by Zoe Carter
“Glad to hear it. See you later, big guy. You can rest easy now.” He waves to Elliot as he leaves, closing the door behind him. Maisey twists the lock. When she turns back to me, her eyes are wide with fear.
“Do you think Alice will say anything to him about her suspicions?”
Elliot has calmed down, so I gently place him in his crib, tucking a light blanket around his little body. He immediately kicks it off and grabs his foot. “I don’t think Alice has any suspicions. She was completely out of it that day, remember?”
My sister leans against the wall and folds her arms. “That’s the problem. I don’t remember much of anything. Some bits and pieces are coming back to me, but nothing makes much sense.”
“Perhaps it’s best that you don’t remember. It was pretty traumatic.”
Maisey rubs her stomach as if it hurts. “Yeah. It’s hard for me to think about. Why would she play that song for Elliot, though? And the way she sang it to us? It was creepy, like she was trying to send us a message or something.” She shudders, and recalling the mad light in Alice’s eyes, goose bumps crawl up my arms.
“It was creepy, but you’re attempting to assign rational thought to our mother again, and I don’t think she’s capable of it. What she did was in horribly bad taste, but I suspect she just likes that song. As clueless as she is, she doesn’t get that other people might find it painful or disturbing.”
I hope I have a better chance of convincing Maisey than I do of convincing myself. My mother’s performance had been spooky enough to give me nightmares for weeks.
“You said you had something you wanted to talk about?” Maisey shoots a pointed look at the door, as if she expects someone else to start pounding on it at any minute. “I’m sure they’re waiting for us downstairs. Who knows how much more time they’ll give us?”
She’s right. We probably only have a minute or two before Warwick returns, demanding to know why we’re not back in the dining room yet. “There is something you need to know...but I’m not sure where to start.”
“We have to trust each other again.” Maisey shuffles the ottoman over to the door so she can sit against it. “Whatever it is, we’ll work through it together.”
Her words give me new hope. After everything life has thrown at us, we can—and will—handle this. Even if my sister can’t help, she has a right to know.
Pulling over the rocking chair to sit closer to her, I lower my voice, praying that no one is listening at the door. “I’m not one hundred per cent sure this has anything to do with you, or Frankie, but...”
My nerves get the best of me and my voice trails off. What if Truth Seeker is monitoring my conversations somehow? What if I’m putting my sister in danger by telling her?
“You’re shaking.” She reaches for my hand, and I let her comfort me, touched by the role reversal. “Whatever it is, it’s obviously tearing you apart.”
Exhaling in a rush, I nod. “It is. To be honest, I’m terrified. I’ve been trying not to let it get to me, because I’m sure that’s what he wants.”
“He?” Maisey raises an eyebrow. “He who?”
“That’s the scariest part. I don’t know. Someone has been sending me these emails. They’re always in my in-box, and I haven’t been able to trace them.” As I automatically check my son to make sure he’s still okay, the fear tightens its grip. “Whoever it is calls himself Truth Seeker.”
My sister twists her fingers. “What kind of emails are we talking about? What do they say?”
“They’re definitely threatening, but they’re over the top, too, like something you’d see in a horror movie. That’s why I didn’t take it too seriously at first. Sure, I was concerned, but I was able to put it out of my mind and forget about it. But then I got the next ones.”
“The next ones? How many are there?”
My sister looks terrible, like she’s either going to vomit or pass out. “Maisey, are you okay?”
Shaking her head, she grabs her phone from her pocket. “I have something to show you.” While I wait, she scrolls until she finds what she’s searching for. “Do they look like this?”
She has three emails in her in-box. When I read them, I want to scream.
I know your secret, Maisey. I’m going to tell.
Everyone should know what you did.
No one can run forever.
“Exactly the same. When did you get these?” I don’t want to believe this is happening to Maisey, too.
“The first was sent to me while I was still in Thailand. The second, the morning I arrived in New York. The third one came this morning.” Maisey starts to twist her fingers again.
Remembering the spooky expression on Alice’s face while she sang the lullaby makes me shiver. It was like seeing a ghost sing. And the way she’d looked at us—brr. “Do you think...Mother?”
My sister shakes her head. “She’s too out of it, too scatterbrained. She can’t focus on anything. Whoever did this is organized. What about Mrs. Fitzgibbons?”
I picture our former neighbor. Mrs. Fitzgibbons was the matronly woman who’d fished Frankie’s lifeless body out of the pool. I’d always kind of resented her, because she must have known Peter was abusing me and Maisey, but she’d done nothing, never so much as lifted a finger to help us. Then she attempted to save our little brother and became the town hero. “How would she figure out where to find us, though? I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”
We consider the options in silence for a moment, and I have a hunch we’re suspecting the same person. There’s only one other human being who’d had keys to our home back then, only one individual who could have seen what happened to Frankie.
Caleb...
“What about—?” Maisey begins, but I cut her off. It’s too painful to think about. Having him around, hearing him profess his love for me—it has torn open wounds I’d thought were long healed. As much as I’ve tried to fight it, it’s been getting to me. I’ve spent many years convincing myself that what I’d felt for Caleb had been puppy love, a simple childish crush. That’s becoming more and more difficult to believe, and the idea that he would hurt me again, that he would be behind something as cruel as these emails, it’s too awful to contemplate.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought this up. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” My voice breaks and I stand, heading for the CD player. I rip its cord from the wall. The little stereo is destined for the trash tomorrow, along with the lullabies.
“What’s going on? What did I say? You were fine a second ago. We need to talk about this, Sarah. Someone knows. We can’t keep hiding from this stuff, pretending nothing ever happened.”
“We’ll talk later, but right now I need to be alone, okay? I need some time.”
“Sarah—”
“Just leave me alone, please. I promise we’ll talk about it later. But I can’t just yet.” I unlock the door and hold it open for her. “I’m sorry, I really thought I could.”
For a moment I’m afraid she won’t go. She doesn’t move, only looks at me, wrinkling her nose in the way she does when she thinks I’m being unreasonable—or ridiculous.
“Maisey, please.”
Without speaking to me, she leaves, slamming the door behind her. Shit. The last thing I wanted to do was piss her off or hurt her feelings. Maisey was right—we need each other. We have to be allies.
* * *
Someone is shaking me.
“Wake up, Sarah. It’s time for bed.”
My eyes flutter open and I see Warwick looming over me, an ugly grimace on his face. “I need to stay with Elliot tonight, please. I—”
He takes the baby from me before I can protest, putting Elliot in his crib more roughly than I’d like. My son lets out a squawk before falling silent again—perhaps he instinctively understand
s not to argue with Warwick. The thought makes me sad.
Seizing my wrist, my husband pulls me to my feet. “I’ve had more than enough of this bullshit. You’re my wife, and your place is with me. Not in the nursery, night after night. I never would have agreed to have this kid if I’d known you were going to be so obsessive about it. Come to bed now.”
My mind whirls with everything I need to say to him. Somehow I have to explain. I have to make him understand our son may be in danger. He’ll want to know why I didn’t tell him about the emails right away, though. He’ll be furious. The realization makes me hesitate. I have to explain why I’ve been such a wreck lately, but will he believe me? Will he even care?
Warwick ushers me to our bedroom, gripping my arm hard enough to leave a mark.
“Take it easy. There’s no need to be so rough.” But it’s like trying to reason with a stone.
He shoves me inside our bedroom and closes the door. I trip on the carpet and almost fall, inwardly groaning when I see what’s waiting for me on the bed. So that’s why he was in such a hurry.
Clearly he’s not in the mood for talking. A dog collar and leash have been unearthed from the bowels of my closet, along with handcuffs, nipple clamps and a huge dildo I haven’t seen before. The sight of it makes my stomach churn. I don’t think I can handle our arrangement anymore.
“Warwick...”
“Put it on.” He pushes me toward the bed, and though his temper frightens me, I’m tempted to push him back.
“Can’t we talk for a bit first? There are some things I need to tell you. It’s important. You need to know about Frankie.” My mind spins as I wonder which version of the story to give him.
His mouth sets in a tight line that reminds me eerily of his mother’s. “I don’t give a shit about Frankie. Clearly that’s old history, and I’m sure you had your reasons for keeping me in dark about that, not to mention your incestuous relationship with your stepbrother, which is pretty fucking obvious. I’m not interested in hearing more of your lies right now, Sarah. Play now, talk later.” He unbuckles his belt. “I’m not in the best mood tonight, so I’d strongly advise you not to test me.”
With shaking hands, I reach up to fasten the spiked collar around my neck. Even with the weight I’ve lost, it’s too tight—it digs into my throat, making it difficult to breathe. Oblivious to my discomfort, or perhaps thrilled by it, Warwick attaches the leash to the collar’s clip and pulls me to him, the pressure on my windpipe making me gag.
Closing my eyes, I yearn for the meadow, where my father is always waiting to teach me how to make a daisy chain, but the memory won’t come. Whenever I try to envision little Maisey, I see my son instead.
What if Alice returns to his room tonight? What if she does something stupid? What if she hurts him?
I attempt to reason with my husband again. “Warwick, I’m really afraid for Elliot.”
“So what else is new? That kid is all you think about anymore.” He raises his voice in a cruel imitation of mine. “There’s something wrong with Elliot. Where is Elliot?” Warwick sneers. “Elliot, Elliot, Elliot. I need your attention, too.”
His kisses smother me, the reek of wine and something stronger on his breath making me choke. His chest hair tickles my chin and I pull away, fighting him.
Pinning my wrists, he stares down at me. “What’s wrong with you?”
Wait, Warwick doesn’t have hair on his chest...
“Nothing, sorry.”
Satisfied I’ll play along, my husband buries his head between my breasts.
“Whenever you feel alone...whenever you are lost, or hurt, or something bad is happening, remember the happy times we had. Picture every detail in your mind, and I’ll be with you again.”
But the memory won’t come.
Warwick is so heavy I can’t breathe. I cringe away from him, my skin crawling as it tries to escape.
I clutch an old teddy bear, holding it close, but it doesn’t make me feel better. The collar melts away, leaving me in a child’s nightgown.
Please don’t, please don’t. Please leave me alone.
The door to my bedroom opens with a groan. Heavy footsteps pad closer on the carpet. I squirm, burying my head under the sheet, praying for invisibility, wishing I’d thought to hide in the blanket fort.
My head jerks forward as the sheet is torn away.
“What are you doing, silly little girl?” His breath reeks of stale beer. “Did you really think you could hide from me? You should know better than that.”
Rough hands yank at my nightgown until it’s ripped away to reveal my chest, no matter how I struggle to hold it up.
“Please don’t. Please don’t do this.” I taste bile in my throat. Any moment now I’m going to throw up. “I’m going to be sick.”
He grins in the darkness. “Keep fighting. I like it when you fight. It turns me on.”
The clink of metal as he unbuckles his belt. The horrifying sound of a zipper. I’ve heard these sounds before. This isn’t the first time he has done this.
I remember vomiting into my mother’s toilet afterward, curling into a ball on the floor of her shower as scalding water cascaded over my body, which was raw and bleeding. I was never able to get clean.
As he lowers himself onto me, crushing me into the mattress, I scream.
Warwick pushes a pillow over my face.
* * * * *
Now that Maisey and Sarah know they’re both getting emails, the sisters are united again in their fear—together, can they unmask the anonymous perpetrator and
keep their past buried where it belongs?
Find out more in Episode 5 of TAKE IT TO THE GRAVE, available now!
Don’t miss TAKE IT TO THE GRAVE!
A 6-part psychological thriller that will have you guessing till the very end!
“I know your secret. I’m going to tell.”
As Sarah Taylor-Cox stares at the anonymous letter, her body starts to shake with dread. She has everything to lose–a gorgeous husband, a beautiful baby, and a picture-perfect house in the Hamptons. And now, the lies she’s built her life on are starting to crumble, one by deadly one…
Collect all 6!
Take It to the Grave (Part 1 of 6)
by Zoe Carter
Take It to the Grave (Part 2 of 6)
by Zoe Carter
Take It to the Grave (Part 3 of 6)
by Zoe Carter
Take It to the Grave (Part 4 of 6)
by Zoe Carter
Take It to the Grave (Part 5 of 6)
by Zoe Carter
Take It to the Grave (Part 6 of 6)
by Zoe Carter
ISBN-13: 9781488028656
Take It to the Grave (Part 4 of 6)
Copyright © 2017 by Harlequin Books S.A.
Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Shannon Curtis and J. H. Moncrieff for their contributions to this work.
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, M3B 3K9 Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin
Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com