Keep My Secrets by Elena Wilkes (large ebook reader .txt) 📗

‘I have to stay here and out of circulation. If they find me back on the streets again, they’ll kill me.’

Peter snorted. ‘Exactly. I have to pay your debt. All our savings, my job and all my future earnings.’ He waved a hand around the room. ‘This house and everything in it so that you won’t die some horrible, tortured death.’

Jack nodded dumbly.

‘So what the fuck is this?’

She had never heard Peter use that kind of language before.

He bent and picked up a holdall from behind the chair and dropped it onto the coffee table. It hit the glass with a thud. Reaching to unzip it, Peter upended it, shaking out three brick-sized rectangular packages.

A jolt of alarm shot through her.

Jack’s eyes didn’t move.

‘So what was the plan?’ He glared at him. ‘I have nothing else to give, Jack.’ Peter’s voice trembled with anger and fear. ‘Nothing else. It’s all gone. All that’s left now is your life, and I would have honestly, truthfully, given mine for yours. You’re my son. But not this time. This time you’re out on the streets; you’re gone. You can take your chances out there.’ He thumbed over his shoulder.

Jack stared at Peter and then at Vanessa in shock. No one said anything. The only sound was Vanessa weeping and Peter’s ragged gasp of emotion.

Then she heard Jack take a breath.

‘It’s mine.’ She heard her own voice leaving her throat as though it was coming from someone else. Jack’s head snapped up in shock. She wouldn’t look at him. She had no real idea what she was saying.

‘That’s why I needed to see Martin in the cells that last day at court.’ The words slipped easily from her tongue. ‘It was all to do with Martin. It’s nothing to do with Jack.’

She couldn’t allow Jack to be punished after all that he’d done for her. She looked from Vanessa to Peter. She could see they wanted to believe her. Vanessa’s mouth was open and unchecked tears were streaming down her face. She made no attempt to stop them. Tiny whimpering cries left the back of her throat. Peter only stared at her stonily.

‘Don’t call the police or social services. I’ll leave now,’ Frankie said quickly. ‘No one has to know anything. I can make all this go away. I’ll be out of your lives and you’ll never have to see me again.’

She bent to pick up the packages, pushing them inside her jacket and then picked up Chloe’s blanket from the arm of the chair. ‘I’ll be gone, Chloe will be safe, I’ll make sure of that, and… I’m sorry,’ she added quickly. ‘I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I’m not a bad person, you have to believe—’

But Peter cut her off.

‘You’re not taking Chloe.’

Her spine stiffened. ‘What?’ She straightened jerkily.

‘You’re not taking her.’

She stared at him and then at Jack.

‘You’re not capable of looking after a tiny baby. You’re associated with drugs and murderers and chaos. She wouldn’t be safe with you. We can give her security and love and every chance to be happy. You can’t give her any of that.’

‘You can’t…’ She felt her mouth trembling. ‘She’s mine. I’m nearly eighteen. You can’t…’

‘You’re seventeen and you’re in our care. Once you’re eighteen,’ he waved dismissively, ‘I shouldn’t think they’ll even remember you were on their books. Girls like you don’t exist. They live in squalor, they die in squalor, and apart from being a number on a benefit claim, no one even knows who they are.’

‘No. You can’t do that. She’s mine, I’m taking her.’

‘Okay then, Frankie, you take her.’ He folded his arms. ‘The moment you set foot outside that door, I’ll be ringing the police and social services about everything you’ve done. You’re already on their database, remember? You’re the girl who’s been in trouble all her life who no one wanted to adopt; you’re the girl in a relationship with a murdering rapist, the girl who watched our daughter being attacked and did nothing to help her. You lied, you manipulated us. You’re that girl, Frankie.’

The breath wouldn’t leave her lungs.

‘You’ve got several kilos of coke there,’ he nodded at her jacket, ‘with your fingerprints all over them. You’ll keep Chloe for a while until you go inside and then she’ll be taken into care and probably be adopted. You’ll have no idea where she’s gone or who she’s with, or even if she’s still in this country. You know as well as I do, they’ll cut all contact with you because it’ll be in the best interests of the child. You know the reality. So – there we are. Walk out of here now and take that filth with you. Be a rubbish mother – we’ve seen all the evidence for that.’

‘No… No, Peter, please!’ The tears began to flood down her face. She gulped painfully.

‘Or, alternatively, tell Jude and the local authority that you’re still living here and Chloe’s fine. That way you might get to see her again. We’ll be reasonable. We’ll give you money to live on. We’ll act as guarantors for landlords and suchlike. You won’t starve or be on the streets. We’re reasonable people.’ His smile wasn’t pleasant. ‘The choice is yours, Frankie. You helped that man take our daughter, now we take yours. It’s entirely up to you.’

Chapter Twenty

Now

Frankie stares through the grimed windscreen listening to the intermittent rush of cars passing on the main road. Jack is quiet beside her. She can tell they’ve both been thinking about the past. He reaches into his jacket and draws a rectangle of white paper out.

‘I thought you’d like this.’

She turns it over. It’s a photograph of a young girl. The sunlight is behind her; her hair is like a curly blonde halo. She’s wearing a sunhat and is squinting off into the distance.

‘I took it when she wasn’t looking.’

Frankie realises her thumb has creased the paper, from gripping it so hard. ‘This is Chloe now?’ She looks at him in wonder and