by Elena Wilkes
Keep My Secrets
Cover
Title Page
Prologue Then
Chapter One Now
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four Then
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven Now
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine Then
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven Now
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen Now
Chapter Fifteen Then
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty Now
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
A letter from Elena
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
Keep My Secrets
Elena Wilkes
Prologue
Then
The girl knows she’s going to die.
She drags herself back on her elbows, the gritty boards digging into the soft skin of her forearms as her heels struggle to find purchase. There’s the jangle of a belt buckle in the darkness and the canal boat pitches gently with the swell. Her terror ratchets higher.
Please no.
Stop.
Her eyes widen as her breath wheezes in her lungs.
No.
‘You don’t want to do this. You know you don’t.’
But death is closing in and she wants to survive, no matter what.
‘You can do whatever you want, I promise I won’t say anything.’
Tiny sparks flash and burn in front of her eyes. She touches her temple where she hit her head. Her fingers drift to the place on her throat where the red weal burns.
It’s not far to the bank. If she shows she’s totally compliant, then…
She shuffles back on her bottom, levering herself up onto the boat side and glances out at the black water. Her eyes search that dark, undulating emptiness. She longs for the lights of the town, to be back at that party again, to see people.
It was safe there; you should have stayed.
But it’s not safe here.
There’s a rustle out there and the boat rocks – the hands on her pause. Someone’s there? Her rescue?
Everything freezes. She snatches round and takes her chance. Now! There’s a scramble towards the side, but her knee catches on something hard and she lurches sideways, the bank, so close, her hands reaching out, her arms flailing, meeting—
Skin.
Warmth.
Strength.
Someone’s here. Thank god. Someone whose grip is tight and can save her.
Thank god you’re here.
They won’t let anything bad happen, she’s sure of that. She can trust them: they’ll stop all this. But these hands move in a way she’s not expecting – they loosen and grip again, towards her shoulder this time. Aggressive. She’s shoved hard, the power of the blow knocking her backwards, and her ankle twists in a shock of pain. She loses her balance, toppling awkwardly, grasping out but falling – her hip cracking on the side of the boat. The sudden shock and plunge of water punches into her mouth and eyes. She breathes in only water; it fills and chokes and squeezes her lungs until all she can hear is the banging echo of escaping bubbles skimming past her face.
The pain in her head clamps down, vice-like. It’s unbearable: a pressure beyond pressure, an agony that grows and grows until she thinks her skull might burst. She gropes wildly, lungs burning, her hands reaching up out of the water to grab the hands that are holding her down. She fights, her mouth just breaking the surface to furiously suck at the air. Her eyes are wide open, popping with terror and the sheer will to survive.
‘… No… Please!…’
The two faces hang above her like a pair of pale balloons, bobbing with effort. The moonlight picks out their mouths set with determination, the flare of their nostrils, but their eyes tell her what she already knows. They want her dead.
The stars above her head pulse dully with the beating of her heart that gets smaller and smaller. Her hair whispers across her face as her hand trails out in the water. The faces gaze down blankly, their images reflected, one to the other, knowing, from this moment on, and for eternity, the three of them are bound together forever.
Chapter One
Now
Frankie walks quickly towards her car from the children’s care home. It’s still raining hard and the wind is getting up. The only sounds are the echo of her footsteps on the black tarmac; it’s so dark she can’t see her own feet moving.
Over in the distance, the bulky outline of Caer Caradoc and the trail of the Long Mynd hills sit blackly against the darkening skyline of the Welsh border. Tucking her chin closer into her jacket, she blips the immobiliser. It flashes a reassuring orange into the ghost outline of the hedges as she drops her case into the back.
There are no streetlamps this far out of town. Slipping into the driver’s seat, she fumbles a little for the ignition as the engine turns over. The squeal of the wipers startles her and sets her heart racing. She finds her hands are shaking.
I’m not scared, she tells herself. It’s just the adrenaline from all that earlier bravado.
You’ve done good today, Frankie. She presses her lips together in determination. Concentrate on that.
Taking a deep breath, she begins to pull away. The road is quiet as her car picks up speed.
Come on, get a grip, Frankie. Thirty minutes and you’ll be home.
It’s Friday, well after going home time and the road is eerily dark. Her car headlights leap awkwardly, illuminating only a small stretch of the black tunnel ahead.
Letting the air slowly out of her lungs, she tries to relax her shoulders from up around her ears and she glances warily into the rear-view mirror. No one would believe this was the same woman who’d been trying to talk a teenager from a roof just half an hour ago. She wavers a smile at the memory. She doesn’t think that getting up on a line of ridge tiles in the pouring rain is high priority on her regional manager’s job description, but that’s precisely what she did.
She closes her eyes briefly. See? Think about the good stuff and block everything else out.
The radio fizzes and floats in and out of its station and her eyes sweep again and again into the shadows in the hedgerows. She concentrates hard on the shining road in front of her. But her eyes keep flitting back.
This isn’t working.
There’s something about being in the car at night: that feeling of not really being alone. She keeps thinking that there’s something else in here with her—
Her eyes flick up to the mirror.
That back headrest is just a headrest. She’s fully aware of that. It’s not a man sitting with his head bowed. Don’t be ridiculous Frankie Turner, you’re thirty-three years old, not three.
But her three-year-old self knows that if she keeps watching she’ll glimpse a movement, a darkness that will slowly detach itself, and if she keeps listening she’ll detect the quiet draw and pull of someone breathing.
No.
Stop it.
There’s no one there. You know there’s not. She chews her lip. You know this
because you deliberately checked the back seat.
The rain is beginning to slant in fine shards through the beam of headlights, the skeins twisting down the windscreen, forcing the wipers to dash pointlessly back and forth. She grimaces, screwing up her eyes, trying to peer through the pouring streams.
Home soon, home soon, home soon…
What’s with all this front, Frankie? her head says. Who are you trying to kid? Just look at you – Look at you in your fancy Range Rover, desperate to get back to your nice upmarket husband and your upmarket country cottage. You’re such a fraud, you know that? Drive as fast as you like Frankie-girl, the past is coming up right behind you.
She swallows and stares hard into the lashing water. All she has to do right now is stay in control and not get spooked. It’s not difficult; she’s been doing it long enough. All she needs to do is stay in control of the car… Of herself… Of her life.
The radio station suddenly clears and she grips the wheel tighter. Come on Frankie, you’ve got this. She hesitantly begins to hum along. She likes this song: it’s ‘Where is the Love?’ by The Black Eyed Peas. She even knows some of the words.
That’s better.
She smiles.
The radio fizzes and crackles. She goes to adjust the scan button, but it drops into silence.
There’s a sudden flash.
The interior of the car lights up. She squints and takes a glance in the mirror. There’s nothing but the searing dazzle of headlights behind. She dips the mirror and checks again. All she can see is a maddening white light and a ghost-like blur bobbing in her sightline. The tension in her gut mounts.
Keep a hold now. Keep it steady.
The lights rear up again like a charging beast. It’s getting closer now: too close. The blazing flash patterns and strobes across the dashboard, momentarily blinding her. Her right thigh begins to shake, trying to hold the accelerator steady. She daren’t brake. The road twists and bends in the bouncing arc of headlights as she desperately tries to concentrate, leaning into the windscreen and blinking like crazy. The familiar road is suddenly dangerous and unfamiliar. Christ…
Acute curves come up where there were none before, making her grip the wheel. She clicks the mirror up and snatches a glimpse of the car behind. There’s a black figure, silhouetted in the driver’s seat. A tiny knot forms in the base of her stomach. She hovers from brake to gas, not speeding up, not slowing down, and tries to breathe as the panic rises.
He’s too close… Far too close… Any second, any second now…
A phosphorescent light floods the whole space. Each pulsing second ticks by; she can almost hear each one counting down before she’ll feel the juddering tap and thud of the car touching her back bumper. There are trees and ditches on either side of the road and then just blackness going on and on, empty fields full of nothing and no one. If he runs her off the road… If she’s trapped in this car…
Suddenly with one brilliant flash and a roar, the car pulls past. She glances quickly across. There’s just a dark shadow whizzing by as the taillights flare red into the darkness. He guns away, disappearing round the bend into the black cavernous road and she finally manages to calm down, her stomach unfolding rapidly, the sudden relief quivering through her arms and legs. Not him then, it wasn’t him, just someone being stupid, that’s all. That. Is. All.
Dropping her speed to thirty, she attempts to collect herself as the Black Eyed Peas carry on singing and everything feels ordinary again. She tries to hum along, but knows that this time it won’t work. Nothing’s working. He wants her to know he’s out there.
Every few days odd things have been happening. Whispered phone calls dropping into silence; a bouquet of flowers arriving on her work desk with no card; notes left under her windscreen wiper or propped against the front door, waiting for her. She’s terrified Alex will find them. Every time she leaves the house or gets in the car, she finds her eyes flitting – looking, checking – because she knows that it could be today, or tonight, or in the early hours that she’ll open her eyes to find he’s taken it one step closer; it won’t be a note or a call this time – it’ll be a figure standing over her, staring down. She knows it’s only a matter of time. And time is running out.
She swallows.
She knows he’s circling. Because three days ago, she was followed.
He couldn’t have known where she’d be and what time.
Unless he was watching the house.
The thought of it sends her almost hysterical.
That was the whole point of moving here.
When Alex had suggested a village in the Welsh Marches she’d jumped at the chance. He was stunned.
‘Are you sure? You know it’s a different way of living, don’t you?’ he’d laughed. ‘You won’t be able to move an inch without them noticing.’
But all the time she’d been thinking ‘Yes, nothing gets past them, he’ll never slip past them.’
But it seems he had.
She’d felt stupidly safe that day. She’d been at a conference in Ludlow with Diane, her boss. Diane had arranged to pick her up and drop her off, but by the time they got back, the unmarked country lanes around Church Stretton had become too complicated even for the GPS.
‘Just drop me here, Di. It’s fine. It’ll save you from meeting any late-night tractors coming the other way.’
Diane looked supremely grateful to be heading back toward the main road and proper street lights at last. They’d said their goodbyes and she’d got out of the car not giving it a second thought.
It wasn’t like it was far: a few minutes, that’s all. There was a cut-through between the cottages that brought her practically opposite her front door. It was lit at both ends and she’d walked through there a hundred times; just five strides of darkness right in the middle, that was all, and then—
That was exactly where he’d been standing.
She instantly knew it had to be him. Her eyes locked and her feet automatically slowed. He didn’t move. There he was: a black silhouette, caught in the moonlight. The alleyway was narrow, the pausing strike and scuff of her heels and her slightly laboured breath were the only sounds.
And then he started coming towards her.
She took a step back. She couldn’t see his face. She could run, but he could catch her easily. The adrenaline surged – she was trapped and terrified, her mind whirled – but then he stopped suddenly and put his hand on the wall, before turning and walking away.
Nothing would work: her legs were wobbling and her heart was thudding painfully as she fumbled in her bag to find her phone.
‘Alex? Alex, can you come outside?’ She could hardly get the words out.
‘Outside?’ He sounded slightly anxious. ‘Where are you?’
‘Can you come outside and meet me? Diane’s just dropped me off…’ The words tumbled. ‘It’s a bit dark… I’ve come down the alleyway and I haven’t got a torch.’
She heard his worried exhalation of breath. ‘What the hell did you come that way for? Hang on. I’ll be there in a sec.’
He’d hung up and in less than a minute, she saw the reassuring swing of a light coming towards her. She nearly ran to meet him, her legs barely holding her, containing her shivering and attempting to smile.
‘You alright?’ He put his arm around her, frowning. ‘Has something happened?’
‘I thought there was—’
‘Was what?’ He was sharp and protective. She bit the words back. Why the hell had she said that?
‘I only said “thought”. It was nothing. Just shadows. I was being daft. And why do I ever put these heels on?’ She tutted, clinging onto his arm and pretended to be checking out the sole of her shoe allowing her to turn her face away. She’d panicked. Alex couldn’t ever know. Her fingers skimmed the wall for balance. He’d put his hand there – there on that wall. A shiver went through her.
‘I forgot I can’t walk down this path in these. Complete madness.’
He’d
laughed, made fun of her, allowing her to change the subject; she was aware the whole time of the scene playing over and over in her mind, joining all the other incidents: the calls, the flowers, the letters. He’d shown himself. He’d come out of the shadows. He was getting closer and more daring. Jesus.
The Black Eyed Peas have morphed into Lady Gaga as the finger signpost towards her village comes into view. The familiar fields line her road, guiding her home. It’s comforting and utterly familiar – the lit cottage windows on either side, the shapes of cars and hedges parked out front – and then the heartening sight of her house. A tremble of relief instantly runs through her.
All she has to do is get from the car, up the path, to the doorway – It’s just a matter of a minute, two at the most. Then she’ll be safe. Totally safe.
Pulling onto the driveway, she forces herself to compartmentalise every thought and anxiety and put it away, at least for now, setting her face into a bland happy-to-be-home mask. Alex must not know. Killing the engine, she starts to count the seconds she knows it will take, gathering her briefcase from the back and then finding her keys from her bag and zipping it firmly back up. She focusses on steadying herself, fixing her face. She glances down, suddenly seeing that her clothes are beyond filthy; there are stripes of black across the front of her thighs and down her jacket.
Slotting her key in the lock, she pushes the door quietly open. The house feels empty.
‘Hiya?’ she calls out tentatively.
‘I’m in here.’
She can tell by his voice that Alex is not happy but at least he’s trying. As she treads down the backs of her sneakers and eases them off, the hallway light shows her just how filthy she is.
‘Jesus! What’s happened to you?’ He is standing in the doorway looking her up and down.
‘Ah…’ She peels off her jacket. ‘Yes, well… Thank god I was wearing flats this time. It’s a bit of a story.’