Читать книгу The Child’s Secret - Amanda Brooke, Amanda Brooke - Страница 18

Laura’s muscles had tensed to the point where she could hardly breathe. She was sitting on the edge of her seat, her arms wrapped around her body as she rocked back and forth. Her nose was still blocked even though she had managed to hold back the flood of tears for the past half an hour. She was staring at a stain on the rug where Jasmine had spilled some blackcurrant juice the night before. It had been a minor mishap and yet, at that moment, it felt as if that grey mark she had tried so hard to scrub away was all she had left of her daughter.

The only other tangible link Jasmine had left behind was her Minnie Mouse umbrella, but the police had taken it away for tests. Her daughter had been hiding beneath it while Laura told her not to splash in the puddles, to behave herself for Natalie, and to hold Keira’s hand on their way to school that morning. She hadn’t bothered to step out into the rain herself to make sure Jasmine reached their neighbour’s house, despite there being a knot of anxiety in her stomach. She had been sick with worry about other things – everything except Jasmine arriving safely at school – but what if it was the last time she would see her daughter? What if whoever had taken her had been watching her careless farewell?

Don’t, she told herself. Don’t give up – not yet.

Her head pounded as she tried to find a more palatable answer. What if Jasmine had walked past their neighbour’s house on purpose and had run away? Then why had her umbrella been shoved into a nearby hedge? Natalie and Keira had found it when they had given up waiting for Jasmine and had called at the house to pick her up.

The door creaked open, pulling Laura away from dark thoughts that were too terrifying to contemplate. Her hand went to her throat and she pulled at her polo neck dress to give her more room to breathe. ‘Any news, Michael?’ she asked the family liaison officer as he poked his head into the living room.

The answer was apparent from the sympathetic look on his face. ‘Sorry. I just thought you’d like to know that DCI Harper is with Mr McIntyre who says he hasn’t seen Jasmine this morning.’

‘He’s lying,’ Finn said with snarl. ‘Give me five minutes with the bastard and I’ll get the truth out of him.’

Laura could taste the tears she was holding back, but it was the bile rising in her throat that made her gag. It was the last shred of hope she had been clinging onto, and, unlike her husband, she firmly believed that if Jasmine had been with Sam, she couldn’t be in safer hands. But if Jasmine wasn’t there, then where was she? If she had run away, where else would an eight-year-old child go? And if she hadn’t run away … As a sob tore from Laura’s lungs, she felt intense pain like a red-hot poker stabbing into her ribcage, making her gasp.

‘Are you all right, Laura?’ Michael asked.

Holding a hand to her left side for support, she took a few juddering breaths before speaking. ‘Sorry, just a twinge. I’ll be fine in a minute.’

Oblivious to his wife’s distress, Finn’s rant continued unabated. ‘I told Harper how Sam must have known what he was doing from the start,’ he said to Michael. ‘Anna – Jasmine’s teacher – told me how he actually tracked me down after meeting our Jazz. Who helps a complete stranger get a job unless there’s an ulterior motive? I should have seen it coming. If anything I blame myself,’ he said, shaking his head.

Laura was staring at the rug again. So do I, she thought and almost said it out loud.

‘Looking back, it’s so bloody obvious,’ Finn continued. ‘All that nonsense he told Jasmine about the Wishing Tree. Has Harper asked him about that? It was a sick and twisted trap to lure little girls. He’ll know where she is and if he’s so much as touched a hair on her head—’

‘If Sam says he hasn’t seen her then I believe him,’ Laura said, unable to hold her tongue a second longer.

‘Yeah, but you’re just as gullible as our Jazz when it comes to the wonderful Sam McIntyre. You were even more infatuated, and don’t go denying it. Well, I hope you’re pleased with yourself, Laura,’ Finn snapped back before the two resumed their vigil in silence.