Close My Eyes (44 page)

‘Art?’ Morgan’s voice is brittle. ‘What are you doing?’

Art’s eyes are on the gun. ‘I guessed you’d be here. I came to help,’ he says. ‘You were right.’

I stare at him, horrified.

Morgan frowns. I can tell she’s not sure whether to trust him either.

‘It’s time,’ Morgan says. ‘We can’t wait any longer.’

I want to yell out to Art to save us but my throat is twisted into knots.

‘Give me the gun, then,’ Art says. ‘I’ll shoot her myself.’

Art must be bluffing?
Surely
he’s bluffing?

Morgan gives him a sceptical look. ‘All of a sudden you’re prepared to shoot her? I don’t think so.’

Art keeps his eyes on the gun that Morgan is still pressing against my ribs. ‘There’s no choice and there’s no time.’ His voice is steady. ‘Though we should deal
with Lorcan first; he’ll be harder for us to control physically.’

Morgan stares at him. I can see she doesn’t believe him.

‘Jared will do it,’ she says. ‘You wait there.’

A cold sweat rushes over me in a wave. Jared and Lorcan are both, still, on the other side of the bushes. Lorcan’s muffled yells are the only sound in the night air.

‘Fine.’ Art holds out his hand. ‘I’ll watch Gen while you help Jared.’

I stare at him in horror. ‘You can’t do this,’ I breathe.

‘Shut up,’ Morgan hisses.

She gives me a shove. I stumble forwards. Art steps up and grabs my wrist as Morgan half turns back to the bushes.

‘No.’ The word sounds strangled, as though all the breath is being squeezed out of me. And then I find my voice. ‘No!’ I scream.

‘Keep her quiet, Art,’ Morgan says, as Jared hauls Lorcan out from behind the bushes.

Art clamps his hand over my mouth.

‘No!’ My cry is a low moan. Unheard. A terrible fear swamps me. Not Lorcan. I can’t lose him. It’s my fault he’s even here. ‘No!’

Art pulls me against him, holding me fast. I watch as Morgan reaches Lorcan and Jared. She points her gun at Lorcan’s chest. His eyes above the gag are wild with fury, but he stops
struggling.

I try to pull away from Art but he holds me still. ‘Stop it,’ he hisses in my ear.

I kick out, making contact with his shin

‘Ow.’ Art swears under his breath, then he leans in closer to my face and whispers, ‘For Christ’s sake, Gen. Trust me.’

What?
As Morgan fishes in her pocket, Art, still holding me tightly, takes a step backwards, away from her.

I have no idea what he’s doing. I’m transfixed by the sight of Morgan slowly drawing the lethal Swiss Army knife out of her pocket. She holds it out to Jared.

‘Here,’ she says.

Art, his hand still over my mouth, pulls me back another step. We have reached his car, but I barely notice. My whole focus is on Lorcan. Morgan can’t make Jared kill him. She
can’t—

Art opens the car door.

‘Get in,’ he hisses.

Morgan turns. Her roar fills the air.

‘Art!’ she yells. ‘What are you doing?’ She points the gun at me.

‘Get
in
,’ Art orders.

I scramble inside. An empty click sounds as Morgan fires. She runs towards us. I slam the door shut as Art dives across the car, into the driver’s seat. Morgan is still charging towards
us. Almost here. The split second that passes lasts an eternity, then Art turns the ignition and the car pulls away.

I look round. Morgan is standing in the middle of the track behind us, her face consumed with rage. I grip the sides of my seat, frozen with shock.

What about Lorcan?

‘I took the bullets out of her gun after O’Donnell,’ Art explains in a low voice, his hands gripping the steering wheel. He glances sideways at me. ‘Gen, I’m so
sorry. I didn’t know things would . . . would go this far.’

The car is already travelling at nearly sixty miles an hour, far too fast for the bumpy lane we’re driving along. My breath is coming out in short, jerky gasps.

‘We have to go back.’

Art ignores me and swerves the car onto the main road.

‘Please, Art, she’ll kill Lorcan.’ I turn and look through the back window of the car. The 4x4’s headlights are visible in the distance.

‘Morgan won’t hurt Lorcan. Not until she’s got you back,” Art says. ‘Making sure you don’t get away will be her priority.’

I look round again. The lights in the distance are getting closer, though from the jerky way they’re moving, I’m guessing Morgan hasn’t yet manoeuvred the 4x4 onto the main
road.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

‘To Morgan’s house,’ Art says. ‘To get Ed.’

What is he saying? My mind careers about, a million thoughts and feelings colliding with each other.

‘
Get
Ed?’ I say.

‘You’re going to have to take him away,’ Art says. He glances round at me and I’m shocked by the agony in his eyes. ‘I’ve screwed everything up, Gen. This is
the only option now. I see that. I should have stopped Morgan before but . . . but it was impossible.’

My guts twist into a knot. I glance out of the window. The Somerset countryside is zooming past. Is Art
really
taking me to Ed? My head is a chaos of fears. And yet, bizarrely,
there’s something so familiar about the two of us driving along. This could be any night from the thousands we have spent together.

‘God, Art, how could you do . . . what you did with Morgan? How could you have let her take our baby?’

‘I told you.’ Art shoots me a grim glance. ‘Morgan threatened you. She made me choose between losing Ed to her and losing you altogether.’

I don’t believe him. Not now.

‘But I’ve seen the film of you and Morgan,’ I look down at my chewed fingernails. For some reason I can’t explain to myself, I feel utterly humiliated. This is
Art’s wrong, I tell myself. Art’s and Morgan’s. And yet I feel shame at the thought of what they did – as if it’s my wrong too. My darkness. ‘Morgan showed me
and . . . I saw what you did and it’s obvious she was
blackmailing
you. I mean, taking Ed wasn’t about protecting me, it was about protecting yourself . . . wasn’t
it?’

Art ignores me, his eyes on the wing mirror. We are still some way in front of Morgan’s car, but its twin headlamps are visible as bright disks on the main road.

‘Jesus, Art.’ The words escape me in an angry burst. ‘She was your
sister
, for God’s sake.’

‘I know,’ Art says, his voice a mix of shame and defiance. ‘But you have to understand she was also beautiful and available and she didn’t
feel
like a sister. I
didn’t even know her, remember?’ He pauses. ‘I’ve thought about it a lot, though, and mostly I think it was revenge.’

‘Revenge?’

‘On Brandon,’ he says. ‘My dad.
Our
dad. It took everything I had to get up the courage to knock on his door. I knew he’d think I was after money, and I said I
wasn’t, straight off . . . but he just didn’t want to know.’ He hesitates. ‘The truth is I’d built him up in my head. I’d thought he was this great man . . .
captain of industry . . . like he was some amazing guy who’d be delighted to meet his long-lost son. You know, like in a fairytale. I was so stupidly naive. And then, after he’d
rejected me, I was so angry. You have no idea, Gen – I’ve never hated anyone like that in my life. I’d gone off the rails and hurt Mum by pushing things to the edge and it was
only Kyle and his family looking after me that stopped me ending up in jail when I was sixteen . . . seventeen . . . I was still out of control – though I thought I was such a big man . . . I
mean, I was already really screwed up, and Brandon acting like I was a piece of crap he was trying to wipe off his shoe made me even more screwed up. I stayed screwed up for years . . . until I
started working in the City, really . . . then setting up Loxley Benson finally straightened me out, and by then I’d almost forgotten about Morgan and the abortion . . .’

‘But she hadn’t.’

‘She told me she was going to take our baby when she came to see us in that place we rented in Oxford. At first I thought it was a joke, then she told me how she’d already bribed
Rodriguez, offered to give him enough money to retire on. And how she and Rodriguez had found a nurse and an anaesthetist to go along with the plan.’

‘So you knew she was serious.’

‘Yes.’ Art swings onto a much busier road than the one we were on before. The landscape is suddenly illuminated. I look around at the trees on either side of the road. Cars are
visible both ahead and behind us. I check the wing mirror again. The 4x4 containing Morgan, Jared and Lorcan is just a few cars back. Is Art right that Morgan won’t hurt Lorcan until
she’s got me back?

‘I told you, Lorcan will be fine as long as you’re alive.’ Art’s voice cuts sharply across my thoughts. Again, it strikes me how well we have come to know each other. And
how little this fact has meant . . . how easily I have been kept in the dark . . .

‘He’s such a chancer, Gen,’ Art mutters.

‘You’ve got no right to judge Lorcan.’ I turn on him. ‘You’re a total hypocrite.’

Art rubs his temple. ‘You’re still my wife, Gen,’ he says. ‘He saw we were having problems and he leaped right in to—’

‘Having
problems
?’ I shake my head. ‘You can’t honestly—’

‘I mean that’s what Lorcan saw,’ Art says, ‘. . . back at the party. He’s a predator.’

‘Like with the client’s wife from years ago?’ I snarl. ‘No, Art. That was
you
.’

Art looks out of the window. The hedgerows speed past – blurs of shadow. It’s like the world is going on somewhere else, and in this car, for this moment, Art and I have been locked
into hell together.

‘I didn’t force Lorcan into that lie,’ Art says softly. ‘He went along with it. I paid him and—’

‘God, you’re just like Morgan. Money this. Money that.’

Art shakes his head. I fall silent. I know that money isn’t the reason Art let Ed be taken away. He will never admit it, but Morgan was right. He gave up our son in order to save face, to
retain status, to achieve his full potential as a business success.

Those
were his priorities.

This
is the man I married.

Here
is our truth.

I sit back and stare out at the night sky – it’s dark with cloud. No stars. We approach a sign for Shepton Longchamp. We aren’t far from Morgan’s house.

‘So how are we going to do this exactly?’ I say. ‘Morgan’s not just going to let me take Ed – and what about Lorcan?’

‘I’ll help you get Ed into the car. I’ll help Lorcan get away, too . . . You’ll have to go away for a bit, let me sort things here.’

I stare at him. How does he possibly hope to accomplish all that? ‘Are you serious?’

‘Deadly serious,’ he says. ‘I can see now that it’s the only way to finish this.’ He pauses. ‘Are you in love with Lorcan?’

I say nothing. Art’s knuckles tighten on the wheel but he doesn’t speak and we drive on.

‘If I take Ed, Morgan will send that guy to kill me.’

‘Jared?’ Art nods. ‘That’s why you have to leave the country until I can take care of it.’

I take a deep breath. ‘Suppose you
can’t
take care of it?’

‘I will.’ Art sets his mouth in that determined line I know so well. I’m reminded of Ed again.

My instincts tell me Art is for real, that he wants to save me . . . to let me have Ed.

Art takes a right, then a left turn. We’re almost at the house.

‘You know I never wanted to hurt you, Gen,’ he says. ‘I only saw Ed every few weeks. We never went anywhere in public except around Shepton Longchamp – the little shops,
the play park. It wasn’t like you think . . . like I had some alternative family going on . . .’

I bite down hard on my lip. We’re passing a street of semi-detached houses. A streak of cosy-looking living rooms flash by . . . a family around a table . . . two little kids bouncing on a
sofa . . . a TV blaring out to a couple in matching armchairs.

Ordinary life.

That’s surely gone for me now, whatever happens.

If I take Ed – and if Art is wrong and he can’t deal with Jared when Morgan sends him after me – I’ll be in hiding for the rest of my life. Even if I can convince the
police that Ed is mine and that I’m innocent of Bernard’s murder, I will lose everything I’ve ever cherished . . . my home, my family, my friends.

And Lorcan . . . supposing he survives all this too, would he really be prepared to give up everything and come with me and a child he has absolutely no connection to? We hardly know each other.
And what about his life?
His
son? No, it’s impossible.

I’m so lost in these thoughts that it’s a shock to realize we’ve arrived at the house. Art slows the car and presses a key fob that opens the gates. We stop inside. Art gets
out and strides to the front door. I follow as he lets himself in. As I pass the vase on the hall table I realize why it looked so familiar before. It’s the same as the one Morgan sent to our
rented house in Oxford, when I was heavily pregnant. It arrived overflowing with beautiful white roses and I remember how deeply touched I was by her thoughtfulness, just as I was when she gave me
the bracelet the other day. I shake my head, thinking back to those moments and the years in between and how many lies Art must have told me.

Art is pushing open doors, calling out for Ed and for the nanny, Kelly.

She appears from the kitchen, her hair pulled back off her face in a ponytail. She smiles when she sees Art.

‘Hiya,’ she says. ‘That was well heavy earlier. Ed woke up and I haven’t been able to get him back off. He’s in the playr—’ She catches sight of me
standing behind Art and the smile vanishes. ‘What’s—?’

‘You have to go.’ He hands her a thick bundle of banknotes. ‘Grab your bag and get out. Is anyone else here?’

Kelly stares at him, her mouth falling open.

‘Kelly?’

‘No, there’s no one else here. Just me and Ed. I’ve been waiting for Mor—’

‘Go on, Kelly.’ Art gives her arm a gentle shake. ‘Leave. Now.’

Kelly looks at me again. ‘But I’m not—’

‘Go!’ Art roars.

Kelly blinks rapidly, then backs away a few steps. She picks up a bag and coat from the bottom of the stairs then, still staring open-mouthed from me to Art, she scuttles through the front
door.