Chapters (58)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- Forty-seven
- Forty-eight
- Forty-nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-one
- Acknowledgements
- An Eastbourne Murder Mystery
- Canelo Crime
- About the Author
- Also by Sheila Bugler
It was the sensible thing to do. But Dee had never been very good at being sensible. She didn’t think the woman was Emer’s sister. The idea was ridiculous. But her journalist’s instinct had kicked in. The woman inside the pub was hiding something, and Dee wanted to find out what that was.
‘Come on,’ she told Emer. ‘I’m taking you up the road to a different pub.’
‘What about Kitty?’
‘Leave Kitty with me for now,’ Dee said.
‘But if she’s refusing to speak to you, what can you do?’
‘I might know someone who can find out who she is.’
‘You mean you’ll help me?’ Emer said.
‘Of course.’ Dee linked her arm with Emer’s as they started walking. ‘You’re my cousin, aren’t you?’
She glanced back at the pub. Just in time to catch a movement in one of the upstairs windows. The blond woman was up there, watching them. She stepped back from the window when Dee saw her but, as she walked away, Dee imagined she was still there, her eyes boring into Dee, watching to make sure she wasn’t coming back.
Four
Two months earlier
She is running down a corridor, looking for Kitty. The murmur of voices travels up from the ground floor, muffled by the thick carpets and the layers of space between them. They told her that Kitty’s dead, but how can she be dead if Emer’s just seen her?
She’d been lying in her bed, eyes wide open staring into the darkness, wondering how it could be true – how could her sister have drowned without anyone noticing a thing? And then, like a miracle, the door had opened and Kitty was there. Not dead. Coming into the room and sitting on the side of Emer’s bed. The weight of her body pressing into the mattress, her breath hot against Emer’s cheek as she leaned down and whispered to her.
‘I did something really bad, Emer. And because of that I have to go. I can’t see you again.’
Emer’s bare feet fly over the carpeted corridor as she calls her sister’s name, over and over, louder and louder.
‘Kitty! Kitty!’
She turns the corner and sees Kitty. She’s at the fire exit, pushing open the door that leads to the steps they’re not allowed to use. Their room is on the top floor of the hotel and they usually get the lift. If the lift is busy, they take the stairs – but the big, curved staircase with its red carpet at the front of the hotel, not these ones at the back which are for emergencies only and if you go there on your own no one can see you so it’s not safe.