The room was like something out of Miss Havisham’s house. Everything coated in dust, cobwebs hanging from the corners, lit up from the moonlight shining in the uncovered window. There was an empty mug on a side table, a book facedown on the arm of a chair, a pair of shoes lined up in front of the cold fireplace. That was fine, perfectly ordinary, but it was all covered in dust like no one had lived there for months. That seemed impossible, I remember. It shouldn’t have been so dusty. Greg hadn’t been gone that long. And despite everything, it made me feel guilty—that no one was looking out for Greg, that no one was helping him while his house crumbled around him.
The goose bumps rose on my arms again. Bella was standing in front of the back window, pressed right up against the glass, fogging it with her breath, looking out into the woods. I could see her footprints, a clean path through the dust on the floors. Too much evidence we’d been there.
My stomach lurches and I have the urge to jump out of my hospital bed and rush back to the house to clean everything we touched. Or have they already been there? Do they already know we trespassed there?
“I’m sorry,” Bella whispered—whispers still from the shadows in the corner of my hospital room. Her shoulders were hunched and I think she was crying. “I’m so sorry, Tess, but you need to see. You need to wake up.”
I can taste sour champagne in my mouth, and mud and dead leaves. I can feel them on my face still. I keep touching my cheeks, expecting to find them covered in leaves and dirt. I was found in the woods near Dean House, but I don’t remember how I got there.
I should tell them we were in the house the night before the wedding. We didn’t do anything wrong other than sneaking in. We didn’t steal or break anything. It had nothing to do with what happened after the wedding. I should tell them. But…
“I’m sorry,” I say.
wake up
“I really don’t remember anything.”
I remember the taste of mud and leaves, but I don’t remember being in the woods in the storm. I do remember the ambulance, the paramedics wheeling me into the hospital on a stretcher. Dad and Julia were there, and Max. But…
I blink and see a flash—Bella in the woods, sprawled on the ground, facing away from me.
“Wait,” I say as the detectives move toward the door.
Another flash. Me crawling toward her, reaching out my hand to touch her shoulder.
“Where’s Bella? Is my sister okay?”
Clutching her shoulder, rolling her onto her back and…
wake up
NOW
Chapter 1
February 2018
“Wake up, Tess.” Sophie leans in closer to me. “Stealth approach, two o’clock.”
I blink and pull myself back into the present, glancing over my shoulder to see two men approaching our table, creased shirts and red faces a sure sign they’ve been here a while. Not bad-looking, but neither does anything for me.
“Are you interested?”
Sophie pulls a face and shakes her head.
I grin. “Okay—so who am I?”
Sophie looks at me. “You’re…Tanya Nibbington, a tree surgeon from Norfolk, here visiting a friend, celebrating graduating from tree surgeon college.”
My smile widens. “There’s a tree surgeon college? In Norfolk?”
She shrugs. “What am I?”
“Maeve Larson, undercover detective over from Sweden. Working on a case.”
She drains her drink. “Nice.”
“Or…” They’re almost through the crowd to our table. “Or we could just tell them to buzz off and enjoy our girls’ night.”
“Is that what you want? If you want to go somewhere quieter and talk…?” She says it quietly and seriously and it makes me aware of how off I’ve been tonight.
I’m not being fair. We play this game a lot. We come to this pub a lot. It’s full of city boys, looking for a pickup. I’m rarely interested, but since Sophie turned thirty she’s become keener than ever to “meet the one” and we’re here for her. But I don’t think he’s going to be here, in a sweaty shirt, five pints down on a Tuesday night.
I squeeze her hand. “Don’t be daft. I’m fine, and we don’t want to miss the chance of finding your Prince Charming, do we?”
“It’s all right for you, Tess, you’re twenty-six. Oceans of time before you’re old and wrinkled and on the shelf like me.”
I laugh at her. Sophie looks about twenty-two.
“But really?” I say, nodding toward the approaching sharks.
She sighs. “You’re right, you’re right. We should be going anyway—I’ve got twelfth graders first thing in the morning and I won’t survive the class with a hangover.”
“Ladies…” Creased shirt number one has reached the table. He crouches down, drapes his arms across our chairs. He smells of beer and sweat.
“Did you want our table?” I ask. “We’re just leaving.”
I stand up just as creased shirt number two arrives and manage to bump into him.
“Ah—don’t go. We wanted to buy you a drink.”
Creased shirt number one has said something to make Sophie laugh and I roll my eyes.
“Come on, Maeve Larson,” I say, pulling on her arm. “We’ve got school in the morning.”
“School?” This is from creased shirt number two, sounding alarmed. “You two are still in school?”
I swallow the urge to laugh. The lighting isn’t that dim in here—how much have they had to drink?
“That’s right,” I say. “We’re both fifteen. Still want to buy us that drink?”
“You are such a cow,” Sophie says after they’ve fled, stumbling over chairs in their haste to get away from us. “He wasn’t bad close up.”
“Oh, please—you would have hated yourself in the morning. And he would never have called again.”
“But I wanted to be Maeve Larson, top detective with fourteen brothers and sisters. And you—I would have called you Nibs as a nickname and you could have told them all about your charmed life as…”
“A single, broke woman. Living in a one-bedroom flat. Who has to be up for school in the morning to teach five classes of snarky teenagers.”
“Ugh. The truth does not make for a sexy story. Although do I really want fourteen brothers and sisters? Sometimes I wish I was an only child. My brother is twenty-five going on twelve and a total pain in the ass most of the time.”
I pause by the door to stare at a blond girl walking away from me. It’s another game I play a lot—the pounding heart, the twist in my gut when I see a blond girl in skinny jeans, or hear a laugh that sounds familiar, the tilt of a head. Sometimes I make myself look away. Sometimes I follow her, just to check, just to see…
Of course it can’t be her. Could never have been my sister.
“Shit,” Sophie mutters, going pale and touching my arm. “Sorry, Tess. I didn’t think—my crass remark about wanting to be an only child…”
I sometimes wish I’d never told Sophie about Bella—it’s such a tragic mess. It’s easier to be what I pretend to be to the rest of the world, my own permanent version of our games: an only child, a city girl with a nice flat and a good job.