Groomed: Part 3 of 3: Danger lies closer than you think

Groomed: Part 3 of 3: Danger lies closer than you think
Casey Watson

It’s late on Friday night when Casey’s mobile starts to ring. She is expecting it to be her daughter Riley. But it isn’t Riley. It’s a woman from the Emergency Duty Team. So begins Casey and Mike’s latest fostering challenge – a fifteen-year-old girl called Keeley who’s run away from her long-term foster home 25 miles away.The Jonathan Ross Show has just started when Casey gets the call. She thinks it will be Riley – telling her that her favourite actor is going to be on TV. But it’s something far more urgent: a fifteen-year-old girl who has run away from her foster family and accused her foster father of sexual abuse. The family deny in vehemently, but such an allegation can never be taken lightly, so a new home must be found for Keeley.Keeley is polite, but she’s sharp, and she has all the hallmarks of a child who has been in the system a long time, and knows how to play it. Whether the allegation is true or not, Casey knows there will be no winners here. If it is true, then a young girl’s life has been torn asunder. If not, then the heartache for the family will only be surpassed by the bleak outlook for Keeley.In the short term, it’s a case of providing a safe, supportive home for a vulnerable child. But with the dangerous world of the internet at her disposal, it seems this strong-minded youngster has her own ideas of where that safe place should be…

(#u4d36eb81-ed70-5cb7-9a8f-ecd836c64876)

Copyright (#u4d36eb81-ed70-5cb7-9a8f-ecd836c64876)

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences. In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.

HarperElement

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

First published by HarperElement 2017

FIRST EDITION

© Casey Watson 2017

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Cover image © Jan Bickerton (posed by model)

Cover layout © HarperCollinsPublishers 2017

Casey Watson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at

www.harpercollins.co.uk/green (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/green)

Source ISBN: 9780008127600

Ebook Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008217655

Version: 2017-08-24

Contents

Cover (#uc20522af-3a53-51c8-bde8-f34d05e8cc5d)

Title Page (#uc6540b3b-9b58-52ef-bad2-bbfb4a510d62)

Copyright (#u0595a6e6-584f-50e3-944e-61ee7e4b0694)

Chapter 17 (#u047942af-fdf7-54aa-bffc-cccfe306e568)

Chapter 18 (#uaa611092-a2c0-51f8-95c9-2a66b23c698a)

Chapter 19 (#u39c40fdd-78e7-549f-89ba-cc052640e408)

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Topics for Reading Group Discussion (#litres_trial_promo)

Casey Watson (#litres_trial_promo)

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#u4d36eb81-ed70-5cb7-9a8f-ecd836c64876)

It was a short night in the end because Keeley was exhausted. Far too exhausted to sit in the kitchen and pour her heart out. She just needed the oblivion of sleep. So I helped her upstairs, switched the lamp on and pulled the covers back, and with a tearful ‘I’m so sorry for everything’ between sobs, she gave me a last hug and collapsed on the bed. Might have slept in it fully clothed. Probably did.

Which left me, with the correct complement of children under our roof, to enjoy an episode of The X Factor that Tyler had recorded for me and which I’d yet to catch up with, and then the gift of an uninterrupted (not to mention astonishing) eight hours of sleep. The first thing I knew Mike was shaking me awake, my coffee cooling, him about to leave for work.

I’d rubbed my eyes and sat up and reached for my coffee anyway. He perched on the edge of the bed.

‘What’s the plan, then?’ he said. ‘Do we have one?’

I was glad to hear the ‘we’. Apart from my telling Mike about Keeley’s desolate admission, we’d purposely refrained from doing our usual debrief the previous night. Better wait, we decided, till we had a fuller picture, and some idea of what direction things were going to go now. And I don’t think either of us wanted to open up a debate about whether we even wanted to be a part of that process.

I thought back to what little she had said the previous evening. Of the compelling nature of the way she’d described her assessment of her own worth. The visceral extent of her self-loathing. But being Keeley’s apologist wasn’t going to help me with Mike. She would have to win his heart back herself. If, indeed, that was what was going to happen. It may well be that she wasn’t destined to be with us much longer anyway – not the way she continued to kick against the traces. Perhaps being contained in the bosom of a normal happy family was actually making it all worse.

But I had to keep faith with her if that was what she wanted right now. ‘Still Plan A,’ I said. ‘That’s the one I’m keen to stick to, if you think you can bear it.’

He looked thoughtful. ‘Till the next crisis.’