Someone Who Isn't Me Danuta Kot (best books to read .TXT) 📖

about how life used to be. In her twenties, she was rarely in bed before one, and after she and Matt married, they often used to sit up into the small hours, appreciating the quiet when they could just be together, catch up with the day, make plans, talk.

Now, she was pretty much done by ten.

Old age tiptoes up behind you, armed with its sock full of wet sand and if you don’t watch out, it will get you. Had that happened? People talked about coming to terms with Matt’s death, but in truth, the pain could still knock her sideways sometimes. In the aftermath, in the struggle to keep going, had she let herself get old?

She drifted into a fitful sleep where Matt was saying to her, over and over again, ‘You have to watch out for it, you know.’

And suddenly she was wide awake again.

It wasn’t Milo this time. He was sitting up in his basket, alert, but he hadn’t barked.

She pushed herself up, listening, trying to shake the remnants of the dream away. You have to watch out for it, you know… Something in the road? Another bike? Was that what had woken her? But there was nothing, nothing at all.

Then Milo growled, and she thought there was – just on the edge of hearing – a faint sound from downstairs, like the click of a door swinging closed.

Catherine Ford’s stories flooded into her mind – cars speeding along dark lanes, people breaking into farms and houses to steal, maybe harm…

Milo erupted.

Damn! Hell and blast!

It couldn’t be anything. Could it? The house was secure. She’d locked up, there was nothing valuable here, but she wouldn’t be able to sleep now until she was sure. Putting on her slippers and wrapping her dressing gown round her, she stood at the open bedroom door. All she could hear was the rain, and…

Was it? Could she hear something moving down there in the darkness? She stayed where she was, listening, but she didn’t hear it again. Milo pressed against her legs, making a low grumbling sound. ‘What is it, boy?’ But Milo just pressed closer, the growl steady in his throat.

Part of her wanted to go back to bed, pull the covers over her head and pretend nothing had happened. But another part, the stubborn part, wasn’t going to do that. She left the room and moved towards the stairs, looking down into the hallway.

Just shadows.

And silence.

‘OK,’ she spoke out loud for the comfort of hearing a human voice. ‘Tea. Come on, Milo.’ If someone had broken in, she was giving them due notice there was someone here so they could discreetly make their exit. Stopping to grab her torch – she didn’t trust that ancient fuse box, and anyway, the lights were so dim it would be easy to trip on something hidden in the shadows – she headed down the stairs, making as much noise as she could.

It made her feel like one of her foster kids, one of the girls, who lived in mortal terror of both axe-wielding serial killers and creepy-crawlies. Kay used to be very brisk with all that sort of nonsense, but here she was whistling in the dark to keep her own monsters at bay. The torch was a reassuring weight in her hand. Get a grip, Kay. There’s no one here. If there was, it would only be a break-in, and the culprit would have scarpered smartly at the sound of Milo’s bark.

It was a reasonable precaution to check, though, and she did. The front door was locked, and the downstairs windows were all tightly shut. Idiot, she told herself. She’d done all of this before she went to bed. She went down the corridor to the back of the house, using the torch to supplement the dim lighting. Her dressing gown caught on the knob of the door into the cubbyhole under the stairs, which she must have left open. She’d forgotten about that.

Shining her torch into the space, she reached across and tried the door that led to the storage shed. It was locked.

All secure.

As she opened the kitchen door, the moon came out from behind the clouds, filling the room with a pale light. Kay stood at the window, looking out across the flat, bleak landscape where the grasses danced in the rain, their wet sheen glittering in the moonlight, and stunted trees formed strange shapes against the sky. Then the clouds closed in again, leaving her in darkness.

Her hand hesitated over the light switch. If she turned it on, the light would blaze out, saying clearly, ‘I’m here.’ But wasn’t that what she wanted? If people knew the house was inhabited, they’d stay away.

If there was anyone out there.

Which there wasn’t.

She was pretty sure now she had been dreaming. Yes, Milo had barked, but it didn’t take much to freak Milo out, especially in an unfamiliar place. He’d barked at the motorbikes earlier. That was probably what had woken her up.

She’d always dealt matter-of-factly with teenage night terrors, and now she tried to deal the same way with herself. It was a dream. It was something outside in the road. It had made her uneasy, but it wasn’t anything to do with her. She filled the kettle and switched it on, taking a clean mug from the draining board and getting a carton of milk out of the fridge. A cup of tea, then back to bed. She checked her watch again. Three thirty.

Milo was snuffling around, back to his usual self. The kettle clicked off. Kay filled her mug and left the tea to brew for a minute.

Milo let out a sharp, sudden bark.

She jumped, knocking the milk over and flooding the worktop.

Footsteps. Outside. She could hear them clearly, faint but getting louder as they came closer.

Coming straight towards the back door.

Kay froze, her heart hammering. Her gaze locked on the door handle. Could she see it… was it moving, or was she…?

Milo barked again, a sharp,