The Family Friend, C. MacDonald [ereader for android TXT] 📗

‘Then’, she thinks, he said he did something ‘then’, what did he do? Erin’s mind races, she thinks back to her acting career, what did he do? She spots the pile of magazines she must have left in here from the bedroom this morning, Wonderland on the top, the interview with Rhia Trevellick. ‘You whisked me off on a holiday. You fucking – you whisked me off to a cabin in fucking Ireland. Somewhere you knew there wasn’t going to be any phone reception. You fucking knew, you knew I was going to get the part, how –’

‘It doesn’t matter how, I did it because –’

‘Tell me how you knew.’

‘There was a voicemail.’

‘Fuck you!’ Erin turns and leans on the table, the huge crystal sweeping the rest of Amanda’s crystal grid onto the floor. It was him! All along it was him that ruined everything for her.

‘You and me, Ez, we’ve never needed anyone else. I’ve always known that but I could never make you see it. I thought when we had Bobby that would prove it to you but even that didn’t work. I’m sorry for scaring you but don’t you see? We’re free of all that stuff, past the lies, we can be what we’re meant to be.’

‘Donny, please –’ Erin wheels up to see Amanda launching herself from the floor and throwing herself towards Raf. ‘We don’t need her, I can be your muse, I’ll be your servant, I’ll dedicate every ounce of my being –’ Then Raf turns, takes Amanda’s arms off his neck, almost picks her up by the wrists and launches her against the back wall. Without a thought Erin swings the huge crystal and hits the side of Raf’s head. It makes a dull thunking sound like a pillow hitting a wall. And moments later Raf falls in the same direction as the crystal Erin immediately dropped to her left, as if he were attached to it by an invisible thread.

Erin begins to breathe out of her nose, loud, forceful breaths. What has she just done? Blood flows down the side of his face; she takes a step closer, peers at it, it doesn’t look as bad as she was expecting. She can’t have caught him as hard as it felt in her hands. She looks at Amanda, who’s nursing her shoulder, facing the wall still. Amanda turns and sees Raf on the floor. She stares at his body and begins to blink, strong, hard blinks, as if she were trying to get something out of her eye, like waking from a dream. Then she looks at Erin. The side of her mouth twitches into a half-smile. Erin stares at Raf for a moment more, eyes closed, chest rising and falling slowly. She hasn’t killed him. Of course she hasn’t killed him, she’s not strong enough to kill someone with one blow of a blunt instrument. She steps over his body and grabs Amanda, pulling her out towards the doorway.

‘He’ll be fine,’ Erin says, voice shorn of conviction. ‘We need to get you away from him now. You’re not safe. Neither of us is safe once he comes to.’

Amanda nods but she breaks from Erin’s grasp, eyes fixed on Raf, the sinister crease of a smile setting on her face. Erin shakes her head, slams the studio door behind her and marches back towards the main house. As she gets to the open door into their main room, she turns to see Amanda trailing behind, staring at her cradled fingers. Beyond her Erin sees Raf’s legs prone through the glass. He’s going to be fine, she tells herself, hands shaking, he deserved it, it was the only way they were going to get away safely. By the time he comes round, they will both be far enough from him that he can never hurt either of them again.

‘Please, Amanda,’ she says to the still-dawdling woman. Amanda trots up to her like an obedient child, pupils wide as dinner plates. ‘He’ll be fine, OK? You’re safe. Do you get me? He would have killed you, you’re safe now.’ She clutches at Amanda’s wrists, trying to get through to her, trying to convince her that Erin’s not the bad person here, that the man in the studio is the monster and not her.

Amanda smiles, a titter of a laugh, but her eyes, she looks crazed. Erin spots the kitchen knife out of its block on the sink. She’s just knocked out the person this woman thinks is her soulmate, she could do anything.

‘Let’s get you in the car.’

Sitting side by side speeding down the main road that takes you away from the coast in Raf’s hatchback, Erin and Amanda haven’t said a word to each other. Erin’s driving to Heathrow, she has the card for the account Raf set up with her money in it so she’s going to buy Amanda another plane ticket, watch her go through security this time, and make sure, somehow, she’s on that plane. Then she’s going to get home to Bobby at her mum’s, call her brother to come round, just in case Raf turns up, call the police and tell them everything. Once they’ve heard he’s still wanted in Australia for what, abduction, manslaughter, murder maybe even, she feels sure they’ll make sure she’s protected. If they ask her what happened to him, how he hurt himself, she will admit she hit him, say that he was trying to strangle Amanda and it was the only way to stop him. Erin has no idea whether Amanda would back up her story but she’s hoping that away from Raf she’ll regain some semblance of rationality and see that what Erin did was to protect them both.

She hears a snuffling sound next to her and darts a look at Amanda. She’s covering her mouth, eyes watering, attempting to smother the beginnings