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Back Because She Loves Me Save as PDF
Chapters (50)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication Page
  4. Contents
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Ninteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-one
  26. Twenty-two
  27. Twenty-three
  28. Twenty-four
  29. Twenty-five
  30. Twenty-six
  31. Twenty-seven
  32. Twenty-eight
  33. Twenty-nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-one
  36. Thirty-two
  37. Thirty-three
  38. Thirty-four
  39. Thirty-five
  40. Thirty-six
  41. Thirty-seven
  42. Thirty-eight
  43. Thirty-nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-one
  46. Forty-two
  47. Epilogue
  48. Letter From the Author
  49. Acknowledgements
  50. About the Author

All I could do was reassure her, say words I didn’t believe. Tell her everything would be all right. But inside I was thinking, She’s dead. Another one. And I heard Harold’s voice again, talking about the dark spirit. Rachel had stayed with me – and now she was dead.

It was my fault.

Monday morning. Charlie was due back later. There was no news about Rachel, except that the police had arrested Henry, were questioning him. I kept the news channel on, waiting for a story about how the body of a female motorcyclist had been found. But there was nothing.

I needed to change the bed. The sheets smelled and a ridiculous part of me was worried that Charlie would be able to smell Rachel on them. I stripped the sheets and opened the wardrobe to get out a clean set.

A few of Charlie’s clothes had slipped off their hangers onto the wardrobe floor, including a coat and the suit I’d had dry cleaned. I picked them up and took down some coat hangers. As I held the coat, something struck me. If I was looking for evidence, surely here was somewhere else to look.

I felt terrible delving in her pockets, but reassured myself that the ends justified it. Besides, I had already looked through one of her bags, and I didn’t really expect to find anything, anyway.

The coat contained nothing but a few balled-up tissues, an old Oyster card and a pair of gloves. Next I checked the trousers of the suit. Empty.

Finally, I tried the pockets of the suit jacket. There was just one pocket, on the inside, and I could feel, immediately, that there was something inside. A small brown envelope, sealed. I took it out and held it in my hands. Had the envelope been there when I’d had it dry cleaned? I hadn’t checked, had just taken it out of the wardrobe and put it in a bag.

If I opened the envelope, Charlie would know. Unless I went out and bought an identical envelope, which wouldn’t be hard. This one had no marks on it, no writing.

I had to do it. I ripped it open and something dropped to the carpet.

I stooped to pick it up. It was a little plastic bag, as big as a credit card. It was quarter-filled with pale brown powder.

Thirty-four

Thirty-four

I waited in the interview room at the police station, sipping from a plastic cup of coffee. It was, I imagined, exactly like the coffee dispensed by the machines at the eye hospital, the coffee that had given me an excuse to talk to Charlie that first day. I set it down on the table. I couldn’t stomach it.