Page 98 of Safe Hands

She took a step back from the door. Then another.

Her legs walked her back down the drive and into the car, and she sat there with the key clenched so hard it left a red groove across her palm.

She’d crawled out of a truck on its side in a frozen Estonian ditch with a broken back. She ran five gyms. She could read a balance sheet like a map, talk a contractor down thirty percent, and hold a back four together for ninety minutes on rusty legs.

She couldn’t knock on her own father’s front door.

The anger came up slowly and filled her chest. Not at Samantha. Not at the carer, who’d done nothing but share a joke. At herself. At the coward who’d hidden behind brochures for weeks and called spreadsheets a kind of visiting. Who’d driven Berkeley round in the back seat so she wouldn’t have to walk him through that door. Who’d said I’ll do it like a promise and then stood on the porch with her key out, and left.

She put her forehead on the steering wheel.

Across the road, the bay window glowed. Her father was in there watching the quiz show with a stranger, with no idea his daughter had been on the other side of the door. She didn’t know if that made it better or worse.

On the passenger seat, her phone lit up between her boots.

Samantha. Missed call.

Then, a moment later, a text.

Well? How did he take it?

Carly watched the screen until it went dark again.

She didn’t pick it up.

29

Lauren

Lauren straightened her jumper, then tidied her quiff in the mirror on the back of the treatment room door. Her next client wasn’t until two. That gave her forty minutes, which was thirty-five more than she needed and about four hours fewer than she’d have liked.

She was about to pitch an idea to Carly again, which historically had a fifty-fifty chance of ending in grudging approval or mild humiliation. But this time, she was confident. Carly needed someone to look after Berkeley, and Lauren was the perfect candidate.

Not a pitch, she reminded herself. A question. She’d promised Paige. Ask once. Plainly. Let the answer be Carly’s.

She’d even done the numbers. Last night, after an hour of staring at the empty spreadsheet, she’d filled in all three columns, then added a fourth, Break-even, and the number at the bottom had come out lower than she’d expected. It wouldn’t be easy, but it wasn’t impossible either. The pipe dream looked less like smoke and more like a pipe.

She hadn’t told anyone yet. She wanted to tell Carly first. Afterwards. Once the Berkeley thing was sorted.

Lauren gave her reflection a nod, which she’d sworn she would never do, and opened the door.

The corridor was quiet between classes. A cleaner was mopping by the changing rooms, humming to something in her earbuds. Lauren stepped round the wet floor sign and headed for the office.

The door was half open. Carly sat at the desk with her forehead in her hand, glaring at her laptop. Her hair was scraped back tighter than usual, and there were shadows under her eyes that hadn’t been there on Sunday.

Lauren knocked on the frame.

Carly looked up.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Lauren hovered inside the door, unsure whether to sit. “Have you got a minute?”

“I’ve got a few.”

“We missed you at training last night.” Lauren perched on the edge of the chair opposite. “Jenna was devastated. She made us do your drills. Nobody knew what any of them were for. At one point, the whole back four ran into each other.”

It didn’t quite make it to a smile. “Sorry. Family thing.”