Chapter Ten

Bella

Christmas was miserable. I longed to see Becca open her presents to hold her in my arms and smell the baby smell I hoped still lingered on her. She would have grown, would I even recognize her now? She was no longer a baby but a little girl. Would she be like me? Happy in pants and sweater or would Renee dress her in pink and lace? I wanted my life back, I wanted my baby and my husband and everyone who had been snatched from me in this sick game. I didn't even know why I was being punished or who by.

I had toyed with the idea of sending a card to the house without signing it but I was too afraid. In the end, I bought one, signed it and wrote a letter to go with it, telling my daughter how much I missed her and why I had abandoned her then sealed it up and put it in the glove box of the van before setting off once more.

Driving again until I was so tired I could hardly see the road ahead then pulled into a picnic site and wrapping myself up in the sleeping bag I'd bought cost price from Mr Briggs I tried to sleep but that's not easy when you are crying and I should know, the worst time was at night. I would close my eyes but no matter how tired I was I would begin to cry and eventually sob myself to sleep only to dream about John and Becca and wake myself shouting their names and crying once more.

It snowed heavily in March and I stopped off in another small town finding a job in a diner washing up and occasionally cooking too. The guy who owned the diner wasn't very friendly but his staff were and as I listened to them discussing the weekend and how they were going to spend Easter with family I felt so alone, so miserable and I was happy to drive away two weeks later, the tank full once more.

I wondered what would happen if I fell ill and was forced to stay somewhere longer than the three weeks I had been allowed. Surely whoever was orchestrating this wouldn't hurt my baby just because I fell ill? That was just another worry to add to all the others. I wasn't sleeping hardly at all now and found it a struggle to eat more than a few mouthfuls of cooked food living mainly on sandwiches and junk.

To find someone kind and cheerful was something of a miracle when you rarely stayed anywhere more than a few days but when I reached Salem I knew I needed a job, I was down to my last twenty dollars and the van needed a new tire. I had wondered in a foolish moment if my tormentor would replace the tire or leave money to replace it but of course not, this was all part of my punishment.

Harold James owned the garage which looked like it should have shut down years ago and was just hanging on, like him, but he took pity on me and offered me a couple of weeks work cleaning up and serving gas in return for a room, three square meals a day a new tire and a tank of gas.

I found out he was a widower with a son who had run away from home ten years ago and hadn't been heard of since. Harold was lonely and out of his depth in the house, so the offer of a room and meals wasn't quite as altruistic as it had seemed. It took a day to make the kitchen fit to cook in but as he sat down to a home-cooked meal he beamed and spent the next hour telling me all about Elsie his late wife and what a good cook she had been.

The work wasn't taxing, just manual and it didn't give me too much time to think about my own problems as whenever there was a lull in business which was often Harold would come and find me. He was lonely and enjoyed having someone to talk to. I learned all about his life in the army, his wife Elsie and son Barry. He had wanted to hand the garage business down to Barry but his son had other ideas, he wanted to go to sea and then one day he was gone. Harold blamed him for Elsie's death, saying he broke his mother's heart but I could see it was just his way of coping with the hurt of losing his wife and son.

When the end of the third week loomed and I was getting ready to tell Harold I had to leave he had a call from Barry. His son wanted to come and see his dad and Harold begged me to stay a few extra days, just to make sure everything was good for his son's arrival. I suppose I should have said no and gone on my way but I felt sorry for Harold and agreed. How I wish I could have gone back in time and said no. The day before Barry was due Harold was rushing around like a lunatic making sure the forecourt and the house were just so. He'd even had me painting the front of the garage and washing all the signs and pumps so the place actually looked like it was still open instead of derelict.

The police car that drew up outside was ominous and I felt my stomach lurch. The two police officers got out looking grave and asked for Harold. He took them inside the house and when they left twenty minutes later the taller of the two came over to me.

"You might want to go see Harold, he's very upset. His son was killed last night, he was mugged and whoever did it stabbed him a dozen times."

Harold was a wreck, I couldn't leave him, not after such terrible news so I stayed on an extra two weeks before deciding I had chanced my luck about as far as I dare. I promised to keep in touch but I think we both knew it wasn't true. As I backed out of the garage Harold handed me two letters and I thought he was going to ask me to post them but then he winked at me,

"Just a little thank you for all you've done for me."

He refused to take them back so I drove out of Salem wished I could have stayed longer, it had been nice to belong if only for a little while.

It wasn't until I stopped that night and went to a diner to get coffee that I pulled out the envelopes and looked at them. One was full of dollar bills, one hundred in all and a thank you note from Harold but the other…...I almost dropped it screaming when I recognized the second but controlled myself just in time. It was from my tormentor, so they had been watching me or at least they had found out where I was.

I opened it with shaking hands praying it wouldn't be more threats. Maybe they had decided I had been punished enough and were telling me I could go home. Maybe my act of kindness had softened their anger or hatred. I was fooling myself, of course, it was nothing of the kind. Three photographs fell onto the table in front of me and after glancing at them I hurried to pick them up and put them quickly into my pocket before paying for my coffee and running back to my van slamming the door shut and locking it.

Two of the photographs had shown Renee and Becca with targets superimposed on their chests but the third. That was a photograph of a man lying dead in an alley, blood stains on his chest where he had obviously been stabbed. Clipped to it was a newspaper clipping which reported the death of Barry James in New York as a result of a violent robbery. I hardly needed the note that came with the photographs but I read it just the same.

It seems you do not believe I will carry out my threats so this is a small reminder, there will not be another.

It left me in no doubt that Harold had lost his son as a direct result of my breaking the rules. Yet another person had died because of me because I had thought myself safe to break one of the rules imposed on me. Would this torment never end? It seemed unlikely but I couldn't go on like this for much longer I could feel myself slowly falling apart such was the mental torture I was undergoing at the loss of my sweet Becca. How could I possibly stay in this world knowing I could never see my own flesh and blood, the only part of John I still had left? One wrong move and I could be responsible for more bloodshed, that of the only two people who meant anything to me in this world.