Run Away With Me : A fast-paced psychological thriller

by Daniel Hurst

  Adam has been the typical doting partner ever since I woke up in hospital and made it clear that I couldn’t remember what had put me in there. He has been by my bedside every day, and I know he is always checking for updates on my condition from the medical staff who have been treating me. He is keen to find out if and when my memory will return, just like any good husband would be. And he has been just as attentive and selfless ever since I left hospital and came home.

  After making sure that I was set up in the bedroom, he has been up and down the stairs several times to ask if I need anything, always on hand to prop up my pillow, fetch me another glass of water or ask if I need help going to the bathroom.

  Now, he is downstairs and I’m not sure what he is up to at this moment, but I know it won’t be long until he is back here to check on me. He seems afraid to leave me alone for too long. It’s almost as if he is afraid that I won’t be able to cope without him.

  Even though I have told him that my memory is shot and that I can barely remember our wedding day, never mind the last few weeks, he still seems keen to test me at every opportunity to see if my memory is returning. I often overheard him speaking to my doctor about the likelihood of me regaining my full cognitive functions, and he asked the man several times for a precise probability of me ever getting my full memory back surrounding the incident in the cottage. The doctor just kept telling him to be patient and take every day as it comes, but Adam was always insistent on knowing what the exact odds were for me remembering things.

  He thinks having a wife that needs his constant help will be a problem. But he has another problem, and it’s a big one.

  The problem is that I remember everything.

  I recall with perfect clarity how he got me to that cottage in the first place with lies about a hit and run accident and going on the run. I remember that he kept me there for several days with more lies about broken TV’s, sim cards and trips into the village. And I remember how he and his partner in crime plotted to kill Bradley and I in that bedroom, leaving us to die amongst the toxic fumes so that he could have his revenge and move on with his life with a new partner.

  I remember it all. But I have kept it to myself. Nobody knows that I have a better memory than I am letting on. Not the doctors. Not the nurses.

  And certainly not the man who tried to kill me and my baby.

  I could have made it obvious that I did remember. I could have told Adam that I knew, and I could have spoken to the police and made them arrest him and Gemma on suspicion of several crimes, including the murder of an innocent man, and the attempted murder of an innocent mother and child. But I haven’t because I remember what Gemma said when Bradley and I were tied up in that cottage and she was standing in front of us with a smug look on her face. She said that they had planned everything and they were going to get away with it because there was no evidence of what they had done.

  I don’t know if they were as clever as they think they were in leaving no trace of their presence in that cottage behind, but I have to assume they have been. That means I have to try and be as clever as them. If I speak to the police and tell them what really happened then they will investigate and they might find something, but they might not. Then where will I be? I can’t risk the pair of them getting away with what they did, and I certainly can’t risk them trying to finish the job if they think I am a threat to them. Therefore, I am pretending that I am no threat. I am playing dumb. I am acting as if the stories are true. I was in that cottage because I was having an affair with Bradley and we snuck away from our partners for a little time together before the baby was born. We both fell asleep in the bedroom and were overcome by the fumes from the hazardous fireplace that we had left running downstairs. And I am lucky to be alive and be supported by my husband, who has vowed to stick with me despite my infidelities and lies.

  I’m considered a lucky woman, at least by other people’s standards. But I’m not lucky. I won’t consider myself lucky until I have found a way of making Adam and Gemma pay for what they did at that cottage.

  I just need to stay strong. I just need to be clever.

  I just need to keep pretending I have forgotten until I have the evidence that I need to send them to prison forever.

  53

  ADAM

  I’m pacing around the kitchen while Laura rests upstairs. I haven’t been able to relax since she woke up, but it’s got even worse since she came home. Now I feel constantly on edge. I feel like she could remember what happened at any second, especially now she is in more familiar surroundings, and the thought of that is terrifying.

  The carbon monoxide didn’t kill her, but it has affected her memory amongst other things, and that is a bonus at least, but I don’t feel like I will ever be able to truly relax until she is gone. It’s one thing for Samuel to have survived, but at least he isn’t going to be able to talk to the police. Laura could get her memory back any day now and then what is stopping her from telling anybody who will listen that I tried to kill her?

  Gemma told me this was a good plan. She said we would get away with murder. But she was wrong. While Bradley might be gone, my wife still remains, and now I am her carer, keeping her fed and watered and having to go up and down the stairs every ten minutes to make sure she is okay. By now, I would have expected to have buried my wife, taken time off work to grieve and then been telling family and friends that things were tough, but that I was feeling optimistic about the future. Instead, I am in a place that’s even worse than the one I was in before all of this started.

  I’m still married to a woman who betrayed me, only now I could end up going to prison too.

  I need to see Gemma. She will have a plan. She better have one. This whole thing was her idea in the first place.

  She started it so she can help me finish it.

  I take out my mobile and find her number, which I have saved under the name of a local dry cleaners just in case Laura does remember and the police search my device for any connection between the two of us.

  I hear the ringtone in my ear and wait for her to answer, but it doesn’t connect, and I hang up when I get her voicemail message. She might not be ignoring me. She is probably at work. But there are more important things that need to be done right now than carrying on with everyday life.

  I decide that I can’t just keep pacing around the kitchen for the rest of the day so I leave the room and head for the stairs again. I’m going up to see Laura, not because I am worried that she needs me since my last visit but because my paranoia is going into overdrive and I want to try and dispel my fears for another few minutes. If I go and talk to her and she acts normal with me, then it at least tells me that she has still forgotten what I did and then I don’t have to worry for a little while longer. That usually only works for about two minutes though before the fear seeps back in and I have to return for confirmation again.

  I don’t know how much longer I can go on like this. I’m terrified of Laura remembering what happened. I can’t spend the rest of my life in prison.

  It was supposed to be her who was punished, not me.

  I reach the bedroom again and slowly open the door, being quiet in case she is sleeping. But there is no need to be worried about making any noise. Laura is sitting up in the bed and looking right at me. She hasn’t slept at all since she came home, which worries me a little.

  It’s almost as if she is afraid to close her eyes around me.

  ‘Just checking you’re okay,’ I say to her as I stand in the doorway. ‘Do you want anything? Another drink, maybe?’

  Laura shakes her head. ‘I’m fine.’’

  The weird thing is, she actually looks like she is. To look at her, you wouldn’t know that she had been through a battle for her life. Samuel is still in hospital surrounded by machines and doctors, but Laura now just looks like somebody having a lazy afternoon in bed.

  ‘Okay, well let me know if you need me. I’m just downstairs,’ I remind her again, and I study her face for a
ny sign that she might actually be remembering what really happened between us. But she gives nothing away. I guess she really has lost her memory of recent events. Maybe it will never come back. Maybe I have nothing to worry about.

  ‘Adam,’ Laura says, just before I can close the door.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Try and get some rest. You look tired.’

  I smile at my wife and nod my head before closing the door.

  I should feel pleased that she cares about my health. That means she cares, and that means she doesn’t remember. But as I head downstairs and go back to the kitchen where I expect to spend the next hour pacing around nervously again and waiting for Gemma to call, I can’t shake the feeling that something is about to go very wrong for me.

  54

  LAURA

  I heard the knock at the front door a few minutes ago, before I heard the chattering in the downstairs hallway and finally, the sound of the kettle boiling in the kitchen.

  Kat is here again.

  She has been coming to the house every day since I got back, presumably to offer her brother support and make sure he is doing well during this difficult time. Adam and his sister have always been fairly close, as evidenced by the fact that Kat was willing to give us a spare key to her holiday cottage for us to use at our own convenience. But she was never around at our house this much before. I imagine she is feeling a little guilty about the fact that it was her cottage that almost killed her brother’s wife and child, as well as shocked that Adam has ended up married to somebody who was using that cottage to carry out an affair behind everybody’s backs. At least that’s how I’m sure the story goes. But I imagine Kat also hates me for the affair, even though it actually ended a lot longer ago than she thinks. I presume that because she hasn’t come up to this bedroom to say hello to me in all the times she has visited the house since I came home from the hospital.

  I don’t expect today will be any different. She will probably just stay downstairs with Adam, have a cup of tea and ask him if he is okay and if he is going to get a divorce when I am feeling a little better. But I don’t begrudge Kat for behaving like this towards me. Of course she would take her brother’s side in all of this. Not only is he her flesh and blood, but she doesn’t know the full story. Nobody does besides me, Adam and Gemma. Kat thinks that Adam is worthy of sympathy for being married to someone like me when really it is me who deserves all that sympathy. The problem is, I don’t know how to get it. I spend all day lying in this bed trying to think of a way that I can catch Adam and Gemma out and provide the evidence that is necessary to ensure they go to prison for what they have done. But I’m still working on it, and so far, I have nothing.

  I hear the sound of footsteps on the staircase and prepare for another visit from Adam. I don’t actually mind this one because I could do with another glass of water. But then I see the bedroom door open, and it isn’t my husband looking to come in.

  It’s his sister.

  Kat stands in the doorway eyeballing me from across the room, and I’m not sure what the purpose of her visit is. Has she come to check if I’m okay or has she come to have a go at me for betraying her brother? I guess I’m about to find it.

  ‘Can I come in?’ she asks me, rather politely I note, which makes me optimistic that she isn’t here to be mean.

  ‘Yeah, of course.’

  I sit up further in the bed as Kat approaches and takes a seat in the chair that Adam has put beside the mattress. Usually, that chair sits in the corner of the room and is covered with piles of clothes for the washing machine, but ever since I came home from the hospital, Adam has cleared it and moved it closer to the bed. I thought he was doing this because he was going to be sitting in it himself and talking to me, but so far, he hasn’t actually used it. The chair has just sat idly beside me every day. Perhaps it is there to remind me that nobody is coming to visit me after what I did with Bradley. But now somebody is in that chair. Kat clearly has a reason to visit me. I just wait for her to speak so I can find out what it is.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ she asks me, running her eyes up and down my body which is mostly covered by the duvet that I have wrapped tightly around myself.

  ‘I’m feeling better every day, thanks,’ I reply, trying a little smile.

  But Kat doesn’t reciprocate my expression. I guess she isn’t here to be nice after all.

  ‘That’s good,’ Kat says, nodding her head and finally fixing her eyes on me and not just my fatigued body. ‘I can tell Adam is worried about you. Even after what you were doing behind his back.’

  ‘Kat, I-’

  But she cuts me off before I can defend myself.

  ‘Spare me the lies. You were having an affair, and you were using my cottage to do it,’ Kat says matter-of-factly. ‘How long was it going on for?’

  I’m struck by how stern she is being with me and I’m nervous about giving her an answer. Of course I wasn’t using the cottage for my affair, that’s just what Adam and Gemma wanted to make it look like. But I don’t think trying to explain that to Adam’s sister in my position is going to go down well.

  ‘Kat, I’m sorry. You should never have been dragged into this.’

  I do mean that. It was disgusting of Adam to involve his sister’s property in his wretched plan, never mind allow his sibling to be the one who would eventually find the bodies in the bedroom.

  ‘You think?’ Kat replies, shaking her head.

  There’s an awkward moment of silence between us, and it’s made even more awkward by the fact that Kat doesn’t take her eyes off me for the entirety of it.

  ‘I’m glad you are here. I wanted to say thank you for saving me and Samuel,’ I tell her. I do mean that. I know that if it wasn’t for her, my baby and I wouldn’t be alive right now. I also know that if it wasn’t for her brother then my baby and I would never have been in such danger in the first place, but I’ll hold onto that thought for the moment.

  ‘Samuel didn’t deserve to be punished for your mistakes,’ Kat tells me, and I have to agree with her. I wish I was with my baby now. I hate that he is in the hospital and I am here.

  ‘I just came up because I wanted to see you one last time. I suspect Adam is going to divorce you when you are feeling better, and I can’t wait for the day when he does. You don’t deserve him. What you were doing behind my brother’s back was disgusting, and you don’t get to come home and play happy families after something like that.’

  I go to speak, but Kat raises her hand to tell me she hasn’t finished yet.

  ‘I’m also here to let you know that I’m selling the cottage. I can’t bear to set foot in that place again after knowing what you and your lover were doing there in my bed.’

  ‘Kat, please-’

  But Kat gets up from the chair and heads for the door, clearly no longer in the mood to chat. But she pauses before she goes and looks back at me with pure hatred in her eyes.

  ‘I just wish I’d listened to Martin and got security cameras installed like we talked about when we first bought the cottage. We could have caught you out sooner then. Never mind. The truth always comes out in the end.’

  With that, Kat walks out of the bedroom and closes the door behind her.

  I’m left to mull over her final words to me. But it’s not the part about the truth coming out that has stuck in my mind, although I hope she is right about that.

  It’s the part about the security cameras.

  She just said she and her husband almost installed them when they bought the cottage. It’s a shame they didn’t because then they would have captured the footage of Adam and Gemma taking me and Bradley there. But what if I pretended there were cameras.

  What would Adam and Gemma do if they thought there was footage to hide?

  55

  LAURA

  Adam is at the hospital visiting Samuel, leaving me currently home alone. He is keeping up appearances and making it look like he is the doting father, even though I know that he detests t
hat baby because it’s Bradley’s and not his. But I’m glad he’s doing that because it gives me the opportunity to invite a guest around without him knowing.

  I open the front door and smile at the man standing on the doorstep.

  ‘Hi, Detective. Come in.’

  I step aside and allow the man into my home before quickly closing the door.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Detective Cleevely asks me as I show him into our front room.

  ‘Much better. Thank you.’

  He looks around the room as he takes a seat, but I know this isn’t the first time he has been here. I phoned the police yesterday when Adam was out and asked to speak to the detective who was in charge of my missing person’s case, and this is the man they put me in touch with. We spoke briefly on the phone, and I asked him if he would be willing to visit me when my husband was out. Thankfully, he agreed.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ I ask him before taking a seat myself.

  ‘No. Thank you. I’m actually rather busy so if we could just get on with it.’

  I nod at the detective, understanding his apparent lack of enthusiasm for being here. As far as he is concerned, I am nothing more than an adulterer who caused him to waste his time looking for me when I was shacked up in a cottage with a lover. But there is so much more than that to my story, and I’m finally about to let him know it.