My Girl Read Online Free Page B

She listened to her father drumming into the toilet bowl above her, and gulped down the last of the wine as he flushed the toilet.
    ***
    Ryan’s office was set up in the smallest bedroom in the house. His desk faced the window, which looked out over the long, overgrown garden. His closed laptop was layered with dust, and an old coffee cup had mould growing inside it. Along the wall was row of filing cabinets, far too big for the room.
    Paige hadn’t let his clients know that their accountant was dead. His inbox was probably filled with frustrated enquiries. She couldn’t face them – not yet.
    Her dad carried stacks of documents down the stairs and out to his car after Paige had had a quick look at them in case they ought to be kept. By dinnertime they had got through all four cabinets.
    Paige began to look through the drawers in Ryan’s desk. Each drawer she opened was freakishly neat, the contents arranged according to size. She began throwing the notepads, the pens, the packs of sticky notes, and the business cards into a black bin bag. She just wanted to get rid of everything. She had no idea how she was going to use the room once everything was gone.
    Her father appeared behind her, out of breath, picked up the last stack of papers, and took them down to the car.
    She was about to close the last drawer when she spotted a loose panel at the bottom. A shadow in the corner of the drawer suggested there was something underneath. She used her nails to prise up the corner of the panel. Lying underneath was a black handgun and an old, brick-like phone.
    ‘Is that everything?’
    She slammed the drawer shut.
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘I’ll call my friend and sort out a date and time to get these cabinets out of here. He’ll get you a good price. Do you want him to take the desk, too?’
    ‘No!’ she replied, too quickly. Her father frowned. ‘I’ll keep it. The room would look odd without it.’
    ‘All right then. So, are you going to make your dad a cup of tea for all of his hard work?’
    She nodded and forced a smile.
    Her father grinned and went down the stairs, talking away to her. Paige got up from the desk chair to follow him, but stopped at the doorway. She turned and looked back at the desk.
    Why had Ryan needed a gun?

SIX
    Paige looked down at the river with tears in her eyes. The water was murky and dark at dusk. Chloe had always been afraid of the dark.
    Sitting on the path by the riverbank, she brought the wine bottle to her lips and took a swig.
    The thought of someone cutting up her daughter’s body and scattering her in the river never failed to bring tears to Paige’s eyes. She wondered how much of her was still down there, hidden beneath reeds and scum, missed by the police divers all those years ago. She told herself to stop going there, to refrain from looking down at the water and imagining what had happened; but still, she found herself there a lot. Tonight though, she had other thoughts plaguing her mind.
    Ryan had owned a gun.
    She couldn’t understand how he would have got hold of a gun, or why he would need one at all. Having a gun of his own went against everything he believed in. Whenever shootings in America were on the news, his nostrils would flare and his jaw would clench.
Take the damn guns away and you won’t have cops gunning down kids or teens going on killing sprees! First amendment my arse. They’re deadly weapons, not damn toys. Grow up and protect your own people!
    And then he had acquired a gun of his own.
    He hadn’t used the gun to end his life; he’d used a razor for that. So why else would he need a gun? Did he want to shoot Chloe’s murderer? If the police couldn’t pin down her killer, how could he?
    She took another swig of wine.
    None of it would matter if she went to prison. The thought of appearing in court made bile climb her throat. She had gone too far this time.
    The thought of prison and the gun hidden in her house compelled her to drain the rest of the wine.