The Guilty Wife
Page 26
That relentless beating. It isn’t coming from outside. It’s my own thrumming heart.
I feel the adrenaline seeping from my pores as my temple and my pulse pound aggressively.
It can’t be.
Those days are over.
I count backwards from ten, the way they taught me to do when the fear threatens to swallow me whole. I close my eyes and focus on sounds, my ritual to combat panic. My breath, sharp and shallow, my heartbeat settling to a low, steady march, like an army advancing into battle. A siren in the distance. A fox wailing, its harrowing cry echoing under my prickling skin.
Taking a deep lungful of air, my breath catches at the taste in my mouth. Metallic. Sharp. It’s familiar, this tingling on my tongue. It senses what has happened, long before my brain has a chance to grasp any meaning.
Dread invades my veins and floods my limbs as I force myself to look. To see. My eyes have adjusted now, and I slowly take in the details of the tableau that’s spread out before me.
My gaze drifts from the heels strewn carelessly in opposite corners of my room, to the trail of clothing that lies in heaps. Clues, pointing my way.
And me. Hands in my lap, tense, my body barely perched on the edge of my bed. My fingers, dark and glistening.
Even in the dark, I know. Without context, without recall.
I am naked. And covered in blood.
I hear a scream piercing through the stillness of the night. It’s hollow and primal. I barely recognise it as my own.
How has it come to this?
My shriek stops short as I make out the thick smears of blood streaked across my walls, my pillow, my stomach. My hands are shaking, dark red droplets dripping from my fingers into a puddle on the carpet by my feet. I recoil, pushing myself further onto the bed, trying to get as far away from the gruesome, glistening stain as I can manage.
As I scrabble into the corner, clutching the bed covers, my fingers close on something warm and sticky. For a split second, I let my hand linger. But I don’t turn around to look. I can’t.
How did things go so wrong?
I’m trembling. Not delicate shivers, but full-body convulsions that I don’t think will ever end.
This isn’t like the other times.
I try to clear my mind, to follow the thread of half-formed memories and see what lies at the end. But the only thought that I can focus on, the truth that curdles my blood more than the body in my bed is that I don’t remember.
And somewhere deep in my gut, an instinct nags at me, reminding me of what I’m too scared to acknowledge. The memories I’m so desperate to access are slippery, out of reach. But the ones I wish would vanish are circling me like predators, screaming the truths I’d do anything to forget.
This isn’t over, they snarl.
You started this.
And only you can finish it.
Look out for Elle Croft’s next gripping novel,
The Other Sister,
to find out the rest of the story.
Acknowledgements
None of this would have been possible without my amazing agent, Ariella Feiner at United Agents. I can’t thank you enough for seeing the potential in this story – it absolutely wouldn’t be where it is today without you. Your support, and the support of everyone who I’ve worked with at United Agents, especially Amy Mitchell, Margaret Halton and Georgina Le Grice, has been incredible.
Huge thanks also to my wonderful editor Francesca Pathak, and everyone at Orion who has been excited about this book from the moment they read it. Your enthusiasm and encouragement has blown me away, and I feel so honoured to work with such talented people.
Thanks to Colin Miller for your invaluable advice on evidence laws. You and the rest of the amazing team on the Undisclosed podcast opened my eyes to the injustice of wrongful convictions, and the fact that it really can happen to anyone. Thank you for all you’re doing in the fight for justice.
I’m so grateful to Jules, Jackie, Rohin and Jason for putting up with my antisocial writing schedule, and for always encouraging me with messages, flowers and laughs. I really do love you, squad.
To Shannon, for talking me through plot points even when I explained myself terribly, and for being loyal through my best and truly my worst. I hope you know how much your friendship means to me.
To Sarah, Emily and Amy: I feel unbelievably blessed to have lived with you, and to call you my London family. You’ve been there through the celebrations and the tears, so thank you from the bottom of my heart.
There are so many people who have supported me and believed in me, and I’m so grateful to you all. To Amie, for your early edits, Greg, for your font suggestions, and Tam, for being my lifelong book buddy. Family, friends, blog readers and church crew: you know who you are, and I am eternally grateful for you.
And finally, I am beyond thankful for my incredible husband, Brendan, who has always supported me and believed in me, even before reading a single word I’ve written. Thank you for helping me follow my dreams, and for always bringing me chocolate when you know I need it. I love you.
Author Biography
Elle Croft was born in South Africa, grew up in Australia and moved to the UK in 2010 after travelling around the world with her husband. She works as a freelance social media specialist and also blogs about travel, food and life in London. The Guilty Wife is her debut novel.
An Orion Ebook
First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Orion Books
Ebook first published in 2017 by Orion Books
Copyright © Elle Croft 2017
The right of Elle Croft to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 7543 8
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