I’m forced to turn before I get the opportunity to check for any recollection on Ava’s face. I fear she’s too lost in the new memories to realise what I’m trying to tell her.
As I’m guided to my car by the gun held at my back, I tussle with the temptation to turn and wrestle it from her hands. I’m big enough to easily overpower her. But that gun. One twitch of her finger, no matter how fast I am, and I’ll be gone. And then Ava and the kids will be helpless. No way am I risking their lives. Fuck mine. Fuck this. I deserve it all. Had I enlightened Ava, grown some balls and told her everything, she would have been aware of Lauren. Would have maybe seen some signs. Instead, I was the coward I was years ago, and I’ve put the most precious people in my life at danger’s door. My feet are heavy, my heart slowing with each step I take. She won’t need to kill me. I’m dying little bit by little bit the further I walk away from my family.
Chapter 54
My attention is divided between the road and Lauren’s lap, where the gun is resting lightly, her finger curled around the trigger. I know fuck all about guns. I wouldn’t be able to tell you if it was loaded, or even ready to fire. This could be just a show. I’m unwilling to test could be. All I know for sure is this woman wants to make me suffer. I don’t know where we’re headed. I’m taking instructions as she gives them, following the road out of the city.
I don’t know whether to talk to her. Attempt to make her feel at ease. I have not one fucking clue how to handle this.
I’m just so thankful Ava and the kids are out of harm’s way. And yet Ava must be terrified – by what’s happening now, and by the flood of memories. My knuckles go white on the steering wheel, my heart pulsing with pain. I could go on a rampage. Destroy everything in sight, starting with Lauren. But I have to stay calm and sensible if I’m going to get through this.
As my phone persistently vibrates in my pocket, I mentally talk to Ava, telling her over and over to think about what I said as I left. I beg for the penny to drop through her despair and fear.
‘Right at the roundabout.’ Lauren breaks into my thoughts with her curt order, and I follow her instructions, taking the country road further out of the city. Every time I catch sight of her, I feel sick.
‘You like?’ she asks, scrunching her hair when she catches me looking. ‘You’re into brunettes, right?’
‘I’m into my wife and my wife alone.’ The venom in my tone is savage but unstoppable.
She ignores my scathing retort and proceeds to pat down her black lace dress. ‘She picked this for me.’ One foot comes up and rests on the dashboard. ‘And these are hers. You must like what you see.’
What I see makes me want to vomit. ‘You look very nice, Lauren,’ I say carefully, silently running through my options. There are three, as I see it: fight or flee being two of the obvious, though that gun she’s holding like it could be a vital part of her outfit is rendering those options redundant. Then there’s the third option, the one I’m going to take. Pacify her. Draw her into a false sense of security. ‘How did you find us?’
‘Well, there I am enjoying my morning coffee reading the paper and suddenly I’m staring at her. She lost her memory, they said. Such a shame. They kindly mentioned that Ava and her husband ran a health club. It wasn’t hard to find you.’ She sighs, pointing the gun to the signpost up ahead as I bristle and curse the fucking journalists to hell and back. ‘Left there.’
It’s the area where we grew up. ‘Why are we here?’ I take the turn and keep my speed at thirty as we drive down the narrow country road towards the village.
‘A trip down memory lane.’ She turns in her seat. ‘Remember the barn where we first kissed?’
‘Yes.’ I remember the barn, but I have no recollection of the kiss. She could be making it up. Or not. Over the years, I’ve successfully eradicated most memories of Lauren from my life. Cleansed my mind and left space for only the things that mean something to me. Like Rosie. Like my brother. I want to ask when she was released from the nuthouse. I also want to ask what imbecile deemed her safe to the outside world. Though I know bringing that up would be unwise.
Besides, I know she’s safe to most people. It’s just me and my family she has a vendetta against. She’s volatile. I shouldn’t say anything to push her over the edge. We were assured that if she were ever released, we’d be informed. And it was a massive if. How the fuck did this happen? Why didn’t we know? More questions mount, tearing up my mind as I stare ahead.
The clouds on the horizon are dense and low, giving the illusion of an impressive mountain range. Though however dull the sky is, the surroundings are beautiful. Fields stretch for miles, a patchwork of yellows and greens, though my appreciation is stunted by memories of my childhood and teenage years.
We approach the small, idyllic village church where I married the lunatic now sitting next to me. Flashbacks hit me from all directions, my hands now bloodless, my jaw aching terribly from the force of my bite as I fight the memories away. I see me, barely a man, standing at the entrance of the church, Lauren’s parents talking me into entering. There’s a sea of faces, all smiling. I see the priest up ahead, his Bible resting in his open hands. I hear myself asking him to pray for me. To help me.
He couldn’t have heard my silent pleas. That, or he and the Mighty One decided I was getting what I deserved. That I would pay for the rest of my life for being so reckless with my brother’s life.
And I have. I’ve paid tenfold. When does it stop? When will the punishments end?
‘Fond memories. We could have been so happy.’ Lauren sighs dreamily as we pass the ancient place of worship, the car jumping from the endless divots in the old road. ‘Until you ruined it. Turn down the next road on the left.’
I say nothing, for fear I might say the wrong thing, and take the next lane as instructed. I see the barn up ahead, the ramshackle building barely still standing. ‘What are we doing here, Lauren?’
‘Shut up, Jesse,’ she spits as I roll to a stop outside the deserted barn. ‘I’m surprised you haven’t asked me about my delightful stay courtesy of Her Majesty the queen.’
‘What does it matter?’ I turn to face her, enduring the face of pure evil. ‘You’re here now.’
‘I was such a good girl.’ She smiles, as if thinking fondly. ‘The doctors knew I wasn’t bad to the core. Just terribly hurt. Assessments proved it. They put me on a programme. I was an A-grade student, the perfect reformed example. So they released me.’ She smiles proudly, while I force my frown into hiding. She fooled them? Made them believe she’s stable so she could come out here and finish a job she started over a decade ago? ‘That’s when I became Zara Cross.’
‘They gave you a new identity?’
‘The good old justice system. I was vulnerable, Jesse. You see, I’m not crazy. I know damn well what I’m doing, and I know that as soon as I rid this world of your despicable life, I’ll be carted back to a padded cell to live out the rest of my days.’ She pokes me in the arm with the barrel of the gun. ‘Except I don’t want to live any more. I’m done with this life.’
My eyes lift from the gun to her empty dull pits of fading blue, and I comprehend immediately that she means it wholeheartedly. ‘Lauren, it doesn’t have to be like this.’ I try to work on her reason. ‘You can be happy again.’
She laughs. It’s cold and it’s fake. ‘You mean like you? You think I should replace Rosie and pretend she never existed? No, Jesse. Never. And do you honestly think I’m willing to stand by and watch you wash away her memory with a few more kids and that wife of yours? Our daughter deserves justice.’ Another poke of my arm. ‘Get out.’