Copycat
Page 30
What it couldn’t tell her was whether Diana was at the house. She could have come and gone, or canceled and not come at all.
Sarah would never know, and she was fine with that. This was her only shot and she had taken it. She was at peace.
As she slipped into unconsciousness, she smiled.
31
As Ben stared at the basement door, the alarm went off.
The smoke alarm.
‘Mum!’ Ben shouted. ‘Mum! Jean! Are you there?’
He heard footsteps coming from the basement. After a second or two, Jean appeared. She was holding a fire extinguisher.
‘There you are,’ Ben said. ‘I smelled the smoke. I’ll call 911.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘It often does this. It’s faulty. Go home.’
‘Then why the fire extinguisher?’
She didn’t reply. She just stared at him, eyes wide.
‘Where’s Mum?’ Ben said.
‘Who?’
‘My mum. She said she was coming here.’
‘I don’t know.’ Jean moved to block the stairs. ‘She’s not here. Now leave. I need to get this alarm sorted out.’
‘Jean. I read the graphologist’s report. It wasn’t Sarah. Someone was forging the notes.’
Jean’s mouth fell open into a fake ‘O’ of surprise. She put her fingers to her mouth. ‘Gosh,’ she said. ‘What a shock.’
There was a strange light in her eyes, and Ben saw she had somehow changed, was a person he almost did not recognize.
‘Jean,’ he said. ‘Was it you?’
She let out a sound that was part laugh, part shriek. ‘Me? Little old me? You don’t think I’d be smart enough to do that, do you Ben? No, such a thing would take some kind of a genius, and I’m just silly little Jeannie.’
It was her, Ben saw, and he realized there was something very wrong here. There was no more time for talking. He had to get into the basement.
He charged forward and past her; as he started down the steps she lunged at him and pushed him hard in the back. He stumbled, then tripped and fell, bumping down the stairs. He landed heavily on his left shoulder and grunted in pain.
He looked up and she was standing above him, the fire extinguisher raised above her head. She swung it down toward his face; he scrambled out of the way of the blow and grabbed her ankles. He yanked them toward him and watched as she toppled backward.
He pulled again and she fell. Her head banged on the hard wooden steps and she was motionless.
Ben grabbed the fire extinguisher and walked into the basement. He looked around; the smoke was coming from one corner. He walked over. There were stairs leading down to a door. Some kind of shelter – from bombs or tornados – he guessed.
And next to it was a body, the head surrounded by a pool of blood.
A head wearing a scarf.
‘Mum,’ Ben said. ‘Oh, God, Mum. What did she do?’
He knelt down and felt for a pulse. There was nothing.
‘Oh, God,’ he said. ‘Oh God, no.’
And then, from the stairs, he heard the crackle of the fire.
He looked down the stairs. At the bottom was a door. And it was on fire.
A secret door. A door which might lead to a place where someone could be hidden. He aimed the fire extinguisher at it and pulled the trigger.
32
Sarah didn’t need the doctor to tell her she had pretty serious smoke damage to her lungs, nor that she might suffer from shortness of breath and other breathing difficulties for the rest of her life. These were obvious diagnoses from both the symptoms she had and the situation she’d been in.
She didn’t care.
She was happy to be alive. Happy to be able to have a doctor give her any kind of news. Happy to be at her house, surrounded by her husband and kids.
Ben had come down in the nick of time. He put the fire out and let the smoke clear the room, then went upstairs to get the key to the chain around her neck from Jean.
But Jean was gone.
In the end he found some bolt cutters in her shed and used them to free Sarah, who was barely conscious. Not long afterward she was in an ambulance, breathing pure oxygen.
She found out the next day – when she woke up in hospital – that it hadn’t been the only emergency vehicle on their street. Ian Molyneux showed up in a cop car, lights blazing.
He was looking for Jean.
He didn’t find her. None of the cops did.
She also found out that her mother-in-law was another of Jean’s victims. She must have smelled the smoke too, and gone down to take a look. Jean had struck her repeatedly with the fire extinguisher.
In the hours since she’d come round, Ben had sat by her bed. He would have lain next to her, but there was no room. If Miles wasn’t hugging her, Faye was. And if Faye wasn’t, then Kim was.
As they sat there, the door opened.
Roger came in. He was pale, his face lined.
‘Roger,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m so sorry.’
He nodded.
‘She saved my life,’ Sarah said. ‘If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here now.’
‘I know,’ he said. ‘She was a tough old thing, Diana. I’ll miss her.’ He bent over and kissed Sarah; he had the musty smell of an old man and Sarah had a sudden glimpse of his future, alone without his wife.
‘But the truth is, she was dying anyway,’ he said. ‘And she would have traded what time she had left for this a hundred times out of a hundred.’
‘Roger,’ Sarah said. ‘Will you stay with us? For a while?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t want to imp—’
‘Dad,’ Ben said. ‘Don’t even say it. Stay.’
Roger nodded, and the beginnings of a smile touched his lips. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I think I will.’
‘Good,’ Sarah said. ‘We’d love to have you.’
Ben looked at her, and then at his dad, and then at the three children lying beside her.
‘I’m going to miss Mum,’ he said. ‘But I’m not going to waste what she gave us. We’re going to make the best of everything from now on. We’re going to take every opportunity we have to love each other and to be the best we can be. We owe it to her.’
Sarah nodded, blinking away her tears.
‘It’s strange,’ she said, ‘to be saying this after what’s happened, but I feel like the luckiest woman alive.’ She kissed the top of Kim’s head, felt the softness of her hair against her lips. ‘And I think we’re going to be OK,’ she said. ‘After all this, I think we’re going to be just fine.’
A Year Later
A sailing boat bobs on a mooring off the coast of Oregon. It is small, but big enough for a single person to live on.
It is also anonymous. It can move from bay to inlet to island to beach, and stay there, unnoticed. One more boat owner taking advantage of the dog days of summer.
It is nearly time to head south for winter. Pilot the boat down the coast until it arrives somewhere warm. San Diego, maybe. Or Mexico. Baja California is nice.
Yes, it is time to go. Winter in Oregon is not a good place to be in a boat this size. Plus, it is easier to live cheaply in a warm place. The woman sitting on the bow knows that well. She learned it the winter before.
But before she goes she has to fix a problem. She picks up a remote control and turns some dials. Next to her an electronic device buzzes into life and rises into the air, lifted by four rotors. Suspended underneath it is a camera.
It is called a quadcopter.
The woman watches it fly over the water toward a house on the water’s edge.
A house where a woman is at home alone, a woman who has been puzzled by some unusual recent events. Phone calls with no one on the other end. Calls from banks telling her she is approved for a loan she did not apply for. Calls from doctors asking why she did not show up for her appointment.
And today, an invite to a charity luncheon. A charity she has supported in
the past.
Except there is no luncheon.
There is only the woman who will kill her.
And when she is dead, the woman on the bow of the boat will make an escape south to warmer climes, where she will start working out her next move.
For she has unfinished business. And she has thought about it for the last year. She has made plans and discarded them and made new plans and discarded them and made yet more plans.
But none of them have been good enough.
Until now.
Now she has a plan, a plan which she will consider and refine until it is ready.
And then she will return.
She will return to Barrow, Maine.
She will return to the scene of her only failure. And she will put it right.
But that is for another day.
Acknowledgements
There are many people without whom getting Copycat from idea to book would have been difficult – if not impossible – as well as a whole lot less fun. They are, in no particular order:
Barbara, Jessie and Tahnthawan, whose generous advice at many different stages was – as always – eye-opening. I am fortunate to have such insightful and willing readers whose judgement I can rely on.
Marcus Deck, for his advice on the medical aspects of the book as well as his broad-ranging literary criticism.
Becky Ritchie, who is everything I could wish for in an agent. Her guidance on many different matters is invaluable.
Sarah Hodgson, and all the people at Harper who worked on the book. I am humbled by their diligence and creativity – from editing to marketing to cover design to publicity – and couldn’t think of a better home for my work.
About the Author
Alex Lake is a British novelist who was born in the North West of England. After Anna, the author’s first novel written under this pseudonym, was a No.1 bestselling ebook sensation and a top-ten Sunday Times bestseller. The author now lives in the North East of the US.
@AlexLakeAuthor
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