That was Jamie Dawson’s first mistake.
Trust your gut. That was my mantra. Your intuition is always right.
Because if he had trusted his instincts, Jamie would have known I was always too good to be true.
Chapter Seventeen
Rebecca’s eyes flicker open.
Dazed and still half asleep, she sits up in bed and stares around the darkened room, wondering what woke her, grateful for the narrow stream of light that pours in from the gap underneath the doorway. Complete darkness has always terrified her.
It’s ridiculous how at twenty-eight years old she still needs to sleep with some form of light on.
Especially on nights like tonight, when Jamie wasn’t home and she woke in the middle of the night, traumatised and disorientated from yet another nightmare.
Only, it wasn’t a nightmare that woke her this time. She’s not breathless or covered in a film of sweat. Her heart isn’t pounding violently inside her chest, as if it’s going to smash through her ribcage.
This is different.
This is something else?
Ella?
Rebecca’s heart starts to pound as she strains to listen out for Ella’s cries, only to be met with a wall of silence.
Turning, she glances at the clock on her bedside cabinet, the florescent green glow of numbers telling her that it’s almost one a.m. Ella’s not due for her feed for another few hours. And as her eyes move across to the baby monitor screen, she does a double take at the man standing in Ella’s nursery.
Jamie?
Has he come home early?
Every sense in her body is on red alert. Paralysed with fear.
Taller than Jamie, and broader. The sinister way he’s just standing there, staring down at Ella, makes the adrenaline surge inside of her, heart pumping frantically inside her chest, and for a second she’s completely in shock. Her gaze is stuck on the dark grainy image of a man standing by the side of Ella’s cot.
Rebecca opens her mouth to scream, but no sound comes out.
You’re asleep. You’re still dreaming. Get a fucking grip, Rebecca. Get a fucking grip. This is all in your head. She tries to convince herself but the burn of the thick bile that she can taste on her tongue tells her otherwise.
Her first instinct is to run to Ella, to protect her daughter.
But how could she protect her on her own? She needed to get some help.
Reaching for her mobile phone, she presses frantically at the button, cursing herself as the screen stays black. The battery’s dead. She meant to charge it earlier, but she was just too tired to get back out of bed and fetch the charger from where she’d left it in the office earlier.
Rebecca can’t think straight. Her head is fuzzy, and her legs are tumbling beneath her as she gets out of the bed.
Her only thought is to keep Ella safe. She needed to make some noise and try to scare this intruder off, so stamping loudly across the room, she reached for the main light, making a clattering noise as she grabbed her dressing gown, smashing the wardrobe door closed behind her.
‘Jamie. Someone’s in the house,’ she calls out, cursing the tremor in her voice that gives away her fear. Praying that the man will hear her and think she’s not alone.
She hears footsteps.
Retreating? Or is he coming this way?
Cowering behind the bedroom door, Rebecca prays that he is leaving. Her head up against the wooden panel, she listens carefully cursing herself for not bringing the monitor.
There’s nothing now. No sound at all. And suddenly she’s gripped with fear that he’s taken Ella.
MOVE!
Picking up the china figurine from the side of her dressing table, a statue of a woman and child, a gift from Lisa when Ella had been born, she clutches it tightly in her hand, opening the bedroom slowly. She shouts out again.
‘I’ve called the police. They’re on their way.’
When she’s met with silence, her entire body trembles with fear. She has to get to Ella. No matter what.
She moves, rapidly, ready to take whatever she’s faced with.
Ready to fight. Despite her fear, Rebecca is fuelled by something else.
Something far more powerful than she ever realised she possessed. A mother’s instinct, to protect their child no matter what. It was like an unspoken superpower she’d gained since giving birth. She knew that if she had to, she’d kill for Ella. She’d fight to the death.
Pushing the nursery door ajar, she peered through the narrow gap until she could see the room fully.
Dark and empty. She stepped inside, rushing to the cot, and almost collapses in a heap on the floor when she sees Ella, her arms stretched out above her head as she blissfully sleeps. She stands shivering for a few minutes more, watching Ella’s chest rise and fall, fighting the urge to wake her up, to pull her into her arms and hold her close. To breathe in that familiar sweet smell of hers.
The anxiety in her stomach is quickly replaced with a bubbling warmth of love, then quickly she’s overcome again by fear as she rubs at her forehead. The steady throb behind her eyes brings her back to reality.
Did she just imagine seeing someone standing in here? She wonders, as she scans the room. Checking inside the wardrobe before squatting down and looking underneath the cot.
Had she been hallucinating? Rebecca wanted to cry, terrified of what was happening to her, of what she was becoming.
Ever since Ella came along, it was as though every tiny fear inside of her had become magnified. Like a thick fog of uncertainty had descended on her, making her see monsters that aren’t really there.
For a second, she’s on the outside looking in and she sees how crazy she must appear, standing in her daughter’s nursery at this time of the morning, a china ornament clutched tightly in her hand.
She knows she should go back to bed, even though she knows there will be no sleep for her now, that her demons have all come alive inside her head.
But as she makes her way back to her bedroom, she hears another noise.
Chapter Eighteen
She definitely heard it this time.
A loud bang, then a scrape of a chair against the tiled floor. Someone was downstairs, in the kitchen.
Her first instinct is to move, to run… to get Ella and get out of the house to safety, but her feet feel like lead, as if they’d been welded to the floor beneath her.
‘Jamie?’ she calls out tentatively, her voice tinged with hope as she makes her way down the stairs and towards the kitchen, trying to convince herself that he’s come home from his business trip early. That he’s too wired for sleep, so he’s fixed himself a large Scotch before he goes to bed.
Even through her fear, she can imagine what he’ll say when she confronts him. How he’ll tell her that she’s being stupid. Crazy. Walking around the house in the middle of the night and acting so paranoid.
Only, Jamie doesn’t reply, and she feels the fear gripping at her insides.
She knows it now, without uncertainty. She’s not alone, someone’s here. Taking a deep breath, she reaches out and places her hand on the door handle. Trying to stay rational, as her mind retraces her steps from earlier. How she’d locked all the doors and windows before she went to bed. She’d set all the alarms.
No one could get in here, Rebecca’s rational mind tells her. Yet, still her skin is prickled with goosebumps, and she knows she can’t just stand here all night. She pushes the kitchen door wide open with much more bravado than she feels, her hand instantly going for the light switch just inside the doorway.