\u201cHi, I\u2019m home,\u201d Charlie called as he came through the front door and flung his keys onto the hall table. No reply. He walked into the kitchen where he would usually find Jess at this time of the day. No smell of dinner cooking. The kitchen was empty, but surprisingly, and disconcertingly, one of the pine chairs was laying on its back on the floor near the table. A frown appeared on Charlie\u2019s face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat the \u2026.?\u201d He couldn\u2019t compute what he was\nseeing. He turned and went back into the hallway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJess!\u201d he shouted. \u201cWhere are you, Jess?\u201d There\nwas no-one in the front room. He sprinted up the stairs, flinging each door\nback in rising desperation. No-one. Where was she?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He came down the stairs more slowly than he had\ngone up them, puzzling over the situation. Jess was always in by the time he\ncame home from work. If there was some reason that she wasn\u2019t going to be then\nshe would have said so over breakfast this morning. Or texted. If she had just\npopped out to the shop or a neighbour\u2019s she would have left a note on the\nkitchen table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in the kitchen he found not a note, but her\nphone on the table, next to her mug of coffee \u2026\u2026 which was still warm. He\nspotted her keys in their usual place. She must have left by the back door. The\nfront door had been locked when he arrived home. Opening the back door he\nlooked around their small back garden. Nothing out of the ordinary. His brick\nbuilt shed was padlocked \u2026. The shed! It was full of his valuable tools and\njust recently they had installed a home security camera and aimed it at the\nback garden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He sprinted inside and called up the camera feed on\nhis phone, scrolling back over the last half hour. There she was! Charlie\nwatched in horror as he saw his wife sprint out of the house in her slippers,\nwith a terrified glance back at the kitchen. What had scared her so much that\nshe left without shoes, or her keys and phone?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in the oppressive silence of the kitchen Chris\nscrolled through the contacts on his wife\u2019s phone. Who might she turn to? The\nsilence was broken by the angry buzzing of a wasp, battling against the window\ntrying to escape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just then Chris heard a banging on the glass pane\nin the back door. Relief flooded through him as he saw his slightly dishevelled\nwife looking back at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHave you got rid of that wasp yet?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cHi, I\u2019m home,\u201d Charlie called as he came through the front door and flung his keys onto the hall table. No reply. He walked into the kitchen where he would usually find Jess at this time of the day. No smell of dinner cooking. The kitchen was empty, but surprisingly, and disconcertingly, one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-456","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Carol","author_link":"https:\/\/carolbarton.uk\/index.php\/author\/admin\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":null,"rttpg_excerpt":"\u201cHi, I\u2019m home,\u201d Charlie called as he came through the front door and flung his keys onto the hall table. No reply. He walked into the kitchen where he would usually find Jess at this time of the day. No smell of dinner cooking. The kitchen was empty, but surprisingly, and disconcertingly, one of the…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolbarton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolbarton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolbarton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolbarton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carolbarton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carolbarton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":458,"href":"https:\/\/carolbarton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/456\/revisions\/458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carolbarton.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}