J & P Book 5 - Never Let Me Go

Chapter Fourteen

She waited in the back garden a little longer, until she was confident that everyone was outside on the driveway. She heard a lot of shouting and commotion from around the side of the house, and realised her opportunity had come.

She was extremely pleased with herself. She and Joe had engineered this plan down to the last detail, and so far it seemed to be going well. It was risky; but hopefully the police would be here soon enough to arrest Deny. Not too soon, though. There was one more thing left to do.

She gently and quietly unlocked the French doors with the key she'd just obtained from outside the front window, and calmly made her way through the lounge, through the hallway and up the stairs. She hadn't been upstairs in this house, but the first room she tried was the room where Grace lay sleeping, and she quickly picked her up and wrapped her in a shawl which she found close to the cot.

"You're coming with me, yes you are," she cooed at the baby. She was rather disappointed to see how much Grace resembled her mother, as opposed to her father. Hopefully she was Paul's daughter, and Jenny hadn't been stupid enough to have an affair. Some people had everything and squandered it.

Quietly she tiptoed downstairs, praying that Grace wouldn't stir too much. Although the shouting outside would hopefully mask that. She made it to the French doors again, but was horrified to hear someone coming in through the front door, before she'd made it out of the back doors. She might not have been seen. She carried on and shut the French doors behind her.

She went back round the side of the house where she knew she could duck down behind the wheelie bins while she assessed if it was safe for her to move. There were a number of cars parked on the driveway and she was confident that the only people outside were sitting, or maybe lying, behind them; they wouldn't see her. One must be Paul; she secretly hoped he would be okay. Yes, she'd said to Joe she wanted him dead, but she wasn't sure if she meant it now.

She snuck away, keeping close to the house next door, her dark clothing camouflaging her in the darkening February sky. She ran after a while and she kept going. She hid Grace underneath her open coat, but she was getting heavy. She needed another way to carry her. And she was waking up. She stopped running.

Grace started to cry as Baby struggled to assemble the shawl into a makeshift sling to carry her in. "Shh," she said, impatiently. "I'm your mummy now."

***

She got off the bus just round the corner from the train station, and headed towards it, not really certain of where she was going to go. But as she approached the entrance, she froze. This wasn't right. It wasn't the baby's fault. She didn't know what to do with a baby.

Maybe she should abandon her, leave her here. That would be just as cruel as running off with her, surely? Something might happen to her. Someone else might take her.

She hadn't had a message from Joe yet. He was supposed to call her, or text her, when he'd left the house, to arrange a meeting place. They'd talked about the station. But no calls, no messages, and he was not here.

She called him, but there was no answer. She decided against leaving a message.

It had been fate; him contacting her as he had. He'd managed to find her profile on Facebook, even though her name on Facebook was Baby Kassie right now, he'd found her and known she was the Elizabeth Silva who'd stabbed Jenny Dunral and kidnapped her son. Joe had initially just wanted to find out more about what had happened, but they got on very well, and it soon became apparent that they both had unfinished business to attend to.