Where could Orla have got to?
Follow the plan, she’d told him. Meet up back at the farm.
But she hadn’t come home to their tatty little rented flat. And the car was here, keys in the ignition. She must have done it, though. When Orla set her mind to anything – and this in particular – for certain, it would be done.
He thought of Rory then, mouldering in an early grave, and shuddered.
Still undecided, he sat in the car, weighing his options.
She’d be angry if he stormed in there, went looking for her.
No, he couldn’t do that. He’d…
And that’s when he saw Annie Carter, alive and well, exit the house, stride down the steps and across to a black Mercedes. She got in and drove away.
He was so taken aback that for a moment he was unable to think. Then he gunned the engine, and followed.
Layla remained sitting at the breakfast table, too numb to move, as her mother left the room and closed the door. She heard Annie’s rapid footsteps going off across the hall.
The house settled around her, silent, waiting. Rosa was downstairs but that wasn’t much comfort. Annie had questioned the old housekeeper before breakfast, and Rosa had sworn she’d set the alarm last night, same as she always did. A swift examination by Bri, the man now on the door, of the outside of the house revealed that the wires to the alarm had been cut and the lock on the basement window forced. Orla had climbed in through there, made her way to the ground floor and up the stairs.
Feeling like a prisoner in her own home, Layla went into the study and sat down at the desk, chewing her lip nervously. Shivers of dread and horror still coursed through her body every time her mind went back to last night, to what had happened.
Someone had come to kill her mother.
She couldn’t absorb it, no matter how she tried. Worse still, she had killed the woman, never intending to – of course not. Nonetheless, she had shot the woman dead.
But she was carrying a knife. A knife she’d intended using on Annie Carter.
Annie Carter… Her mother hadn’t reverted to her maiden name after the divorce. She’d claimed that Bailey didn’t suit her, she hated the name, it conjured up bad memories. So she’d remained Annie Carter.
Maybe she still loves him a little? wondered Layla.
She shrugged the thought aside. No. When her parents had been together, there’d been nothing but ferocious rows and ugly scenes.
Sitting in her mother’s study, she wondered where Annie had gone, what she was doing that was so urgent. Feeling sick to her stomach and cripplingly anxious, she picked up the phone, called the office. As she’d anticipated, it wasn’t well received. The work ethic at Bowdler and Etchingham was set in stone: illness was unacceptable.