Blood Ties by Sam Hayes Read Free Book Online Page A

walked under the willow tree.
    What do you want? The words rattled inside his head as he watched her bend and pull roots from the soil. You don’t live here , he said silently.
    He hated Jenna for doing this to him. More so, he hated himself for letting her. Had his grieving gone horribly wrong? Had the natural process of coming to terms with loss gone awry from guilt?
    Morning business and bustle continued in the kitchen as if nothing was wrong. The kettle steamed, Robert leafed through the newspaper and the post rattled onto the doormat. Ruby cooked her breakfast, cursing as she burst an egg yolk, and Erin said nothing at all. She simply stood, as if she had been caught off guard in a snapshot – mouth slightly open, eyelids drooping – and stared at her daughter as she scoffed the food. Robert could almost see the guilt dripping from Erin. This is the moment, he thought, that you could make everything all right. But Erin did nothing.
    Robert blew out, a sigh combined with a moan, encapsulating his weariness. ‘I’m going to shower,’ he said. ‘Then I’ve got work to do.’ As he took the stairs two at a time, an image bled into his mind, only fleetingly, but it made him trip on the top step and grab the banister. As if unwanted thoughts of his ex-wife weren’t enough to unsettle his usually slick veneer, Robert bore mental witness to two children, sobbing, as they were torn from their mother. The Bowman case.
     
    Robert first-geared it through heavy traffic, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Ruby sat beside him, perfectly still, completely composed.
    ‘Your mother’s going to be furious,’ he said but the sideways glance of approval that Ruby shot him, her brilliant eyes charged with mischief and delight, convinced him that he was doing the right thing. Ruby nodded calmly, a faint smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.
    Since she had got up that morning, Ruby had insisted on returning to the comprehensive school as her mother had instructed and she was even willing to take the bus, a sure-fire route to twenty minutes of verbal abuse from other school kids, followed by a day of boredom while young teachers struggled to cope with the unruly classes. After much persuasion from Robert, she finally agreed to ride to school with him if he promised to drop her around the corner. Arriving in a brand-new convertible Mercedes would mean a kicking the first time she set foot in the loos.
    The thought of snarling dogs waiting for Ruby at the school gates was motivation enough for Robert to follow his impulses and secretly load the boot of his car with armfuls of uniform and sports kit and anything else he could think of that a young girl would need on her first day at a new school.
    Robert drove his foot onto the brake. ‘Christ,’ he said. ‘Near miss.’
    ‘You can’t have an accident to stop me going. Mum says we mustn’t run away any more.’ Ruby winked. Robert was relieved that she still had a sense of humour.
    ‘But you don’t believe that, do you?’ He reached out and stroked Ruby’s hand. He wanted her to trust him, to believe that he was doing the right thing. The traffic began to move again. ‘I’ll take the rap for this, when she finds out what we’ve done.’
    Ruby swallowed and nodded. ‘She’s going to flip. Really flip. When Mum says no, she means no. Good reason or not.’
    That’s the thing, Robert thought, although he kept quiet. There is no good reason. He pulled over into a petrol station. ‘You’d better go and change then. Don’t want to be late on your first day.’ They exchanged grins, one small step closer to becoming father-daughter.
    Robert escorted Ruby to the ladies’ toilets with a bag of brand-new uniform. While he waited, he filled up the car and bought a new torch because they were on special offer. He eyed the dismal selection of overpriced chrysanthemums that were wilting in dry buckets. Erin’s shop was a shrine to healthy, fresh, unique and