I Lie in Wait: A gripping new psychological crime thriller perfect for fans of Ruth Ware!

by Amanda Brittany

  ‘Do you?’

  I look back at him tucking into poached egg, and say, ‘I know it’s wishful thinking, but I sense her sometimes. Like at Mum’s funeral. It was as though she was with us.’

  He puts down his cutlery, reaches across the table, and takes hold of my hand. ‘We’ll find her one day.’

  ‘No, Dad, we won’t.’ I pull my hand away. ‘We have to stop believing that. We wouldn’t have ended up trapped in the middle of nowhere with two people murdered and another girl missing, if we’d let Lark go. We have to let her go, Dad.’

  He looks down. I’ve hurt him and instantly regret my choice of words. ‘I’ll never let her go, Amelia. Not until someone proves to me she’s dead.’

  I gulp back tears. Dead. It’s so final. Like poor Ruth and Maddie. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I know you didn’t. We’re all so volatile at the moment. But then it’s not surprising, is it?’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m just not sure how much more any of us can take,’ I say, burying my head in my hands.

  Chapter 45

  Present Day

  Amelia

  Outside Molly’s Café I kiss Dad goodbye, and watch as he limps up the road. With a brief wave, he turns the corner towards the museum. Gone.

  I feel suddenly lost, as I loop my bag over my shoulder. I need to head back down Marygate, to where I’ve locked up my bike. I need to get home.

  I’m not sure what makes me turn to look in the window of the antique shop next door to Molly’s. But I see it. Propped in the corner of the window by the door, a horrifying contrast to the china teapots and vases, fob watches and red brandy glasses: the mask.

  The ground moves beneath me, and my legs give way as everything spins.

  The mask.

  I open my mouth to cry out, unsure if I say the words out loud, or in my head. It’s the mask the killer wore.

  *

  The next thing I know I’m lying on my back on the pavement with something soft under my head. A woman crouches down beside me; others look on, their faces full of concern.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I say, attempting to pull myself up to a sitting position, and despite feeling weak and woozy, I glance over my shoulder at the antique shop. There’s no mask in the window. Had I imagined it?

  ‘We’ve called an ambulance,’ the woman says. ‘Lie back down, sweetie. Everything’s going to be OK.’

  *

  Once I’ve convinced paramedics I fainted due to not eating, and they’ve checked me over, and ordered me to eat something before I attempt to cycle home, I open the door to the antique shop. A bell rings out. ‘Hello!’

  Inside, the air is musty, and high shelves are crammed with ornaments, jewellery, and pictures from past lives. I make my way towards the back of the shop to where a man in his forties is doing a crossword puzzle in a folded newspaper. He doesn’t look up. ‘Strange – connected to death, seven letters, beginning with “M”.’

  ‘Macabre?’

  ‘Spot on!’ He scribbles the word, and jolts his face upwards. ‘Can I help?’

  ‘There was a mask in the window a little while ago. I wondered if you remember who brought it in, or maybe who bought it?’

  He screws up his nose. ‘Do you mean the rather lovely Chinese opera mask?’ He points to the wall, where a Chinese mask with a creepy smile hangs.

  ‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘This was a modern mask of a young boy’s face, made of plastic.’

  His forehead furrows. ‘I’m afraid we only sell antiques. You must be mistaken.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Had I imagined it? ‘Has anyone been in here in the last half an hour?’

  ‘Only a man picking up a 1950s sewing machine, I’d put by for him. Are you OK? You seem a little agitated.’

  ‘And that’s it. Nobody else. Nothing?’ I’m lost for words, and turn to leave.

  ‘Hang on!’ he says. ‘Now I think about it the bell above the door rang out a couple of times this morning, but whoever it was must have changed their mind – never came in.’

  ‘So they could have put a mask in your window?’

  ‘I guess so. But it’s a rather odd thing to do, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, retreating. ‘Yes it is.’

  Chapter 46

  Present Day

  Amelia

  My eyes flick over the lounge where I spent so much of my childhood. Sometimes it’s painful transporting myself back there, but today I feel lucky that I can lose myself in the memories. Today I want to go there.

  Dad and Thomas went out about half an hour ago. I didn’t tell them what happened in town today. That I thought I saw the mask in the antique shop window; that I collapsed, an emotional wreck, on the pavement. They’ve got enough to contend with. And I’m OK now, really I am.

  I head over to the CD player and put on my parents’ Fleetwood Mac CD, and as the music blares from the speakers, I can almost see Mum dancing around the room in her own world, a glass of wine in her hand, while Dad sits at the table, lost in his museum research, barely seeing her. Maybe they were never as suited as I always dreamed they were.

  I drift around the lounge cupping a glass of wine with both hands, as I follow my family’s journey in pictures that grace the walls – from Mum and Dad’s wedding day, through the baby years, the teen years and beyond. There are so many studies, put up by Mum long before she took off with Jackson. Dad hadn’t taken them down when she left. In fact, he changed very little – even the fake sweet peas she made into a beautiful display more than ten years ago still stand on the windowsill.

  ‘Why were you so flattered by Jackson’s stupid boyish charm, Mum?’ I say into the silence, a bubble of anger rising, then dissipating. ‘You were so lucky Dad was there for you at the end to pick up the pieces.’

  I put down my glass, and bend down to pull an old photo album from the dresser, and flop down on the sofa. The album smells musty. Black-and-white photos are held on greying cardboard pages with photo mounts. I’ve seen these photos before over the years, but now they are painful to see. I take in a study of Mum in platform shoes, and a fake-fur jacket. There’s no conservatory but there’s no doubting it was taken outside Ruth and Finn’s cottage, and the other teenagers in the picture are Ruth and Michael Collis.

  I look at their young faces, at the way Ruth holds hands with Michael, staring up at him adoringly, and the tragedy that both Mum and Ruth are now gone hits me once more.

  I’m far from drunk, but the booze is fuelling my emotions. I desperately want – no, need – to see more photos from the past. I rise. Most of the family albums are in Mum’s old workroom. I make my way upstairs.

  Within moments of stepping into her room, I know I shouldn’t be here, encased in this shrine to Mum. The neatly made bed where she spent her final weeks; the boxes of brightly coloured ribbons, silk flowers, and rolls of cellophane that are piled high on a pine table, the pretty curtains at the window, all nudge at my already fragile state.

  I take a breath, kneel down, and pull out an album, then another, flicking through the pages at speed, as though searching for something I can’t find, my emotions chaotic.

  It’s as I give up my search and thrust the albums back onto the shelf that I see it: a thick, pale-blue notebook, with the words Caroline’s Journey written on the cover in Mum’s swirling, curling handwriting. I’ve seen it before on her bedside table a few days before she died.

  I pick it up, clasp it tight against my chest, and leave the room.

  Back on the sofa downstairs, tears stream my face as I read from the pages, all written in Mum’s beautiful hand. Her thoughts and deepest fears all there in front of me, telling me how much she struggled through the awful disease, whilst putting on a brave face for the world – for us – for me.

  It’s when I come to the pages she wrote when we visited Drummondale House – the night Lark and Jackson disappeared – that my tears stop, and my anxiety heightens.

  I woke. Jackson wasn’t
beside me. I don’t know what made me get up and leave Bluebell Cottage to try to find him. Maybe I knew deep down. Maybe I’d always known.

  But I wish I hadn’t gone into the wood.

  I didn’t take a torch, as the moon was so bright that night. I saw the masks first – six of them, hanging in the trees. I’d shuddered, was tempted to turn back, but then I heard it – the sound of lust, betrayal – and my blood ran cold.

  I continued towards the sound. I shouldn’t have. The sight of Jackson and Rosamund – so crude, basic, like animals – will stay with me until I die.

  I thought he loved me.

  I thought she was my friend.

  I close the book, my heart thudding. Jackson was having an affair with Rosamund. Jackson was having an affair with Rosamund. Oh God, my poor mum discovering them. My poor, poor mum.

  But why hadn’t she said anything?

  I recall how certain Mum was that Lark and Jackson’s disappearance weren’t connected. Had she thought Jackson had walked out on her? Planned to be with Rosamund? Had she been too proud to tell us what she saw? A surge of anger threads through my veins. Why the hell had she kept quiet about something that could have helped find Lark?

  I head to the kitchen and make some strong coffee. I need a boost of caffeine, and to feel totally sober. I sit for some time at the kitchen table, sipping the warm liquid, my mind whirring back to that night at Drummondale House, and I’m suddenly there, sitting in the wing-backed chair at the bedroom window, seeing the flash of white, the figure in the trees. Had it been someone hanging up the masks? Elise? She was certainly obsessed with them. What if she’d seen Rosamund betray her father? What if she’d decided, a year later – now older, taller, stronger – that it was time to take revenge on Rosamund?

  Rosamund had said Elise was in her bedroom the night Ruth was murdered. Ruth had been wearing Rosamund’s fur bed jacket. Had Elise mistaken Ruth for her stepmother? Sometimes revenge is the only way – that’s what Elise had said when they’d played Truth or Lie.

  Was Elise still out there waiting to take her revenge on Rosamund?

  But why did Maddie have to die? Where was Elise now? How did she get away from Drummondale House?

  OK, yes there are loose ends, but my main concern is for Rosamund’s safety, even if she had betrayed my mum.

  Had Elise left the mask on her stepmother’s doorstep? If she’d tried to kill her at Drummondale House, what was to stop her trying again?

  I reach for my phone. I need to call her. Warn her. Let her know she could be in danger.

  Chapter 47

  Present Day

  Amelia

  I go to grab my mobile as it vibrates on the coffee table.

  ‘Thomas,’ I say once my phone’s pressed against my ear. Should I tell him my suspicions?

  ‘I’ve met an old mate, so Dad is about to head home. He wants to know if you fancy fish and chips.’ He sounds relaxed. Happy. I decide to say nothing.

  ‘Some chips maybe.’ I pray my brother doesn’t twig there’s something up.

  ‘Cool,’ he says, clearly not registering the wobble in my voice. ‘See you later.’ He ends the call, and I fumble with the phone, searching for Rosamund’s number.

  ‘Amelia, how lovely,’ she says when the call goes through.

  ‘Rosamund. Listen.’ My stomach leapfrogs. ‘I need to talk to you. It’s really important.’

  ‘Calm down, you sound like you might pop—’

  ‘It’s just—’

  ‘Hang on, I’m on hands-free and keep losing you—’

  ‘Pull over somewhere, Rosamund. This is really important—’

  ‘Tell you what; I’m not far from you. I’ll pop round. Be there in five.’ The line goes dead.

  I look down at my phone. Maybe her coming here is for the best. I can suggest she doesn’t go home until she’s spoken to the police. Maybe she can book into a B & B for the night.

  I watch from the window, waiting. Hoping she won’t think I’m over-reacting. In less than five minutes she pulls up, and I dash to open the front door.

  ‘Amelia? Whatever’s wrong?’ she says, locking her car, as she races up the path towards me. She pulls me into her arms, and I feel the fake baby bump, and I pull away. She clearly hasn’t broken the news to Neil yet. ‘You’ve worried me,’ she says. ‘Is everything OK?’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ I lead the way into the house. ‘It’s just I really need to talk to you. It’s important.’

  In the kitchen, I put the kettle on, and gesture for her to sit at the table. I take the seat opposite her, and twiddle a strand of my hair around my finger, arranging the words I want to say in my head so they make some sort of sense. ‘The thing is,’ I begin, ‘I found a book, well a kind of diary really, that my mum wrote before she died.’ I pause. ‘Rosamund, she saw you and Jackson together in the woods.’

  ‘What?’ Her eyes widen.

  ‘It was the night he and Lark disappeared. You were …’ I scramble for the right words, but she knows exactly what I’m trying to say.

  ‘That’s just not true. Look at me. Do I look the type of woman who would have sex in a wood?’ Her cheeks flush, and she avoids meeting my eye.

  ‘But why would she make it up, Rosamund?’ I narrow my eyes. ‘Why would she write it in her diary if it wasn’t true?’

  There’s a beat. ‘OK, yes, yes—’

  ‘Christ!’ I lean back in my chair, cover my mouth with my hands. ‘Why the hell didn’t you say anything at the time?’ Why didn’t my mum?

  She thrusts her head into her hands and begins to cry. ‘Jackson and I were having an affair – a fling really. It meant nothing.’

  ‘But you should have told the police you were one of the last people to see Jackson before he vanished.’

  ‘I couldn’t, OK.’ She looks up. ‘I couldn’t bear the thought of Neil finding out. I didn’t want to lose him. Is that why I’m here, Amelia? Are you going to rake it all up – ruin my marriage?’

  I shake my head – no.

  ‘Then what’s so important that you needed to talk to me?’

  ‘Well one,’ I say, leaning forward and raising my index finger, ‘I think Elise may have seen you with Jackson. And two, I think she may still be alive and—’

  ‘Alive?’ She widens her eyes.

  ‘You need to be careful, Rosamund. She could be dangerous.’

  ‘Elise? Dangerous?’ She furrows her forehead. ‘Oh, Amelia, why would you even think that?’

  ‘OK. Right. The first thing is Ruth was wearing your bed jacket when she died. What if Elise thought it was you? And I’m pretty sure I saw her in the wood the night Lark went missing. I didn’t realise at the time – my head so full of ghost stories – but now I’m pretty sure it was Elise hanging up those awful masks ready to scare you – us – when we went in the woods the following day. And now she wants revenge.’

  ‘A whole year later?’

  ‘I know. That part doesn’t quite fit. But then she’s bigger now, stronger.’

  ‘Although the mask bit fits,’ she says, her voice rising, her eyes flashing as though she can suddenly see what I see. ‘She was obsessed with those stupid things, wasn’t she? Maybe she is still alive and she left the mask on my doorstep. Put one in the antique shop for you to find.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I say. ‘I don’t think you should go back to your house alone, Rosamund.’

  ‘Oh God,’ she says, covering her face with her hands. ‘No, no you’re right. I can’t go back there.’

  There’s a painful silence for some moments, before she removes her hands from her face, and clenches her fists. ‘He ended it with me that night,’ she says.

  ‘Who? Jackson?’

  She nods. ‘He said he felt guilty.’

  ‘Well, he bloody well should have.’

  ‘I regret every moment, Amelia,’ she says. ‘Jackson was a terrible flirt – a handsome charmer. He took me to his caravan in Laurel Wood a few times, that’s all. It was a short flin
g, nothing more. I loved Neil, always will. You have to believe me. It was over the night Lark vanished.’

  ‘So that’s why you took off, never spoke to my mum again?’ I stare into her eyes, see them shimmering.

  She nods. ‘And I’m so, so sorry.’

  The kettle boils, and I rise.

  ‘Can I borrow your loo?’ she says, rising too. She leaves the room, and as I make hot drinks, my mind buzzes. Mum had seen Rosamund and Jackson together. She’d known they were having an affair. Was that what the letter to Neil had said? Had Mum told him she’d seen them?

  But no, that can’t be right. Neil is still with Rosamund. So did he forgive her? Had he known all along?

  As I put the drinks on the table something niggles at my thoughts, but I can’t quite reach it. Frustrated I sit down; take a long sip of my coffee.

  ‘Maybe you could get booked into a B & B in Berwick tonight,’ I say as Rosamund returns.

  She nods, sits too, picks up her mug. ‘Good idea.’

  I pull out my phone, about to look up a suitable place for her to stay, when it hits me.

  I stare into her eyes. ‘I never told you about the mask in the antique shop,’ I say.

  Fear floods in. I get to my feet. ‘You should leave. Now.’

  Something shifts in her eyes. She’s on her feet too. Within moments she’s grabbed a knife from the rack.

  ‘Christ!’ I cry. ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘I tried to veer you away from finding out the truth.’ She leaps towards me, pins me against the wall, points the blade at my throat. ‘Tried to lay the blame at Finn’s door. I thought the mask in the antique shop was a nice touch.’

  ‘Rosamund, please,’ I say, trying to fight back tears.

  ‘I hoped you’d recall Finn was in the area, put two and two together and make some absurd number. I never dreamed you’d think Elise was after me.’ She laughs. ‘God I wish I’d thought of that.’ She grabs me, slams me against the wall with the same force as the masked figure in the wood. It was her. It was her that awful night.