Discarded M. Hunter (the snowy day read aloud TXT) 📖

door there is a sudden surge of excitement as those at the front extract their phones, and I now realise the error of my ways. This event is going to last all day at this rate.

‘It really has been a pleasure meeting you,’ he says when I hand him the book, ‘and I was wondering whether it would be possible for me to see you again some time? Maybe we could go for a drink in town? You live locally, and I’m just up the road in Dorchester… what do you say?’

In my periphery Maddie is tapping the watch on her wrist. I need to choose the path of least resistance.

‘Um, yeah, okay, a drink in town sounds great,’ I respond, scribbling my number on the back of a promotional bookmark that is set into a fan-shape on one corner of the table.

He presses the bookmark into the inside cover of the book, and peels away with his sister in search of the nearest till. When he calls later, I’ll just have to tell him that I’m not officially on the market as I’m waiting for Jack, but then who knows if that wait will ever end? I don’t have time to think about it because the next reader approaches carrying copies of Ransomed and Isolated, waiting to be signed. When she tells me she’s flown in from Canada just to be here today, my head feels ready to explode.

Chapter Sixteen Then

Hayling Island, Hampshire

The rumble and bouncing had stopped, and as Joanna struggled to separate her eyelids it was impossible to hazard whether it was night or day. Her head ached like never before, but it wasn’t just her brain that was out of sorts; her entire body ached, like it had just been put through the most rigorous physical activity and then tossed onto the scrapheap.

Blurred shapes drifted in and out of one another as she forced her head up off the mattress, and desperately tried to make sense of what had happened. The memories that she could just about cling to didn’t make any sense, and she urgently needed the warm hands of her mother and the reassuring voice of her father to let her know that everything would be okay.

The ache wasn’t restricted to the area just behind her eyes. In fact, as she finally managed to lift her torso from the firm mattress, it felt as though kilogram weights had been attached to both ears and it was all she could do to stop her head lolling from one side to another. Was this what a hangover felt like? She’d heard her parents discussing the after-effects of drinking too much alcohol, but if this was the effect then she couldn’t understand why anyone would put themselves through it. If someone had emerged and offered to end her life there and then, she would have been hard-pressed not to consider it.

Fragments of memory returned: getting in Grey’s car; them driving past her road; the death threat of the men outside; the caravan; Chez making the pasta. None of it had been real, had it? Surely this wasn’t now her reality? Sitting upright on the mattress, she compelled her eyelids to open wider, despite the agony of additional exposure to light. She couldn’t remain in this half-functioning state. The blurred shapes before her sharpened fractionally and she realised she was inside the back bedroom of the caravan. Immediately in front of her was the small chest of drawers attached to the paper-thin wall that enclosed the small toilet and shower. To her left was the single bed that Chez had said she should sleep on last night before she’d curled up on the bench in the main room.

She couldn’t bear to acknowledge that this was in fact her new reality, and so instead she focused on the one thing that offered a modicum of hope: escape. Sitting on the edge of the bed wouldn’t help, and she had no idea when someone might return to check on her. Pressing her cold hands into the mattress beside her bottom, she launched herself up, not realising the message hadn’t reached her legs. She crashed forwards into the chest of drawers, narrowly avoiding cracking her temple on the sharp corner.

Her right knee hit the unforgiving floor, but she managed to steady herself long enough to thrust her hands to the thin carpet and stop full-on collapse. A fresh memory fizzed: Grey thrusting her back into the caravan, and Chez lifting her legs. They’d carried her into this room and pinned her to the mattress. Her hand shot up to her neck where she now recalled the prick of the needle as it entered her skin. There was no pain there now, only numbness.

What had they injected her with? Was that why she felt so crooked now? Would she ever feel herself again, or was this the new normal? Had they meant to kill her, and she’d clung onto life, or had the intention just been incapacitation?

Chez’s betrayal had hurt more than the needle. What kind of brother would allow his sister to be drugged? And not only that, he had participated in the pinning down. Had she been naïve to think he was on her side? Had all that big brother stuff just been an act to keep her from thinking about running?

Too many questions, and nowhere near enough answers. Would they know she’d be due to come round about now? If so, that limited her opportunity to get out – not that she was in any state to go anywhere.

Planting her fingers into the carpet tiles, she crawled on hands and knees along the narrow corridor and into the kitchen area. It was much brighter here than it had been in the bedroom and she had to keep her chin pressed into her chest to shield her exposed eyes. It smelt less musty in here than she remembered; there was something different now hanging in the