by M K Farrar
The footsteps stopped, and she heard the flip of paper as they checked her chart hooked on the end of the bed. The person cleared their throat and then kept moving on to check on the next unfortunate soul who’d ended up spending their night here.
She waited long enough to be sure the nurse had left the ward and then risked opening an eye. Everything was still, even if it wasn’t silent. People coughed, someone cried quietly, another person muttered in their sleep, while someone else moaned in pain. She didn’t think she’d be getting much sleep here even if she wanted to.
With the plan of telling someone she was looking for the bathroom if she was stopped, Liv slipped back out of bed. She still had the hospital gown covering her regular clothes, but she’d need to get rid of it soon.
She bent and pulled on her trainers, keeping her head up to spot if anyone was coming, and then she left the bed and hurried to the door out in the corridor. The nurses’ station was at the far end, but if she went in the opposite direction and looped around, she should come out behind them.
A leather jacket had been left slung over the back of a chair just inside one of the other rooms. Without pausing, she scooped it up and kept going. The sign for the toilets was ahead, and she pushed her way through the door. Without even going into the stall, she pulled the hospital gown over her head and then put on the jacket. It was a man’s jacket and was too big for her, but it meant it hung down over her bandaged wrists, and when she zipped it up, it hid most of her bloodied clothing. Then she pulled her hair out of the ponytail it had been in and let it float in waves around her face.
Liv stopped to look at herself in the mirror, staring into her own pale eyes.
“You can do this,” she told her reflection. “This is for Ellen.”
She took a deep breath to steady her nerves then left the bathroom.
This would be the hardest part, walking past the nurses’ station and out into the reception area and waiting room for Accident and Emergency. Liv held herself straighter, walking with a confidence she didn’t feel. The nurses’ station was to her right, and the doors leading into A&E were directly ahead. Liv focused on the door and prayed no one could hear how her heartbeat thundered like horses’ hooves.
She reached the doors, and they opened automatically. Forcing herself to remain at a walk instead of breaking into a run, which was what she really wanted to do, she left the ward and stepped out into reception. Beyond the desk, a number of people were still waiting to be seen.
“Hello? Can I help you?” a voice called to her from the reception desk, and set her pulse racing.
Liv lifted her hand in a wave, not bothering to turn and look so they didn’t get a look at her face. Her red hair was distinctive, but she hoped having it down made it less recognisable. “Sorry. Took a wrong turn.”
Accident and Emergency was busy no matter the time of day, and she was thankful for all the people. She blended in with the drunks, and injuries, but the whole time she was tensed, waiting for the shout that would signal she’d been missed.
The main doors leading to freedom were right ahead of her. Liv could hardly believe she’d managed to get away with it as they slid open in response to her presence and she stepped out into fresh air. An ambulance waited in the bay in front. She put her head down and kept going, shivering from the chill laced on the night air. She didn’t have any money to get a taxi, or even have her Oyster card to get the Tube, or her phone to order an Uber. She only had her feet to rely on.
At least she knew her way around London. It would take her a good forty minutes to walk home, possibly longer, but she didn’t have any choice. She hoped she was up to it physically. She’d lost blood when she’d cut herself, but otherwise she felt okay.
Liv put her head down and kept going. Would someone have thought to lock the front door of her flat when they left? She hoped in the chaos of the ambulance journey they wouldn’t have thought to. She remembered how Ellen said she was going to go back and get some of her things, so she hoped that meant the door was still open, as she didn’t have a key, and only Tammy had had the other key. If Ellen had got there before her, she would almost definitely have picked up the keys and locked the front door as well, but if she’d figured she’d go there in the morning, there was the chance the door would still be open. She hoped so. She didn’t want to have to break into her own flat. It was bound to get her attention she could do without.
Her body ached by the time she reached Shepherd’s Bush. She was exhausted and wanted to sleep, but adrenaline pushed her on. She wouldn’t be able to stay here, even if she wanted to. As soon as the hospital noticed her missing and did a search of the premises to find her gone, they would send the police to her known address. She doubted it would be urgent—someone like her wouldn’t rank high on their list of priorities—but they’d come eventually.
Liv climbed the stairs of her building—even exhausted and weak from blood loss, she couldn’t bring herself to use the lift—and was relieved and cautious to find her door unlocked, though at least either Ellen or the paramedics had thought to pull it shut behind them when they’d left.
“Hello?”
She didn’t know who might be here, but this was London, after all. People sneaked into places to steal or squat. After the last few days, all her senses were on high alert, and she had no choice but to be cautious.
The place looked exactly as she’d left it. Ellen hadn’t been here yet, and that worried her. Would she have left it until the morning? Maybe, if she had plans to go and find Michael first to confront him.
She braved poking her head into the bathroom. Blood was smeared across the floor and sink, red against the white tiles. Avoiding the worst of the mess, she leaned over to open the medicine cabinet above the sink. The small tub of her medication sat on a shelf. Her mind blurred. When was the last time she’d taken her pills? She’d always been so meticulous, but with everything that had happened, she’d lost track of the time and days, and she couldn’t be sure when she’d last taken a dose. She took the pot down and cracked off the lid. She tipped a couple of the pills into her palm. She was only supposed to take one at a time, but perhaps she should take more to make up for the ones she missed.
But what if the pills have been causing the blackouts, a little voice whispered in her head. They might be making you sicker. Maybe you shouldn’t take any at all.
Liv hesitated, staring down at the pills in the centre of her palm. She dug her teeth into her lower lip, hard enough to hurt, and tasted blood. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there for, but eventually she exhaled a sigh and tipped the pills back into the pot. A clear head was vital, and she didn’t trust them right now.
Leaving the bathroom, she went back into her bedroom to find her phone. Where had she left it? She checked the bed, and bedside table, and floor. It wasn’t here. What about the living room? When had she last had it?
If she couldn’t find it to call Ellen, she’d need to go over to Ellen’s flat and see if she could find her there. She hoped her friend would be tucked up in bed, or curled up on the sofa watching a film. As long as she hadn’t gone to find Michael, she would be safe.
Unless Michael tries to find her ...
With relief, she spotted her mobile phone on the coffee table. “Oh, thank God.” She snatched it up and checked the screen. There weren’t any missed calls, which meant no one had alerted Ellen that she was missing from the hospital yet.
She scrolled through the phone, found Ellen’s number, and hit call. Liv placed it to her ear and waited anxiously as it rang.
“Come on, pick up.” She paced across the flat, chewing on the corner of her thumbnail until the area was raw and bleeding. But the call went through to answer phone. “It’s me,” Liv said. “Call me back. I need to know you’re okay.”
She hung up and called again, but once more the answer phone kicked in.
“Shit.”
She was going to have to go over to Ellen’s place.
Liv spo
tted the keys for the estate agency’s car. She’d attached them to the Richmond keys for safekeeping and had forgotten to take them off and sign them back in, she realised with a twinge of guilt. She hoped she wouldn’t get in trouble for it at work, but that was probably the least of her worries.
Still, the car meant it would be quicker to reach Ellen’s. There was little traffic on the road at this time of the night. All she needed was to know her friend was safe, and she’d be able to handle whatever came after that. She pocketed the keys and phone and turned to the door.
Liv froze, her heart lurching into her throat.
The front door was opening.
Someone was here.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Two Days Earlier
EVERYTHING WAS DARK.
Liv groaned, her whole body aching. The back of her head thudded and her cut arm throbbed. What had happened?
She’d been at her flat; she remembered that much. But after that ...
She sought her memory, trying to figure out the events after, but there was nothing. Had she suffered another blackout? Or had someone attacked her?
Michael.
With a groan, Liv clambered to her feet, ignoring her pounding head and throbbing arm. It was dark, so at first she didn’t know where she was. This wasn’t her place, though. Where was she? Had Michael brought her back to his home? As her eyes grew used to the dark, she took in her surroundings. She was in a small but comfortable looking living room. There was an L-shaped sofa with a throw and a number of cushions, a thick rug, and a glass coffee table. With a jolt, she realised she knew where she was, and it wasn’t Michael’s. From the sideboard, a picture inside a frame stared out at her. Ellen and Ryan. She was at Ellen’s flat.
Confusion filled her. How had she got here?
Panic surged through her, and she patted down the pockets of the leather jacket she’d stolen. The bulges of keys and her phone were beneath her palms. Snatching the phone out of her pocket, she tried to call Ellen again. Still no answer, and there was no sign of ringing from within the flat.
A heavy stone of dread had lodged in her gut.
There was only one explanation.
Michael.
Michael must have done something to her.
It would have been easy enough for him to find out where Ellen lived. If he’d told her to do something to herself, then she might have taken herself off somewhere to do it. Only he’d know where that was, as Ellen clearly wasn’t here. London was a big place.
A certainty and resolution solidified within her. She needed to get Michael somewhere she’d be able to make him talk. She needed to be able to question him. But there was one major flaw in her plan. If he talked, he’d be able to make her do things she didn’t want to do.
Something else wasn’t quite adding up. If Michael was responsible for getting her to Ellen’s, then where was he now? Why had he just brought her here and dumped her?
Curious, Liv went to the window and pulled back the blind. The agency car was parked outside on the street.
Fuck. She must have driven herself. Had she suffered another blackout? Her mind was spinning. She couldn’t think about it, the dizziness only getting worse the more she tried to concentrate and remember what had happened. She pulled her thoughts away, frightened she’d black out again. Did that mean Michael hadn’t been the one to bring her here—she’d come here by herself, looking for Ellen, perhaps?
There was only one thing left she could do.
She redialled the phone, this time calling Michael.
“Stop calling me, Olivia.”
The sound of his voice made her skin crawl. “Where’s Ellen?” she demanded.
“I have no idea.”
“Don’t lie to me!”
“I’m not.”
She could tell he was speaking through gritted teeth.
“I know your dirty little secret,” she bluffed. “You might think you’ve kept Ellen’s mouth shut, and that you’d dealt with me. Well, this is your wake-up call. I know all about you. Ellen told me everything. Meet me at this address in an hour, or I’ll make sure everyone else knows as well.”
She hung up and then quickly texted him the address. She needed to move to make sure she got there before he did, if he even showed.
Yes, he’d show. She knew him well enough to know that much, at least.
She left Ellen’s flat, pulling the door shut behind her, and ran to the car. She was breathing hard, her palms sweaty, her body aching. Adrenaline pumped through her veins. The car door was open, so she clearly hadn’t bothered to lock it when she’d arrived, but then she was amazed she’d even managed to drive, considering she couldn’t remember a single part of the journey. Sliding into the driver’s seat, she jammed the keys in the ignition and brought the car to life.
Liv put her foot down, thankful for the lack of traffic. It was a twenty-minute drive, and she needed to get there before Michael. Her mind was in a spin and she struggled to think straight. She needed to if she was going to beat him, however. She drove past a twenty-four hour supermarket and suddenly swerved. Though she needed to get to the property, an idea had started to form in her mind, and she was going to need supplies to see it through.
She was aware of how she looked. Her jeans were stained dark with blood, but the leather jacket covered the worst of the stains on her top. She didn’t have any money with her, but she had a paying app on her phone, so she was able to use that. The supermarket catered for everything, and she whipped around, finding the items she needed, including a cheap rucksack to shove it all into. The young man working the till moved frustratingly slowly, and it was all she could do to stop herself from yelling at him to hurry things up. She needed to remember the hospital may well have called the police by now if they thought she was a danger to herself or others, and anything that would make her more memorable would be a bad thing.
Finally, she was able to scan her phone to pay and grab the things she’d bought. She hurried back out to the car and climbed behind the wheel. She was banking on Michael having been at home when she called, so he would have much further to come than she did, giving her the extra time. This would get a lot harder if he reached the place before her.
Within fifteen minutes, she pulled up outside the property and hit the button on the fob to open the gates. A sigh of relief escaped her lungs as she noted Michael hadn’t arrived yet. She’d need to move the car, and his car, too, when he did, but for the moment, she just needed to get him inside the house.
Liv climbed out and pulled the bag of gear out with her.
Damn. She should have thought to bring a weapon of some kind. It wasn’t as though she could have bought something in the supermarket, though. What she’d purchased was already bad enough without adding a knife or something similar to the haul. Raising people’s suspicions, especially when the police might already be on the lookout for her because of her escape from the hospital, was the last thing she wanted to do.
Standing in the driveway, she looked around, hoping to spot something, though she had no idea what. Her gaze alighted on a flowerbed and the canes sticking out of the dirt that had been support for some long dead flowers in the garden. It wasn’t much, but she was running out of time. With the bag clutched in her other hand, she ran over and pulled one of the canes out of the ground. Experimentally, she swept the cane through the air.
It wasn’t exactly a knife or a gun, but it could certainly do some damage. She didn’t want Michael dead; she just wanted to get Ellen’s location out of him.
She had the keys to the property on the car keys, so she fumbled what she was holding for a moment and managed to get the front door open. The property was exactly as she remembered it—a wide open entrance hall with the chequered flooring. And there, beneath the stairs, was the door that led down to the cellar.
The cellar had given her the creeps last time she was here, but now she was going to have to force herself to spend time down there, and with the person she
feared most in the world. Had being spooked by the place come from some subconscious understanding of what the future held for her? There was no need to be frightened of things that went bump in the dark when real life held far greater terrors.
She opened the cellar door and flicked on the switch for the light, her fingers finding it easily this time. Stepping through the door, Liv paused at the top of the stairs. She was looking at this place from a different perspective this time, checking for weak spots he might be able to use against her. She spotted something she hadn’t the first time—a bolt on the back of the door. She narrowed her eyes. What would the owners have used that for? Why would they have wanted to keep people out of here? What had they been doing? Her gaze went back to the hook embedded in the low ceiling. She’d assumed it had been used to hang game or some other kind of meat, perhaps something that would have gone well with the expensive wine they’d most likely have kept down here—but now she wondered if it had been used for something else entirely.
Not wanting to waste any more time, Liv hurried down the stairs and paused beneath the hook. She dropped the bag from her shoulder and stooped down, tugging open the top and pulling out what she needed. Rope and a length of material she’d use as a gag. She unravelled the rope and stood on tiptoes to loop one end over the hook and tied it tight. Was she doing the right thing, or should she wait and tie his hands first, assuming it even got this far? She didn’t know. It wasn’t as though she’d ever done this before.
Suddenly panicked that he might have already arrived and would catch her down here preparing, she left both the bag and the cane where they were and turned and ran back up the stairs. She’d left the front door open, and when she peered through, the driveway was still in darkness. He hadn’t yet arrived.
Steeling her nerves, she went on the hunt for the next thing she needed.
