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

alone; don’t you understand that? You’ve destroyed so many lives: Charlotte’s, her family’s, mine… You have to go away somewhere. Anywhere. You can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.’

‘Life’s dangerous.’

‘I’m being serious, Martin. You’ll be dead. Charlotte’s stepfather wants you dead – don’t you get that?’ She brings her hand down in frustration and catches the chain around her neck. It breaks, the pendant rolling into the footwell. He dips to pick it up.

‘You still have this…’

She goes to snatch it, but he closes his hand.

‘You never told me where you found it.’

‘I didn’t fi—’ Her fingers and his fist pause.

He stares at her hand and then his eyes lift to meet hers. ‘What did you just say?’ Frankie feels her cheeks burn.

‘You didn’t find it?’

‘I—’ She stumbles at the lie.

‘So where did you get it?’

‘Vanessa.’

‘Vanessa?’

‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

‘Listen to me, Frankie. This is really, really important.’ He opens his fist.

She looks down at the broken necklace in his palm.

‘Charlotte was wearing this necklace the night of the party.’ His gaze bores into her.

‘Which means she was wearing it the night she died. You told me you found it on the street, but you’re now saying Vanessa gave this to you?’ His gaze won’t let her go. ‘Is that the truth?’

‘Yes.’

‘So this necklace got from around Charlotte’s neck the night she died and somehow got back to Vanessa? You understand, Frankie, I couldn’t have put it there, could I?’

She tries to make sense of what he’s saying.

‘So if I couldn’t have put it there, then someone else did. Someone else was there that night on the boat. Do you accept that?’

‘Martin, stop this.’

Vanessa would never hurt Charlotte, never in a million years.

But a fault line in her memory begins to falter.

He pulls his hair back. ‘Maybe the same person who gave me this—’

A huge curve of a scar runs from behind his ear down the side of his neck.

Her hand flies up to her mouth. ‘Jesus, Martin!’

The tips of his fingers gingerly trace the line. It looks fresh: the skin is still rippled and sore where it’s knitted together.

‘It was a present from Peter Vale.’

The fault line begins to crack and crumble.

‘Peter Vale?’ She repeats the name but she feels like crying. She shakes her head. ‘Charlotte’s stepbrother warned me… He told me – he said Peter knows that you’ve been released and he’s out looking for you. He hates you. He hates me. He thinks we should both be punished. Oh, Christ, Martin…’ she can’t stop the tears now. ‘When did this happen? Have you been to the police?’

But he shook his head. ‘It was on the wing. The others jumped him, otherwise he’d have killed me.’

‘The wing?’

Something appalling begins to dawn. Her head swings dully. She’s not comprehending this properly. She doesn’t want to comprehend it.

‘Peter Vale was in the same nick. He got out a few days after me.’

Her hand drops into her lap. She feels sick suddenly. ‘Seriously Martin, he wants you dead.’

‘I know, but he can’t show his face on the street. People know, you see. He has to be careful.’

Her brain can’t take it in. She doesn’t know what he’s saying.

‘They know what?’

‘What he was in for. Indecent images of kids. Thousands of them.’

Something drops like a stone.

‘He got sussed by the other cons while I was still in the hospital wing. They found him out. Peter Vale is a sex offender.’

Chapter Twenty-Three

‘Get out of the car.’ She doesn’t know how she’s able to articulate the words.

‘I’m not going away, Frankie.’

‘You need to get out. Get out. Please.’

‘You know I can’t leave you alone, not now. I want to see our daughter. I want to find her. Will you let me see the adoption paperwork? Will you do that for me?’

She is trying really hard to hold it all together, concentrating on a piece of lint that’s caught in the air vent. It waves like a tiny finger. Her eyes lift; she is more afraid now than she’s ever been.

‘I understand why you wouldn’t tell Alex. I understand why you’d want to forget the past, but the thing is, Frankie, it happened; it’s a part of who you are. I mean, what will you say if our daughter decides to come looking for you?’

She is beginning to feel frantic. ‘Please get out now, Martin. I need you to get out.’

‘You can’t be sure she won’t – and if she does then Alex will be devastated that you didn’t tell him yourself.’

GetoutGetoutGetout.

‘You’ll have to explain why you’ve lied all these years. You’re living on borrowed time, Frankie.’

‘You don’t know anything…’ Tears start to sting, blinding her.

‘Alex told me you’d talked about children, but he wasn’t sure they were on your radar. Wouldn’t it be better to tell hi—’

‘Now, for Christ’s sake! Get out of the car now!’

Stunned, he reaches for the door catch, swinging the door wide.

‘Now! Get out now!’ Her hands slam repeatedly onto the wheel. ‘Leave me alone, can’t you?’

Martin leaps from the car as she guns the engine. The door jerks wildly and crashes closed on its hinges but she doesn’t care. She accelerates, hard, over-taking blindly, and swerving to miss a lorry coming the other way. All she can think about right now is Chloe.

She glances in the mirror. Martin is exactly where she left him in the lay-by: a lone black figure getting smaller and smaller. The roads and hedges flash past the car windows yet it feels as though she’s driving through treacle. Every car in front is deliberately slowing down, every traffic light makes her want to scream. The engine wails in resistance; her foot is hard on the floor as painful sobs rack her dry throat.

A sex offender. Peter. My daughter was in that house with a sex offender. She could scream it, yell her terror as the roads whizz past her, not caring about lights or cars or danger, as Vanessa’s street lurches into view and she jams on the brakes.

Banging on the front