Behind Shadows: A Psychological Mystery Thriller (The Adam Stanley Series Book 1) (6 page)

I couldn't concentrate. My mind was still reeling. I rubbed my face with both hands.

"He was diligent for the first five weeks but vanished over five days ago now. All his things are still at the hostel and nobody's seen him there for almost a week."

The detective sat forward on the chair, his trouser legs riding up and giving me a glimpse of a mass of dark hair above his grey socks. My stomach muscles clenched and I cleared my throat—trying to pull myself together. What the hell was wrong with me?

I tore my eyes away and shook my head, a sudden thought occurring to me. "What about his ex-wife? You must know she was also charged and I know she was released three years ago. Maybe they hooked up again." A strange jittery feeling encompassed my whole body, as though my nerve endings had been hard-wired to the mains.

"We have officers trying to locate her as we speak. It shouldn't be difficult—we monitor paedophiles closely. We need to know where they're living at all times."

He stood up and extended his hand to me.

As our hands touched, I could no longer ignore how utterly masculine this guy was. My nostrils filled with the scent of his aftershave and I suddenly visualised leaning in to him and chewing on his delectable bottom lip. However, he seemed oblivious to the effect he was having on me.

"Try not to worry too much, but it won't hurt if you’re extra careful for the time being. I'll keep you informed of any news. In the meantime, if you hear from him or have any more strange episodes, please call me." He dug in his jacket pocket and produced a business card, placing it on the coffee table.

I followed him out to the door and watched as he walked down the path and got into a charcoal-coloured car. I closed the door, then sat at the bottom of the stairs. What the heck had just happened? My thoughts should have been consumed with the devastating news I’d just received, not imagining snogging the face off the detective.

It had been months since my libido upped and left and I couldn’t have been more shocked at its inappropriate re-appearance, but I guessed it must have something to do with the shock I’d just had.

I needed to pull myself together before facing Michael and the fifty thousand questions I was sure awaited me in the kitchen.

Chapter 6

Michael

"What the hell's going on?" Michael mumbled, pressing his ear to the kitchen door. The kids were making too much noise with their incessant chatter; he couldn't hear a thing.

Amanda was in the lounge and looked dreadful, being questioned by a detective who sounded as though he’d just walked out of an episode of Coronation Street! What the fuck was that about?

She had been driving him berserk lately, being paranoid and grumpy. She couldn't stand the kids out of her sight. But then she’d lost Emma at the zoo. If he'd have lost their daughter he’d be hung, drawn and quartered by now.

He was sick and tired of her and their shitty life together. The only reason he was still there was because he loved his kids so much, and the thought of leaving them tore his heart out.

But he had tried his very best to make things work.

When they met, she was a challenge—she had been the first woman to reject him and had really got under his skin. She was sexy and beautiful in a natural way. She didn’t have to rely on lotions and potions to accentuate her features like most women did. 

She fell pregnant very early in the relationship and so he did the right thing and popped the question.

She wasn’t a bad wife at first, and although not very adventurous in the bedroom, she had been willing and would try anything he suggested without complaint.

Recently though, she was uninterested in him. They never had sex anymore and it was pointless even trying. Then, to top it all, she'd caught him with Toni in a very compromising position and he thought he’d blown it, big time. But she’d given him a second chance.

Now, thanks to Emma, she knew he'd been at it again. He'd need some fancy talking to get himself out of this one. If indeed he could be bothered at all. 

He heard the lounge door open and he went back to sit with the children.

Paper and crayons covered the entire dining table. Emma sat colouring a large flower, her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth in total concentration. Jacob had rubbed green crayon all over the wipeable plastic tablecloth instead of the picture of a fire engine in front of him.

"Jacob, love, you're supposed to draw on the paper, not the table." Michael picked up Jacob's hand and placed it onto the paper. "Em, that's beautiful—you're so good at staying inside the lines now," he said, his ears still tuned in to what was happening on the other side of the door.

He heard the front door shut, and then nothing.

After a few minutes, he got up to investigate and found Amanda sitting on the stairs with her head in her hands.

"Mand, what is it? What's wrong?" He sat next to her, pulling her into his arms and she began to sob. He positioned her in a way to avoid getting her tears and snot all over his Armani shirt. Michael was surprised. He’d never seen her so broken and vulnerable before.

After a few minutes, Jacob, sick of being stuck in his highchair, started to cry.

Amanda sat up straight and wiped her face on her sleeve before going into the kitchen. She lifted Jacob from his chair and placed him on the rug and emptied the contents of his toy box in front of him; dolls, cars, blocks and farm animals covered the floor.

Michael followed her. Standing in the doorway, he raised his eyebrows and shrugged at her as she started to prepare dinner.

"Not now, Michael. We'll talk later." She flashed him a warning look.

Gone was the softness of a few moments ago. Back in its place was the tough, no-nonsense, impenetrable exterior. Any other man would give her a slap for the way she spoke to him. He wasn’t a violent man, but she’d been pushing his buttons lately.

With a shake of his head he went into the lounge to watch the news, but switched the television off after a few minutes. He couldn't concentrate.

His thoughts returned to his wife. He had loved her, maybe still did in a way, but she frustrated the hell out of him.

He'd tried his best to be faithful, but it wasn’t easy. Amanda was every red-blooded man's dream with her tall figure that was on the skinny side of slim—natural blonde hair and pretty face. But emotionally, he always found himself on the outside with no chance of getting in.

There had been the odd bit on the side over the years—nothing more than most men got up to. But then he met up with Toni four months ago. He’d known her from school, but they hadn't seen each other in years. He found her in the supermarket car park shaken up and crying—she’d been attacked by a hooded youth who’d snatched her bag.

Michael stayed with her while she waited for the police to arrive. Afterwards, he took her for coffee and waited with her until she calmed down.

They'd been seeing each other ever since—and not just for sex, although she was a minx in the bedroom—or bathroom as Amanda had discovered. In the beginning, they'd meet several times a week at the park or playground. Initially, it was just for a chat, but after a while they began having wild, sexy romps every Tuesday and Thursday at Toni's house.

He would drop the children off at the day-care—another thing Amanda would go stark staring mad about. She expected him to stay there with them when all the other parents dropped their kids off, but he'd felt like a weirdo hanging about the nursery.

Now a detective had turned up on their doorstep, for whatever reason, and it had knocked her for six. What the fuck had she been up to?

After making sure the children were sound asleep, Michael poured two glasses of wine.

He was wary about confronting Amanda, knowing she'd want her own answers about Toni. However, the desperation to find out what had been going on with his ordinarily boring wife overshadowed everything else.

Amanda was sitting with her feet curled underneath her on the sofa. She wore white pyjama bottoms and a purple T-shirt with a large white smiley face across the front. She seemed miles away.

"Here you go, Mand, get this down you, love," he said as he handed her the wine and sat down next to her.

"Thank you." She took the glass from him and placed it on the coffee table without taking a sip.

"Right, Mand, are you gonna tell me what the police wanted?" The suspense was driving him mad.

She turned towards him as if seeing him for the first time. "They're looking for someone...someone from my past," her voice seemed very far away.

"Who?" He sat staring at her, waiting for her reply. He was about to ask the question again when she shuddered and looked at him.

"Does it matter who?”

“Yes, of course it does,” he said.

“It’s just someone I haven't thought about in a long time and never intended to think about again.” She gave a huge sigh. “I couldn't help the detective so let's just forget it, shall we?" Her hands shook as she reached for her glass.

"You're obviously still upset. What could be so terrible you can't tell me? I won't let you come to any harm, Manda. Who is it?" he urged. He couldn't begin to imagine what had got her this worried.

"My dad," she whispered.

He shook his head in confusion. "Who? Did you say your
dad
?" His voice had gone up a few octaves.

She nodded.

"You said your dad was dead along with the rest of your family." He pushed himself back on the sofa, wanting to put some distance between them. "What the hell’s going on, Amanda? Why would you say something like that?"

"Because I wished he
was
dead, that’s why,” she said. “He's a horrible, sick man who’s been in prison for the past ten years. I found out today that they released him six weeks ago." She slammed her glass down onto the table, the wine sloshing everywhere.

She turned to face him again, her large blue eyes fixed on his. "I
told
you I was being watched but you wouldn't believe me."

"It's not that I didn’t believe you, Amanda, but I couldn't imagine why somebody would want to watch you—it didn't make sense—it still doesn’t."

He stared at the woman in front of him—the woman who had shared his life for so long—the woman who had given birth to his children. But all he saw was a stranger.

"I need to get the kids away from here—he knows where I am, and I don't want him anywhere near them." She was shaking so much her teeth chattered. Tears filled her eyes and then great racking sobs shook her body.

He pulled her into his arms. "It's all right. I won't let anything happen to you or the kids, I promise," he said.

"Don't you see? It already has. He somehow got to Emma at the zoo. What about the seahorse he put in her bag?" Huge tears spilled from her lovely big eyes.

"Now you're being daft,” he snapped. “Emma said she followed
you
. Nobody took her, and she probably just found the brooch," he said as he forced himself to soothe her.

"You don't know him, Michael. I do. I know how his sick mind works, trust me. I also know he won't be happy until he punishes me."

Alarm bells started ringing in his head. "For what? Come on, Amanda, I think it’s time you told me everything."

"I testified against him. I was the one who had him locked up." Her voice was no more than a whisper, and large silent tears streamed down her face.

"What did that monster do to you? Tell me—it's all right." He pulled her head to his shoulder, stroking her silky blond hair.

"He … he raped me."

***

Maybe I shouldn't have blurted it out like that, but I needed him to take me seriously for once in his life. Plus, if I'm honest, I also wanted to hurt him for a host of reasons, though none of them—apart from carrying on with another woman—were even his fault.

The expression on his face, once I'd told him, reminded me of the time a seagull crapped on his shoulder in Blackpool. He was disgusted. Just another reason for him to think of me as damaged stock. Now I was the woman who'd slept with her father in his eyes, regardless of the circumstances.

Michael had gone out soon afterwards, making some excuse about needing fresh air and clearing his head. Forgotten was the grand speech of being there to protect us. Two hours had passed already, and it didn't take a genius to work out where he'd gone.

My heart contracted in my chest and I bit back the tears. I knew it was over. Had known all week since the texts but I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about it. Now the decision was out of my hands–it had been obvious by his reaction.

I wondered what he'd do once he knew the whole truth. The watered down version had freaked him out enough.

I understood why he'd find it difficult to comprehend. His had been an overindulged childhood. His parents had spoiled him rotten and he was their world. It would be impossible for him to imagine his father abusing him in any way. Even now he only had to click his fingers and they would come running.

And yes, I had lied to him when we first met, telling him my family were dead. But no-one in their right mind would tell the whole sorry truth straight off and I never found the right time afterwards.

The police and courts protected me when the story first hit the papers. I didn't have to face people looking at me the way Michael had tonight—like it was somehow my fault.

He’d go mad when he found out my mum was also still alive. She left us when I was four or five years old and I didn’t hear from her again until I tracked her down when I was seventeen years old.

I remember being stunned by how much I looked like her—golden blond hair, slim features, pale blue-grey eyes, full lips and a slight frame. But that was where the similarity ended. She was a self-centred woman and a god-awful mother.

After she had left my dad she shacked up with a man living in a council house in Scotland. Once I found her again, we met up a couple of times when she came to Pinevale, but things had been very strained between us. I could never understand why she left—especially now, after having babies of my own. There was no way on this earth would I ever leave them.

My brother Andrew disappeared when he was fifteen. His suffering had been even worse than mine—as well as the sexual abuse, Dad also beat him regularly. The police tried to find him but came up with nothing. For years I'd thought Mum must have come back for him, but once I found her, I knew she hadn't. I now suspect my dad was behind Andrew's disappearance.

Pouring yet another glass of wine, I put the cork in the bottle and took what remained to the kitchen. I was afraid I'd drink the lot.

I intended going to Judy's house in the morning to start planning her job. Work would have to be the drug I used to distract myself.

I'd received an email from her earlier asking me to choose the wallpaper and soft furnishings. Her deadline gave me plenty of time if I started straight away. I should be pleased, but instead I felt nothing.

I would be able to do most of the work on the house myself. The place was basically sound and just needed a lift. Though I'd have to employ some gardeners and get a builder to sort the exterior masonry and guttering.

When a car pulled up outside, I got up to peer through the window. I wasn’t expecting it to be Michael as he had gone out on foot.