Girl A, Dan Scottow [best short books to read .TXT] 📗

footwell. She had no hope of getting it without stopping the car.

Something told her that would not be wise.

She kept driving, her speed creeping up.

The car behind sped up and bumped into the rear of her Range Rover.

Whoever was following her was not just trying to scare her.

Beth tried desperately to put some distance between them, but she couldn’t get away.

The other vehicle veered sharply, clipping her rear end. As the cars impacted together, Beth swerved. Overcompensating, she crossed onto the wrong side of the road. She cursed as she corrected her steering.

Thank God there was nobody coming the other way.

Her knuckles turned pale as she gripped the wheel, trying to remain in control.

Once more, she was shunted aggressively.

She peered into her rear-view mirror, desperate to see who was behind her. Trying to make out a licence plate. Any detail at all about the car.

But all she saw was blinding white headlights.

The vehicle swerved out to Beth’s right and back into the side of her car. She kept her eyes fixed firmly ahead, trying to keep to the road. Metal squealed and crunched.

The impact and speed were too much. Beth lost control.

She slammed on the brakes too late.

Her car collided with a barbed-wire fence and Beth’s head bounced off the steering wheel as she came to a halt in a field.

Her pursuer screeched away. The tail lights disappeared into the night like two red eyes of a demon speedily retreating into the darkness.

And then there was silence.

21

Ringing.

As Beth came round, that’s what she heard. She felt dazed, momentarily unsure what had happened. Then the horror of the car chase flooded back to her. She didn’t know how long she had been there, but she knew she had been knocked unconscious.

Her phone. It was buzzing. She grabbed her bag, sluggish from the knock on the head. And then she remembered she had dropped the handset. She scrambled about on the floor, finding it under the passenger seat. Her vision was still not right. She struggled to focus on the screen. The caller rang off.

The screen showed the time as 10.45.

‘Damn, damn, damn,’ Beth whispered. She scrolled her screen.

Two missed calls from Margot. Five from Charlie.

She slipped her phone back into her bag and tried the ignition. Surprisingly, the car started on the first try. She reversed out of the field, up onto the road and headed for home.

* * *

As she pulled in slowly to the gravel driveway, Charlie stood in the doorway of their house, a stern expression on his face.

He eyed the car as Beth parked up. She turned off the engine but remained sitting in the driver’s seat.

Charlie strode over to her, wrenching the door open.

‘Where the hell have you been? And what the fuck happened to the car? It’s totally mangled!’

‘I… had an accident.’

‘My God! Are you okay?’ He crouched down beside her.

‘Yeah, I’m fine. I lost control and went into a field.’

Charlie embraced Beth before helping her up. He slipped an arm around her waist and walked her back to the house. As they stepped into the hallway, the warmth of her home hit her and she slumped, letting Charlie support her. He turned her towards him.

He sniffed, screwing up his face.

‘You’ve been drinking.’

‘I had two glasses of wine.’

Charlie looked at her, his disappointment apparent.

He sat her on the sofa and stood with his arms folded in front of his chest. His brown eyes fixed intently on her face.

‘Charlie, I swear I’m not drunk.’

‘So you drove your car into a field because you are totally sober, right?’

The sarcasm was thick in his voice, and it stung Beth like a slap.

‘No. I went off the road because…’ She stopped. She didn’t want to tell him.

‘Because what?’

She remembered Margot’s final remarks before she had left her that evening.

‘Because someone was trying to run me off the road.’

Charlie blinked a few times as the words sank in.

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes. He slammed into the side of me at sixty-five miles an hour and I ended up in a field.’

‘Right. That’s it. This has gone far enough. I’m calling the police.’

Beth jumped up from the sofa.

‘No, Charlie, please! Don’t.’

Charlie pushed her with one hand and she fell back down onto the seat. He pulled his mobile from his jeans pocket. Beth stood up again, grabbing at the phone, desperately trying to stop him. He twisted away from her.

‘Charlie, you can’t! I’ve been drinking. If the police come, they will breathalyse me. And they’ll arrest me. Think about this.’

Charlie stopped, staring blankly back at her. His lip quivered.

She reached up, clasping her hands around his. His face turned down to the floor. She slipped the phone out from between his fingers.

‘I know you’re scared. I am too. But this won’t help. This will lose me my licence. And we can’t afford for that to happen. We live in the middle of nowhere. Do you understand?’

Charlie nodded.

‘Good.’

Beth sat down on the sofa, patting the cushion. Charlie resisted at first. Beth reached up and took his hand, gently tugging him downwards. He collapsed onto the seat beside her.

‘We need to do something, Beth. We can’t keep ignoring this. It’s not going away. It won’t stop. Someone will get hurt.’

‘I know.’

They sat in silence for a while. Beth placed her hand on Charlie’s leg, stroking lightly, her eyes closed.

Charlie finally broke the quiet in the room.

‘So what do we do?’

Beth thought for a moment longer.

‘I don’t know. Somebody clearly thinks that I am Kitty Briscoe. Someone obviously wants me to pay for what she did. I think first, we need to establish who that someone is. We can’t do anything until we know who’s doing this to us.’

‘It must be someone linked to the case. The boy’s mother?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Or what about the lad? The kid who went to jail. He’d have as much reason as anyone to hate her.’

‘Yes. True.’

‘So Billy’s family. The guy who did time. Anyone else you can think of?’

‘I really don’t know. There’s a new girl at work. There’s