Page 39 of Her Deadly Promise

NADIA

Nadia screamed as she fought with the man who now had both hands on her, only to turn around and see that it was Ed. ‘You scared the life out of me.’

‘Well, you were in a world of your own but what’s new?’

‘Someone was in the garden. The light came on.’

‘It was probably a fox. I saw one the other night. You’re getting paranoid.’ He shook his head.

‘But a ball rolled onto the patio.’

‘They do play.’ Something about his poker expression told her that he was toying with her.

She waited for her heart rate to return to normal. Was she reading too much into him? Maybe he was right, and it was a fox. She could never quite read Ed. ‘I tried to call you.’

He tutted. ‘I got the three million missed calls. Really?’

‘Why didn’t you answer?’

‘I was working?’

‘All evening?’

‘Someone has to pay for all this,’ he yelled, arms in the air. ‘It’s not like you bring much into the household with your stupid hobby.’

A lump formed in her throat. She’d trained and studied hard to become a personal trainer, all while bringing William up, and that’s what he thought. He could be horrible sometimes.

‘I must hurry. I need to get back to the Derby office.’

He dropped his phone on the table and hurried upstairs for his toiletries. Bang goes the plan of getting him drunk and checking out his phone. As she listened to him rummaging above, she picked up his phone and as usual, she couldn’t get into it. It rang and she took it to the snug knowing that this was her big chance. ‘Hello.’

The caller went to speak, then hung up. It was a woman. Shaking, she realised she now had access to everything in his phone. She checked the last caller, and it was Graham. If the caller had been the Graham he employed, the man would have spoken to her, not hung up. She heard Ed sliding open the wardrobe above. She didn’t have time to delve into who the caller was. She needed to see the message from Billie. Nausea built up as she opened it. She grabbed her own phone and took a photo of the message, number, date and time, before hurrying back to the kitchen.

Just as Ed charged down the stairs, she dropped the phone back where it was. He eyed her suspiciously. ‘What were you just doing?’

‘I, err, I didn’t know whether to answer. Graham just called, but I left it. You might want to call him back.’

‘Oh, right. He called me about the alarm going off.’

She smiled. ‘I tell you what. Call him back and I’ll put your bag in the car. You look tired and you’ve been working so hard.’

He furrowed his brow and passed her his holdall, clearly suspicious of her change in mood. ‘Okay…’

As she hurried to the door, she grabbed her tablet and placed it under her arms. She opened the back door of his car and popped the holdall on the seat. After, she sandwiched the device between a couple of William’s books. When she first bought the tablet, she’d downloaded a tracker app onto her phone just in case it got stolen. Wherever he was going, she would follow with her phone.

He made her jump as he came up behind her. She slammed the door shut and kissed him. ‘I hope everything’s okay.’

‘It will be, I’m sure. I’ll probably have to call the engineer out again. I’ll see you tomorrow after I’ve been to the police station to give a statement.’

He could swing from calm to angry in seconds and right now, she wanted him to suspect nothing. ‘Okay, hope it goes well. Love you.’

He got into his car, not saying those words back. It didn’t matter anyway. As soon as he pulled away, she strolled back into the house and her phone beeped.

Wanna play a ball game?

Again, the unknown number. Nadia wished she’d had enough time to check more of Ed’s messages, but he had more than one phone anyway. She knew he’d rolled the ball to scare her. It was too much of a coincidence. It was easy to think that someone else could be trying to play with her head, but Ed got off on controlling and scaring her. Their whole life was a game. What people and friends saw was a charade. She darted back to the kitchen and shivered as she reread the message that Billie had sent to Ed just before she died.

Stop harassing me or I’ll call the police.

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