Never Out of Sight

by Louise Stone

  My heart skipped a beat. ‘Really?’ I asked as evenly as I could. ‘Well, you know how much I’d love that but it’s always your choice. Remember that.’ I drew her into me and kissed the top of her head. ‘Ames, you mean the world to me. It’s all going to be OK. I’ll make sure of it. I cross my heart.’

  ‘Mummy?’

  ‘Hmm?’ I mumbled into her full head of auburn curls, inhaling the glorious smell of Timotei shampoo.

  ‘The stranger’s there.’

  My head shot up and I followed Amy’s gaze.

  ‘What’s she wearing, Ames?’

  ‘A blue jacket.’ She pointed.

  My eyes moved fast over the pedestrians opposite: shoppers, a young couple stopping briefly to kiss, an old man with his head bent in concentration, a street seller flogging pashminas. Of all the roads in London, Oxford Street was a minefield when it came to spotting a person you recognise, let alone a stranger. I focused on the scene again, my eyes filtering the fast flow of pedestrians. That’s when I saw her, but I didn’t recognise her.

  She stood up against a wall, stock-still. The woman did appear to be staring our way. I grabbed Amy’s hand and moved toward her, my eyes never leaving her. A taxi honked his horn as we made our way across the street.

  ‘Careful, love,’ the driver shouted out the window.

  ‘Mummy? Slow down.’ Amy clung onto my hand more tightly.

  Just as we reached the other side of the road, the woman turned and walked fast past Boots and headed down Stratford Place. I started after her, my hand firm around Amy’s.

  ‘Mummy?’ Amy’s voice quivered ever so slightly with fear. ‘Mummy, you’re holding me too tight.’

  I had come to a halt – she was moving too fast – and Amy buried her head in my jumper.

  ‘Mummy? You’re scaring me. Who are you following?’

  ‘That woman you saw. I don’t know who she is. No one, I expect. No one,’ I murmured, but there was something about her. Was it her hair or something about her face that made my skin prickle? Unease washed over me as I tried to push away the fleeting images of Bethany skipping through my mind. ‘I just wanted to find out if the woman you saw thought she knew us,’ I said, aware of Amy’s frightened eyes on me.

  ‘But the woman I was talking about headed down to the Tube.’ She looked momentarily perplexed, but then, and not for the first time, gave me an encouraging smile; my daughter had taken on the role of mother. ‘Can we go to Claire’s now?’

  ‘Of course,’ I agreed, but I was distracted, because I thought I had seen the woman walking fast along the street. I shook my head, gave a small shrug of my shoulders and smiled. ‘Come on then. Let’s get that charm bracelet, shall we?’

  She nodded and we moved off, me inwardly counting the cracks in the pavement: three, six, nine. I looked over my shoulder just as we went to round the corner and gasped aloud as I stepped on the tenth crack. Amy hadn’t noticed as she hurtled toward the shops, but I looked behind me once more. The woman had most definitely gone, but the knot in the pit of my stomach hadn’t.

  If you loved this brilliantly gripping piece from Louise Stone

  don’t miss out on her first thrilling title, S is for Stranger.

  Look no further for your next psychological suspense

  with a shocking twist!

  Copyright

  HQ

  An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017

  Copyright © Louise Stone 2017

  Louise Stone asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. 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, downloaded, 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 HarperCollins.

  E-book Edition © January 2017 ISBN: 9780008189921