Chapter 53 Freya
FREYA
I stumble backward into the kitchen as Charlie comes toward me. His twisted face not looking like one I recognize.
I’d na?vely come here seeking reassurance, desperate for him to tell me that the mad and rambling thoughts that were sending me into a downward spiral were nothing more than the debris of paranoia.
I’d wanted him to tell me—like he’d always done—that the affliction I’d imposed upon myself was undeserved.
That the curse I felt suffocated by, waiting for him to do just what Pete had done, was never going to come.
But he’d lied. He’d reeled me in, isolating me, controlling what I did, what he wanted me to think, playing the long game, all the while knowing there would only ever be one winner.
I grapple with the door handle, my trembling hands struggling to get purchase. But it won’t budge, no matter how hard I pull at it. If I don’t get out of here, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’ll kill me.
My breath catches in my throat as I count the seconds until he reaches me. He’s only three strides away, and I wait for him to pull my head back and drag me by the hair into the restaurant. I push at the door in desperation and call out in surprise and relief when it opens.
There’s a rush of air and it’s as if time has stopped, as I wait for Charlie’s force to be felt. Will he kick my legs out from under me? Will he slam himself into me? Or will he simply cut my throat, bringing this to a mercifully quick end?
When none of those happen, I run. Out the door, through the backyard, and across the dark car park, pressing the key fob as I go, hoping that the hazard lights on Charlie’s car will help show me the way across the uneven ground.
“Freya!” Charlie bellows.
But I don’t look round—I daren’t. I open the car, throw myself into the driver’s seat, and lock the door behind me. I can’t remember how to start it—adrenaline having rendered me inept—and my lungs burn as I fumble with the ignition and pump the clutch, willing the engine to come to life.
It screeches as I slam it into reverse, and just as I hit the accelerator, Charlie’s flat palms slam into the nearside window.
I scream as the face I’d once loved beyond any other appears, contorted and gnarled.
“Get out!” he yells, yanking the handle.
The car veers backward with him still hanging onto the door. Grappling with the gear stick, I crunch it into first and hit the gas.
Terrified to look in the rearview mirror, but knowing I must, if only to be sure that he’s not somehow still clinging on, my throat pulls to see that nothing but an inky blackness is following me.
It takes a few miles for my breathing to return to a manageable state, but I have no idea what direction I’ve gone in or where I might be headed. I’m almost too scared to stop, for fear that Charlie will slide from the roof, down onto the windscreen, and fix me with a psychotic glare.
But I have to take stock. I can’t drive around aimlessly, without a plan.
I have to find a way through this. I could go to the police.
I should go to the police. Someone needs to know that my husband is trying to kill me.
But they’ll want to know what proof I have.
And I have none, apart from a call I’m beginning to imagine I’ve had, from a woman I can’t be sure even exists, my panic rendering me numb to the truth.
Pauline calls me for the hundredth time, no doubt desperate for me to tell her that everything is okay. But how can I?
I have no idea where I am, so pull into a lay-by, lit by a solitary flickering streetlamp.
It occurs to me, as I fire up the satnav on the dash, that I don’t even have anywhere to go, everyone I thought I could trust having shown their true colors.
The realization that there’s not one person who would step up for me pulls at the back of my throat.
The onboard computer offers up previous destinations as I think about the best place to head.
The hospital, where we’d been due to have my pregnancy confirmed, is the most recent, and I run a hand over my stomach, jolted by the reminder.
Had it been the baby that had prompted Charlie to take matters into his own hands?
Had his mistress insisted upon it? I’d thought it was going to save us, but perhaps the misguided announcement had sounded my death knell.
I scroll down, the possibility of an unfamiliar address sending an electrical current to my nerve endings. Finding whoever she is is key to everything, and something tells me that I might be closer than I think. When my eyes alight on 14 Bluebell Lane, Cirencester, I know I’m going to go there.
There’s nothing about the two-up, two-down terraced house that stands out. A warm peachy glow radiates around the edges of the drawn curtains and a steady swirl of smoke billows out of the chimney.
I don’t know I’m going to get out of the car until I’m locking it shut.
I lift up the latch on the wrought-iron gate, waiting for a face to come to the window as it squeaks.
I imagine Charlie’s excited mistress inside, anticipating his arrival with a bottle of champagne, ready to celebrate the coup they’ve pulled off.
They’ll toast their success and the start of their new life, feeling no shame that it’s being funded by a dying child’s money. They’ll plot how they’ll come into so much more when they finally get rid of me. She may even hope that he’s already done it.
But either way, she won’t be expecting me to be here, on her doorstep. I ring the bell and stand tall as footsteps make their way down the hall, bolstering myself up, ready for each and every eventuality. The door swings open and I realize that the only one I hadn’t allowed for is Tess.