Exhaustion washed over her. She rocked on her heels as the weight of her head became too much for her to hold upright while wave after wave of blackness welled up to darken her vision.
The boom of a shotgun exploded from the direction of her brother’s bedroom at the far end of the hallway. The house shook and Poppy reared back her head, the swift rush of adrenaline pumping through her system to lend energy to her flagging body.
With no further thought of checking on her mum, Poppy shoved away from the balustrade, leaving the bloodstained print of her hand. Terror spliced through her heart. Her fingers gave a spasmodic twitch, letting Miss Tilly drop to bounce down the stairs ahead of her as she threw herself after the soft doll.
Away from the sound. Away from the fear. Away from Daddy.
A chorus of pain rocked her body as her knees gave way and she careened down the stairs, rebounded off one side of the railings to bounce against the other. Agony tore through her as she jammed her hip against the rail, stabbed her elbow on the white wood. All the time panic clenched like a fist as her feet skimmed over the thick navy-blue-patterned stair runner, barely keeping her upright while she gripped her trainers in one hand.
White-hot pain shot through her chest as she reached the bottom step and skidded through the wooden hall. She heaved in small snatches of air.
Confused, she stared at the partially open front door offering a view of their brightly lit driveway. An invitation to run out. Straight into Daddy. He must be there, why else would the door be open?
She backed away from the light and glanced back up the broad stairway, frowning as her nostrils burned with the acrid scent of fuel. A thin plume of smoke wafted from the right side of the landing above, then a trail of yellow flame raced along the hall onto her mother’s chaise longue and burst into a dynamo of fire.
Horror chased through her and, without hesitation, Poppy whipped around and raced along the hall to the kitchen that dominated almost the entire back of the house, overlooking the perfection of their landscaped gardens.
The security lights would be on there too, but it was a short sprint to the woods which curved around the rear of their property in a wide expansive sweep all the way to Much Wenlock.
Breath rasping with agony, Poppy dropped her trainers on the floor and slipped her feet into them before she wrenched open the back door and staggered out into the cool night air.
To escape.
To run as far as she could.
So he’d never find her.
So they wouldn’t blame her.
4
Saturday 18 April 2355 hours
Detective Sergeant Jenna Morgan flung herself upright, desperate to squeeze a lungful of air past the constriction in her throat and dispel the terror that held her firmly in its grasp.
She knocked the dead weight of an arm that had her pinned down from around her waist and blew out a gusty sigh.
‘Jesus.’ She cupped her hands over her face.
‘It’s okay. Sshh.’ Adrian Hall, Chief Crown Prosecutor, who’d recently taken to sharing her bed when time and distance allowed, sat up beside her, hitching the covers up against the cool of the night.
Mortified, Jenna squeezed closed eyes that had sprung open. She’d been crying in her sleep.
‘It was just a dream.’ She swiped the heel of her hand across her face and scrubbed away the tears.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ The soft smokiness of his sleep-filled voice soothed as he’d intended.
‘No. It’s okay, I was just…’ Trapped. Darkness pressing down on her.
She sucked in a breath and held it until her lungs almost burst. Their relationship still too new for her to trust enough. Since they’d met during her sister’s abduction a few months earlier, matters of the romantic type had taken a back seat and only recently made any kind of advancement.
Gentle hands turned her, and Jenna pressed her face into the welcoming, naked skin of Adrian’s neck and took the silent comfort he offered her, grateful he understood. She breathed in his calming warm scent as her heart rate stumbled back to normal. Despite Adrian only staying over a couple of times, there was no awkwardness, no need for words as she snuggled into him, no desire to pull away, but she wasn’t yet ready to divulge her darkest fears to him.
The strident ring of her mobile phone almost shot her through the ceiling, her heart ratcheted up to full pelt as she dragged herself out of Adrian’s arms, flipped over and grabbed the phone before the jarring noise alerted the damned Dalmatian. Her sister’s dog. He’d be in there like a shot, leaping all over the damned bed, given half a chance.
‘Jesus, that’s loud,’ Adrian’s sleep-husky voice grumbled from behind her.
‘It has to be when I’m on call otherwise I’d sleep straight through it.’ The light stabbed her in the eye as she flicked the phone case open and punched the green answer button. ‘DS Jenna Morgan.’
‘Sergeant Morgan. Sorry to disturb you this evening. It’s PC Ted Walker here.’
Surprised, Jenna glanced at the dim glow of her bedside clock. She’d barely been asleep an hour, she’d thought it was the middle of the night. Technically it was, as she’d been on earlies for the last week. Up at 5:00 a.m., work for 6:00 a.m. Bedtime became a skewed 9:00 p.m. She’d been later that night to accommodate the arrival of Adrian for dinner.
‘No worries.’ She shuffled herself upright in the bed and leaned back against her pillows, bringing her knees up to stop herself from sliding back down. If she did, she may just fall straight back to sleep. She’d only just dipped into that deep rejuvenating sleep when she’d been hauled back out of it by the dream. ‘What have you got, Ted?’
‘A fire, Sarge.’
Brain still blurred from sleep, Jenna reached up and scrubbed her hand through her short, choppy hair. ‘A fire?’
‘A bloody big one, Sarge. Out at Wenlock Edge, just past Farley. A place called Kimble Hall, Sarge. Looks like the whole bloody lot’s gone up in flames.’
Her brain kicked into gear and shoved the fog away in an instant. ‘Fire service?’
‘Already there.’
‘Ambulance?’
‘In attendance.’
‘Problems?’
‘It’s gone up like a tinder box.’
‘Great. Witnesses?’
‘None to speak of. The neighbour called it in. It’s a fifty-acre property. Remote. By the time they saw anything, the whole house was ablaze.’
‘Survivors?’
‘Can’t tell, Sarge. At this stage, the fire crews are still arriving, they’re telling me they can’t even get near the premises, the fire’s burning too hot. They’re already talking arson, but it’s a really old house, it could just be an accident. We don’t know if anyone is in residence. There’s certainly no one here coming forward.’
‘Jesus.’ She slipped naked from the bed and headed to her small en suite, already wide awake and in work mode. ‘I’ll be there shortly. Can you text me the postcode?’ She glanced over her shoulder and shot Adrian a regretful smile as he flopped back on the pillows, his eyes already closed.
‘Can do, but honestly, just drive towards Much Wenlock, at Farley head for the orange glow lighting up the whole bloody sky, Sarge.’