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

Flora did not know how to feel. Her mother was thinking of her before she died. But Sophie, the woman she loved most in the world, had kept the most devastating secret from her; had spent most of their lives lying to her and protecting her drunk mother instead of telling Flora the truth.

‘From that moment on, all I’ve done is try to keep you safe. Keep you happy, the way your mother would have wanted.’ Sophie reached out a hand to Flora. ‘Your happiness has been the only thing I’ve cared about for most of my life.’

Flora recoiled from her touch. ‘You’re a liar!’ she yelled.

‘Flora, please!’ Sophie looked stricken. ‘You don’t understand, I’ve sacrificed my whole life to make you happy. This is the only thing I’ve ever lied to you about. I spent my life making amends for what my mother did. There was no point telling you. All it would do would drive us apart when you needed me the most. So, I made a decision. I could ensure your happiness in the future. Look at you, how does knowing this make you happy? I would never do anything to hurt you intentionally.’

Sam stirred next to Flora. ‘But that’s not true is it, Sophie? This is not the only thing you’ve lied about, is it?’

Sophie looked at Sam, as if only just remembering he was there. ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked.

‘You are the one that has been doing all these things to Flora. Hiding her cards, putting worms in the house… having her attacked in the pool, it was all you.’ Sam looked down at Flora. ‘I’ve not been away in Cardiff, helping to start a vegan business. I’ve been looking for Linda. I’ve been staking out the centre, trying everything I can to find her.’

Sophie jerked as if she’d been slapped.

Sam ignored her. ‘It was hard, but I found her. She told me that when Sophie met with her to tell her Flora couldn’t have Ethan at the centre, she offered her money to terrorise you. A lot of money. Sophie organised for her to meet the journalist, made her drown you in the pool and even got her to throw that brick through the window. But Linda got cold feet after her run-in with you and so Sophie ran her out of town. That’s why she was so hard to find. I’m presuming the other things, the rat and the worms were Sophie herself.’

Flora’s legs didn’t just weaken, they lost all feeling. She crumpled and it was only Sam that kept her from falling. He took all her weight and held her close to him. Flora suddenly recalled Charlotte, trying to tell her something about Sam. She must have spotted him watching the centre and wanted to warn her. If only someone could have warned her about Sophie.

‘What is he talking about, Sophie?’ she whispered.

Sophie paced up and down. She gesticulated with the gun as she talked, apparently forgetting that she held it. ‘No. No. No. He’s twisting everything.’ She pointed the gun at Sam. ‘He’s not explaining it right. You don’t understand.’ She was talking quickly, almost manically. She scratched her head with the hand holding the gun and stared at Flora, eyes begging to be understood. ‘Listen, I had to make you want to leave.’

Flora shook her head. ‘You aren’t making any sense. Why the hell would you torture me like that? You are supposed to be my best friend.’ Flora felt bereft, as if Sophie had died and she was staring at her ghost. The Sophie she thought she knew had disintegrated right in front of her. Her whole world no longer made sense. She had no one she could trust anymore.

Sophie screeched at her, seeming to lose all her composure. ‘This is all your fault! You are making me out to be the bad guy when you started all of this. If you had just stayed where you were instead of trying to move away none of this would have happened.’

‘You’re crazy,’ whispered Flora.

‘I had to keep you safe. How was I supposed to do that when you wanted to move away from me?’ She gestured to Sam and Alistair with the gun. ‘I made a mistake, Flora. These people are poisonous. I thought at first that I had found the perfect home for us. I did everything in my power to engineer a relationship between you and Sam and when we both got married, I thought, This is it. The perfect family we both deserve. But then I got to know them.’ Sophie walked over to Alistair, pointed the gun at his head. ‘Now him. He is a power-hungry sadistic cretin. He takes pleasure in controlling other people’s lives and then destroying them without another glance. The things I’ve seen him do in the name of entertainment.’ She spat in Alistair’s face.

Unperturbed, Alistair pulled the pocket square out of his suit pocket, wiped his face and smiled at Sophie like she was the most entertaining creature he’d ever met.

She moved over to Sam, prowling towards him. ‘He’s the most dangerous of them all, Flora. When you said you wanted to move away from me to be with him, I just knew I had to save you from yourself. He’s a coward, Flora. Stitched to his mother’s apron strings, he would never keep you safe. If it ever came to a “them or you situation”, he would always choose his family. I had to get you away from him. It was different when I was next door, when I could pop by in an instant and keep making sure you were safe.’

Sophie was now in front of her, but Flora was seeing a stranger. This wasn’t the Sophie she knew. She felt empty. The desperation to be understood was leeching from her, but all Flora saw was Sophie stood over her bed, tipping worms into it whilst she slept.

‘I had