Читать книгу The Disobedient Wife - Elizabeth Power, Elizabeth Power - Страница 8

SNATCHED!

Kendal stared at the small circular brown stain on the worn carpet that seemed to be swimming in front of her eyes. There had been endless questions, and more police, the second lot more interrogative than the first.

But they had all gone now, leaving her to cope with the numbing realisation of what had happened.

Matthew kidnapped. Abducted. Her little baby snatched away while he was supposed to have been in Valerie’s care, when she had thought he was safe, secure…

‘Here.’

She stared sightlessly at that familiar masculine hand holding the thick glass tumbler in front of her, at the dark hair feathering the tanned wrist.

‘Drink it,’ he ordered. ‘It will make you feel better. Or at least put some life back into you.’

Because she had nearly fainted, she remembered—almost collapsing from the shock when the policewoman had told her, and she had recovered herself to feel Jarrad’s arm supporting her, his voice murmuring soft assurances. Empty assurances, she thought, because, of course, what could he do?

She took the glass he thrust at her now and drank, coughing at the burn of brandy on her throat.

Mrs Humphries, the police had said—referring to her child minder—was still in shock, distraught, unable to comprehend how it could have happened. Matthew had been playing in the front garden, with the gate locked, she had told them. Her back had only been turned for a moment, but when she had looked round again he was gone.

But how could he be gone? Kendal agonised. Her baby stolen? Taken away. Just like that. True, it was only a low gate, but Matthew was shy of strangers, and if someone had tried to lift him over he would have screamed…

‘That’s better,’ she heard Jarrad say as she took another sip of the burning spirit. ‘That’s my girl.’ And as he took the glass from her she thought how soft his voice was, surprisingly gentle. She hadn’t heard him speak to her like that in over a year.

‘What are we going to do?’ A ton of granite seemed to be pressing on her chest, and the eyes she turned to his were sore and puffy, their dark anxiety almost an entreaty to him, as though he had powers that she didn’t, as though he could make everything all right.

‘We’ll have to wait and see what the police come up with.’

He turned away from her, dumping her glass down on the narrow bay windowsill, and stood, staring out at the ash tree in the colourless communal front garden, its branches swaying today in a keen breeze.

‘Wait and see!’ Propelled by a new surge of adrenalin, Kendal sprang to her feet, coming halfway across the room. ‘I can’t just sit here and wait while someone’s out there doing heaven knows what with my son!’