Look Behind You Read Online Free PDF Page B

the room, pushing past Flynn’s bulk in the doorway. ‘Oh, Chloe, I was so worried.’ He sits on the bed and crushes me to him, enveloping his arms round me. He holds me so tight it’s painful.
    ‘Ouch!’ I yelp.
    He releases me. ‘I’m sorry. Are you in pain? Are you OK?’ He leans back and studies me, his pale blue eyes darting a concerned look between my face and my bandaged hands. He touches the scratches on my cheeks gingerly. ‘I spoke to the nurse on the phone, but she only told me the basics. They said you’ve lost your memory. Is that true? What happened, darling?’
    ‘I don’t really know. I was…abducted.’ I repeat the story I told Summers and Flynn, and somehow it seems less real the more I tell it.
    ‘What?’ Liam’s eyes widen. His lips twist into a thin line. ‘Oh, Chloe. It didn’t happen again, did it?’ He shakes his head softly at me. ‘I thought everything was going to be OK now. You were doing so much better. The doctors told us there’d be no lasting effects.’
    ‘This isn’t from those drugs. It happened. It really happened. I was kidnapped.’ I risk a glance past him to Summers, who’s looking at me with a blank face.
    ‘But this is exactly what happened before.’ Liam’s voice quietens.
    ‘Liam, this isn’t anything like before,’ I say, even though I don’t know what it was like before, because I can’t bloody remember. ‘Someone took me and put me somewhere underground. I escaped. I ran for my life and made it to the road where a woman found me and called for help.’
    He glances down at my bandaged hands. ‘But your hands?’ He strokes my forearm softly. ‘It’s what you did last time.’
    ‘Apparently.’ Even though I’m bone-numbingly tired, anger rises within me. I try to bite it back. Anger doesn’t work well with Liam, and I need him to believe me. Need everyone to believe me. ‘But I know what happened. And he’s still out there. The man or…or whoever took me.’ I start to cry then. Fat tears fall uncontrollably down my cheeks. My shoulders shake. My nose blocks.
    ‘You said you don’t remember what happened, though, Chloe.’ Liam sighs ever so slightly.
    ‘No, I remember waking up in that place. I remember escaping. But I don’t remember how I got there.’
    Liam puts one arm protectively round my shoulder and twists on the bed so he’s looking at Summers for the first time. ‘You’re from the police station?’
    ‘Yes. DI Summers.’ He holds out his hand for Liam to shake, but Liam ignores it.
    ‘And what do you think?’ Liam asks him.
    ‘I’m sorry?’
    ‘Her story.’
    ‘It’s not a story.’ I wipe my nose on the back of my bandaged hand and look at Summers, trying to send him a silent message that I’m telling the truth. This isn’t some kind of deranged flashback. I’m not deluded or confused.
    Summers’ gaze flicks between Liam and me. ‘Your wife has obviously been through some kind of traumatic incident, and it’s my job to find out what that is.’
    Liam tenses beside me.
    I take a big sniff. It echoes in the ensuing silence.
    ‘You were in Scotland for business?’ Summers asks Liam, taking charge.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘For how long?’
    ‘I flew up to Aberdeen three days ago.’
    ‘And Chloe was at home when you last saw her?’
    ‘Yes. Did she tell you what happened when she was hospitalized before?’
    Summers nods. ‘She did. But it will help to hear things from you, since Chloe clearly doesn’t remember the incident. The last thing she remembers is your party.’
    ‘Yes. It was my fortieth. Lots of friends were there. It was a good night. And then…’ Liam glances at me with sadness. ‘The day after the party, Chloe told me she was pregnant.’
    I stifle a sob.
    ‘But…in the early hours of the following morning, she had a miscarriage.’ Liam tightens his arm round my shoulder. ‘After the miscarriage, she became depressed. She wasn’t eating or sleeping, and she’d lost all interest in life.