Dead Secret

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 32 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 33 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 34 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 35 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 36 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 37 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 38 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 39 (#litres_trial_promo)

Part Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 40 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 41 (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

By the Same Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

PART ONE (#u954ce44e-e0f1-5430-a507-a96fdcd4e48a)

1 (#u954ce44e-e0f1-5430-a507-a96fdcd4e48a)

Jodie loaded the gun the way she’d seen Ethan do it: finger-checking the rounds so they were lined up flush, then smacking the magazine up into the grip.

Her jittery hands almost fumbled the manoeuvre. She clenched them steady, then racked the slider back to chamber the first round.

Clack-snap.

Nine bullets loaded, but she’d only need two.

One for Ethan.

The other one for herself.

She flashed on her husband’s face; on his fixed stare, and the twisted mind-games shape-shifting behind it. Sweat prickled down her spine. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it would take more than one bullet to kill Ethan.

Fireworks hissed and crackled outside the car, and the sky exploded into a weeping willow of light. Jodie peered through the windscreen, scanning the strobe-lit crowds that lined the lake perimeter. Ethan was out there somewhere, masquerading tonight as Mister Nice Guy, a back-slapper and hand-shaker for the Fourth of July celebrations.

She slid the gun into her bag, then reached out to the drawing pad that lay on the seat beside her, lifting it onto her lap to leaf through it one last time.

The paintings were childlike but imaginative, showing uncomplicated feelings rather than copies of objects: the tangle of scribbly black for the cranky family cat; the sunshine-yellow splodge for the spring picnic; bursts of colour splattered from a height, paint squeezed straight from the tubes to the page.

‘Look what I can do, Mommy!’

Jodie brushed her fingertips across the rounded letters marking the bottom of every page: Abby McCall Age 3.

Her throat constricted. She swallowed against it, but the ache intensified, crushing her chest, choking her, smothering her, sending her spinning.

Breathe!

She bowed her head, took deep, shuddery breaths. Found a dead, flat place somewhere inside her and invited the numbness back in.

Slowly, Jodie straightened up. Touched a hand to the drawing pad. Turned a page.

Blob-figures. The family unit. Abby holding Badger, the black snarl of a cat, flanked by Jodie and Ethan. Wide curves for mouths, vibrant red and yellow clothes. Finger-daubed by Abby.

The next few pages were the same. But by the last set of drawings, the colours had muted: faded blues, dull browns. With each painting, Ethan’s blob-figure stood further apart from the others, the mouth growing straighter, the features fainter, until finally he had no face at all.

Jodie shivered. Even little Abby had seen it.

She closed the pad, cradling it in her lap before setting it back on the seat. Then she lifted her chin, shouldered her bag and clambered out of the car.

The night air was cool against her skin. Volleys of rockets sizzled skywards, erupting into starbursts over the lake. Her eyes raked the spectators by the water’s edge, hunting for her husband’s lean, elegant frame.

She threaded through the crowds, the air dry and flinty with the smell of burned-out fireworks. She pushed closer to the shoreline, where the water, normally tea-coloured, looked black and oily in the dark.

Up ahead, her gaze snagged on a familiar figure: the plump silhouette of Nancy Adams. Jodie went still. For an instant, she caught the other woman’s eye, then Nancy glanced away.