Chapter 30
THIRTY
FRIDAY
I need to get out of the house but once again the diary lures me. Once everyone leaves, I run up the stairs to my room and set it up. As the weeks count down to the accident on the yacht, Laura appears to be falling deeper into a delusional state.
I can’t sleep and feel as if I’m drifting between dreams and reality.
I went to sleep in my bed last night but woke in one of the spare rooms. I’d even removed the dust cover from the bed.
I have no idea how I got there. It frightens me if I’ve started walking in my sleep, as stairs are everywhere, and I could easily have fallen and broken my neck.
From now on I’ll lock myself inside my room.
I’m convinced there’s a conspiracy going on against me in this house but I need proof.
I’m trying to get my head straight by re-reading the old emails from my friends.
I’m trying to remember what was happening around the time of the emails and I find that I have blanks in my memory.
I’ve tried very hard to prevent anyone drugging me but, somehow, they manage to slip something into my food each day.
Another strange thing happened to me today.
My children are still babies and need to be supervised outside.
Today I sat in the sitting room staring out of the window at the garden and watched two young children playing on the lawn in the distance.
The children must have been around six and eight years old.
I immediately wondered who the children belonged to as we don’t have any married couples with young children working at the estate.
When Sue came into the sitting room to bring me a pot of tea, I asked her about the children and she insisted they were mine.
I understand that some days I’m not very clear in my head but I do know the difference between Ava and Noah and the school-age children in the garden.
It was pointless to argue with her but I decided to take a photograph of the children to show Jack later when he came home.
I wanted him to clarify that those older children are not ours and then go and talk to Sue and tell her she was mistaken.
When I reached for my phone, which I’d left sitting on the table beside the chair, the phone was gone. I searched all over and even called it from the house landline but the phone is missing and I have no idea where it’s gone or who took it.
A shiver skitters down my spine; I’m not being drugged and yet some of the same things are happening to me.
I’m starting to doubt my own sanity. Laura was obviously not of sound mind but could reading her diary make me believe the same things are happening to me?
The idea is ludicrous but I don’t have any other solution.
Should I read on? I must. The answer to what really happened to Laura and why, must be hidden in these pages.
August 16
My head is clearer today, which is good, as Jack is taking me to purchase a gown for our anniversary celebration aboard the yacht.
My phone is still missing and Jack has ordered the staff to search the house for it.
After I selected a suitable gown, Jack sent me home with Tom.
I like him as he has always been very nice to me and not like the other members of staff.
He is more like Jack’s closest friend and I feel like I can trust him.
I confided in him about the strange things happening to me and my fear of the house.
He was very understanding and when we arrived home, I asked him to come and check my room to make sure I was safe.
I’m not sure how it happened; one moment I was crying and he was comforting me, the next moment I woke, wrapped in his arms, as the sun crept above the horizon.
I don’t feel guilty. I feel liberated.
I stand so fast the chair tips and tumbles to the floor.
I can’t believe what I’ve read. Laura was having an affair with Tom Bates!
Mind reeling with the implications, I close the laptop and stare at it as if it’s on fire.
Two and two come together and possible scenarios rush through my mind.
Did Jack find out? Was the argument with Tom not about him dating Ruby but about his affair with his wife?
Jack wouldn’t be able to stand the humiliation of knowing his wife had cheated on him with his best friend.
A memory slips into my mind. Didn’t Missy tell me Tom would do anything for Jack?
Did he toss Laura from the yacht? I’m shaking and pace up and down my room.
I need to think. Jack’s friends are loyal to him and so is his staff, so to confuse me, it makes sense that everyone would give me a slightly different story—if they were covering up a murder.