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Back Before You Were Gone
Chapters (58)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-one
  24. Twenty-two
  25. Twenty-three
  26. Twenty-four
  27. Twenty-five
  28. Twenty-six
  29. Twenty-seven
  30. Twenty-eight
  31. Twenty-nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-one
  34. Thirty-two
  35. Thirty-three
  36. Thirty-four
  37. Thirty-five
  38. Thirty-six
  39. Thirty-seven
  40. Thirty-eight
  41. Thirty-nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-one
  44. Forty-two
  45. Forty-three
  46. Forty-four
  47. Forty-five
  48. Forty-six
  49. Forty-seven
  50. Forty-eight
  51. Forty-nine
  52. Fifty
  53. Fifty-one
  54. Acknowledgements
  55. An Eastbourne Murder Mystery
  56. Canelo Crime
  57. About the Author
  58. Also by Sheila Bugler

‘It’s me.’ Kitty squeezed her so tight Emer couldn’t breathe. She didn’t care if she never breathed again. All that mattered was this moment.

At some point, Kitty released her and Emer was laughing now. Joy and hysteria poured out of her, mixing with all the other emotions she couldn’t control. Grief and anger and relief. Her sister was alive and all the things that had been wrong in Emer’s life could be mended. Finally.

Taking Emer’s hand, Kitty led her up to the next floor. Kitty talked non-stop, asking questions Emer didn’t have time to answer before Kitty moved on to the next one. It was strange hearing her speak with an English accent. Emer hadn’t expected that.

‘This is us.’ Kitty stopped outside one of the hotel bedrooms. She opened the door with a card key and they entered a big, airy room. Two double beds. High ceiling. A separate seating area with four armchairs and a walnut coffee table. French windows leading out to a small balcony with sea views. An older woman, tall and slender with blond hair and grey eyes, smiling at Emer as if they were old friends.

‘I found your note,’ Kitty was saying now. ‘I drove back to the house this morning to pick up my passport, in case I needed it. When I read what you’d written, I knew I couldn’t leave without seeing you first.’

‘You were there this morning?’ Emer asked. She remembered seeing the Mini Clubman parked outside the house. She should have tried harder to get Kitty to answer the door.

‘Only for a few minutes,’ Kitty said. ‘I saw you. I was upstairs and I saw you on the doorstep. I almost went down to you, but you were gone so quickly. I was wondering whether or not to go after you when someone else arrived at the house. Two women. I could hear them but I was upstairs and I was afraid to look out the window in case they saw me. They were there for ages. At one point I thought they were going to try to break into the house, but they left eventually. As soon as they were gone, I went downstairs and I saw the note you’d left me.’

‘You didn’t see anyone else?’

‘Like who?’

‘I thought I saw…’ Emer stopped speaking. Right now, she wasn’t sure she could trust what she’d seen. Was it possible she’d made a mistake and it wasn’t Robert driving that car? No. She knew what she’d seen. Which meant Kitty must have missed him by minutes.

‘You’re so clever,’ Kitty continued, ‘finding the house and everything else. You always were the clever one. I was so scatty and disorganised, do you remember? You had all the brains.’

That wasn’t how Emer remembered it, but she wasn’t going to argue the point.