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

‘Chloe—’ Frankie starts, but Vanessa takes a menacing step forward.

‘Let’s get one thing absolutely clear here, Frankie. If either you or him come anywhere near my daughter, the revenge I’ll take will be on a level you can’t imagine. Death will be a sweet release from what I’ll do to you. She’s mine, Chloe is mine. We told you that in the very beginning. You took our daughter, so we took yours. Is that clear enough?’

The car is as she left it: the door slewed open and parked as though it’s been abandoned. She gets slowly into the driver’s seat and puts a hand on the wheel. The pent-up anger courses through her arms and legs in a torrent of emotion. She catches sight of her eyes in the mirror. They are the eyes of a hunted animal, startled and wary, but her whole body is slick and pumping with adrenaline. Every nerve-ending is on jangling high-alert.

The mirror holds her gaze and her eyes flit to the reflection of the house.

My daughter, she’d said.

Mine.

Vanessa’s face: the twisted mouth, the years of hatred scored into every pore.

But all Frankie can think of is Peter. That she’d left her baby in a house with Peter Vale. She’d known it all those years ago but somehow it never made sense. Sheer revulsion courses through her. She just hadn’t trusted her feelings back then. She’d dismissed them because she was a child, because Peter looked like a nice man. The whispering in the darkness… the eyes in the shadows… the touch on her neck…

The adrenaline turns to ice.

Jack had always known something wasn’t right in that house too. He’d been a kid just like her, but Jack had known, he just couldn’t articulate it.

Jesus… Jesus Christ…

Her phone suddenly pings, and she pulls it from her pocket. It’s a text from an unknown number.

Vanessa just told me what’s happened. Try the Saturday Club at Lakebank High

It gives the address.

Ring me. Jack.

Chloe. The thought of actually seeing her… Like, really seeing her?

With fingers that feel like thumbs, she makes the call. He answers straightaway.

‘Thank you, Jack. Thank you,’ she breathes, ‘for giving me this chance.’

‘They’ve kept you away from Chloe for too long, Frankie. I know Vanessa. She refuses to see my dad for what he is. She believes everything he says; even a six month prison sentence hasn’t convinced her. I’m really worried she’s going to let him back in that house. I know Probation and the police are monitoring him. Because of the nature of the offences he can’t go back to that address straight away, but Vanessa is fighting them, arguing that he’s not a risk.’

She feels an immediate rush of fear. ‘My god, Jack, what am I going to do?’

Her heart thuds in terror.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t bring myself to tell you before.’ He sounds as though he’s out of breath. ‘I was the one who…’ He searches for the words. ‘…Who found stuff—’ He stops. ‘I’d heard them whispering about Martin Jarvis and I decided to go snooping. That’s when I found the files on his computer. Kids – Young girls. It was awful. I was the one who confronted him. Vanessa went mental – screaming, hysterical, all sorts. She said someone must’ve hacked his account – that he clicked on something by accident… You know how it goes. But I wouldn’t let it rest. I went to the police.’

She goes completely cold.

‘Suddenly the penny dropped… Like Charlotte and that room and her obsession about a man watching her—’ His voice breaks.

‘I didn’t believe her, Frankie. I said it was just the gear she was doing. I made fun of her. Looking back… Jesus… I keep going over and over it. She was scared of something happening to her, Frankie. I mean, really scared.’ He falters and swallows. ‘Thing is… Now I know this sounds completely crazy, but is it possible he was involved in how she died? Did he have some connection with Martin Jarvis that night? Is that even possible?’

Frankie stares straight ahead.

‘I can’t risk it happening to Chloe, Frankie. I can’t let Vanessa allow my dad back into that house.’

Checking her phone, she punches in the postcode for the school. She has to find her.

‘I’ll think of something, Jack. I’ll find a way to get Chloe out of all this. I don’t know what or how, but I will.’

‘Get my dad back inside, it’s the only way,’ Jack says suddenly. ‘It’s the only way to make sure she’s safe. I can’t be seen going to the police again, it’s too dangerous for me, I might be seen, but you could. You could, Frankie. They’ll listen to you.’

‘Thank you, Jack,’ she blurts. ‘Thank you for everything you’ve done. I know the cost.’

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ he chuckles sadly. ‘But I’m glad I could help.’

Frankie ends the call, checks the mirror, and drags the wheel round.

She couldn’t protect her daughter last time, but that’s not happening again.

She’d rather die first.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The playground is deserted.

Has she missed her?

Will she even know if she sees her?

She clutches at the photograph in her pocket and surreptitiously takes a glance at her daughter’s smiling face. A terrible thought grips her insides and Vanessa’s words come back to her: You could’ve walked past her a hundred times and not known it.

That’s so close to the truth it hurts.

A double door to a building bangs open and she looks round. Small gaggles of kids begin to appear – boys and girls in sports gear swinging bags, chatting and laughing. She scans each face desperately A real mother would know her own daughter.

The reality of the situation shames her. That’s the kind of mother she is: trying to find her own child from a photograph.

They’re coming out quicker now; she’s surprised how many kids are here and loads of the girls are blonde; this feels impossible.

The noise level gets closer. They’re coming towards the