Single (ARC)

by K. L. Slater

Now, Daniela had the chance to be with a wonderful man and his adorable daughter, little Romy, who was desperate for a mother. Between them, Steph and George had separately convinced Daniela that Darcy was indeed unstable. She was not a good influence on Romy nor on her own two sons. Daniela was convinced that, as Steph had told her, the best place for the boys was with them, Joel’s family.

  But to do this, they had to lure Darcy, make her vulnerable. Daniela had agreed with George that she would play her part in bringing this to fruition.

  The boy whimpered behind the gag she’d applied to him. She pushed away the feelings of revulsion that she’d actually taken a child and done this. George had assured her it wouldn’t be for long and the pay-off was going to be wonderful.

  ‘It won’t be long now,’ Daniela told the boy coolly. ‘Be quiet.’

  He stared her out with dark, sparking eyes. He was bold for such a young age, she’d give him that. She could see Joel in him in so many ways and she hated it. Looking at the child seemed to magnify her feelings of inadequacy.

  But soon, very soon, she’d have her own daughter. Romy was young enough that she’d come to accept Daniela completely as her mother. Given time, she’d hopefully be unable to remember a time when she’d been motherless.

  Thanks to George, Daniela’s life was soon to be complete. She didn’t give a toss what happened to Darcy Hilton and Joel’s sons.

  Sixty-Six

  It was bitterly cold out here and George wished he’d picked up his padded anorak from the back of his office door when he’d left the hospital earlier.

  Darcy had been in such a panic when she’d called to say Harrison was missing, everything else seemed unimportant.

  George hurried around the back of the house and the kitchen door opened. Daniela stepped out and kissed him on the cheek. She’d approached him weeks ago, when they’d got back from the lodge, got his work address from Joel’s sister, apparently. She’d caught him on the day he was annoyed at Darcy for calling the police and the lodge manager about his non-existent complaint.

  He’d bought her a coffee and she’d explained everything about who Darcy was and what she had done to her marriage.

  ‘I thought you had a right to know the truth,’ she’d said and George had had a lightbulb moment, realising the potential of Daniela’s involvement.

  She seemed a strong character, but George liked a challenge. Destroying women was his favourite pastime, a reaction to his mother dying and deserting him as a child, psychologists would no doubt conclude. But no, he smiled to himself, he just genuinely enjoyed the power he could wield over them. Yet this one seemed different. She wasn’t soft bellied and easy to break and George respected that. Together, he realised, they could finally get rid of the problem that had blighted the last few years of his life: Opal Vardy.

  He could even make a new start with a new identity abroad somewhere. Escape the terrible storm that was whipping up around him at the hospital.

  ‘Good job,’ he murmured, stepping into the warmth provided by the oil-filled heater. He looked at Harrison, bound and gagged in the chair.

  The boy’s eyes flashed with fury and he wriggled his torso, kicking out with his feet. The chair wobbled, threatened to tip over.

  ‘Enough!’ George barked. ‘Stop struggling.’

  Harrison seemed to double his efforts, yelling out a retort from behind his gag that translated as an angry yelp.

  ‘He kicked me when I walked past him just now.’ Daniela frowned, rubbing her right knee. ‘He’s a little live wire.’

  In response to this, Harrison let out another aggressive yell and kicked out at George, narrowly missing his leg.

  George reached for the pair of scissors on the side next to the large roll of masking tape Daniela had used to secure the boy. Harrison stopped yelling, his eyes wide with fear and trepidation. Quick as lightning, George moved the scissors towards his head, then snipped hard into the soft lobe of his ear. The blood started pouring almost immediately, and he allowed it to trickle down onto Harrison’s pale grey sweatshirt.

  Colour drained from the boy’s face. He pressed his chin down to his chest so he could see the blossoming red patch on his left shoulder and began to shake and sob uncontrollably.

  Daniela held a white bandage to Harrison’s ear, stemming the blood flow, and grinned at George. Both of them knew it wasn’t a serious cut, just a clean snip about half a centimetre long. But the ear could bleed quite profusely for up to ten minutes, and consequently the injury looked worse than it was.

  George crouched down next to the boy.

  ‘That’s one ear lopped off,’ he said softly. ‘Unless you do exactly what I tell you, I’ll take the other one too. Understand?’

  Fat, glistening tears ran down Harrison’s face and he nodded vigorously, fear rather than fury glinting in his eyes now.

  Without warning, George reached up and ripped the masking tape from his mouth, and the boy promptly vomited into his own lap.

  The boy’s life would have to be sacrificed, there was no way around that. He was old enough to tell the police exactly how he came to be here and what had happened.

  It would be another death he could attribute to Opal’s mental illness. She would be here any minute thanks to his message to meet her to finally talk about the future of her child.

  Sixty-Seven

  Opal and Maria watched as George got out of the Audi and hurried inside the house.

  ‘Wait here,’ she told her mother. ‘Don’t call the police until I give you the sign. I have to try and record him for evidence or we might never get Romy back.’

  She waited another minute or so before creeping down the path of the old Victorian house sitting in its own large plot. She noted that the front curtains were drawn. Not a usual practice at teatime, she thought.

  She was so close to getting her daughter back and exposing him to the world now, she could feel it. With Darcy hopefully on board and knowing about George’s lies, she felt sure that between them, they had everything they needed to put him in prison.

  Opal believed that Harrison was inside this house and she thought she knew who with. She’d followed them here twice in the last couple of weeks. She’d thought it was their love nest, somewhere they conducted their clandestine affair away from Darcy’s eyes but now… she wasn’t quite so sure. Maybe it was a kind of business arrangement between two people hell bent on getting different sorts of revenge.

  Opal had been about to tell Darcy about Daniela when she’d spotted George’s Audi returning and so hadn’t gotten chance to explain about this place. When she’d got back to her own car and checked the phone she’d left in there, she’d seen George’s message asking to meet her. And she just knew something was very wrong.

  ‘Opal!’ a voice called out and she froze, looking over her shoulder to see Darcy rushing towards the house. She pressed a finger to her mouth, urged the other woman to keep quiet.

  ‘Is Harrison in there? Is this where you’re keeping him?’ Darcy stormed towards Opal, her fists clenched and face bright red, as if she might attack her.

  ‘I told you,’ Opal hissed. ‘It’s not me you have to worry about. Now, if you really want to keep your son safe, then be quiet.’

  Opal slipped down the side of the house and inched around the corner to the kitchen window. The light was on in there, and as she looked through into the house, she saw a figure walk down the small hallway and into the front room.

  Darcy said nothing but she was right behind her and it crossed Opal’s mind that she was angry enough to punch her.

  Opal crept to the back door and tried the handle. It was open. In their arrogance, they’d left it unlocked, so sure were they of their infallibility.

  Very carefully, she applied gentle pressure to the handle until it had moved down as far as it would go, and then pushed the door open, just enough to slip inside the kitchen.

  All she had to do was confirm they had Darcy’s son here, then she could slip back out and run to t
he car, where her mother would call the police. With George out of the way and not controlling her any more by threatening to kill their child and blame it on her, Opal would be free to have a DNA test and prove she was Romy’s biological mother.

  What a sweet moment it would be when she and her daughter could be together and do all the normal things they had missed out on courtesy of George’s wickedness. The thought was pure heaven, and she could be just minutes away from it…

  She tiptoed towards the hallway, stopping when she heard low voices. She identified George’s deep tones, then Daniela’s higher voice. Then a child’s cry, a sort of pain-filled yelp. What were they doing to the kid in there?

  Opal slid her fingers into her top pocket and depressed a button.

  ‘Harrison!’ Darcy screamed and bounded forward through the kitchen.

  Opal darted forward behind her and pushed open the door into the front room, then recoiled in horror at the sight of George wielding some kind of stainless-steel implement above the boy’s head. That woman who Darcy had been watching for the past few weeks – Daniela – roughly pulled Harrison’s head back.

  Darcy leapt forward and scooted around George who seemed disorientated for a moment. She smashed her body into Daniela, who toppled, smashing her head on the side of a cabinet behind. Darcy didn’t glance at the other woman, she began pulling the gag from her poor son’s face.

  Opal turned to run back out to the car and alert her mother to call the police, George took three great strides across the room and grabbed her arm.

  With just the two of them in the hallway, he pulled her towards him and tightened his grip. In the dim light, his face looked manic, patterned with shadow.

  ‘You can’t hold me in limbo any more, George.’ Opal spat the words at his smirking face. ‘Esther died but I never meant to harm her. I’m no danger to Romy, you know that. I’m her mother!’

  ‘Of course I know that. I also know how gullible you are, doubting yourself all this time.’ He grinned and his voice dropped lower. ‘I’ll let you into a little secret, just between us. I smothered baby Esther. I did it to keep you in check, so I had something to hold over you so you wouldn’t fight too hard for Romy.’

  Opal gaped. She swayed as the room began to spin, cries and the sounds of struggle emanating from the front room. ‘But why… why tell me the truth now? All this time I’ve hated myself, believed that—’

  ‘I’m a softy at heart. I thought you might like to know with you being on your deathbed and all.’ He held a lethal-looking scalpel up in the air in his gloved hand, his crazed eyes gleaming. ‘You’re about to take your last breath and Darcy will be taking the rap for your murder. With her in prison, the boys will go to Joel’s family and you… well, you’ll be out of my hair once and for all. Romy will have a new mother in Daniela.’

  ‘My mother, she—’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think Maria will be a problem and if she is, she’ll probably decide quite quickly to end it all. I’m quite good at convincing people of that, as your brother found out at St Mark’s.’

  George barrelled forward as Darcy threw her weight into him from behind.

  Opal took the chance to wriggle free and flung herself forward, grabbing a long knife from the block on the counter, then turned, pushing back against the worktop. As George charged towards her, she instinctively held the knife out in front of her, faintly aware that Darcy was wailing in the room where Harrison was being held.

  Opal felt the warm stickiness on her hand before she realised what had happened. Still clutching the scalpel, George remained standing, staring into her eyes, her very soul, before sinking to his knees, a terrible gurgling sounding in his throat.

  At that moment, a figure appeared at the kitchen door. Her mother.

  ‘The police are on their way,’ she whimpered, covering her face with a hand as she looked down on George’s lifeless body.

  Sixty-Eight

  Three months later

  After the boys have had their breakfast and allowing them some time in the gaming room, I sit on the sofa watching Romy, together at last with her mum and granny. I feel almost as though I’m intruding on the wonderful love they all have for each other, denied for so long.

  ‘Darcy, look!’ Romy holds up the beaded bracelet she’s making.

  ‘That’s beautiful, sweetie. Well done!’

  She beams, her cheeks ruddy and her eyes bright.

  She’s a different child since she’s been reunited with her mother. She never knew what was happening behind the scenes, of course, never knew her daddy was responsible for the greatest sadness in her life: the death of her twin, Esther. But children can sense danger and tension in the air and it had always been around her as George blackmailed Opal and constantly held Romy as ransom to control her.

  We’re all living in George’s house for now. Sounds a strange arrangement, I know, but I have more in common with these two women than some people have who’ve known each other for years. I feel relaxed in their presence.

  We’ve all been controlled by George, we’re all dealing with our own guilt as we ask ourselves the same question every day: Why didn’t I see through him from the start?

  But we’re finding strength in each other. None of us are stupid people but George was an outstanding pathological liar.

  Living here in the house is the easiest solution for a number of reasons. Myself and the boys were effectively homeless having left our own rented home to move in with George. We did so weeks before the terrible events, as we’ve come to refer to the day when Harrison was abducted and George died. I couldn’t turn to Joel’s family for support when they were fighting to get custody of my sons and that was before I found out that George had helped them in their quest.

  But the biggest reason for keeping the status quo is for Romy’s sake. She’s only ever known this house as her home and been through such already in her short life. Her daddy has died – although for now she thinks he’s gone away for a while – and although she loves Maria, she thinks of her as the housekeeper and has only known her mother, Opal, as Maria’s friend.

  Living here has also meant we’ve been able to talk everything through together… and boy, has there been a lot to talk about. I’m still amazed that the woman George set me up to think of as my greatest foe, Opal, is now someone I trust implicitly.

  Likewise, Maria, who I thought hated me, turns out to be someone I greatly admire. A woman who made such incredible sacrifices; she worked for the man who, as a teenager, drove her son to suicide at school. A man who robbed Maria’s daughter of her child and prevented Maria from enjoying a close, natural relationship with Romy as her grandmother.

  ‘I was never interested in George, I found out how cruel a man he was long ago and I hated him. But I loved my daughter with all my heart and that’s why I shadowed their every move,’ Opal explained when we were finally able to talk after all the drama of the terrible events. ‘At the end, George inadvertently gave me the greatest gift when he told me for spite that Esther’s death was not my fault. I’ve felt like ending my life so many times because of the burden of that guilt, believing I killed my own child through negligence. It was only my love for Romy and my belief that one day, maybe, just maybe, there might be a chance we’ll be reunited.’

  ‘It was Opal’s idea for me to take the housekeeper job,’ Maria said. ‘I had to tell George who I was because I knew if he found out – and he was a very resourceful man – I’d never see my granddaughter again.’

  ‘How did you get him to agree to it?’ I asked her, hardly believing that George would allow such an arrangement.

  ‘I put it to him like a business proposal,’ Maria said. ‘I told him I knew of my daughter’s mental health problems and that I thought the best place for Romy was with him. He agreed I could take the position and have contact with my granddaughter but he warned me: the first time I put a foot wrong, he’d make sure I never saw her again.’

  ‘He fired you when you had a bit of a m
eltdown at me because he thought you’d ruin his plans to set Opal and I at loggerheads?’

  Maria nodded. ‘He told me I had become too much of a risk and that, if I had another outburst of temper, I might tell you the truth about Romy. He said if I went quietly, he’d consider reinstating me in the future when he’d got some problems “ironed out” as he put it.’

  ‘When I’d attacked Opal for abducting Harrison, he meant. That’s what he hoped would happen. He planned to kill her and place the blame firmly on me… with Daniela’s help.’

  Maria nodded, looked sheepish.

  ‘I admit, when he brought you back to the house, I was terrified you were the one he’d settle down with. When you showed me the diamond bracelet he’d gifted you, I really panicked… it belonged to Lucy, you see. I knew he was serious about you then, although I never realised you were part of his plan to get rid of Opal.’ Maria shook her head. ‘When I saw you getting closer to Romy, I became convinced you would end up bringing her up as your own daughter and there would be nothing me or Opal could do about that. Our only chance was to stop that happening in the first place.’

  Telling Maria that day that I hoped Romy and I could become closer was probably the worst thing I could have said to her.

  ‘All the stuff I did; watching you, sending photographs, the funeral flowers, messing up your car… it was the only way I could try and warn you off,’ Opal said.

  ‘But he’d already told me you were stalking him, so in a way, the actions you took to try and warn me just proved his point.’

  ‘Everything has always seemed to work to his advantage,’ Opal agreed.

  Our conversations spanned over many nights. When the kids had gone up to bed, we’d sit with endless cups of coffee, remembering details, ironing out quirks that had puzzled me; lies that George had fed me.

  ‘When he said Opal had come to the door one day demanding to be let inside and you, Maria, alerted him to what happened, he’d made that up?’ I asked.