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| pic used under creative commons from mynameisharsha |
(If you've stumbled on this and are wondering what the hell I'm talking about, well you're in luck! You can recap all the previous parts of the story below without having to wait!)
Written Fireside - 'For Clara' is a travelling blog-hop story written in instalments by a fabbo group of writers, all of whom have their own vision for it but have had to succumb and let the story take on a life of its own. The experience has been great fun for us! The story so far can be accessed here:
PART 1 - Lori Connelly
PART 2 - Teresa Morgan
PART 3 - Carmel Harrington
PART 4 - Romy Sommer
PART 5 - A J Nuest
PART 6 - Me again!
PART 7 - Lori Connelly
PART 8 - Teresa Morgan
PART 9 - Carmel Harrington
PART 10 - Romy Sommer
PART 11 - A J Nuest
And without further ado...
'FOR CLARA' - PART 12
Mark laced his
fingers through hers, her hand encased tightly in his, and she raised her eyes
and met his gaze. She saw nothing there but love and support.
‘How do you know Derek killed Barbara?’ she
asked. She had to know everything now, although the thought of what her friend
had been through made her eyes fill with tears and her throat tighten.‘I found out at the Lucky Number Café. He took great pleasure in telling me,’ Mark said tightly.
‘How did it happen?’
He shook his head
but she tugged at his hand.
‘Please, Mark. I
need to know.’
He sighed.
‘She’d been ill
for a long time. I don’t think any of us realised how ill until we heard at the
funeral. For the last few months she had a full time nurse to take care of her.
Derek showed up and blagged his way in there, probably bigged himself up as her
long-lost foster brother making a concerned visit.’ Mark’s eyes were hard chips
of steel. ‘When she wouldn’t tell him what he wanted to know, he put a pillow
over her face.’
Her breath caught
in her throat. Poor Barbara. How frightened she must have been. Guilt twisted
in Clara’s stomach. She should have been there to protect her friend.
‘He knew we were
stronger together, that’s why he did it,’ she said. ‘We’d always supported each
other, stood up to him together. He must have thought by taking Barbara out
that I would weaken. That’s why he came after me next.’
‘How
did you come to buy back the bracelet?’ Mark said.
Clara looked down
at her hands. ‘After Etienne was killed, it reverted to the Duval Estate. Next in line was some distant relative who wanted the whole estate liquidated. That was when Barbara stepped in and made an offer on the bracelet. She knew how much it had meant to Mrs Duval. And to Etienne too. Of course that was what tipped Derek’s jealousy over the edge – he’d always hated the Duval’s foster kids. He couldn’t understand why his parents needed any other children in their lives when they had him, could never see it as an unselfish desire to help on the part of his mother. He had to make it all about him.’
Mark pulled his mobile phone from his pocket.
‘What are you
doing?’
‘Calling the
police,’ he said, punching in numbers. ‘Now I know you’re safe it’s time we
handed the situation over to them.’
She clutched at
his arm with her hand.
‘What if the
charges don’t stick,’ she said, panicking. ‘He’ll get out on bail and come back
to find me.’
‘He’s a double
murderer, RaRa,’ he said patiently. ‘They’ll throw away the key.’
‘Are you sure?’
She thought of
the questions, the nightmare, facing Derek again across a crowded courtroom.
The hell that she and Barbara had been through when they testified against him
all those years ago. Could she really face that a second time? And she had no
Barbara beside her this time.
Mark covered her
hand with his own, tilted her chin with his hand until she met his steady gaze.
‘How long have
you been running from this, RaRa?’ he said gently.
She managed a
small smile.
‘Too long.’
‘You don’t need
to worry anymore,’ he said, as if he could read her thoughts. ‘We’ll get
through this together. I’m staying right here. And you’ll never need to be
afraid again.’
Maybe she didn’t
have Barbara’s support this time. But still she had Mark. Long forgotten hope
began to slip back into her heart like slanting rays of sunshine banishing the
dark lonely past. A hope she’d once had of a family of her own. A hope that had
disappeared in the ensuing years after she’d turned Mark away from her life.
She waited quietly
as he spoke into the phone, explaining the situation and handing over brief
details of their location and a description of Derek’s truck. And then he tossed
the phone onto the dashboard and turned back to her.
As he pulled her
into his arms and tilted her face to meet his, she lifted a hand to touch his cheek,
let her fingers sink into his hair as if confirming to herself he was real. She
let her eyes flutter shut as he touched her lips with his own, making the lost
years melt away. She finally allowed herself to believe it could be over. Everything
really would be alright...
The roar of
gravel under spinning wheels and the screech of brakes made them leap apart.
And more fool her. It would never be over.
Derek’s truck
blocked their path out of the woods and his murderous face stared at them
through the mud-flecked windscreen.
