When the Devil Drives by Sara Craven Read Free Book Online

eventually, she thought, but she didn't have
    that kind of time. All she had was twenty-four hours, and they were
    fast running out.
    Even after Martin's accident, she had never felt so helpless, so
    alone—so vulnerable.
    She thought, What am I going to do? And, fiercely, What can I do?
    But she knew the answer to that, only too well. Everything she held
    dear in this world was in danger, and she, uniquely, held the key to its
    salvation.
    This, she thought, is how an animal must feel when the trap closes
    round it.
    She sat for a long time, gazing, with dead eyes, into space. Then, her
    mind made up, she went into the hall, lifted the telephone receiver,
    and began, slowly, to dial.

CHAPTER THREE
    DOWN by the reservoir, there was a breeze blowing off the water.
    Joanna lifted her face to it gratefully as she strolled along the path
    towards the dam. The car journey had seemed stifling, but that might
    have been because she was so nervous.
    She took a deep breath, then stood for a moment, watching the
    manoeuvres of the solitary sailing dinghy using the sparkling expanse
    of water. At the weekends, the water was alive with multi-coloured
    sails, but on a mid-week afternoon privacy was almost guaranteed.
    She glanced edgily at her watch. She'd arrived early, and there was
    still a short while to go before their meeting.
    Cal Blackstone had raised no objection, the previous evening, when
    she had haltingly suggested the reservoir as a rendezvous. She
    couldn't explain even now why she'd felt so desperate to face him on
    neutral territory, in the open air, away from the confines of Chalfont
    House.
    She'd tried to work out in advance what she was going to say. In fact
    she'd spent an entire sleepless night trying and discarding various
    approaches to the subject. But nothing seemed right.
    But then how could it? Joanna could almost believe, even now, that
    this was simply a particularly vivid nightmare from which she would
    soon thankfully waken. Maybe she should just raise her hands in
    surrender and say, 'You win,' she thought, grimacing.
    She retied the sleeves of the turquoise sweater she was wearing slung
    across her shoulders more securely, and resumed her walk.
    She'd spent the morning with her father, who was having what
    Gresham called 'one of his far-off days'. He'd been sitting in his
    wheelchair beside the open window, with an old photograph album
    on his knees, slowly turning the pages as if they held the answer to
    some mystery he was desperate to solve. Joanna had sat beside him,
    trying to take an interest in the faded prints. After all, these picnics,
    carriage outings and stiltedly posed groups constituted a large part of
    the Chalfont family history, she'd thought, so it was a pity there were
    so many missing, and that so few of the others had been captioned
    with names. Her grandfather was instantly recognisable, of course,
    and she'd supposed the rather downtrodden woman beside him in
    some of the photos was her grandmother, but when she'd mentioned
    this to her father he'd stared at her vaguely, and said, 'Joanna. That
    was her name—Joanna.'
    And as she'd been named after her, that was something his daughter
    knew already.
    She'd looked wistfully around the room, filled with her father's
    favourite pieces of furniture. His desk from the study, a high-backed
    armchair beside the fireplace, the pipe rack Simon had made for him
    at school^ they were all there. Anything that might help him retain his
    precarious hold on reality. The walls were hung with his best-loved
    paintings too, and his collection of books was stored in a revolving
    bookcase close to his chair.
    Not that he read much these days, she thought, stifling a sigh. His
    concentration span was too erratic for that. Gresham read to him,
    mostly from the newspapers, and Joanna had also taken part since her
    return, using mainly short pieces from anthologies, and poems that
    she knew he liked. Sometimes he seemed to remember, but most of
    the