The Secrets We Keep

by Nikki Lee Taylor

  “My son?” I ask, as a police officer comes into view. “His name is Harry. He’s twelve. He was in the car that crashed. Do you know where he is? A woman, my… companion, pulled him out of the car.”

  “He had a laceration to his neck from the seat belt. They’ve taken him to the hospital for a few tests just to be sure there’s nothing else,” the officer tells me. “From the looks of it, he’s going to be okay.”

  A tide of relief swells inside me, but I can’t let myself feel it, not until I know they are both safe. “And the woman who was with me. Do you know where she went?”

  “She lost consciousness a few minutes ago. A road ambulance is taking her in for some tests. Appeared to be only minor cuts and abrasions, but maybe you could help us. Did the car you were travelling in stop abruptly? Was she wearing a seat belt? Did she hit her head? Any details like that would be helpful for the hospital.”

  “No, nothing like that,” I tell him. “And yes, we were both wearing seat belts.”

  “Does she have any existing medical conditions?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Any chance she could be pregnant?”

  “Pregnant?”

  “Yes, is that a possibility? Could explain the loss of consciousness.”

  “I… I don’t think so.”

  My knees go to jelly at the suggestion Sophie could be pregnant, but now is not the time. I shake it off, and try to refocus as he jots something down on a notepad. “Which hospital are my children being taken to? Could someone take me there?”

  Before he can answer, there is a flurry of activity as Harlow is brought toward us. “Is she alright? Is she alive?” I hover over her, as best I can, but she is dwarfed by paramedics and IV lines.

  “The PenneSTAR1 rescue helicopter is on its way,” a woman dressed in navy pants and jacket tells me. “Your daughter has a broken arm, but what we’re most concerned about is her head injury, and the possibility of internal bleeding. The chopper is the fastest way to get her the help she needs. A road ambulance will take you to the hospital to meet us.”

  “They said something before… TMI, or T-something. What is that?”

  “TMI. It means Traumatic Brain Injury, but we won’t know the extent of her injuries until we get to the hospital. We’re doing all we can.”

  “But she’ll make it?”

  The woman softens her gaze. “You should try and prepare yourself. The trauma is significant.”’

  Above us, the rescue helicopter’s rotor thumps like a celestial heartbeat. As it descends, wind whips my hair across my face, and for the first time I my life, I bow my head and say a prayer.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Sophie

  Bastian closes the back of the truck, and I smooth down my hair. “I appreciate your help with all of this,” I tell him. “There was a lot more to load up than I thought.”

  He simply shrugs and smiles. “And you’re sure about this?”

  I look back at the brownstone James and I bought together, a giant red SOLD sticker plastered across a sign out the front. “Bit late if I’m not,” I grin.

  “Come here….”

  I step into his embrace, and he holds me tight. “I can’t believe you’re really leaving, Soph.”

  I swallow hard, and will myself not to cry. This is harder than I thought – then again, doing the right thing usually is. “You know it’s for the best, Bastian. For everyone.”

  His chin moves against my hair, and I can tell that he’s nodding. After the accident, Harlow was in intensive care for almost three weeks. She suffered a punctured lung, broken arm, and the impact as she went through the windscreen caused her brain to swell. But according to Bastian, the doctors expect her to make a full recovery.

  “This whole thing has been a wake-up call, that’s for sure,” he says. “Regardless of what Madelyn-May did, I should’ve been there. I don’t know how I can ever forgive myself for not answering her call.”

  His tears trickle to the edge of my lip, and I taste their bitterness. “You couldn’t have known, Bastian, and the most important thing is that they’re okay. You have a lifetime of opportunities to make it up to them. Don’t be too hard on yourself. You’re an amazing father. They know how much you love them.”

  “Right,” he nods again. “Now all I have to do now is convince myself of that.”

  I step back, and take him in, reminding myself this will be the last time we ever see each other. “You’ve meant a great deal to me, Bastian. If you hadn’t been in my life….”

  “I feel the same way. I think in a lot of ways we saved each other.”

  “I think we did,” I smile. “And Madelyn-May? She knows you’re here?”

  “She does, as weird as that sounds.”

  I kick at an invisible stone on the sidewalk. “It’s probably none of my business, but how are things between the two of you?”

  “There’s a long way to go. A very long way, and I can never forget what she did.” He lets out a long breath, and I wonder how he will ever come to terms with all that’s happened. “But it’s best for the kids if we at least try. And she is trying.”

  “Well, she let you come today. That’s a good thing.”

  “I thinks she understands that I had to say goodbye.” He steps closer, and takes my hand in his. “Sometimes you need the pain of watching someone disappear before you can really let them go. Does that make sense?”

  I think of Josh, and know exactly what he means. “We always did understand each other, you and I,” I tell him. “I’ve loved that about you.”

  “And I’ve loved many things about you too, Soph.” It’s as close as we can get, without saying the words out loud. “And you’re sure everything is alright with you? Madelyn-May said you passed out after the accident.”

  “I’m fine. It was nothing,” I tell him. “I was just overwhelmed, I think.”

  “Because Madelyn-May thought maybe…”

  “…maybe what?”

  “One of the police officers asked if you might be pregnant.”

  “Really?”

  “I guess because you passed out.”

  My hand falls over my stomach. “And how did she take that?”

  “About how you’d imagine,” he grins. “Anyway, so long as you’re alright.”

  “I am. I am alright.”

  He nods, and we both fall silent, the inevitable drawing nearer. “Do you know where you’ll go?”

  I glance over at the U-Haul, Miss Molly front and center in the passenger seat. “You know, I have no idea,” I smile. “And I can’t believe I’m saying that. Me, can you imagine? Driving off into the great unknown, with no idea what might come next.” Or how my life might be about to change.

  “The great unknown maybe, but certainly not alone,” he says. “You have your best friend. What more could you need?”

  I look at Miss Molly and smile. “Speaking of which, we better get going.”

  “Well, I’d say let me know where you end up, but… Madelyn-May is stepping away from the business. We’re taking that trip, and I do want to try. I hope you don’t mind me telling you that, Soph,” he says. “It doesn’t mean what I felt for you wasn’t real.”

  “I know. Maybe in another life.”

  He smiles and squeezes my hand. “You know, I never thanked you.”

  “Thanked me? For what?”

  “For them,” he smiles. “If it wasn’t for you, my children wouldn’t exist. They wouldn’t be who they are. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of Madelyn-May in there, especially with Harlow, but they’re also you. I can see it in them now, and I guess in some way, even though we’re saying goodbye, you’ll always be with me. Every time I look at them, I’ll see a tiny piece of you, Soph. Forever.”

  He kisses me gently on the forehead, and slowly walks back to his car. He wants to wait until we drive away.

  I climb up into the U-Haul, and scratch Miss Molly on the head. As I push the key into the ignition, I take one last
look at the house. It was our place. The place James and I planned to watch Josh grow up, to laugh with friends, mow lawns, cook meals, laugh, love, fight, make up, and grow old together.

  My life. My love. My family. James and Josh. My beautiful ghosts, forever young, and forever loved. I will miss them until the last days of my life, but until then, it’s time for me to learn how to live again.

  I turn the key and right on cue Miss Molly barks. “That’s right, sweet girl, it’s time.”

  We pull out onto the street, and I wave goodbye to Bastian. He’s a good man, maybe even a great one, and I want the best for him. But as we turn the corner, it’s not Bastian I watch in the rear-view mirror. The last thing I need to see as we slip away is our home, because sometimes you need the pain of watching something disappear before you can really let it go.

  Epilogue

  Just so you know, the walls of this prison are not the view I had in mind. We were supposed to be in a trailer on the beach by now, salt in our hair, and the warm Mexican sun on our skin. But instead, for the past six months I’ve been trapped in this cage, with its cold hard floor and lack of sunshine.

  When I was arrested, I told the lawyer, a stupid bitch who never stops popping Quick-Eze, that Madelyn-May was the one who needed to be locked up, not me. I told her that Madelyn-May was the one who murdered her own father, then set a fire and left me to burn.

  For a minute, I thought I was getting through, but then the FBI went and screwed everything up. Apparently, their so-called findings were grounded in a statement made by old Avril Beanie, who insisted it was Melody she saw acting weird and stinking of gasoline the night of the fire. Avril Beanie, who is so damned blind and senile we once saw her walking on down the road wearing two different shoes and biting into an onion. Could only figure she thought it was an apple, but either way, she’s not exactly what you might call a credible witness. The thing is, after that, the whole damned trailer park wanted to get in on the action saying they saw Melody that night. Every time someone recounted the story, it got more and more stupid, until those FBI idiots took a report from a so-called eyewitness who claimed to see a scuffle happening inside the trailer. Whoever it was swore blind they saw Melody shouting and throwing gasoline on Bobby-Ray, trying to set him alight.

  So, as fate would have it, testimony made by residents of the trailer park eventually tried and convicted a girl who had already gone and sentenced herself to death by lethal injection. If you can find the logic in that, then you’re a lot smarter than me. Seems pinning the blame on a dead girl might’ve been a whole lot easier for the FBI than chasing down Madelyn-May, a millionaire who had taken her family and fled the country. But that’s just me.

  The warden with mud-brown hair, and a nose like she’s been punched in the face one too many times, bangs on the side of my cell. I tear my eyes away from counting cracks on the floor, and raise my brow.

  “Must be your lucky day,” she tells me. “You’ve finally got yourself a visitor. Up and at ’em, let’s go.”

  The walk down through C-block toward the visitation room is better than being in the cell, but I can’t say it’s much to get excited about either. It might as well be D-Block, B-Block or a damned ice-block for all the difference it makes. All the cell blocks are freezing cold and look the same. They have the same sounds, the same feel. They’re all the same-same and not different.

  I push against the door with my shoulder, and make my way over to the table. A clear Perspex shield separates us, but I don’t need a phone to hear her. “Took you long enough,” I huff.

  “Really? That’s all you have to say for yourself?”

  I look her over. She’s twenty-five now, with shiny black hair, and the same dewy skin I once had. Around her neck hangs a pendant with a bright blue butterfly, and along her arm a flutter of blue wings is tattooed from her wrist to her elbow. She catches me looking down at the brightly-colored ink.

  “Did you know a group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope?” She smiles at the tattoo on her arm, then looks back at me. “A kaleidoscope of butterflies. It’s a pretty description, isn’t it? I was so looking forward to seeing all those beautiful butterflies in Mexico, their delicate wings carrying them along on the breeze.”

  “What’s with you and those blue butterflies anyway?”

  She touches her hand to the pendant, then flips it over. On the reverse side, its wings are drab and brown, the color of dog shit.

  “The Blue Morpho butterfly is a master of camouflage,” she tells me. “The brown underside of its wings blends perfectly with its surroundings, and when it flies the contrast of blue and brown give the illusion it can appear and disappear all at once. In other words, it can wander through the world without anyone knowing it’s there. Unless it wants them to, of course.”

  I raise my brow, and pretend to be impressed. “Valentine, listen—”

  “No,” she snaps, her face instantly changing. “You listen. You owe me an explanation, and it better be good. What the hell happened out there?”

  “They were leaving the country. What choice did I have?”

  She leans forward until her face is almost touching the Perspex. “You report back. You tell me so I can make a new plan. You don’t go off half-cocked, trying to do God-knows-what in the middle of a motorway. What were you thinking?”

  “That I wanted to finish what we started.”

  She sits back, and tosses her long dark hair over her shoulder. “You promised to bring me the girl. I had new passports and papers made for her. Do you have any idea what I had to go through, the kind of people I had to persuade, in order to get those?”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  “You wanted your revenge. You said you could handle it. You gave me your word, and now here you are, locked up in prison.”

  “I don’t need reminding me about what I said.”

  “Well, clearly you do, because I don’t have Harlow.”

  “What the hell was I supposed to do?” I shout, finally losing my patience at being spoken to like a child.

  “Keep your leg on… and lower your damned voice,” she tells me. “This is your fault. You messed up because you let your emotions get in the way. Don’t forget I’m all you have left. I’d be careful how you speak to me if I was you.”

  As much as I hate it, I know she’s right. My husband is dead, and my daughters are all gone. “I’m sorry, alright? I messed up. So, what do we do now?”

  Valentine looks at me, her eyes rich with arrogance and anger. “Now, we escalate. I’m taking both those children from Madelyn-May. I may not have met her, but I know what pain she caused. How everything unraveled because of what she did.”

  “You know, Valentine, maybe it’s time to just leave it alone,” I sigh, suddenly more tired than I’ve ever been. “I’m not going any place soon, and that’s how it has to be. Maybe you should let it go and move on before it’s too late, and you end up right in here with me.”

  Valentine leans in, her eyes hard, and her lip curled. “First of all, I’m not stupid enough to get caught and put in prison. Second, you can accept whatever you want, but Madelyn-May owes me. It’s her fault my mother killed herself trying to dull the pain, and it’s also her fault our entire family ended up the way it did. She beat her pretty wings, and it caused a tidal wave none of them could ever survive.”

  I watch my granddaughter and wonder if the vials of poison that lived inside my beautiful monsters were all poured into her at conception. When that piece of shit husband paid his last visit to Melody and got her pregnant, he never could have imagined what he was creating. His daughter is conniving, hateful, clever, and vengeful, and despite her beautiful face, she has the uncanny knack of blending in perfectly with her surroundings.

  And I guess I don’t have to tell you: no one ever sees her coming.

  About The Author

  Nikki Lee Taylor is an author and former News Journalist. She is passionate about the power of stories and the impact they can
have on the way we choose to interact with others.

  Throughout her life she has travelled across five continents and lived in various cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

  When it was time to find a place to call home, Nikki returned to her hometown of Newcastle, NSW where she currently lives with her partner Travis and two golden retrievers Max and Sam.

  Connect with Nikki online via:

  nikkileetaylor.com

  Facebook.com/TheWritersDiary1

  Instagram @nikki.leetaylor

  Contents

  What Readers Are Saying

  Warning To Readers

  Preface

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter 10

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five