Save Her, Abigail Osborne [ebook reader for surface pro txt] 📗

side, Flora sprinted as fast as she could after them.

Just as she was getting closer, Linda looked back and balked when she saw Flora. Her grip on Ethan’s arm tightened and she tried to increase their pace, but Ethan wasn’t playing ball.

‘Leave me alone!’ Linda shouted at Flora, trying desperately to pull Ethan away but Ethan was now holding on to a lamp post, stopping them from moving any further, screaming at his mother, tears pouring down his face. ‘You hurt my arm,’ he cried.

Flora reached them and had to bend over to try and force air into her lungs. A few seconds later she could speak. ‘What have you done, Linda? Why are you doing this to me?’

Linda turned her back on Flora, facing Ethan and trying to pry his fingers away from the lamp post. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I just saw you! You threw a brick through my window.’

‘No I didn’t.’

Ethan stopped crying for a moment and stared at his mother, bewildered. ‘Yes you did, Mum. You said we had to do it.’

‘Don’t tell lies, Ethan. Now come on. Let’s go home and I’ll make you spaghetti with the meatballs that you like.’

‘I’m not lying, Mum. You said we had to so that woman would give us more money. So you could buy me chalk.’

Linda wrenched Ethan’s fingers apart and pulled him away from the lamp post and set off down the street once more.

Flora followed them. ‘What woman? Why are you doing this to me, Linda?’ she shouted.

But Linda was looking resolutely ahead and would not look back.

‘I’m going to have to call the police. You have been terrorising me. You put worms in my bed. Who does that? How did you even get in?’

Linda stopped dead. She turned to look at Flora, her face gaunt and white as a sheet. ‘Worms?’ she said faintly. ‘I haven’t got anything to do with any worms. I don’t even know where you live.’ Linda was about to say more but was interrupted by a notification on her phone. She pulled out an iPhone and unlocked it. Her face went even paler and she wobbled on her feet, as if about to fall. ‘I have to go. Come on, Ethan. It’s an emergency. You know what that means.’

Ethan nodded his head and turned to move away.

‘I’m sorry, Flora. I had no choice. I’m so sorry.’

Before Flora could react, Linda and Ethan turned and marched away. She was about to follow them when her phone went off, distracting her. Unknown Caller flashed up on the screen of her phone. She looked up, intending to follow Linda. She needed answers. What woman was Ethan talking about? Cecelia? This could be the evidence she needed to prove to Sam that his mother was terrorising her. But Ethan and Linda had vanished. There were so many routes they could have taken, she would never find them now.

She answered the phone.

‘Flora. It’s PC Valerie. Where are you?’

‘At work.’ She turned and began to walk back to the centre, wishing she had thought to put on a coat: her blouse was plastered to her skin, she may as well have gone swimming fully clothed. The noise of cars on the road and the roaring wind made it hard to hear what the policewoman was saying. But it soon made sense when she saw the flashing blue lights outside her centre as she walked around the corner.

Flora ended the call and jogged back to the centre. She opened the door and saw two men boarding up the hole in the glass. Another young PC was clearing up golden leaves that the wind had propelled through the gap, stuffing them into a black bin bag. Puddles had formed near the glass, glistening in the light from the ceiling.

PC Valerie came out of her office and strode towards her. ‘Where were you?’ she asked curtly.

‘I… erm. What are you doing here?’ Confused, Flora couldn’t remember calling the police. She had chased after Linda within seconds of hearing the crash.

‘We’ve been watching the centre since the incident with the note. Chief Constable’s orders. It was just unlucky that this happened during shift change. Now, where were you? Why didn’t you call us immediately?’

‘I was chasing the person that did it,’ snapped Flora, who was not enjoying being treated like a child. She was uncomfortable that her centre had been under surveillance without her knowing. Surely they should have told her that. She might even have felt safer knowing.

‘What? That was a very dangerous thing to do, Mrs Cavendish. The Chief is not going to be happy about this. He has known the Cavendish family a while and he stressed the importance of keeping you safe to all of us. We can’t very well do that if you go running after a potentially dangerous perpetrator.’ She gave Flora a look she couldn’t quite interpret but it was not friendly. ‘Let’s go to your office and I’ll take your statement.’

Flora didn’t even know how she got home. One minute she had been giving her statement to PC Valerie, the next she was walking through the front door of the house. Her body and mind were weary. She wasn’t scared anymore, just fed up. When was she going to catch a break? Linda was intent on ruining her life, possibly egged on by Cecelia. Her best friend in the whole world was suffering. With a groan, she looked at her watch and realised that Sophie would be coming over any minute now. She fingered the necklace. The person who had it made and put in her centre had wasted their time. Now the initial shock was over, the necklace only gave her strength – not fear.

She raced upstairs to change. The bedroom was the only room that she would miss in Sam’s house. The guilt at sleeping in an opulent super-king bed had faded now and she loved nothing more than to bury herself in the bed, cuddled