loved her. He’d loved Jemma. To her bitter regret, Cassie hadn’t realised how much.
‘Love, Cassie. You know, that thing I seriously doubt you know anything about,’ Kim continued, dripping vitriol. ‘He loved me! I loved him. Unlike that bitch Jemma, who used him, hurt him, crushed him, thinking she could rob him of his child. Unlike his fucking bitch mother, who made him utterly miserable, emotionally damaged him, robbed him of his ability to trust! That’s what you did, Cassie. I hope you’re proud of your achievements.’
She was insane. Cassie’s heart boomed. ‘I can’t breathe,’ she gulped, grazing the flesh from her cheek as she twisted her head to one side.
‘Good,’ Kim snarled. ‘Die!’
Cassie’s blood froze. Was that what she wanted? To kill her?
‘I made Josh a promise.’ Kim babbled inanely on, unaware of Cassie creeping her hand closer to the torch, which had landed beside her. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was something. ‘I promised at his graveside that I would avenge his death. That I would make everyone who’d wronged him in life suffer the same kind of loss that he had, that I had.’
Panic gripped Cassie’s stomach. She had to talk to her. Try to reach her. Play for time. ‘I know how much you loved him, Kim,’ she said carefully. ‘I know when you lost him, you—’
‘You know nothing!’ Kim raged. ‘Samuel should have been mine! Mine and Josh’s, not hers. We were meant to have a baby together, destined to be together. She never loved him. She doesn’t love his baby. She doesn’t even know how to look after him!’
‘But you do,’ Cassie tried, her voice parched, from the pressure, the dirt and the rain. ‘It’s obvious how much you love Samuel, but this isn’t going to help him. We don’t know where he is.’ She took a gamble and prayed hard. She hadn’t been able to get hold of Jemma. If Jemma had realised how deranged Kim was, it was possible that she was running from her, rather than from Cassie. ‘He might be in danger. She might be hurting him, Kim. For God’s sake, think before you do anything. We have to talk, think of all the possible places he might be. We have to find him.’
Feeling the pressure on her back ease a little, she moved her hand another fraction.
‘Do you have any idea where she might be?’ Kim asked, now sounding uncertain.
Cassie hesitated. She had to make this convincing. ‘No, but if I can send her a text, I know how to persuade her to part with him.’
‘How?’ Kim asked doubtfully after a second.
‘Money.’ Cassie held her breath, prayed in earnest. ‘Jemma will give him up to someone who loves him, who can care for him properly, as long as she knows she can slip quietly away. I can help you too, Kim, if you—’
‘I don’t want your fucking money!’ Kim screamed. ‘I loved Josh. I would have followed him anywhere! Followed him onto the tracks!’
‘I know!’ Cassie’s fingers curled around the torch. ‘I know you would.’
It took all of her strength, all of her willpower, to buck her off and swing the torch.
As Kim flailed backwards, Cassie scrambled away, her heels slipping and sliding in the soft earth beneath her as she tried to lever herself up. Once on her feet, nausea and terror swilling inside her, it took a second for her mind to process what had happened.
Kim wasn’t moving.
Cassie’s world stopped turning, the whisper of the wind through the trees fading as she sank slowly back to her knees.
Move, she willed herself. Go. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t move. Her mind raced feverishly. She had to find Samuel. They would take him. The authorities… After everything… She dragged herself up, took a stumbling step backwards, swiping the blood and the rain away from her face – and then stopped, her gaze lighting on the phone at Kim’s side.
Her breath stalled in her throat. Sick trepidation clutching her stomach, she willed herself forward, faltered as if the devil might reach up from the bowels of hell and drag her down with him, then took another cautious step and snatched the phone up.
Gulping back the fear lodged like a shard of glass in her windpipe, she hesitated over the keypad, fingers trembling.
Fifty-Six
Adam
‘Anything?’ Adam asked Ryan, glancing back to where he stood trying to get hold of Jemma on the phone.
‘Nothing. She’s still not answering.’
‘And you’re sure she wasn’t at home?’ Adam asked futilely. Ryan had said the