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

‘…me,’ she makes out.

‘Sorry?’ She brings the fingers up to her mouth and kisses them.

‘I said, thank you for coming to find me.’

Her heart and mind and gut all melt; she might dissolve at any minute.

‘I wasn’t ever going to leave you. I promised you that a long time ago.’ She tries to stop her voice from breaking. ‘I broke my promise once, but I’ll never do it again.’

And then the tears come.

Chapter Thirty-Three

There are a bunch of kids playing with a Frisbee. Their shouts and screams echo through the park. Frankie sits watching the sparrows gathering around her feet; they are tiny little engines of need. They never give up.

It was this park. It could have been this bench.

It would be weird if it was. She looks to her right and left. It could have been that one, or that. She remembers crying. She remembers a man perching at the other end, nervous to sit too close, and asking if she was okay.

Alex.

His goodness and his badness in equal amounts.

Then she remembers Jack.

Laughing as they played video games together on the settee. Jack finding her a place to stay and smuggling out baby things.

His kindness and his cruelty: half and half.

She thinks of Charlotte. She imagines her final moments; her jaw tightening at the thought of what she went through. A young girl with two men she should have been able to trust. How she would have begged and suffered, clawing at Alex’s arms, desperately fighting for those last few moments of life. How those men thought they could do with her as they pleased.

She closes her eyes, sickened. She had been there that night; she heard her, she saw her, but did nothing to help. She’s no better than them, really. All she could do was run away. She’s been running away all her life.

But she’s not going to run now.

The bench shakes a little as someone sits down.

‘Hello, you,’ a voice says.

She turns to look at Martin. She’s not sure now if he’s handsome or ugly. It doesn’t matter; his eyes are the same eyes she got lost in, all those years ago.

‘Thank you for contacting me.’ He sounds a little formal and unsure.

‘I heard they’d let you out.’

‘Thank you for everything you did for me, Frankie. I can’t imagine what you went through with Alex.’ He looks at the ground, his fingers fumbling awkwardly. ‘I’m so sorry.’

She twitches a painful shrug.

‘But are you managing okay?’

‘I’m getting there.’ She flickers a tiny smile.

‘I tried ringing to let you know about my release, but when you didn’t answer, I tried your work.’

‘Ah. That.’ She raises a sardonic eyebrow. ‘It’s fair to say I’m officially on sick leave, or annual leave… Or, possibly, the precursor-to-being-sacked leave. I don’t think I’ll be allowed to work with kids anymore, do you?’ She smiles grimly. ‘But only time will tell.’

‘And Vanessa?’

She goes to answer but her phone pings and she dips into her pocket.

‘Speak of the devil, she says she’ll be here in five.’

‘And she’s definitely okay with this?’ He rubs the palms of his hands together. They stutter back and forth.

Frankie puts her own on top and he stops.

She looks at him. ‘Even from her hospital bed she was asking to speak to the police. She wanted to tell them everything she’d done. We have no idea what’s going to happen, but I’ll stand up for her, whatever it is.’

Martin stares down at her hands and shakes his head slowly. ‘She’s incredibly brave.’

‘She’s got guts, that’s for sure.’ Frankie nods. ‘I went to see her a lot while she was recovering in hospital. She’s received a lot of help. She feels so guilty over what Charlotte went through; she thinks she allowed it to happen. She’s apologised to me: she hates herself – then there’s you…’ She shakes her head.

‘But Frankie, no one could have known about Jack and Alex, could they? That’s not down to Vanessa. They stayed away from each other all those years and I was never supposed to come out of prison. If Jack’s plan had come off and I’d died, no one would have ever been any the wiser.’

Frankie blinks sadly. ‘Do you think my relationship with Alex was calculated too?’ She looks away to where the kids are shouting and laughing. ‘Was I just another person who had to be managed and that was the best way of doing it?’

‘I think, in the beginning, Alex was manipulated by Jack just like everyone else, but I believe Alex truly loved you, Frankie. I think he was a man who was haunted by what he’d done. I think it drove him insane.’ He glances up. ‘Is this them?’

Two figures are walking slowly down the path. One is leaning a little on the other; their arms are linked.

‘Get ready to be delighted,’ Frankie raises a hand, smiling. ‘Chloe is a gorgeous girl.’

Martin swallows nervously.

‘There’s no need to be apprehensive. I’ve talked to them. You’ll see.’

Reaching up and around her neck, she unhooks the necklace and gathers it up. Martin watches her. ‘The memories don’t disturb you, then?’

Frankie smiles. ‘It was given with love from Vanessa to Charlotte, and it was given with love from Vanessa to me. Someone broke it for a little while, that’s all, and now it’s fixed again.’

‘Is that like us, do you think?’ he smiles.

‘Everything is possible.’ She gives him a look.

‘What are you going to do with it?’ He stares down at her palm.

‘I’m going to give it to Chloe,’ she smiles. ‘If she’ll have it.’

The figures draw closer. The younger one waves.

‘Hell, she looks like you,’ he whispers.

‘But she has your eyes.’

‘Our daughter,’ he sighs as though he can’t quite believe it.

They both stand, silently, listening to Chloe’s excited chattering. She’s not sure what his sigh is about: sadness maybe? Regret? There’s no point in either; there’s only the present and the future.

‘Yes, I used to think of people like that: who they belong to, who they’re related