The Legacy: Trouble Comes Disguised As Family (Unspoken Book 2) T. Belshaw (management books to read .txt) 📖

until she located her new lighter, then flicking it on, she crossed to the wall units and rummaged through what Alice called her ‘bits and bobs’ drawer, until she found one of the candles that Nana had kept for such emergencies.

The lighter was getting hot to the touch, so Jess quickly lit the wick of the candle and extinguished the lighter flame. Taking a saucer from the cupboard, she allowed a little of the melted wax to fall onto its smooth, white surface, then sat the candle in it. Placing the saucer on the table, Jess walked to the kitchen window and looked out. All of the lights were out across the entirety of the housing estate that had been built on the land that Alice had sold to the developers over the years. In the far distance, the street lights on the Gillingham road were still lit, telling her that a local substation must have gone down under pressure of demand. Suddenly, feeling an urgent need to pee, Jess picked up the saucer and carried it upstairs.

When she came out of the bathroom, she went through to the spare bedroom where she had stored Alice’s old landline telephone. She plugged the RJ11 connector into the upstairs phone socket, picked up the cordless handset from the cradle and held it to her ear but there was no dial tone.

‘You idiot, Jess,’ she said to herself. ‘These digital phones have to be plugged into the mains to work.’

Shoving the phone and cradle back into the cupboard, she held the candle in front of her and walked along the passage to her own bedroom where she had left her laptop. She placed the saucer carefully on the bedside table and opened up her computer. Finding no internet signal because of the power cut, she sat down on her bed and read back the twenty-paragraph article she had written the day before.

Half an hour later, satisfied with the work in progress, she snapped the laptop shut, stuck it under her arm and picking up the saucer again, she headed for the stairs.

Shielding the flame in case her movement caused it to go out, she walked along the landing, but as she reached the top of the stairs, a single flash of light exploded across the window that overlooked the front of the house. Puzzled as to who would be wandering along the remote lane in a blackout, Jess put her laptop on a side table, hurried to the front window and looked out just in time to see a figure carrying a torch, walk slowly past her car and disappear down the side of the house.

Thinking quickly, Jess assessed the situation. Surely if it was someone she knew; they would come to the front door? Why would they go all the way around to the back?

She pricked up her ears as she heard the click of the gate latch, then, panic struck as she realised that she hadn’t locked the back door after going outside for a cigarette earlier in the evening.

Holding the saucer in front of her, Jess raced for the stairs but as she reached the top step, the candle flame flickered in the sudden rush of air, then died.

‘Noooo.’ Dropping the saucer, Jess reached out her hand and felt for the banister. Using it as a guide she hurried down the stairs, turned right into the hall and after stumbling twice, found the kitchen door just as the torch beam flashed across the back window. Taking advantage of the small amount of light that filtered into the kitchen, Jess fell to her hands and knees and crawled as quickly as she could across the wooden floor. Reaching up as she neared the door, she twisted the key in the lock, turned her back to the door and tucked her knees under her chin as the sound of the creaking gate, echoed across the yard.

Jess wrapped her hands around her knees, and scarcely daring to breathe, twisted her head to the right as the full torch beam was directed into the kitchen. The ray of light moved back and forth across the room, lighting up the table, then the cupboards and the door to the lounge. She put both hands over her mouth and closed her eyes tight as she heard footsteps approach the door.

Jess held her breath as the intruder tried the handle. Then she felt a shiver of terror run down her spine, as whoever was outside, put their shoulder against the door and tried to force it open.

Thirty of the longest seconds in Jess’s life later, she heard the footsteps retreat towards the gate. Desperate to know what the interloper was about to do next, she got to her hands and knees, then moving to a crouched position, scurried through the darkness until her shoulder hit the doorframe leading to the lounge. Forcing down the yelp that tried to escape her mouth, she felt for the opening, then slid along the floor on her stomach until she found the coffee table. Lifting her hand, she groped about on the table top until it came into contact with her phone. Hoping against hope that it had received enough charge to enable her to make a call, she pulled it off the table, pressed the ‘on’ button and with her heart pounding in her chest, watched the screen as it loaded up the phone’s operating system.

As the home screen appeared, Jess took a quick glance at the status bar, and seeing only a tiny amount of charge in the phone, decided it would be better to speed-dial Sam, than spend time she might not have, waiting in a queue for the police to answer.

‘Please, pick up, please pick… Sam? It’s Jess… Yes, listen, my power is off and someone is trying to—’ Jess looked at her phone in horror as the in-call icon disappeared, to be replaced, once again, by a black screen. Tears of frustration filled her eyes.

‘Damn,’ she