The Babysitter(101)

Mark swallowed hard. Grace.

‘You burned them alive?’ Astounded, he searched her face, looking for some shred of conscience, some indication she understood the horrendous thing she’d done, was doing.

‘I hurt them like they hurt me! I went to the kitchen, and I struck the match and I killed them. And you said it would be all right. You pretended you cared. But you didn’t! You’re all the same, liars! Users and abusers.’ she screamed, over a deafening crash from the landing.

The stairs going? Mark kept his gaze on hers, prayed it wasn’t. Sweat wetting his eyelashes, pooling at the base of his neck, he tried to focus as the light bulbs popped. His heart was thundering so loudly he could almost hear it above the cacophony of sirens outside. He risked another step towards her.

Jade twisted around, ready to jump.

‘Jade, wait! What happened to her?’ Mark shouted urgently. ‘Your baby. What happened to her? Tell me. Make me understand.’

‘Hah!’ Jade laughed cynically. ‘As if you could.’

‘Try me.’ Mark begged.

Jade didn’t speak for a second. ‘I thought she was an alien growing inside me,’ she said quietly. ‘But she wasn’t. She was beautiful. So tiny. Blue. Her skin was tinged blue.’

Premature? Oxygen starvation? Mark felt another violent twist in his chest.

‘I knew God would take her for an angel when she died. I sang to her when her eyes closed… Hush, little baby, don't you cry… She smiled at me. I’m sure she did. My perfect little Angel. I knew she’d come back to me.’

‘Evie.’ Full realisation finally dawning, Mark almost choked the word out.

‘Angel!’ Jade glared back at him, her eyes smouldering with hatred. ‘You abandoned me. Tried to take her away from me. I have nothing to live for without her. Now she’ll die too. And when she does, remember it was you who killed her, Mark Cain.’

Mark didn’t dare move, other than to brace himself and pray harder as she moved closer to the edge.

‘I’ll see you in hell,’ she snarled.

Intent on her aim, she didn’t notice the hand snaking around her ankle, her calf.

The woman whose child she’d stolen wasn’t about to let her go.

‘Hell can wait for you, Jade.’





Seventy-Nine





JADE





He’d grabbed her. Wrapped his hand around the waist and yanked her away from the window. He’d hurt her. Curled into a ball in the corner where he’d flung her, Jade watched as he handed the brat down through the window. He didn’t even glance in her direction as he helped needy Melissa out. She was protesting, of course, whingeing, always whingeing, wanting her precious little baby.

Jade couldn’t believe it when he walked past her to gather the policewoman from the floor, the scheming cow who wouldn’t have hesitated to steal him from her. Carefully, he carried her to the window, searching her face, as if he was already in love with her, the bastard. It was she who needed him. She was choking to death. Couldn’t he hear her?

Finally, he turned his attention to her, and Jade shrank back. His breathing laboured, his expression pure thunder, he simply stared at her. There was no compassion in his eyes, nothing. He didn’t move to help her when she coughed again – so hard, she was sure her lungs would turn inside out. He barely flinched when the door cracked, and thick grey smoke furled further into the room.

Jade looked frantically towards it. She was going to burn. He was going to let her. Her skin would be blackened and blistered, her eyes would pop. Oh God… ‘Mark?’ she croaked, her throat parched and sore from the fumes.

‘Where is she?’ Mark spoke quietly, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘Evie, where is she?’

Jade looked at him, pleadingly, beseechingly. She couldn’t tell. He must know that. If she did, he would have no reason to save her.

Jade’s thoughts were cut short as the door blew. ‘Mark!’ she screamed, as hungry flames rushed petrifyingly towards her.





Eighty





MARK





She was barely recognisable as the young girl he’d met eight long years before. An innocent young girl, Mark had thought, and one he’d inadvertently sent out the wrong signals to. She’d obviously had cosmetic surgery as she grew older. Disguised her striking cognac-coloured eyes with blue lenses. She’d been beautiful – on the outside. Broken on the inside. Whether from birth? No one would ever know the workings of a mind that had compelled a young girl to burn her family alive.

There was nothing for him here. The doctors had confirmed cerebral hypoxia from the fire, meaning that, if she survived, lack of oxygen to the brain would result in severe and permanent damage. Despite the full-scale investigation now underway, with absolutely nothing to go on, they weren’t likely to find Evie. Mark knew it, but he hadn’t said so to Mel. He’d hardly spoken to her, desperate though he was to hear her voice, which had always seemed to anchor him in his darkest moments. He’d been too scared to, knowing it would be a conversation he couldn’t bear. She was never likely to forgive him for doubting her, judging her, readily accepting a diagnosis that was wrong. Being involved, albeit unknowingly, in a plan to drive her steadily out of her mind. Accusing her, and then getting so paralytic himself he’d allowed a woman to take advantage of him, manipulating him to the point where he was the accused, locked up like the worst kind of criminal while… He didn’t dare imagine what might be happening to Evie. Melissa could never forgive him that. He would never forgive himself.