Trust Me: An absolutely gripping and unputdownable psychological thriller

by Sheryl Browne

  Trust Me

  An absolutely gripping and unputdownable psychological thriller

  Sheryl Browne

  Books by Sheryl Browne

  Trust Me

  The New Girlfriend

  The Perfect Sister

  The Marriage Trap

  The Second Wife

  The Affair

  The Babysitter

  AVAILABLE IN AUDIO

  The New Girlfriend (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Perfect Sister (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Marriage Trap (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Second Wife (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Affair (Available in the UK and the US)

  The Babysitter (Available in the UK and the US)

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Epilogue

  The Affair

  Hear More from Sheryl

  Books by Sheryl Browne

  A Letter from Sheryl

  The Babysitter

  The Second Wife

  The Marriage Trap

  The Perfect Sister

  Acknowledgements

  For Theresa.

  Stay safe in the embrace of those who love you, sweetheart.

  Until we can dance together again. xx

  Prologue

  The night of the party

  ‘For God’s sake!’ He lunged for her as she grappled with the passenger door, causing the car to swerve violently across the narrow road. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

  ‘Let go of me!’ She fought him, squirming away from him. ‘Let me go!’

  Fear constricting his throat, he tightened his grip on her arm and squinted past the windscreen wipers sloshing ineffectually against the lashing rain. Frantic, he searched for somewhere to pull over. The night was dark and moon-free, affording him little visibility. Relief flooded through him as he spotted a passing place on the single-track road. He slowed the car. And then hesitated. The entrance to Apple Tree Farm was only thirty or so yards ahead. The field beyond it would give them some privacy. There was no way he was having a full-on argument out in the open, no matter how remote an area it was.

  ‘Stop the car! Let me out, now!’ she cried, trying to prise his fingers from her arm.

  ‘Christ almighty!’ Cursing as the front wheels hit a pothole, he hurriedly loosened his grip on her to wrestle with the steering wheel.

  Her scream was loud and piercing, jarring his already shattered nerves, as the car veered towards the woodland at the side of the road. He pushed his foot hard on the brake, realising his mistake too late as the vehicle careered into a tailspin before grinding to a nauseating stop. His heart pumping with shock, he wiped a trembling hand over his face and twisted to face her. ‘What in God’s name are you trying to do?’

  ‘Get away from you!’ she shrieked, lashing out at him, her balled fist pounding heavily into his shoulder.

  ‘While the car was moving?’ Disbelief and anger unfurled inside him. ‘You could have bloody well killed yourself!’

  ‘What do you care?’ she retorted tearfully. ‘You lying bastard, pretending you give a stuff about me when all you ever really wanted was to use me.’

  ‘I do care. You know I do. I would do anything for you.’ Softening his tone, he tried again to reach for her, but she recoiled.

  ‘Of course you would. That’s why you wanted to keep me as your dirty little secret. You’re despicable, do you know that?’ she spat. ‘It’s about bloody time everyone found out what you’re really like. I’m going.’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said, growing desperate. ‘It’s not safe walking around here on your own.’

  ‘Ha!’ She laughed derisively and reached again for the door. ‘Save it for the next gullible fool you win over with your twinkly-eyed smile and bleeding-heart crap. It was nice knowing you. Not.’

  ‘Come back!’ he begged as she scrambled out of the car. ‘It’s pouring with rain. You’ll get soaked.’

  ‘No chance!’ she yelled.

  Panic knotting his stomach, he tried to start the engine as she fled, only for it to splutter and die. Shit. He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. What should he do now? He couldn’t let her broadcast his business all over the village, ruin everything he’d worked for.

  Go after her, whispered the woman whose death had changed the course of his life. You have to stop her.

  One

  Emily

  Bitter wind biting into her bones, Emily stood across the street from her house, outside her life looking in. A fox cried in the distance, shrill and soul-piercing, like the cry of a terrified child. There was no other sound, no movement, apart from withered leaves scurrying across the pavement like frightened mice in the night. Loneliness seeping through her, she watched and waited. There were no lights on in the upstairs windows, suggesting the children weren’t home. The only light visible was the mellow amber glow from the lamp in the large bay window, and beyond that, the flickering shadows from the television dancing across the walls of the lounge. What was her husband watching? Emily’s heart constricted. Who was he watching with, if not her?

  Drawn like a moth to a flame, she stepped down from the kerb and crossed the deserted road. She was on the drive, directly in front of the window, when her husband rose from the sofa. Tall and dark, wearing his almost perpetual five o’clock shadow, he was what some would call classically handsome. Attractive, undeniably. He was going to fetch refreshments, making drink signs with his hands. Doctor’s hands. Steady, capable hands. She knew his every gesture. Knew every inch of him. From the scar on his knee from a fall as a child to the flecks of green and brown that made his blue eyes a myriad of ocean colours, she knew him. Didn’t she? Mesmerised, she continued to watch as he smiled languidly at his companion and then crossed the room towards the kitchen. Her man: he would never hurt her in the worst possible way a husband could hurt his wife. But he had once been tempted, the wind whispered.

  It was an embrace. A kiss, that was all, Emily replied. He hadn’t slept with her. She’d had no cause to doubt him since. Had she? Icy fingers trailed the length of her spine as the woman in her house got to her feet, coming across to the windo
w. She waited a beat, and then, in one graceful movement, she raised a hand, placing the palm flat against the glass. Fascinated, petrified, Emily scanned her familiar features, looked deep into the eyes that were holding hers; violet eyes, peering out through a wild tangle of flaxen hair. Her own eyes. Her own hair. A mirror image of herself, looking hauntingly back.

  The fox cried jarringly.

  Her heart jolting, Emily stumbled backwards, away from the woman who had once been the other half of her. She wasn’t here. She couldn’t be. A hard knot of fear expanding in her chest, she tried to draw breath. Kara. She attempted to enunciate the word, but her lips were like putty, her tongue glued to the roof of her mouth. ‘Kara.’ It came out elongated and slurred.

  ‘You stole him,’ Kara whispered. An accusation.

  Emily heard it, impossible though it was, through the window between them. It was a lie. I didn’t steal him. Why couldn’t she make Kara hear her? Believe that she hadn’t taken away the man she’d imagined her life had had no meaning without? If anything, it had been the other way around. He hadn’t loved Kara. He’d used her. Used them both.

  She hadn’t meant to be so vile to her sister. She hadn’t. ‘Kara!’ she screamed. Why was she here? What was she trying to tell her? She watched her sister’s mouth move, but the words were soundless now. Emily was glad. She didn’t want to hear the dark warning she was sure Kara was trying to convey. Clamping her hands over her ears, she stepped back, but her heels sank hopelessly into the soft ground beneath her. Soon it was sucking her down, her feet, her calves, her stomach, her chest. Thick, cloying and slimy; suffocating. It was as if the earth was trying to swallow her whole and bury her along with her sister.

  ‘Emily!’ Kara banged her hand against the glass. ‘Emily …’

  ‘Emily …’

  She heard her name called softly again. Not Kara. A male voice, concerned, comforting. Jake. She snapped her eyes open to find her husband’s gaze urgently searching hers.

  ‘Jesus, you scared me.’ He smiled warily. ‘You were dreaming again, screaming out. Are you all right?’

  Pulling herself from the pillow, Emily took a second to answer. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, the frenetic beating of her heart abating a little as she realised she was inside her home, safe in her bed.

  ‘Sure?’ he asked her, easing her to him and gently stroking her hair; soothing her as he would once have done their daughter. Millie would often wake crying in the night as a child. Jake had been the only one who could console her. ‘You’ve been dreaming a lot over the last few days. You’re hot, too.’ He felt her forehead. ‘Extremely.’

  ‘I’m fine, honestly.’ Settling into his embrace, she nodded into his shoulder. She was hot. Burning up. She hadn’t felt well all week. She hoped she wasn’t coming down with something. She was sleeping fitfully, struggling to get to sleep or waking early. And then there were the nightmares. The one she’d just had was so vivid. She wouldn’t easily forget it. She thought of the text she’d received last week. Thinking of you both on your special day, it had said. She had dismissed it as a wrong number. Sent so close to her and Kara’s birthday, though, her thoughts had been on her sister as she drifted off.

  It was no wonder Kara haunted her dreams. Emily pictured her twin, identical, yet not. On the inside, they were two completely separate entities. Kara had always been their parents’ favourite, the quieter, prettier, cleverer one, studious and obedient. She’d been destined for Oxford, studying Classics and English. She’d worked hard to please their parents. Emily had decided on an art degree, unleashing her creativity as an antidote to her frustration that she couldn’t possibly compete with her sister. She’d been seen as the wild one, the noisy, rebellious one her parents would have to keep an eye on. It had been Emily who had started smoking and drinking first. She who’d started dating.

  The local bad boy had been two years older than her, good-looking, cocky on his Yamaha motorbike. Despite his reputation – or perhaps because of it, to spite her parents for loving her less – Emily had been determined to go out with him. She was hopelessly in love with him and imagined she would be the one to tame him. She’d lived for the days when she would hang out with him, smoke weed on the canal bank, ride pillion into Birmingham, where they would go clubbing together. He’d said he loved her wild side, encouraged her to be who she was, abandoned and carefree, not constrained by conformity. The girl who would rise to the challenge when he dared her, taking what wasn’t hers to fund his habit, terrified he would dump her if she didn’t. How naïve she’d been. How ashamed when she’d woken up to the fact that she’d been so easily manipulated.

  She’d been consumed with rage the night she’d found him in bed with Kara, unforgivably vile to her sister. Her heart twisted painfully as she pictured Kara’s stricken face, the mascara she rarely wore wending black tracks down her cheeks, her lipstick smeared sideways. ‘Slag!’ Emily had hissed, throwing her clothes after her as she’d screamed at her to get out of her life. ‘He doesn’t love you. He laughs at you,’ she’d seethed, as Kara backed tearfully along the landing. ‘We both do, little Miss Goody Two-Shoes with her nose always stuck in a book. He loves me!’

  She’d been deluded. He hadn’t loved either of them. Kara had loved him, though, she’d come to realise, as painfully as she had herself. She hadn’t known how deeply until she’d read the diary her sister constantly scribbled in. He’d been the first boy she’d had sex with. And the last.

  ‘Care to share?’ Jake jarred her from her thoughts, his mouth curving into a reassuring smile as she looked up at him.

  Emily nestled back into him. ‘I would, but I can’t remember half of it,’ she said, glossing over the dream, though it had stirred up in her the disturbing memory of how Jake had been intimate with another woman, years ago now, when they’d only been going out a few months. At the time she’d withdrawn from him, pushed him away because of her emotional vulnerability. He’d felt rejected, though he swore that he hadn’t slept with the woman, that it hadn’t gone that far. She’d believed him and had felt safe with him since. Secure in his embrace at night, listening to the reassuring thrum of his heartbeat, as if the world and all the bad things in it couldn’t touch them.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, looking up at him. She’d obviously woken him.

  ‘Fine. A bit tired.’ He gave her another reassuring smile. He had a nice smile, warm and genuine; it always reached his eyes, making them more sparkling blue than ocean green. They grew darker when he was troubled, as they had been in those dreadful weeks leading up to the day she’d seen him with the woman. She hated that she hadn’t been able to be honest about why she’d drawn away from him. She’d known deep down that she could trust him with her emotions. A man who’d been too shy to ask her out, visiting the café where she’d worked umpteen times on the pretext of studying before he’d plucked up the courage; who’d also had to visibly find the courage to confide in her the terrible tragedy in his own life. That tragedy had made him everything she felt he was, kind and sensitive, but she herself felt so naïve and responsible for what had happened to her. She wished to this day she had told him instead of carrying it around like a stone, living in fear that it would surface.

  ‘Shoot! Also late, unfortunately,’ he added, his gaze flicking past her towards her alarm clock. ‘I need to be gone. I have that pharmaceutical rep coming before my first patient.’ Pressing a hurried kiss to her forehead, he pulled himself off the bed.

  Hell. She’d forgotten about that. Throwing back the duvet, she scrambled out after him and, feeling immediately woozy, placed a hand on the dressing table to steady herself. She clearly was coming down with something. Her mind had been like wet cotton wool lately. She must have forgotten to set her alarm. After an emergency call-out last night, Jake had obviously done the same. He would be exhausted. But now that his father had cut back to two surgeries a week, he had to go in, regardless of how tired he was. As did she. The practice wouldn’t run without them.

>   Grabbing her dressing gown from the door, while Jake headed fast for the en suite, she listened for sounds of the kids as she pushed her arms into it. They were up, she gathered, judging by Ben’s exasperated tones drifting from the hall. Millie, whom Ben dropped off at school on his way to uni, was undoubtedly keeping him waiting.

  Turning to the wardrobe, Emily grabbed the first clothes that came to hand, dumped them on the bed and then headed quickly downstairs. Reaching the hall, she bypassed Millie, who was in front of the hall mirror, layering on the mascara, attempting to look half awake after a heavy night studying at her friend Anna’s house. It had definitely been a heavy night, but Emily suspected it wasn’t studying her daughter had been hard at. Millie’s make-up had been less than immaculate when she’d eventually arrived home, her eyes slightly unfocused. Emily guessed she’d been drinking, which Millie had denied, naturally. The worrying question was where? With her own teenage rebellion in mind, Emily was treading carefully. She didn’t want to set ground rules her daughter would immediately challenge, but she didn’t like the idea of her sneaking off to pubs miles away, meaning she might be at risk if she had to find her way home alone.