When Your Eyes Close: A psychological thriller unlike anything you’ve read before!. Tanya Farrelly
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу When Your Eyes Close: A psychological thriller unlike anything you’ve read before! - Tanya Farrelly страница 6
Название: When Your Eyes Close: A psychological thriller unlike anything you’ve read before!
Автор: Tanya Farrelly
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Эзотерика
isbn: 9780008280024
isbn:
She hadn’t got close to anyone since David’s disappearance. It was the last thing she wanted. Recently, she’d even found herself the object of a well-meaning matchmaking scheme by a friend who’d been urging her to get on with her life. This endeavour had simply led to her refusing dinner invitations from such friends who clearly had no understanding of how much David meant to her.
Instead she’d sought to fill the void in other ways. She began running, and soon found herself jogging five kilometres each evening in the local park. Recently she’d pushed herself to seven. She’d lost weight, but that wasn’t her objective. She’d always been slim. She began running to escape the emptiness of the house in David’s absence – and then she found it was the one thing that lessened the stress and helped her to sleep at night. Exhausted, she’d sometimes shower and fall asleep with the TV on, one arm stretched across David’s side of the bed. There were mornings still when she opened her eyes expecting to find him next to her.
David had taught her to play the violin. She still practised most evenings and had joined a group of musicians who did a jam session in a wine bar every Wednesday night. Their friend, Andy, was the cellist and he’d invited her to join. Music was a passion that she and David had shared, and when she played she summoned feelings, not of loss, but of the elation she felt when they were together. Often, she’d sit with Andy over a glass of wine and they’d talk of the past. He was one of the only people she felt truly understood her; the only one who felt David’s loss as keenly as she did.
The phone rang, and Caitlin put the box of photos to the side. She knew that it would be David’s mum. They spoke often, and she knew she’d call on the anniversary of his disappearance. Caitlin had lost her own mother when she was five years old, and Gillian was as warm and compassionate as she imagined a mother should be – unlike the woman who’d brought Caitlin up. During her relationship with David, she’d grown close to his mother and since his disappearance they’d become closer still – each woman seeking a part of him in those he loved.
Caitlin picked up the phone and waited to hear Gillian’s soothing voice. Instead the voice that spoke was male.
‘David’s alive … but don’t try to find him. It could be dangerous for both of you.’
Caitlin tightened her grip on the receiver. ‘Who is this? What do you—?’
Before she could finish speaking, the caller had hung up, and all she heard was the constant blip of the disconnected line. Trembling, she put down the receiver, then picked it up again. What should she do; call Andy, or Gillian? Surely, they’d advise her to call the guards, but what if it was dangerous as the caller had said? Maybe she ought not to tell anyone. She replaced the receiver and tried to clear her mind. Was it a hoax call? If this man knew something, why had he chosen to call now and not before – and why on the anniversary of David’s disappearance?
Caitlin was trying to make sense of the thoughts that collided inside her mind when the phone rang again. After a second’s hesitation, she snatched up the receiver. She didn’t speak but waited for the man to say something first. If he could play games, then so could she, but this time it was the voice of David’s mother that greeted her.
Michelle took a long drink from her water bottle and dabbed the perspiration from her face with a towel as the girls filed past her with smiles and words of thanks for another great Zumba class. She smiled back and said goodnight to each of them by name, but she didn’t feel the buzz that she usually got from the workout. Tonight it had been an effort. Unable to concentrate solely on the music, she’d made some mistakes and slipped into the wrong moves at the wrong time. Not that the women had noticed; it was only three weeks into the course and they’d not yet mastered the choreography that accompanied each song.
Michelle shoved the towel into her sports bag and searched in the pocket for her mobile. Three days and still she’d heard nothing from Nick. She looked at the screen in frustration. Every time she received a text message she opened it expecting it to be from him. The last time they’d spoken everything was fine. She was sure that nothing had happened between them that might have led to this. There had been no argument, no cross words, which made his silence simply incomprehensible. She’d tried calling him again before she began the class. The phone had rung out and she’d left a message saying that she hoped that everything was okay.
Throwing on a fleece, Michelle zipped up her sports bag and prepared to go home. She turned off the lights in the sports hall, said goodnight to the security man at the front desk and walked out of the community centre into the dark rain-filled streets. Already damp with perspiration, her hair clung to her forehead. She pushed it out of her eyes and hurried down the street. Outside the car park a homeless man sat, paper cup in hand, the hood of his jumper pulled up ineffectively against the rain. Michelle dug a few coins out of her pocket and dropped them in giving the man a brief smile. He mumbled words of thanks and wished her a good night as she walked inside. She knew his face. She’d talked to him once, some months before when she’d begun volunteering on the soup run with the Simon Community. He’d told her about being made redundant, and about a messy divorce in which his wife had got everything. He swore he didn’t touch drugs or alcohol, but most of them said that – it wasn’t her job to believe or to judge them. She hadn’t seen him in a while, had hoped that maybe his luck had changed, but the same faces always returned to the streets. Some of them she knew by name now – the ones who were glad to chat. This man had stood out because he sounded educated. He’d once, he said, held a senior position in a logistics company, and she wondered again about the circumstances that had led to him being in the street that night.
In the car park, she took the stairs two steps at a time until she’d reached the fifth floor. She hated these places at night – eerily lit by florescent lights – cars packed together, a predator could easily lie undetected waiting on a lone female to return to her car. Keys in hand, she unlocked the car from several metres away, and walked briskly, head held high until hurriedly she pulled open the driver’s door and climbed inside. When she turned the key in the ignition the radio came on and the gravellish tones of Tom Waits sang ‘Closing Time’ into the night.
Nick. She couldn’t get him out of her mind. It had been like that from the beginning, but whereas then her thoughts were pleasant and giddy, now they brought fear and uncertainty. She tried to reassure herself. Nick was crazy about her, he’d told her that. Only two weeks before he’d invited her out for dinner to meet his sister and her husband – a step that she believed he hadn’t taken with anyone else since divorcing his wife. Afterwards, he’d told her that his sister had been mad about her, and that Rowdy the dog was too, so he reckoned he’d have to keep her. And now a whole weekend had passed without so much as a call.
Michelle spiralled down the ramps and exited the car park. The rain had started to come down heavier, and she turned the wipers on to clear the windscreen. The homeless man had СКАЧАТЬ