The Lost Child (Detective Lottie Parker #3)(44)

‘She wasn’t in my diary because she just turned up. Before surgery started. What’s the big deal?’ Be brave, she encouraged herself.

‘I’ll tell you what the big deal is. You’re a lying, cheating whore. And I am in control of your life now. Not you. If you do one thing, one little thing without telling me, you will never set eyes on those two again.’ He nodded towards the ceiling.

‘I get the message.’

His hand clutched her shoulder and his fingers pinched into the bone. Around her throat they crawled, tightening with each movement. She dared not breathe. She tried to stare him down, but had to blink. A lump choked her up and she couldn’t gulp it away. His fingers pressed tighter. Her legs jellied and her knees buckled.

Then just at the moment when she felt she must surely pass out, he eased the pressure and removed his hand.

Putting his lips to her ear, he sucked hard and gnashed his teeth into the lobe. She squealed but managed to suppress a scream.

‘I’m watching your every move,’ he sneered. ‘Every. Single. Move.’

He released her and she collapsed against the table, trying to catch her breath. When she heard the door close behind him, she ran and vomited into the sink.



* * *



He entered his study and locked the door behind him.

‘Bitch! Stupid bitch,’ he said, sitting down at his computer consoles. He had four screens. One for work, one for gaming, one to check on the webcams spread throughout the house and the other for the webcam in her office.

He checked her phone. Usual trivia. He was sure she hadn’t got a new lover. But he was leaving nothing to chance this time. Not after that bastard Rickard had snared her.

No, Cian O’Shea was leaving nothing to chance.

He flicked on a screen, tapped a folder and brought up the photographs.

‘You are going to pay,’ he said.

But first Lottie Parker needed to be alienated.





Thirty-Eight





She was home a little earlier than usual. Didn’t make any difference. The house was still the same. Her family was still the same.

Sean shouted down the stairs. ‘Mam? Do you know anything about photosynthesis?’

‘Ask Chloe or Katie.’

‘They won’t help me and this homework has to be in for tomorrow.’

Lottie rested against the door. Closed her eyes. Took a deep breath.

‘Sorry, Sean. I know nothing.’

A screech from the baby alerted her to the fact that he was in the sitting room. She poked her head around the door. Katie was lying on the floor, fast asleep, little Louis swaddled in a blanket in the crook of her arm.

Lottie lifted him up without waking her daughter. Cuddling the little boy to her chest, she brought him to the kitchen. She snapped on the electric heater and glanced at the clock, wondering where Chloe might be. Finding a full bottle of formula beside the steriliser, she sat in her armchair and began to feed the baby. Maybe her own rumbling tummy might soothe him.

As Louis sucked at the bottle, Lottie thought how this serenity was a million miles from the hectic day she’d endured. Work–life balance. Wasn’t that what management expounded? She doubted any of the suits resident on the top floor lived the life she did. And then there was Moroney, with his bloodhound nose, sniffing for a story, and her mother still refusing to tell her anything about her dad’s death.

Her grandson’s blue eyes closed and she admired the length of his lashes. She thought of Jason Rickard, the child’s father. Tom and Melanie had a right to know about their grandchild. She had to talk to Katie about it. Soon. Tomorrow, maybe.

‘Are you going to cook any dinner?’ Sean swung through the kitchen door, his head almost touching the lintel. If he grew any taller, she’d have to raise the roof. She smiled. Was it the baby relaxing her?

‘I’ll finish feeding him and then put something on.’

‘I can get stuff from the freezer,’ he offered.

She supposed this was easier for him than trying to do his homework.

Sean disappeared to the utility room and returned with a frozen pizza and a bag of oven chips.

‘Which switch is for the oven?’



* * *



Sean fed everyone. Chloe arrived home. In a tantrum, she pounded up the stairs and banged her bedroom door behind her.

‘Boy trouble?’ Sean said, and escaped to his own room.

Lottie was thinking of asking Chloe about Emma. The girls had been friends at one stage, though Emma was a year ahead of Chloe in school. But did she want to involve her daughter in a case again? No, maybe not, especially after the last time.

Katie put Louis into his buggy and pushed him up and down the hall trying to get him to sleep.

Boyd rang to say they were in the process of preparing to arrest Arthur Russell. Good. Now maybe they’d get the Tessa Ball case closed.

Deciding it was time to have a serious conversation with her mother, Lottie left her kids and headed out into the storm.



* * *



Rose was stirring soup in a pot on the stove.

‘Will you sit down for five minutes?’ Lottie asked, trying to flatten her flyaway hair. Ten seconds running from the car to the door and she’d nearly done a Mary Poppins up into the sky.

‘I can talk just as well standing up, missy.’