Trust Me - Sheryl Browne Page 0,78

so I grabbed an early night.’

‘Oh no.’ Turning to face her, Sally blinked at her sympathetically. ‘But you’re all right now?’

‘Fine.’ She mustered a smile. ‘It’s just a virus I can’t seem to shake off, I think. How’s things with you?’

‘Well …’ Blushing, Sally glanced down and back. ‘I wasn’t going to say anything yet, but … we’re expecting a happy event.’

Emily stared at her, cold foreboding clutching her stomach.

‘I’m pregnant,’ Sally announced, and waited.

Emily reeled with a mixture of fear and confusion. Jake had categorically denied that the text had anything to do with him or Sally. He’d been seething with anger that she would think it did. Yet here Sally was announcing that she was pregnant. ‘Congratulations,’ she managed. ‘I bet you’re thrilled to bits.’

‘I am.’ Sally smiled excitedly. ‘It wasn’t planned, but now that I’m getting used to the idea, I’m over the moon. Dave is, too. Mind you, he’s a big kid himself. He’s probably out shopping now for Lego or footballs or something.’

‘Really?’ Emily’s heart thrashed wildly against her chest. ‘That’s very decent of him … under the circumstances,’ she said, and watched her friend’s face slowly blanch.

‘What circumstances?’ Sally murmured, eyeing her warily.

Emily said nothing. Nausea swilling inside her again as she wondered whether she was horribly wrong, whether she was truly going insane or whether the lies she was being told were designed to make her think that she was, she turned and walked away.

Thirty

Millie

‘Just one more time,’ Louis said, wearing his best winning smile as he leaned across from the driving seat to peer up at her. ‘I’ll have this guy off my back after that, and then no more, promise.’

Millie felt her heart drop. ‘But can’t you just ask him for a bit more time? You’ve paid him regularly, so he knows you’re making an effort. And it’s not like he doesn’t know where you live.’

‘Yeah, that’s the problem, though, isn’t it?’ Sighing heavily, Louis leaned back and pulled one of his smokes from his shirt pocket. ‘He’s already given me a week’s grace. He wants me to settle my debt, which I don’t have a snowball in hell’s chance of doing. He won’t hesitate to pay me a visit if I don’t give him something.’

Watching him light up, Millie wished he wouldn’t smoke that stuff in the car. Opening her window, she tried not to mind. He was obviously stressed. ‘Can’t you just pay him a bit more each week? I could help,’ she offered. She wished she could do more to help him pay it off. But she didn’t have anything worth selling apart from her PC, which she needed, and the fifty pounds she had in the bank wouldn’t make much of a dent in the three hundred pounds he said he still owed the man.

Louis drew smoke deep into his lungs, held it a second and then blew it out slowly. ‘It’s drugs money, sweetheart. I don’t think he’s going to be very impressed if I offer him a cut of your pocket money,’ he said, a droll edge to his tone that made Millie feel about twelve years old, like some silly kid who didn’t get it. She did. She wasn’t naïve. She knew it was dangerous to owe people drugs money, and this was before Louis had pointed out the man he owed it to in the pub when they’d gone into Worcester one night. He’d said he was called Bear because he was built like one. He was right. A great bloody bruiser of a bloke with an ugly scorpion tattoo on his neck, he definitely looked dangerous. Louis said the scorpion represented intimidation and fear, and then told her that the last person who’d owed him money had gone missing, eventually turning up in bin bags floating in the canal. Several of them. ‘They never did find his head,’ he’d said, a nervous swallow sliding down his throat as he’d eyed the man with deep trepidation.

‘Can’t you go to the police?’ she asked now, immediately realising that she actually did sound naïve, as Louis almost choked on his joint.

‘Yeah, right.’ He rolled unimpressed eyes in her direction. ‘They’ll be falling over themselves to offer me protection, won’t they, when I tell them this bloke I owe a shitload of money to for drugs is threatening to part me from my balls.’

Millie’s heart sank. Of course he couldn’t go the police. What a dumb thing to have said. ‘But you don’t do hard drugs