Uncaged. Lucy GordonЧитать онлайн книгу.
voice rose to a scream as her nerves finally snapped, and she flew at him. For three dreary years she’d longed to inflict on him a fraction of the pain he’d caused her, and now he was here. She lashed out blindly, striking, clawing at his face, driven by uncontrollable fury.
Daniel backed up, raising his hands as a shield. What he saw in her face appalled him. Through his job he was used to witnessing despair and misery, but this was worse. It was as though Megan was too demented with anguish to know what she did. Some instinct made him stop trying to push her away and pull her against him, tightening his arms around her so that she was trapped. “Let me go,” she screamed.
“I will when you stop trying to attack me,” he said, speaking breathlessly for she was still thrashing about. “I just want us to talk.”
“The only words I want to say to you are words of hate,” Megan snapped. “Is that clear enough?”
But she was too exhausted to keep it up. The roller coaster was at work again, carrying her to the peak of rage only to plunge her back down into the depths. Suddenly she went limp in his arms and started to shake, not with anger but with grief. Daniel felt the violent trembling of her body against his own and it went through him like a pain. He knew what it was like to suffer like that, to curse heaven in bitterness and misery, and realize that cursing changed nothing. The loved one had gone, and the world was still a dark, barren place to be endured.
Sounds were coming from her, not weeping, but a kind of half-gasping moan, like the keening of a distraught animal. And again his own experience showed him the answer. That sensation of being an animal, feeling the loss of one’s young like an agony in the flesh. How well he knew it. He was a man with a bitter sense of irony, and it wasn’t lost on him that, of all the world, he was the best placed to empathize with her, yet there was no one whose help she wanted less. But then irony fled and he felt nothing but an overwhelming desire to calm her storm of grief. “Megan,” he pleaded. “Megan...let me help you....”
She grew still and he thought he’d gotten through to her. “It’s cold in here,” he said. “Haven’t you got a dressing gown? And something to put on your feet?”
“When you’ve gone, I’m going to bed,” she said tiredly. “I wish you’d leave now. Just go, and I’ll be all right.”
He realized that he hadn’t gotten through, after all. She was simply too tired to argue anymore. “How can I walk away and leave you like this?” he demanded.
“The same way you walked away and left me in prison. I’m not your problem.” She pushed against him and he reluctantly freed her. “Please go.”
“Look—”
“Go.” She went to the door and pulled it open. “Go away now, and don’t come back.”
Her head was turned toward him, so she didn’t see what was outside the door. She saw only the sudden look of tension on his face, and when she turned, it was too late. The little crowd of men and women surged into her room, all babbling at once and taking pictures, blinding them both with flashbulbs.
“Mrs. Anderson have you anything to say?”
“...I’m authorized to offer you.”
“...exclusive...”
“Why aren’t the police looking for someone else?”
“Your story...if you’d only—”
“Go away,” she screamed. “Go away and leave me alone!”
Instead of leaving, they pressed in on her further, forcing her to back away from them. But she suddenly stopped and plunged forward between them, forcing them to part. By the time they’d recovered from their surprise, she was out the door and racing down the stairs toward the front door. They raced after her, baying like hounds in pursuit.
Daniel hesitated, torn between two opposing instincts. He wanted to intervene and get them off her track, but if they recognized him, they’d have an even better story, one that would make them pursue her even more mercilessly. At last he followed them down and out into the street and saw that Megan had vanished. The pack poured into their vehicles and tore off in pursuit. He gave them a moment to get clear before going to his own car. He didn’t think he’d have far to look for her. She was bound to be hiding nearby.
But an hour of combing the streets produced nothing. He checked her apartment in case she’d returned, but all he found was a journalist who’d had the same idea and looked set to wait out the night.
Cursing, Daniel got back into his car and began the search again. But it was useless, and at last he had to face the fact that Megan had vanished into the pouring rain wearing only a thin nightgown and nothing on her feet.
Two
Megan didn’t stop running until she was out of breath. She clutched something nearby and stood there heaving, trying to fight off a pain in her side. Gradually her head cleared enough for her to realize that she was holding a tree. She looked around and found herself in a large park that seemed empty except for herself.
She was unfamiliar with this part of London and she didn’t know where she was. She’d fled blindly, and now she had no memory of entering the park and no idea of how to get home. But the dreary little apartment had never been home, and now it wasn’t even a refuge. They’d found it and would be watching for her return. Her feet were bruised and bleeding and she was shivering with cold. She wondered why she’d ever thought things would be better once she’d left jail. They were worse. She was as much a prisoner as ever, but now she was a prisoner on the run, with nowhere to go.
To her surprise she discovered she wasn’t cold anymore. Heat was stealing pleasantly through her limbs and all over her body, although the icy rain was still pouring down, plastering her hair over her eyes. She brushed her hair back, but it was still hard to see through the curtain of water that surrounded her. She began to stumble about, seeking an exit, although what she would do when she found one she didn’t know. The whole evening seemed like just a dream. She’d dreamed that her enemy had come to call, just as she was dreaming now that she could hear his voice through the lashing of the rain.
She came to another tree and stopped to rest against it. But something in the pattern of the knots seemed familiar, and she realized that it was the same tree as before. How long had she been wandering around in circles? She had no notion of time.
“Megan.” The voice was there again in her dream, and Daniel Keller mysteriously appeared through the curtain of water. “Megan. Thank God, I found you.”
She regarded him without hostility, but without interest. He was no more than a shadow in her overheated consciousness. “Go away,” she said indifferently. “I’m fine, really I am.”
He put his hand on her forehead and swore. “You’re burning up with fever. Come on.” He picked her up and ran with her in his arms to where he’d left his car. He almost threw her into the backseat, wrenched off his jacket and wrapped it around her before getting into the front and starting up.
As he drove, he used his car phone to call his doctor, who was also a good friend. “I need a home call urgently,” he said. “Can you be there in ten minutes? Thanks.”
Dr. Angela Lang was there before him. She stood by his front door, a reassuringly motherly figure, as Daniel hurried up the path with Megan in his arms. “Help me put her to bed,” he grunted as he carried Megan inside and passed Dr. Lang on the stairs without waiting for a response.
In the guest room, he stripped off Megan’s sodden nightgown and dried her fiercely. “Good grief!” Angela exclaimed in sudden shock. “Isn’t she—?”
“Yes, she is,” Daniel said urgently. “Never mind that. Do something for her feet while I try to stop her getting pneumonia.”
“The best thing is if I get her admitted into the hospital—”