Stranger Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

towards the kitchen.
    She stared at the five letters as if they made no sense. But they did. A shiver ran through her body and goose bumps covered her arms.
    I must warn David
. But it was too late. He pushed open the door and his eyes went straight to Emma.
    ‘Em. I’ve had some shocking …’ he began. His eyes were suddenly drawn to the corner of the kitchen. He glanced at the girl, and his brow knitted into a frown. He looked back at Emma as he walked across the room, his head on one side as if asking her a silent question. She knew she should speak, but for a moment she couldn’t find the words.
    ‘Ay, Dada. Ay,’ shouted Ollie.
    But David didn’t respond to his son. He turned back to the girl and stopped dead, his mouth slightly agape. He stared, speechless, at her, and his face drained of all colour.
    The girl stared back, two bright red marks on her cheeks betraying some emotion that was absent from her eyes. The silence felt heavy, and Emma was suddenly certain that from this moment forwards her life was never going to be the same.
    Finally, David spoke, his voice barely more than a whisper.
    ‘Tasha,’ he said.

6
    As soon as David had uttered those two syllables, the silent spell was broken. A gasp burst from his throat as he crossed the room almost at a run. Emma looked on helplessly as her husband stood in front of his daughter, his open palms stroking her upper arms as he stared down at her face, his expression switching from puzzlement to joy. Tears spilled from his eyes and ran unchecked down his cheeks as he tried to pull Tasha’s rigid body towards him.
    Emma was sure he would be thinking of Caroline, of how things used to be when it was him, Caroline and Tasha all together. She could imagine the scene if both parents had been here to witness the return of their lost daughter; how they would have rejoiced together. She realised that tears were running down her face too, and she brushed them away quickly. How cruel that David and Tasha had lost each other for so long.
    There had never been an explanation for Caroline’s accident, and there hadn’t been a trace of Natasha from that day to this. David had told Emma how the whole town had come out to march up and down the fields surrounding the accident site. Helicopters had buzzed overhead. Urgent appeals had been issued in the press and on television. But there was no sign that anybody else had ever been in that car. Only Caroline.
    And now Natasha was here. In their kitchen.
    David had blamed himself for refusing to go to the family party. Even though he knew Caroline wasn’t a confident driver, especially in the dark, he had rejected her pleas and stayed at home, pretending that work was the issue. That wasn’t true. It was simply because he didn’t enjoy spending time with Caroline’s father. It had taken all of Emma’s love and patience to get him to begin to accept that he wasn’t responsible for what had happened.
    Now he was talking non-stop to his daughter, and Emma’s eyes had moved to Natasha, who seemed completely unmoved by anything he said, her gaze blank, her eyes turned away from her father.
    ‘Tasha. Oh darling.’ David shook his head as if he had no idea what to say. ‘This is incredible. I’ve missed you – far more than you’ll ever know. You’re so beautiful – you’re so like your mother – do you know that?’
    Trembling with emotion, he tried again to pull her into his arms, but as Emma watched she saw Natasha stiffen even more, her eyes narrowing. She could tell that the child’s jaw was clenched.
    Belatedly, Emma saw the likeness to Caroline – the curve of Natasha’s cheek, her long dark eyelashes despite her blonde hair and the delicate pink of her lips. Caroline had been so dark, but it was a superficial difference. Under that sweep of chestnut hair in the portrait in the hall, her husband’s first wife gazed out with the same impenetrable gaze as the one Tasha wore now.
    David was still muttering