I Know Your Secret by J.M. O'Rourke

Author:J.M. O'Rourke [O'Rourke, J.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

32

‘Idon’t know,’ Amanda said. She was sitting in her car, having just come from visiting Edward, on the phone with Lauren: her daughter had just asked what exactly had happened. ‘He didn’t say,’ Amanda added, ‘didn’t want to discuss it.’

Lauren spoke, her voice beginning to quiver. ‘He told me he’d been attacked, that he was walking in town, along one of the streets, a back street, in broad daylight, and he was attacked… But he said these things happen. You know Dad; doesn’t want anyone to worry about him.’

Not true, Amanda thought, he’s just achieved the exact opposite, but she said nothing.

‘He’s not badly injured,’ she said instead, ‘like I told you. But they’ll keep him in for a little while, merely for observation. Try not to worry, sweetheart.’

‘And then what?’ Lauren asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, Mum, who’s going to look after him? He can’t be left on his own.’

Amanda couldn’t help but feel a warm glow for her daughter. She wondered how, as she’d wondered countless times, someone so beautiful could come from something so evil. Her precious Lauren had always put others first. As a child she’d come home fretting about classmates or friends who’d seemed sad or unwell, and once with a puppy she’d found on the street. There was a time when she’d considered her daughter might have been too sensitive. But then she came to realise that Lauren possessed an intuition too, the ability to know when others were drawing on her, sapping her energy, when to pull back. She had no doubt she would make a brilliant doctor. Of course, her daughter could not be as objective when dealing with Edward.

Amanda was silent, reflecting her uncertainty. Unlike her daughter, she did not possess the same intuition; it had taken her years, until now, to understand that Edward had been insidiously undermining her, ridiculing her, not so much controlling as subtly ruling her. Whatever the outcome of all she was going through was, she had learned this.

‘Dad says it’s too dangerous to come down and see him,’ Lauren said. ‘What does he mean by that?’

‘Well…’ Amanda began. ‘I don’t know what he means. I think he’s simply confused at the moment.’

‘Mum, is there something I should know about? What with all that’s been happening to you, the drug search and everything, now Dad getting beaten up. What’s happening?’

‘I don’t know,’ Amanda said. And she didn’t. But there was something she felt certain of. ‘What happened to me was the result of a terrible mix-up,’ she said. ‘You’ll see, because I won’t let that go. I’ll get to the bottom of it. As for your father, believe me, in my twenty-five years as a doctor, I know all about coincidences. And this is all it is, a coincidence. Please, Lauren, don’t worry. Promise me.’

The truth was, Amanda didn’t know. She didn’t know anything anymore.

‘But,’ Lauren said, ‘there was nothing taken from Dad. He told me. That doesn’t make sense, now does it? Mum, I can’t help it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.