by Carys Jones
WRONG NUMBER
Carys Jones
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About this Book
About the Author
Table of Contents
www.ariafiction.com
About Wrong Number
A missing husband. Mysterious calls. And the biggest lie of them all…
Read with caution – you may never want to answer your phone again
Will and Amanda Thorne are living the dream until, one day, their phone rings. Within 24 hours, Will is missing and Amanda’s world is shattered. Who was on the phone? Where has Will gone?
Amanda is determined to find her husband and is drawn into a world of drug dealers, criminal masterminds and broken promises.
As the truth becomes clearer, she has to face the terrible possibility that she may never have known her husband at all…
To Sam – for always listening
Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
About Wrong Number
Dedication
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
Acknowledgements
About Carys Jones
Become an Aria Addict
Copyright
Prologue
Amanda ignored the metallic taste in her mouth and did her best to focus. Sunlight was bleeding in through the windows in the small kitchen, casting ornate shadows upon the bare wooden floors.
But Amanda didn’t notice them. Nor did she smell the heady aroma of fresh heather floating in through the open door, or hear the gentle rustle of the long grass outside as a cooling breeze brushed its way through it.
All she saw was the barrel of the gun looming inches away from her head. There was only darkness in its depths. And possibly her own death. Her fate hung on the twitch of a trigger. Amanda had known fear like this before when she was eight years old and she’d almost tumbled over the edge of the cliffs near her home. The sun had been shining that day too.
Only now her father wasn’t waiting in the wings to save her.
‘Why did you come here?’ he growled the question at her, each word drenched in angry disdain.
Amanda swallowed, using the second to gather her thoughts. She couldn’t risk saying, or doing, the wrong thing.
‘I had to.’ She squeaked out the words like the frightened mouse she had become.
‘No,’ he was shaking his head but the hand holding the gun remained eerily stoic, like his muscles were well rehearsed in steadily managing its weight. ‘You should never have come here.’
The taste in Amanda’s mouth grew sharper. Just as it had that day when she had nearly dropped over the cliff edge and saw the sea and jagged rocks swirling beneath her. She defiantly raised her chin to meet his gaze.
‘I had to come,’ she told him, her voice strengthening along with her resolve. ‘I had to find you.’
1
Two Weeks Earlier
Leaning back in her leather desk chair, Amanda Thorn raised her arms up over her head until she felt a satisfying click. Giving a light sigh, she shook out her shoulders and placed her fingers back upon her laptop’s illuminated keyboard.
Golden sunlight was pouring in through the window, pooling at her feet. The hot afternoon was preparing to burn into a balmy evening. Amanda shuffled in her chair, her bare legs sticking to the soft leather.
‘Damn heatwave,’ she muttered as she cast a pained glance down at the denim cut-offs she’d pulled on that morning. Coupled with a loose fitting white T-shirt, the outfit had been perfect for jogging through the woodlands behind her home earlier but not such a wise choice for working in.
Leaning forward, Amanda reached for the tall glass of water that was standing beside her laptop like a solitary crystal guard. Droplets beaded down its sides, allowing the glass to leave a perfect circle upon the oak desk as Amanda lifted the drink towards her lips.
‘Urgh,’ she crinkled her nose when she spotted the water mark. Not because it bothered her but because she knew it would bother her husband, Will. He was a meticulous man; from the way he dressed right down to how he fastidiously organized the contents of their refrigerator. It was one of the things that had first drawn Amanda to him; the way he always looked so perfect and put together. It was a stark contrast to her own dishevelled appearance. Amanda refused to abandon the jogging bottoms, hoodies and T-shirts she’d lived in as a student. She was the kind of woman who preferred comfort over style although in the current heat she felt less comfortable than she’d have liked.
‘Baby, you’re such a knockout,’ Will was always telling her, even when she’d only thrown on whatever clothes she could get her hands on. In their house he threw around compliments like confetti but Amanda wasn’t so sure. When she looked in the mirror she still saw the gawky teenager who’d rather hide behind a computer screen than face the real world.
Putting her glass back down, Amanda focused on her computer screen. The website she’d spent the last week building was almost finished. She ran a critical eye over the various pages, hoping her client, Diowater, would be pleased with the results.
‘Designer water,’ she muttered to herself with a rueful shake of the head. Her icy blonde hair tumbled into her line of sight. Exhaling deeply, Amanda blew the few strands away and looked at her handiwork. The website looked slick and expensive, just like the product it was advertising.
Diowater was a new brand of bottled water. Even the plastic bottles the exclusive beverage came in had been warped to look like the carefully fractured surface of a diamond. Amanda continued to review the pages. This one job paid enough to cover her for a few months. She could stop working if she wanted to. Not that she’d ever do that. Amanda needed a connection to her computer like most people needed oxygen. She’d be lost without it. Growing up she had more virtual friends than real ones. If she wasn’t online playing a game she was in some chat room or teaching herself how to code.
Will didn’t share her passion for technology. He was a complete technophobe; his mobile phone still had buttons!
‘I don’t trust touchscreens,’ he’d protested loudly in his thick Scottish accent as Amanda stood with in him in the centre of PC Universe. She was updating her laptop. Again. Will didn’t even have a computer of his own.
‘We could get you a tablet,’ she’d taken his large, calloused hands in her own and led him over to where all the computer tablets were tastefully displayed.
‘A tablet?’ Will’s dark eyes had crinkled at the corners and lit up with a mixture of amusement and concern. ‘Honey, a tablet is something you take when you’re sick.’ He was smiling at her in the way he always did, like she entertained him simply by breathing.
Laughing, Amanda had led him away, accepting that a new tablet for her husband was the last thing she’d be purchasing. He may not have been technically savvy but Will was an oak tree of a man. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a solid chest. In a storm he was the guy you’d grab on to in order to anchor yourself and save getting blown away. He had a shock of dark hair which filtered down into the whisper of a beard. Hair that had once been as black as night was now flecked with silver. The previous summer Will had celebrated his fortieth birthday; Amanda swore that with each bi
rthday he became even more handsome, more rugged.
She was thirty-four and as slender and elfish as a feather beside her giant mountain of a husband. The only thing the couple shared was their impressive height. Will stood at six feet four inches while Amanda just skimmed the six foot mark.
‘You could have been a model,’ her mother would cluck at her when she’d had one too many glasses of wine. ‘You’re so beautiful, Amanda, but you’re always hiding yourself away, disappearing into that virtual world.’ Her mother always said the word virtual as though it stung her thin lips as it passed through them.
Amanda lifted her glass again. The air in her study had become thick and stale. She’d open a window but she knew it would do no good. The air out there was just as still as the air inside.
‘Air conditioning,’ Amanda muttered to herself as she used her free hand to hastily scrawl the note in her nearby writing pad. It was something Will had mentioned in the past but then decided against as he didn’t like the idea of all the dust and debris the installation of air conditioning would cause.
‘But he’s not the one who works from home all day, is he?’ Amanda chirped brightly to herself. Will was currently enjoying the benefits of air conditioning in the lofty warehouse where he worked as a site manager. His job didn’t have the time-sensitive pressures of Amanda’s, nor the flexibility of working from home, but Will got to do the one thing he loved most: ordering people about. People took orders from him as willingly as a baby receiving free candy. Will never came across as bossy or condescending. He was always warm, kind and friendly. The guys at the warehouse loved him. He’d go out with them a couple of nights a week, leaving Amanda to curl up on the sofa and catch up on all her favourite shows on Netflix.
Will loved shows like Deadliest Catch; about real men doing real work. Amanda liked to lose herself in a gripping drama. It was just another area in their lives where the couple didn’t see eye to eye.
‘You’re too different,’ her mother had scolded after she’d first met Will.
‘I thought you said opposites attract.’
‘Not too opposite.’
‘Urgh, there’s no pleasing you,’ Amanda had stroked the tortoiseshell cat who was perched on her knee in a tight ball.
‘Now, you and Shane, you had so much in common,’ her mother had peered at her from across the cup of tea she’d raised to her lips. The steam briefly misted her thick-framed glasses.
‘And look how that worked out,’ Amanda had frowned at her. Her mother’s preoccupation with her ex-boyfriend had gone from annoying to flat-out intolerable over the past few months. It was like the more time that passed, the more obsessed Corrine became with the past.
‘You could be yourself around Shane,’ her mother had infuriatingly pressed on.
‘I can be myself around Will.’ Amanda was grinding her teeth, colour rushing to her porcelain cheeks.
‘Can you?’ the question had hung in the air and been left unanswered.
Amanda looked at the clock in the far corner of her laptop’s screen. It was almost five. Time to switch off and head downstairs to start getting dinner ready. She was still holding her glass of water, the ringed mark upon the desk glaring up at her, daring her to leave it.
‘It’s my desk,’ Amanda told herself as she lowered her glass and shut down her computer. The laptop hummed for a moment and then went silent. ‘I’m the only one who should be bothered by anything in here,’ she continued as she started to head out of the room.
The entire house was a testament to Will’s desire to keep everywhere nice. There wasn’t a single item out of place. Even the books on the shelves were neatly arranged in height order. Amanda entertained his desire to keep everything just so, assuming it was some by-product of a past which he’d only fleetingly refer to as ‘difficult’. And she knew enough about managing demons to choose not to pry. Will would open up to her when he was good and ready.
The only pictures on the wall of their house were ones from their wedding day. There was no pile of post on the counter in the kitchen, no shoes lined up by the door in the hallway. In many ways the house still looked like the show home they’d originally viewed it as.
In the kitchen, Amanda put a pan on to heat and removed some chilled steaks from the refrigerator before she turned around and powered back upstairs, cloth in hand. She scowled as she quickly scrubbed away the water mark, leaving the oak desk just as perfect as it had been before she sat down to work.
Back downstairs, Amanda swept the back of her hand across her brow. Her hair already felt sticky upon her head even though she’d thrown open both windows in the kitchen. For two weeks the sun had burned down on her county making the grass in the front garden start to singe and burn.
The other houses in their street looked far worse. Their grass had been reduced to little beige curls. Some of Amanda’s lawn was still green, thanks in no small part to Will’s sneaky visits out after dark, hose pipe in hand. He’d stand in the shadows in his pyjamas, stealthily watering the garden.
‘We should just get sprinklers,’ he’d moan.
‘We can’t. There’s a hose pipe ban.’
‘I don’t even know what that is,’ Will would scrunch up his nose as his thick eyebrows met together.
The steaks were in the pan and Amanda was busy preparing a bowl full of fresh salad when the house phone rang out in the hallway. Its sharp little bell shattered through the relative silence of the house as it sung out as constant as a heartbeat, determined to be answered.
‘Bloody hell,’ Amanda put down the cucumber she’d been peeling and briefly wiped her hands on a nearby tea towel. ‘Always when I’m getting dinner ready,’ she scolded as her bare feet padded softly against the tiled floor. She plucked the cordless handset from its receiver and wedged it between her shoulder and ear as she began to retrace her steps back into the kitchen.
She was fixed for a fight as she curtly greeted her caller. ‘Hello?’ The only people who called so late in the day were telemarketers. Amanda had been tempted to ignore the call, to let it shrilly ring out until the answer machine kicked in and played the message she and Will had recorded when they’d first moved in: ‘Hi, you’ve reached Amanda and Will. We can’t get to the phone right now so please leave a message and we’ll get back to you after the BEEP.’ In fits of giggles they had both made the sound of the beep. They sounded so happy in their outgoing message. So smug. Amanda almost hated herself whenever she was forced to listen to it now. She made a mental note for what felt like the hundredth time to tone down the message. She yearned for a more subdued greeting, to reflect the calm seas her marriage now sailed upon rather than the tempestuous storms of passion they’d encountered in their honeymoon haze.
But Amanda couldn’t ignore the call in case it was Diowater giving some very prompt feedback on her work. There was only an outside chance it was them, since she had a call scheduled with their head of marketing the following morning, but it was a chance she couldn’t take all the same.
‘Hello?’ Amanda repeated more sharply when her caller failed to announce themselves. She could feel her patience stretching out like an elastic band about to snap. She was sick of telemarketers constantly calling, pulling her away from her work.
‘Hi,’ a male voice suddenly boomed in her ear. ‘Is Jake Burton there?’
The caller was Scottish. The accent was as thick and pronounced as Will’s.
‘Jake Burton?’ Amanda repeated the name. It sounded no more familiar when she said it herself. ‘Sorry, no. No one by that name lives here.’
She and Will had been in the house for eighteen months, almost the length of their marriage. It had been a new build just a twenty-minute drive from her mother’s house. The landline number was the same one Amanda had used at the apartment she’d lived in for eight years. The apartment she’d once shared with Shane.
‘No, he lives there,’ the caller challenged arrogantly. ‘Jake. Burton.’ He said the name slowly as though he were spea
king to a small child. Amanda blew a sharp breath through her nose, causing wisps of her ice-blonde hair to dance before her.
‘Like I said,’ Amanda gave what she hoped was a most audible sigh. She liked to convey her displeasure through non-spoken gestures, unlike Will who was always so direct. He’d have already told the caller to get lost by now. ‘There is no one here by that name. And I should know since I live here with my husband.’
‘I’m certain there’s a Jake Burton there.’ The caller was so confident, so sure of himself. It made Amanda want to throw her cordless phone at the wall. She didn’t have time to deal with a delusional Scotsman.
‘Well I’m certain there’s not,’ Amanda could feel herself bypassing angry and slipping into irate. She’d always shared her father’s less favourable quality of being quick to anger. ‘You’ve got the wrong number.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Jesus,’ Amanda raked her hand through her hair which hung loosely down to her shoulders. She should really have tied it back, especially when the weather was so densely hot both inside and out. But when she’d stepped out of the shower that morning she’d decided to just let it dry naturally. And so it had stayed hanging loosely around her neck for the rest of the day. Her blue eyes darted around the room as she flirted with the idea of just hanging up on the creepy caller. Her British sensibility forced her to hold on. It’d be too rude to just hang up, wouldn’t it? Taking a breath Amanda spoke slowly, clearly; ‘There is no Jake Burton here. You’ve got the wrong number, she dwelled on each word, hammering her point home.
‘You’re wrong.’
‘What?’ Amanda squeaked the word in shock. ‘I’m… I’m wrong?’ she pressed her hand to her chest. ‘I’m wrong about who lives in my own bloody house?’ she was pacing back and forth across the kitchen tiles. ‘Yeah, that’s exactly it,’ she hoped her voice was dripping with scathing sarcasm. ‘Look, there is no Jake Burton here. Accept that you’ve dialled the wrong number and don’t call here again.’
