And Heather, I knew he would never stay away from you.
The night Samuel disappeared, I was woken by John getting out of bed. I quietly followed him into the woods, a few minutes behind him. He had no idea I was there. Buckbell is full of shadows. When I saw the two of them fighting, I panicked. I ran down towards the back road with the intention of going to fetch Colin. But then I heard the fighting stop.
By this time I was close to the road, next to a break in the fence. There’d been a crash a few weeks ago and someone had knocked part of the wire down. I hadn’t planned it that way, but that’s how it happened. Samuel came running down to the same part of the woods. It’s possible that he’d seen the broken fence on his way to meet you, Rosie, and had used it to enter the woods as a shortcut.
‘What are you doing here?’ he said.
‘I followed John.’
His face was all beaten up, but he still seemed to me as arrogant as always. I hated him. He was Colin’s double.
‘You’re never going to stay away from my daughter, are you?’ I said.
‘You mean my sister?’ He laughed. ‘Why would I? I love her. No one knows we’re related. What’s the harm?’
‘What’s the harm? You’re hurting her! You can’t get married or have children. You can’t do any of the things that normal couples do.’
‘Tell her that,’ he said. ‘Tell her that you fucked my father. Tell her what you did.’
I didn’t get a chance to respond, because we both became distracted by the car careening down the back road. The driver must have been going at least sixty, seventy miles an hour on that narrow road. Someone was whooping for joy in the driver’s seat.
I saw an opportunity to end this sorry situation. Samuel had made his intentions clear: he was happy to carry on an incestuous relationship with you, Heather, and I knew it would break you to find out. You were the most proper young woman, completely different to the other teenagers in the village. You followed the rules to the letter. At that age, knowing this secret would have broken you, and I had already broken one daughter.
Better to grieve for a lost love than to lose your identity.
I pushed him.
There was a terrible screech of brakes. Samuel went flying up into the air before he landed. I staggered back, amazed by my own actions, before running away. I ran and ran and ran until I stopped and dry-heaved, the realisation of what I had done beginning to hit home. I couldn’t hear a thing behind me. No talking, no shouting, no panicking. Nothing but me, alone.
I knew I had to get out of there, and a will to survive emerged from the shock. The silence of the forest enveloped me as I picked my way back to the cottage.
I felt ashamed and horrified by what I’d done. I stared up at the trees and I saw guilt. Moonlight illuminated the bluebell field through the darkness and I saw blame. I used to meet Colin here. The woods have a lot to answer for, giving us this seemingly safe space to indulge in our desires.
Samuel was connected to me, like a stepson in some way, and I threw him in front of that car with hate in my heart. I’m sorry, Heather, but I don’t regret it.
I set you free when I pushed him, but I also imprisoned my other daughter. Rosie, maybe this will now set you free, my love.
I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you while I was alive.
I love you both.
If you were completely gripped by The Liar’s Sister, you’ll love Only Daughter – a twisty and compulsive page-turning psychological thriller by Sarah A. Denzil that you won't be able to put down. Available now!
Only Daughter
The must-read psychological thriller for 2019 from the million-copy-bestselling author of Silent Child.
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In one moment, Kat Cavanaugh’s perfect world is shattered into tiny fragments. The flash of her daughter’s torn yellow dress, the beautiful blonde hair hanging across her precious face. Her own heart-broken sob…
* * *
Kat experiences every mother’s worst nightmare when her little girl is found dead. And then the police add the word ‘suicide’. But Kat refuses to believe them.
* * *
Even when they show her the familiar looping handwriting and smudged ink on the note Grace left behind. She knows her bubbly, bright daughter would never take her own life.
* * *
But as she searches Grace’s perfume-scented room, filled with smiling photos, she uncovers secrets her daughter had been hiding. Secrets that make her wonder how well she really knew the woman her only child was becoming.
* * *
Kat’s determined to find out what really happened to Grace on the night she died, even if it means confronting her own troubled past. But as she gets closer to the terrible truth, Kat is faced with an unthinkable question: there was no way she could have protected Grace – or was there?
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This addictive and emotional psychological thriller will keep you gripped into the dark hours. Perfect for fans of Behind Closed Doors and The Girl on the Train.
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A Letter from Sarah
I want to say a huge thank you for choosing to read The Liar’s Sister. If you did enjoy it, and want to keep up-to-date with all my latest releases, just sign up at the following link. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
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I am so thrilled to be able to share this book with you all. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it!
I hope you loved The Liar’s Sister and if you did I would be very grateful if you could write a review. I’d love to hear what you think, and it makes such a difference helping new readers to discover one of my books for the first time.
I love hearing from my readers – you can get in touch on my Facebook page, through Twitter, Goodreads or my website.
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Thanks,
Sarah A. Denzil
Acknowledgements
Books don’t get any easier to write, and although this might be my twentieth completed novel overall, I went through as many of the usual issues while writing it as even the first one. This process never gets easier! But it is helped by the people around me.
As always, thank you to my husband for being my first reader and supporter. And thank you to my family and friends for buying and reading twenty books you probably wouldn’t unless I’d written them!
Thank you to my editor, Natasha, for your fantastic insight. And thank you to everyone else at Bookouture for all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.
Lastly, thank you to caffeine for getting me through this process.
Published by Bookouture in 2019
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An imprint of StoryFire Ltd.
Carmelite House
50 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DZ
Uniter Kingdom
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www.bookouture.com
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Copyright © Sarah A. Denzil, 2019
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Sarah A. Denzil has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work.
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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publishers.
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-78681-737-2
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, chara
cters, businesses, organizations, places and events other than those clearly in the public domain are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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