Thicker Than Water: A gripping thriller about family, belonging and revenge by Rachel McLean

Author:Rachel McLean [McLean, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catawampus Press
Published: 2018-05-07T22:00:00+00:00

Robert visited Ruth again the next night as promised.

Despite her newfound cleanliness, he didn’t touch her. Instead, he insisted that she sit on the mattress while he perched on the table and told her stories about Ben. School stories, of Ben as a rebellious teenager. There was a wistfulness in Robert’s eyes as he did this, and for the first time she felt his guard slipping. Despite a desperate need to understand what had happened between the two men, of how all this could possibly lead to where she was now, she pulled her attention away to the door. The keys were in his pocket. But he wasn’t large and maybe she could wrestle them off him.

As always he was a step ahead of her.

“Stop looking at that door, my dear,” he snapped, interrupting a tale of Ben disrupting a chemistry lesson. She flinched and looked at him.

He cocked his head. “You won’t be in here forever, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

He smiled. “When you’re ready you can join me in the house.”

A shiver ran through her. “I don’t think so,” she replied.

He snorted. “We’ll see. When you’ve heard all I have to tell you about your husband, you’ll thank me.”

“Never.”

He gave one of his tight laughs and moved towards the door. “Stand up,” he said.

She stayed where she was on the mattress.

“Oh, heaven save us from disobedient women,” he sighed, rolling his eyes.

She scowled.

“Please,” he said. “Stand up.”

Reluctantly she pushed herself up. He reached out a hand and she pulled back, almost stumbling onto the mattress.

He shook his head. “Dear, dear,” he said. “I only want to hold your hand.”

She stood still. He sighed and reached into his pocket, drawing out the knife he’d shown her on his first visit. He didn’t open it but instead turned it over in his hands, admiring the floral pattern on the hilt.

He smiled and plunged the knife back into his pocket. “Well?”

She took a deep breath and held out her hand, her arm quivering.

“Thank you,” he said. He took her hand and raised it to his face. She stared, horrified, as he brushed it with his lips.

“Delighted, Mrs Dyer,” he said, letting go. Her arm fell limp at her side.

He laughed again, his eyes creasing, and turned to the door.

After she had heard him lock both doors she turned to the table. Her heart was pounding. She grabbed the oatcakes and devoured the last of them, suddenly starving. When the packet was empty and her breathing had slowed, she turned to the window, thinking.

A new moon gleamed from a still, cloudless sky. If she stood at an angle to the window she could see it through the green haze, along with the shadow of another building behind her own, further from the farmhouse. She wondered if some of the men slept in there, or if it was used for storage. She hadn’t seen any men going in. Sometimes she heard voices from the other direction, behind the wall her mattress was against. She knew now this was the building’s end wall.

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