Friday's Child (12 page)

“We talked about this yesterday.”

“Please, Patrick…”

“She’s safer with her mother.”

She looked down at her hands, picking at her index finger.
But I am her mother.

The phone rang. “Excuse me.” Patrick stood and pulled his phone from his pocket, answering it as he headed from the room.

Eleanor pushed her chair back and started taking the plates over to the sink. She ran the hot water, watching the washing up liquid turn into bubbles.

Shay brought over the rest of the dishes. “You have a special relationship with your sister, despite the age gap.”

She smiled. “Yeah. We’ve always been really close. She’s a great kid.”

“I’m like that with my sister. We can talk about anything. Some days it’s us against the world.”

“Exactly. If I’m not there she has no one to talk to. She needs me. And I need her.”

“Elle—” Patrick’s voice came from behind her.

Did she keep fighting the battle over her name? Her mother insisted on Eleanor and nothing else now, but the way he called her Elle sent perfumed flowers spinning into the air. It reminded her of a time when she was young and carefree.

She turned around and smiled. The smile died on her lips as she took in the look of devastation on his face. Maybe something had happened to his brother. She reached his side in a few seconds. “What is it? What’s happened?”

“There’s been an accident. Your mum and Abbie have been taken by air ambulance to Headley General.”

Her knees buckled. Her skin turned cold and clammy and a rock dropped her stomach into her feet. The air ambulance was funded solely by voluntary donations, and thus was only used in the most serious life-threatening cases.

“Whoa…” Patrick’s hands caught her and guided her to a chair.

“I’m all right,” she whispered. “What happened?”

“Your mum’s car left the road and went down the embankment.”

“I have to go to them.”

“I know.” His hand pushed the hair from her face, his eyes—Abbie’s eyes—staring into hers. “Give me five minutes to shower, shave and change.”

“Patrick, please…” Her voice was almost a whine, tears in her eyes.

“Five minutes.” He glanced over her head at Shay. “I’ll need you to drive. Then I can sit in the back with Elle.”

“That’s fine. Go change.”

Patrick hurried from the room and Eleanor buried her face in her hands.
Please don’t let them die. I may not like her but she’s my mum…and I love her.

10

Headley General Emergency Department was busy. Eleanor stood in the queue at the reception desk, her fear rising all the time. Every minute she stood here, was a minute Abbie was without her. If she lost Abbie, she didn’t know what she’d do. She looked at Patrick. “I’m scared.”

“Why?” he asked gently.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not alone, Elle. I’m here and God’s here, too. Neither of us are going anywhere.”

“All right.” She nodded ever so slightly, but didn’t sound convinced.

More minutes passed and still they hadn’t moved. Eleanor looked at the clock. “How much longer…?” she whispered.

“This is ridiculous,” Patrick said. “Come with me.” He pulled his ID from his pocket and, taking her hand, queue jumped. “Excuse me.” He flashed his MI5 card at the receptionist and gave her a charming smile. “Agent Page, MI5.”

Eleanor cringed inside, feeling the disapproval of the others waiting in line.

“Can I help you?” the receptionist asked.

“We’re looking for a Mrs. Harrison. I had a phone call saying she and her daughter Abbie had been admitted.”

The receptionist nodded. “I’ll get someone to come and see you.”

Patrick lowered his voice. “We don’t have time to wait. I need to see her now.”

“Just give me a moment please, sir. Take a seat.”

He sighed in exasperation and lowered his voice even more. “Do the words ‘national security’ mean anything to you?”

Eleanor would have laughed had the situation been different as the receptionist’s attitude changed completely. Her mother and sister had nothing to do with national security and Patrick hadn’t even implied they did, but merely mentioning the two words was as effective as saying open sesame.

“Would you like to come to the door? I’ll get a nurse to take you through.”

“Thank you.”

Eleanor gripped his hand tightly. “Come with me, Patrick.”

“That goes without saying, Elle.” He glanced at Shay. “Are you coming with us or staying here?”

“I’ll come. Guard one while you take Eleanor to see the other.”

“Assuming they aren’t in adjoining cubicles or both in Resus.”

Eleanor walked numbly to the door. Each scenario in her head was worse than the previous one. They were fine and just needed a lift home. Or both had cuts and bruises. Or whiplash. Or concussion. Or numerous broken bones. Or amnesia. Maybe amputations. Or they were dead.

The door opened. “Agent Page?”

Patrick nodded. “Yes. This is Eleanor Harrison, daughter and sister. And Agent Williams.”

“Sister Anderson. I’m the chief nurse here. Come on through.”

“How are they?” Eleanor asked.

“Your mother is in Resus,” Sister Anderson said as they walked down the short hallway. “We’re waiting to take her up to surgery. She’s bleeding internally and has a ruptured spleen. Her legs were pretty badly broken.”

“And Abbie?”

“Cuts and bruises, mainly. She’s broken her arm, some pain in her stomach.”

“Can I see Abbie first?”

“It might be better if you spoke to your mum first.” Sister Anderson lowered her voice, her tone concerned.

“How did the accident happen, do you know?”

“The police wanted to know when you arrived. They need to talk to you about that.”

“Oh, right.”

Sister Anderson pushed open the huge door into the busy resuscitation room. She led them over to one of the beds. An IV hung over the top, machines whirred. A doctor in scrubs, with a stethoscope slung around the back of his neck, examined the open fracture on one leg.

Eleanor swallowed hard, bile rising in her throat.

“Tony, this is Eleanor Harrison, her daughter.”

The doctor looked up. “Tony Peterson, ED consultant.”

Eleanor nodded. “How is she?”

“Pretty seriously injured. She’s in and out of consciousness. Once there’s an operating room free, we’ll take her up.”

She glanced down at the figure on the gurney. “Mum…”

The eyes flickered open in the cut and swollen face. “Eleanor…”

“I’m here.” She would have taken her hand, but her mother had always resisted physical contact.

Patrick let go of her hand. “You talk to her. I’m not going anywhere.”

She moved closer to the bed. “You’re going to be fine.”

Her mother shook her head. “No…”

“Don’t say that.”

“I wronged Abbie and you. I’m sorry.”

She tried to respond, but didn’t know what to say. She’d never heard her mother apologize for anything before. “I don’t…”

“Let me, finish. It was the only way to deal with it. Make him pay for what he did. But I was wrong to take it out on you all those years. Two wrongs don’t make a right. History repeating itself.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand. You’re not making any sense. Make who pay?”

“Your dad… There’s a letter in the firebox. It explains what he did.”

Dr. Peterson came back over. “We need to take her to surgery now.”

Eleanor nodded. “OK. See you later, mum. Love you.”

Her mother suddenly reached out and grabbed her hand. “Look after Abbie. She’s yours… I’m sorry.”

She stood there for a moment as they wheeled her mother away. Taking a deep breath, she tried to shake off the feeling of foreboding and unease the strange conversation had left her with.

Her mother didn’t apologize for anything, never mind bringing up Abbie.

What could her father done that was so terrible? Could what PJ have said been correct? Had her father been a criminal and on the run?

Turning to the nurse, she was pleased to see Patrick still there. Although she hoped he hadn’t overheard the conversation with her mother. “Can we go see Abbie now?”

Down the hall, Shay stood on guard outside a cubicle. Abbie sat on the bed, a bandage wrapped around her head and her left arm in plaster. Her face streaked with tears. “Ellie…”

Eleanor sat on the bed and hugged her tightly. “Hey, squirt. I came as soon as I could. Are you doing all right?”

“Do I look all right?”

“I’ve seen worse. There’s a man out there with both legs in plaster.”

“Where’s mum? They won’t tell me how she is.”

“They’ve taken her to surgery. She’s badly hurt. Do you remember what happened?”

“We crashed.” She rolled her eyes in a typical teen fashion.

“I know, sweetie, but how did you crash? Did Mum lose control, go too fast?”

Abbie didn’t answer. “They want me to stay in overnight. I don’t want to. I want to go home.”

Surprised by the sudden change of topic, Eleanor looked at Patrick. “Then I’ll stay too, we both will. We can sleep in the chairs next to your bed.”

Abbie glanced up at Patrick and rubbed a hand over her face. “What’s he doing here?”

“I thought you liked Patrick? He brought me in to see you.”

“Well, Mum said you’re living with him now and not us anymore.” She cut her eyes over to Patrick.

Eleanor could feel Patrick’s eyes burning into the back of her head without looking at him. She hadn’t told anyone where she was. Not that he would believe her if she said as much. Question was, how did her mother know? “I’m not living with him, Abbie. At least not like that.”

“Then what is it like?”

“First let me ask you something. How did Mum find out about Patrick?”

“You sent a text from his phone yesterday. Said you were staying at his for work.”

Eleanor exchanged a horrified look with Patrick. “Yeah, but you always read and delete your messages, don’t you? Like I told you too?”

“Yeah…’cept this time as I was about to, Mum came into the bedroom and found the phone.”

She closed her eyes for a moment and sucked in a deep breath. “It’s too complicated to explain and I’m not supposed to talk about it anyway, but I’m staying in a safe house with him and his partner for a few days. Patrick’s a government agent.”

Abbie’s eyes grew round. “Like the FBI? Cool.”

She smiled as Patrick chuckled. “Pretty similar. He works for MI5 as an agent, but you cannot tell a soul. Only you and I know. And you can’t tell anyone I’m not at home either.”

Abbie kept looking at Patrick. “Does that make you like James Bond?”

“Only better looking.” Patrick winked at her. “My brother and sister, have always called me 3.14. And now they and my partner call me Agent 3.14, so I’m way cooler than 007.”

“Why did they pick that number?”

“It’s because my nickname is Pi.”

“Oh, the math thing.”

“Exactly. Pi being 3.141592 and so on. I play dumb. They don’t think I ever worked it out, but I did.”

“How do you know pi to so many decimal places?”

Patrick grinned. “How I wish I could calculate pi. Each word is the next number in the sequence—you count the letters to get the number. How, three, I, one, wish, four and so on.”

Abbie counted quietly then beamed. “That is so cool.” She tilted her head. “Why didn’t you tell your brother and sister you knew why they called you that?”

“It’s far more fun this way, but I suspect they know.”

Eleanor’s soul twinged watching the easy way Patrick spoke to Abbie and put her at her ease. He’d make a great father. But he’d never forgive her either.

“But why’s Ellie staying with you and not at home?”

Eleanor took a deep breath. “He’s my bodyguard for a few days.”

“Why?”

“I already told you it’s kind of complicated.”

Abbie frowned. “More secrets?”

“Sorry?”

“You. Mum. Too many secrets in our house. I hate it. Does it have anything to do with those men?”

“What men?” Patrick sat on the bed next to her. “Can you tell me about them?”

“They came to the house last night, looking for Ellie. I didn’t like the man who did the talking. He shouted a lot. I’d never seen him before, but Mum called him Rick. She told him Ellie had moved in with her boyfriend. They didn’t go away like she wanted them to. They sat outside the house in their car all night.”

Eleanor caught her breath. Oh…the package. Was that what they wanted? She’d forgotten all about it. “Did you tell anyone?”

“No. Mum was mad at you, didn’t want her to get crosser. Then this morning there was a weird phone call before we left for school.”

“Oh…” she whispered.

Patrick silenced her with a glance. “Tell me about the phone call.”

“I answered in case it was you, Ellie. This man wanted to speak to you, he sounded like the guy from the club. You know the one that wouldn’t let me stay. I told him you weren’t there. He shouted at me and demanded to speak to mum. I gave her the phone, but after she spoke to him, she got all funny and insisted we had to leave. She knew him, Ellie. Then the car from outside the house followed us.”

Abbie stopped. She took a deep breath. “It drove us off the road. Hit us several times like in a film. We rolled over and over across the carriageway and then down the hill.”

Tears filled her eyes and Eleanor wrapped her arms tightly around her. “It’s all right now. You’re safe.” She glanced at Patrick. “We need to get her out of here.”

Patrick nodded. “Let me go and speak to her doctor and make a phone call. Shay is right outside the curtain.”

“OK.”

Eleanor sat quietly with Abbie, holding her as she cried. “You did very well talking to him. He might need to get you to describe the men, can you do that?”

“Yeah. Photographic memory.”

“I know.”

“Is mum going to be all right?”

“I don’t know.”

The curtain moved and Patrick came back in. “Right, that’s everything sorted. You’re both coming back with me. Abbie, your doctor says that long as you rest you don’t need to stay in overnight. But if you get a headache or stomachache you need to tell me or Elle immediately.”