Page 63 of The Happy Family

Luna takes another step towards me, the knife raised in her hand, and it looks like she is actually thinking about trying to stab me while I am holding her child. But nothing should surprise me with this woman, which is why I am prepared for every eventuality.

Even my own death.

‘Why couldn’t you start your own family?’ I ask, taking a step back. ‘Why couldn’t you do what normal people do and find yourself a man? Have your own children? Buy your own house? Why did you have to take mine?’

‘Because it was easier,’ Luna says before laughing.

‘Really? It was easier to set fire to my parents’ house and frame an innocent woman for it? It was easier to drug me and cause me to fail a breathalyser test? It was easier to kill Gemma at the hospital and that police officer she was with?’

‘Yes, it was,’ Luna replies as she steps forward again. ‘Just like it will be easy for me to kill you now, and then I will have completely got away with it all.’

The knife is raised higher. I see the blade glint in the pale sunlight that pours through the large kitchen window. Jude’s crying gets louder. I keep backing up until I bump up against the wall. I have nowhere else to go. Luna has me cornered. She knows it as well as I do. So there is only one option left for me to take.

‘Here,’ I say, holding out Jude towards her.

That move surprises Luna, who clearly presumed I was going to try and hold Jude like a human shield during the inevitable assault that was about to take place. But by holding out her baby towards her, it forces her to lower the knife, and if she wants to take back possession of her baby, she’s going to have to put the knife down first.

But will she do it?

Will she choose her child over ending this once and for all?

As Jude dangles between us, his little legs kicking at the air whilst I hold him with outstretched arms, I glance to my left. As I do, I see two shelves full of cookery books, an ornament and a family photo showing the smiling faces of the five people who call this house home.

‘That’s a nice picture,’ I say sadly. ‘I guess you really did win.’

I look back to Luna and she senses what I am trying to signal to her.

I have given up. I am conceding. I am admitting that she is the better woman.

Luna puts the knife down on the table beside her before taking Jude from me. But I don’t lunge for the knife, nor does she rush to pick it up again either. We just stare at one another.

‘What happens now?’ I ask her.

‘You know the answer to that question,’ Luna says. ‘I put Jude down and then I finish what I started. You know I can’t allow you to keep living. Not when you remember everything and can ruin it all for me.’

I nod my head.

‘I thought so,’ I say sadly.

I hold my hands up. Surrendering. Accepting. Waiting for Luna to put Jude down and pick up the knife to finally finish me off once and for all.

But before she can do that, we are interrupted by a knock at the door.

FORTY-TWO

LUNA

This day has quickly turned into a nightmare, but it’s far from over yet. Who is at the door? I have no idea, but I cannot answer it while I have Sadie to deal with.

I choose to ignore the knocking, figuring whoever it is will go away. But the knocking only continues. Sadie smiles.

‘Could be the police,’ she says with a wry grin, which makes me fear she has somehow arranged for them to be here just after she said everything she needed to say to me. Is that what she’s done? If so, it hardly makes me want to answer the door any quicker. But if it is the police, they aren’t going to leave.

So what should I do?

I still have Jude in my arms, and I tell myself that makes me appear more innocent, which could come in handy if Sadie starts telling the police about the things I’ve done. They might take pity on me when they see my child, and it could buy me some much-needed time to try and talk my way out of this. I haven’t done anything incriminating today. Sadie willingly came to my home. She also doesn’t seem to have any evidence of anything. So this might not be the disaster it seems.

Another knock at the door. It must be the police. Anybody else would have left by now.