasn’t the only one on the streets at this time either—groups of people not much older than her were on their way back from bars and nightclubs, loud and raucous and scantily dressed.

  No one paid her much attention.

  Ahead, a car pulled into the kerb and flashed its headlights. Was that meant for her? Her stomach dropped, and her pulse quickened, her blood thumping in her ears. Every muscle in her body tensed, and she clung tighter to her backpack straps and hunched over, hoping and praying whoever it was would leave her alone.

  Each footstep took her closer to the car. A few more, and she’d be past it and on her way.

  The driver’s door opened. “Aren’t you going to get in?”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Rita Emerson checked the kitchen wall clock. It was almost seven-thirty, and she hadn’t heard any sounds coming from Bethany’s room yet. Florence, who liked to wake up at the crack of dawn, was already sitting at the kitchen table in her school uniform. Bethany had to leave a good half an hour before her sister, and yet Flo was more ready than Bethany. The little girl spooned Cheerios into her mouth while watching some mind-numbing television show on her tablet. Rita experienced a twinge of guilt at allowing her to have a tablet not only at the breakfast table, but also first thing in the morning. Maybe it made her a terrible parent, but she just didn’t have the mental or emotional strength to deal with Flo’s whining.

  She took another sip of her tea and glanced back up at the ceiling. Bethany had her ala
rm clock set so she was supposed to get herself out of bed. Rita let out a sigh. She didn’t want to have to go up there and wake her eldest daughter, aware that it wouldn’t go down well. But then nothing she said or did went down well with Bethany anymore. Ever since she’d turned thirteen, Bethany only ever seemed to hate her. Going into her bedroom felt like creeping into a lion’s den—she was bound to crawl back out with Bethany’s cruel words lashed across her skin.

  She missed the days when she’d been Bethany’s whole world, and all Bethany had asked from her was to be loved. Was it because she’d had Florence that things had changed? Had she focused too much attention on her youngest daughter and Bethany had resented it? But Bethany had never shown any jealousy towards her sister at all—if anything, Flo was the one person in the house who didn’t get the brunt of Bethany’s bad moods.

  Rita gave in and headed for the stairs. She braced herself to be yelled at, to be told that Bethany was already getting up and that she should leave her alone. She knew her daughter had it hard at school, but what could she do to help her when she wouldn’t let Rita in?

  At the top of the stairs, she turned left. Bethany’s bedroom door was directly in front of her. It stood open a crack, but no light came from inside. Rita tutted her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Her daughter must have forgotten to set her alarm, and now she was going to take her lateness out on her mother.

  Rita gently pushed open the door and spoke as softly as she could. “Bethany, sweetie. You need to get up now. It’s gone seven-thirty, and you’re going to be late for school.”

  It took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Bethany’s duvet was a crumpled heap on her bed, her numerous soft toys—far too many for a girl of her age—piled up around it.

  Bethany wasn’t there.

  Rita frowned. She must have already got up and was in the bathroom, though she hadn’t heard the water running or the toilet flushing.

  She turned from the bedroom and crossed the landing to the bathroom. The door was ajar.

  “Bethany?”