Free The Inheritance by Elaine Jeremiah Page B

sea, a deep bluish green, stretching
away into the distance. 
    As she gazed out at the sea, Kate gradually
felt calmer.  Some thoughts came to her of what she could do with her life.  Perhaps
her father was right.  Maybe she shouldn’t rule out doing some different from
farm work.  Her future was uncertain, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. 
She had always enjoyed learning and wasn’t bad academically.  Going back to
college could be an option.  She would certainly need to have some sort of
qualification before applying for jobs.  The only job she was really skilled in
was farm work.  She needed to acquire more skills before she could even attempt
to apply for a job that didn’t involve farming.
    Whilst she was sitting in the cave
brooding Kate had been oblivious to the storm clouds forming over the sea and
hurtling towards her.  A large raindrop plopped on her leg which was stuck
outside of the cave as it was a tight squeeze.  She shivered and pulled her
coat more tightly around her and her hood up.  It was time to leave.  Her
father would be worried about her.  She felt remorseful when she imagined him
pacing the house unsure when she would return.  Leaving the cave, she dashed
back to the car and fumbled in her pocket for the key.  Fumbled but didn’t find
it.   Panic quickly set in.  She was in the middle of nowhere, the rain was
hammering down and she had no way of getting home.  She realised with a queasy
feeling in her stomach that she hadn’t even brought her phone with her.  You
stupid girl, she told herself.  If you’d just gone to your room to calm down
instead of rushing out like that, you wouldn’t be in this situation.
    Kate looked around her wildly,
desperate to see if there was anyone who could help.  But the other car that
had been parked here when she arrived had gone.  All she could do was retrace
her steps.  The rain was lashing down and she was soaked to the skin.  She’d
have to return to the cave; maybe she’d dropped the car key inside and anyway
it was the only shelter she’d get for now.  Making her way back towards it, she
looked intently at the ground as she walked for any sign of her keys.  But she
could see nothing.  She reached the cave and crawled in shivering, sitting in a
foetal position so that she was completely inside the cave and so out of the
rain.  Feeling about her, she tried to locate the keys. 
    Her hands felt a small lump and she
picked it up hopefully.  But it wasn’t her keys and her hopes deflated.  She
was curious though and held it up to the light to get a better look.  Her heart
began to pound.  It was a key ring and although it was rather rusty she
recognised it.  It was Steven’s!  It had a faded picture on it.  She could just
about make it out.  It was of her and Steven.  Their arms were around each
other and they were smiling happily.  He must have dropped it here that last
time we were together, she thought, a lump forming in her throat.  But she’d
been here many times since; why hadn’t she found it before?
    And what was it doing here? She
supposed that Steven could have dropped it here on a separate trip.  But her
suspicious mind thought of other possibilities.  Maybe he’d been done away with
here and it had fallen out then.  Maybe his attackers had thrown his body over
the cliff hoping no one would find it and if so they were lucky for no one ever
had.  Then again, bodies dumped at sea were usually found, weren’t they?  She
put the key ring in her pocket. 
    It was overwhelming, finding Steven’s
key ring like this when she’d been trying to get over his… Disappearance or
death?  In a way it was all the same to her because she knew he wasn’t coming
back, that if he was going to return he would have done so by now.  Eight years
had passed since he vanished – it’d been just before she quit college – and there’d
been no word from him, the police had found no trace of him.  Tears