by Jack Jordan
‘I’ve felt better,’ Naomi replied, and to her surprise, she attempted a laugh.
‘You’ve looked better too,’ Grace replied wryly.
Silence fell between them. Naomi realised that after everything that had happened, the past still sat between them, and her heart sank.
‘Naomi, I …’ Grace’s voice broke. She cleared her throat and tried again. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve been an awful sister to you.’
‘No, you haven’t.’
‘Yes, I have. You were right, I was pushing you away and you didn’t deserve it, not one bit. The secret I was keeping was eating me alive, and every time I looked at you, I remembered. That wasn’t fair. None of it was your fault.’ She blew her nose loudly and took Naomi’s hand again. ‘Will you forgive me?’
‘Always,’ Naomi replied, and sniffled back tears of her own.
Grace kissed the back of her hand.
‘What happened between you? Will you tell me now?’
‘I promise I will, but right now you need to focus on getting better.’
‘Naomi?’ Rachel said from the doorway. ‘You’re awake!’
She rushed to the bed and wrapped her arms around her. Naomi winced and dug her fingertips into her mother’s back.
‘Mum, be careful,’ Grace said.
‘I’m sorry!’ Rachel said, stroking Naomi’s hair. ‘I’m just … I’m so happy you’re awake.’
‘Water.’
‘Of course. I’ll just check with the nurse if you can …’
‘Water,’ Naomi persisted.
She felt the rim of a bottle brush against her lips, and glugged at the liquid until the plastic crunched in her fist. Then she lay back on the bed and heaved in air, water slithering down her chin.
‘How are you feeling?’ Rachel asked.
‘Tired.’
‘You’ve been asleep for nearly two days,’ Grace said.
The pain made it so easy to forget how it had all begun.
George was hurt.
Josie stabbed me.
I killed her.
Her mother wiped a tear from Naomi’s cheek.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Naomi said.
‘Why are you sorry?’
‘I killed her … I killed Josie …’
‘If you hadn’t, you’d be dead yourself.’
‘I didn’t want to. I never wanted to hurt …’
‘We know, darling, we know.’
She took Naomi’s hand and stroked her wrist.
‘Is George okay?’
Her mother fell silent. Her lips smacked together as she tried to find the words.
‘Mum?’
‘I’m sorry, darling. He lost too much blood.’
George, the man who had sat beside her on the cliff, the man who had left London for the silence, was gone. Her throat burned.
‘He didn’t deserve to die,’ she whispered. ‘All he wanted to do was make sure I was safe.’
Her mother stroked her hand and tried to quiet her own tears. Naomi thought of Josie, the woman who had ended George’s life just so she could get to her.
‘She hated me. I didn’t think it was possible for someone to hate that much. She killed an innocent man just so she could hurt me.’
‘Some people are made differently, Naomi,’ Rachel said, clearing her throat. ‘She was one of those people.’
Someone knocked on the door.
‘It’s DS Campbell. Is this a bad time?’
‘Naomi?’ Rachel asked.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, and wiped her cheeks. ‘I can talk.’
‘Thank you,’ Marcus said.
It was good to hear his voice, but there was a solemn undertone to it now, as though something good and sweet had been taken from him.
Her mother fell silent and slipped her hand from Naomi’s. ‘Are you all right? You look …’
‘I’m fine,’ Marcus replied. ‘Comes with the job.’
‘I’ll go and get you something to eat,’ Rachel said, and patted Naomi’s hand. ‘You must be starving.’
‘I’ll pop home and check on Craig and the kids, but I’ll be back, all right?’
Naomi nodded.
Rachel and Grace left the room and Marcus sat down with a quiet sigh.
‘I’m sorry about what happened to you. I’m really glad to see you’re on the mend.’
Naomi had never felt more broken.
‘We found the killer, Naomi.’
She thought of the man in the alley, the man who had started it all. The man who stalked her dreams had been caught. She held her breath.
‘Who … who was it?’
‘Blake Crouch.’
‘The detective? The man who arrested me?’
‘Yes. He killed Cassie and Amber because they were investigating Hayley Miller’s disappearance.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because he was responsible for what happened to Hayley.’
‘What did he do to her?’
‘He and his friends assaulted her. After the incident was reported to the police by a third party, we believe he got rid of her so she wouldn’t talk of the attack herself.’
‘Was Dane …?’ She couldn’t say the rest. She couldn’t imagine that the man she had loved for most of her life could be capable of hurting someone.
‘Dane wasn’t involved. He wasn’t there.’
‘But it doesn’t make any sense. Why would he want to frame Dane and me? What did we ever do to him?’
‘Dane and Blake were best friends. They had matching watches – all their friends did. Dane was the only person in their group who wasn’t involved in the assault. By framing him for the murders, Blake was trying to lead us away from what happened to Hayley all those years ago.’
‘And me? Why me?’
‘Grace reported the assault after it happened. Blake’s father, the superintendent at the time, threatened to frame her to protect his son and cover up the crime. He knew that you were aware of the fight Grace and Hayley had had over what happened, which meant Blake knew too. He might have thought you knew more than you did.’
Naomi knew her sister had kept a secret for all those years, but she had never imagined it would be so dark. Her heart broke for her.
‘But the knife from my kitchen … how did that go missing?’
‘Blake orchestrated the search of your house, Naomi.’
She closed her eyes. The corruption. The lies. The secrets everyone kept.
‘Will you tell me what happened?’ Marcus asked.
She took a deep breath and started at the beginning. Marcus probed her story, but his words were soft, guiding her along when the memories got too much. A pen scratched on a notepad.
‘So Dane and I are free? We aren’t suspects any more?’
‘That’s right. I’m sorry you went through all that.’
She sighed with relief and sniffed back tears.
‘Dane … what happened to Dane? What did she do to him?’
‘I found him in the flat he shared with Josie. He was handcuffed to the radiator and badly burnt. He had been there for some time. He’s recovering well.’
Naomi thought of their wedding day, the feel of her dress swishing against her legs, the press of Dane’s lips when they kissed for the first time as husband and wife. Neither of them could have ever imagined what was to come.
‘What do I do now?’ she asked.
‘You survive.’
The room fell quiet but for the beeping of the heart monitor. She knew that Marcus wanted to say more, but no words came. What did you say to someone whose life had collapsed around her? He couldn’t help her start over; that was up to her.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked.
‘Can you tell Dane I want to see him? When he’s able?’
He fell quiet. She knew he wouldn’t understand.
‘Of course, if that’s what you want.’
‘It is.’
He got up from the chair and headed
for the door.
‘Contact me if you have any questions. I’ll be in touch to see how you’re doing.’
It seemed wrong to part from him, even though she hardly knew him. He had simply been a kind voice amongst the trauma, a sliver of hope in the darkness, and yet the thought of never seeing him again left a dull ache in her chest.
‘Marcus?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you for believing me.’
‘I know a good person when I see one,’ he replied, and shut the door behind him.
Naomi sat in the silence.
You survive.
The cliff would always be there, and the desire to escape would still burn in her like a dormant fire ready to spread and devour her again, but if her ordeal had taught her anything, it was that she was stronger than she had ever given herself credit for.
I’ll survive, Marcus, she thought. I will.
EPILOGUE
SIXTY-EIGHT
Naomi woke with a gasp. The sea was calling to her as though the waves were splashing up against the walls of the house and trickling in through the windows. She was having one of her bad nights.
‘You’re safe,’ she whispered to herself. ‘No one can hurt you here.’
She leant down and stroked Max’s fur, felt his chest rise and fall; then rolled over in bed and reached out. Dane was still there.
She loved him, always had. He was the only person who made her feel whole. With Dane, she didn’t feel so alone in the dark. Even after everything that had happened between them since the divorce, it was Dane she had needed in the hospital. When he was well enough to get out of bed, a nurse had wheeled him into Naomi’s room. They had held each other for hours, and when they parted, they both knew there was no turning back. They were together again, the way it should always have been. They were going to start afresh.
Naomi lay in bed and listened to his sleeping breaths as the air began to thin. Her hands gripped the sheets until they twisted around her fists. The past was suffocating her as Dane slept peacefully by her side. She’d thought that moving away from Balkerne Heights would be the answer. She hadn’t realised that the past would follow them, leak in through the windows and vibrate against the walls.
She wiped the sweat from her forehead and rubbed her chest with her nightgown until the fabric was soaked. She tried to slow her breaths, and closed her eyes.
‘It’s just one of your bad nights,’ she whispered to herself. ‘You’ll feel better in the morning.’
‘Are you all right?’
Her hand clapped against her chest.
‘Jesus.’
‘Sorry,’ Dane whispered. ‘Can’t sleep?’
‘Nightmare.’
‘Come here.’
She hesitated. When she was having a panic attack, the thought of his arms wrapping around her made her feel trapped, as though he was sinking and dragging her down with him.
Slowly she moved into the crook of him. He kissed the nape of her neck and pulled her closer, and it wasn’t long before he was asleep again. Naomi lay in his arms and listened to the call of the sea until dawn. Only when she felt the heat of the sun seeping through the window did she trust herself to close her eyes.
She woke to the sound of Max’s tail knocking against the radiator. She smiled and patted the bed. He jumped up and rested his head on her hip.
She had only had him back a few months. He was retired from his duties as a guide dog because of his injuries, but he was her companion again – he was finally home. She stroked his fur and cringed when she felt the bald scars hardened against his ribs.
She sat up against the headboard and took a deep breath. She had survived another bad night. There were more good nights than bad after so many months, but the dark part of her was still there beneath the surface. Once each night had passed, however, she reminded herself that she had survived it.
‘Here we are,’ Dane said as he walked into the room and placed a mug of coffee on the bedside table.
‘Thanks.’
He leaned down and kissed her.
‘How did you sleep?’ he asked, and sat on his side of the bed. Max jumped down and flopped beneath the radiator.
‘I had a bad night. First one in a while.’
‘It will get better. I get them too. But they’re just nightmares. When I wake up with you beside me, I know it was only a dream.’
She took a sip of coffee and placed the mug back on the table.
‘I thought that if we moved, the nightmares would stop.’
Every fireplace in the new house had been sealed shut, locking the memories of Josie’s screams behind brick and plaster. But some nights Naomi was sure she could hear the crackle of flames, and smell charred flesh in the air.
‘They will stop, Ni. Just give it time.’ Dane moved up the bed and sat beside her. His weight pressed the headboard against the wall. ‘What do you want to do today? The weather’s lovely; we could take Max on a hike.’
‘Marcus is dropping by, remember?’
He took a loud sip of coffee. ‘Can’t we just leave the past in the past?’
‘I need to hear it from him, Dane. I need to hear him say the words.’
‘You’re safe now,’ he said, and kissed her forehead.
‘I need to hear him say that.’
Her hand unconsciously slipped beneath her nightgown and stroked the scar where the knife had cut through her. Any sensation that had once been there was dead, but her mind still conjured the memory of it. A dull ache shivered through her whenever her fingertips met the jagged skin.
‘We have a new life now,’ Dane said. ‘We deserve to be happy.’
Dane seemed revitalised having her back in his life. He cherished her, doted on her every whim, smothered her in more affection than she had received during the whole of their fifteen years of marriage, and had promised never to mention parenthood, a promise he had kept. But Naomi couldn’t leave the past behind as well as he could. It still had its hold on her. Whenever she thought of the night she nearly died, her scars seemed to pulse with the memory.
‘Every time I feel the scars, I remember what happened,’ she said. ‘I can’t even take a shower without it all coming back.’
‘Me too,’ he said.
They sat quietly for a moment, remembering. Josie would hate it if she knew that sharing scars had brought them even closer.
The doorbell chimed through the house. Max barked and hobbled out of the room.
‘What’s the time?’
‘Nearly midday.’
‘What? You should have woken me.’
‘You looked so beautiful, I didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘He’s early,’ she said, and threw back the duvet.
‘I’ll go. I’ll keep him busy while you freshen up.’
‘Tell him I’ll be five minutes,’ she said, and shut the bathroom door behind her.
She listened to the staircase creak under Dane’s footsteps as she stood in the warm bathroom. The air was wet with steam from his shower. As she slipped out of her nightgown, she breathed in his scent, and held it in her lungs. She had loved him all her adult life, but beneath the love, the dark memories simmered, as though her skin was still burning.
She stroked the scars one by one, felt the raised skin warped and numb beneath her fingertips, and hoped that one day she would be able to touch them without remembering how they got there.
She turned on the shower and filled the room with more steam.
The house had belonged to Dane’s mother, and Naomi could still feel her presence there, as though her love had stained into the walls. She had died before Naomi and Dane met, but living in her house, it was as though Naomi had known her all her life. The plants in the garden had been nurtured by her hands, the concoction of scents following the breeze in through the open windows, filling the house with the smell of summer. But the house came with memories too, and during her bad nights, life buzzed around her until she wasn’t sure she could bear
it. Dane had grown up there; it was already his home, but Naomi felt like a visitor, trying to shrug off the past as it clawed at her like hands bursting through the walls.
She stood beneath the water and waited for it to wash away the nightmares that had claimed the night.
Even with her new home in the country, and her old house rented out, she still couldn’t defeat the melancholy that had claimed so many years of her life. It sat beneath her skin and burned with the slightest falter. But she was away from the cliffs now. They could call however much they wanted; she wasn’t listening.
She wasn’t the woman she had been before – she wasn’t the woman at the cliff edge or the woman who had begged for death in the alley. She was stronger now, not in physical form, but of heart.
Marcus would be waiting for her downstairs. She wondered if he would recognise the woman who stood before him, scarred but new. She had done what he had told her to do that day in the hospital, and she hoped he would notice. She had done everything she could to survive.
SIXTY-NINE
Marcus drove along the quaint country roads, weaving between endless fields of corn gleaming in the sun. The air was so fresh, it clawed yawns from his lungs. His heart sank at the thought of returning home, where the sky was smothered with a thick coat of cloud and the air was tainted with salt from the sea until everything was plagued with the sickly stench. There was only forty miles between the town and the village, but it was like they were two separate worlds. But the worst part of returning home was facing the memories that waited for him.
Months had passed since he last saw Naomi, and the thought of seeing her again had kept him up into the night, listening to the clock tick on the bedside table by his head until sunlight filtered through the blinds and crept up the bed like fire.
He hadn’t known her, not really, but when she had left Balkerne Heights, a part of him had left with her, and he had to face the bleak reality that she was the only redeeming quality the town had had. Even with Blake and Nathan Crouch in prison, along with the rest of the men who had gang-raped Hayley, and the mystery around her disappearance solved, the town still hadn’t forgiven the police. They had cracked the case twenty years too late, and the crime had been committed by one of their own.