No Escape: The most addictive, gripping thriller with a shocking twist

Chapter 23: Now (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 24: Then (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 25: Then (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 26: Now (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 27: Then (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 28: Then (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 29: Now (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 30: Then (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 31: Now (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 32: Then (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 33: Now (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 34: Then (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 35: Then (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 36: Now (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 37: Now (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 38: Now (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 39: Now (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 40: Now (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)

Discover More From Lucy Clarke (#litres_trial_promo)

Reading Group Questions (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Also by Lucy Clarke (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

PROLOGUE (#ub136f9ca-c4cb-5a04-b74d-94bd3e00fe74)

A body floats, unseeing eyes fixed on the brooding sky. A pair of cotton shorts has darkened, pockets gulping with water. A shirt billows, then clings to the unmoving chest. The streak of blood across the right temple has washed away now, leaving the skin clear and greying.

Below, the sea teems with darting fish carving through the water in great shoals, while tiny flecks of nutrient-rich plankton spin in the light. Deeper still, milky-eyed predators patrol the sunless depths where the seabed is scarred with the markings of currents, and broken coral lies as hard as bone.

But above there is only a body.

And a yacht.

On board, as bare feet move across the sun-bleached deck, a thread of fear begins to weave amongst the crew. Within minutes the pitch of voices becomes raised; footsteps turn hurried; eyes narrow as they press against the dark rings of binoculars scanning the horizon.

It doesn’t take long for the fragile film of order to begin to tear, slowly working itself loose in the breeze. As a pair of hands reaches for the wheel, turning the yacht into the wind, the sail flapping loose, the truth is already drifting out of reach.

1 (#ub136f9ca-c4cb-5a04-b74d-94bd3e00fe74)

NOW (#ub136f9ca-c4cb-5a04-b74d-94bd3e00fe74)

The paintbrush slips from Lana’s fingers, turning through the air as it falls. It clatters to the floor at the foot of the easel, splattering tiny flecks of blue acrylic paint against her ankle.

Lana doesn’t glance down, doesn’t notice the spots of paint that decorate the small tattoo of a wing inked on her ankle. Her gaze remains fixed on the radio that sits on the windowsill, her fingers raised as if still holding the brush to the canvas. That silver box of metal and wires holds the entire sum of her concentration as she focuses on the voice of a news presenter.

‘… has sunk a hundred nautical miles off the north coast of New Zealand. The yacht – The Blue – was believed to have left Fiji eight days ago with a crew of five on board, including two New Zealanders. A search-and-rescue operation has been launched from the Maritime Rescue Centre at the Bay of Islands. The coastguard has described the sea state as moderate with wind speeds of up to twenty knots.’

Lana blinks, struggling to absorb the information, as if it’s rain running off hard, scorched earth. Her gaze bores into the radio, willing it to disclose something more, but the newscaster has already moved on to the next story.

She turns on the spot, lifting a hand to her head. She feels the cool silk of her headscarf keeping her hair off her face. It has been eight months since she stepped from that yacht, her skin tanned, her feet bare, a backpack heaved on her shoulders. She’d walked along the shoreline with dark hollows beneath her eyes, and hadn’t looked back. She couldn’t.

As she turns, she catches sight of herself in the long mirror that leans against her apartment wall. She stares: her face has paled and large green eyes glare back at her, wide with questions. Was Kitty still on board after all this time? Had she stayed even after Lana left? It’s possible that Kitty could have returned to England. Lana tries to picture her riding the Tube with a script in her hand, glossy dark hair loose over her shoulders, her lips painted red. But the image won’t form, not clearly. She knows that Kitty wouldn’t have left the yacht, because how could either of them go home after what’d happened?

It has been eight months since they’ve last seen each other – the longest time in their friendship they’ve ever spent apart. She thinks about Kitty’s emails still sitting unread in her inbox. At first, they came in thick and fast; then there were gaps – a few days, sometimes a week. Lana began imagining the patterns of the yacht as it sailed through remote island chains, wondering what was happening on board, who Kitty was spending her time with. Eventually, with her head too full of images, she stopped reading the emails. Stopped thinking about Kitty.

Now a beautiful memory gusts into her thoughts, bright as a kite. She and Kitty, eleven years old, sitting cross-legged on her bedroom floor plaiting friendship bracelets. ‘This is yours,’ Kitty had said, holding up a slim cotton bracelet woven with turquoise and yellow threads – Lana’s favourite colours. Kitty tied it firmly over Lana’s wrist, using her teeth to get the knot in exactly the right position. When Kitty pulled away, there was a small smear of strawberry lipgloss on the back of Lana’s wrist.

In return Lana had plaited a pink and white bracelet for Kitty, and the two of them had held their wrists side by side and made the promise, ‘Friends for ever.’

Lana had worn her bracelet for eighteen months, until it had faded and frayed to a dishwater-grey. It had eventually snapped in the bath, so she’d hooked it out and dried it over the towel rail. Then she’d put it away in her memory box with the photo of her mother.

Friends for ever, they’d agreed.

A guilty heat crawls across Lana’s skin as she thinks of that failed promise: she’s cut Kitty out of her life, like slicing a bowline and letting a boat drift out to the open ocean.

*

Lana waits desperately for another news bulletin. She needs to hear exactly what’s happening out on the water – whether the crew have made it to the life raft, whether any of them is injured – but the radio station is playing a soft rock song that comes strumming into her apartment. She paces to the windowsill and snaps off the radio.