At Your Door
Page 31
Bruno now had Sophie in a vicelike grip, with one hand around her neck and the other around her waist. His grin was wider, but what astonished Anna was that Sophie was also smiling.
‘You’re safe now, my darling,’ Sophie said to Chloe.
Bruno took a step back towards the edge and Sophie twisted her head to look at his face.
‘But please give me a couple more seconds,’ she said to him. ‘There are things I need to say.’
His smile vanished and he gave a little nod.
Sophie turned back to Chloe.
‘You need to know that this is the man who murdered your father,’ she said. ‘He now intends to take my life and later you’ll be told why. But that’s not all I have to tell you. You see, your father told you lots of lies. Your real mother didn’t die ten years ago. He took you from her because he wanted to punish her.’
Chloe had fallen silent, but sobs were still causing her shoulders to jump.
‘Your real name is Chloe and not Alice,’ Sophie continued. ‘And your real mother has been searching for you since you were two years old. And at last she’s found you, sweetheart. She is the woman who is now holding you and you must understand that she loves you just as much as I do. She’ll look after you from now on and all I ask is that you don’t forget me.’
Sophie’s gaze shifted to Anna.
‘And I want you to know, Miss Tate, that I’m really sorry for the part I played in your suffering. I’m so glad your daughter is back where she belongs.’
Sophie then did something unexpected. Rather than wait for Bruno to pull her over the edge, she took a deep breath and pushed him backwards. He maintained his grip on her and they both tumbled out of sight.
Anna jumped up and hurried across to the edge of the roof. She looked over and saw their two bodies sprawled on the ground far below.
Behind her Chloe screamed and Anna turned to see that her daughter was shaking her head violently from side to side.
‘Oh, you poor thing,’ Anna said as she hurried back to envelop Chloe in her arms.
‘Please don’t let my mummy die,’ Chloe cried out. ‘You have to save her. Please.’
Anna did not know what to say so she just held onto her little girl as the sobs racked her body and the tears gushed out of her eyes.
EPILOGUE
Eight Hours Later
It was the morning after and Chloe was still asleep, thanks to the sedatives the doctor had prescribed.
Anna sat beside her hospital bed, unable to take her eyes off her face. At last her daughter was getting some respite from the onslaught of pain, grief and confusion. But it was going to be short-lived. Soon she’d be awake again, and Anna would have to tell her that what had happened wasn’t a nightmare.
Having witnessed the horror on the warehouse roof, Chloe had screamed and cried until the shock became so overwhelming that she had passed out in Anna’s arms.
She didn’t yet know that her adoptive mother was dead, along with the man who had killed her father. Bruno had died on impact with the ground. Sophie had survived for just an hour before succumbing to serious injuries to her head and neck.
Anna held onto Chloe’s hand like her life depended on it. Her mind was a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. There was the joy at having her daughter back and the sadness at the death of Sophie Cameron, who had loved and cared for Chloe for so long and had then committed the ultimate sacrifice in order to save her.
There was also the seemingly insurmountable challenge she now faced of winning Chloe’s love and trust. The search was over but the road ahead was going to be long and tortuous.
And it would start today when Anna began to answer as best she could the questions that Chloe was bound to ask.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to say a special thank you to my editor Phoebe Morgan who has helped to make this book much better than it would otherwise have been. I’ll be forever grateful. My thanks also to the rest of the team at Avon, including Molly Walker-Sharp, Sabah Khan and Helen Huthwaite who are doing what they can to make the Anna Tate stories a success.
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About the Author
J. P. Carter is the pseudonym of a bestselling author who has also written sixteen books under the names Jaime and James Raven. Before becoming a full-time writer he spent a career in journalism as a newspaper reporter and television producer. He was, for a number of years, director of a major UK news division and co-owned a TV production company. He now splits his time between homes in Hampshire and Spain with his wife.
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