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Back Before You Were Gone Save as PDF
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

‘You know too much,’ he said. ‘I should have shut this mess down earlier. I would have done, if she hadn’t lied to me.’

‘Who lied to you?’

‘What the fuck does that matter now? I need to fix this, and I can’t do that with you sticking your nose in. I’d never have involved you if I thought you’d take it this far. But you couldn’t let it go, could you? Do you know how hard I’ve had to work to get where I am today? No, of course not. No one knows what it takes to do what I’ve done. And I can tell you now, there’s no way I’m going to let some interfering nobody take it all away from me. No one will hear you in here. Walls so thick you can scream as loudly as you want to. The only person who’ll ever hear you is yourself.’

He shoved her, hard, and she fell forward into the darkness.

Behind her, the door slammed shut and suddenly there was nothing except the darkness and the sounds of her own screams, bouncing back at her off the stone walls.

Forty-one

‘It was Robert?’ Emer said, when she was finally able to speak.

‘I don’t think he meant to hit Lucy,’ Kitty said. ‘That was my fault. But it suited him to have her out of the way. We’d both seen things we shouldn’t have in that house. By the time the car had stopped, Lucy was already dead. I remember wanting to run away, but I couldn’t move. I didn’t recognise him at first, but as he got out of the car I saw his face. I think I tried to scream, but he was fast. He grabbed me and put his hand over my mouth and bundled me into the boot.

‘I thought I was going to die, Emer. I was sure he’d kill me. Instead, he drove me back home. Mum was already there. Dad was in the kitchen, passed out like always. After Robert left, Mum sat me down and made me swear not to tell anyone I’d been out that night. I was so scared I did everything she told me to. I told the Guards I hadn’t been with Lucy that night; said I’d been home in bed like I was supposed to be.’

Emer stood up, went to the window and looked out at the sea. It was rough and grey today. Waves lashed the shore, splashing against the sides of the gold-domed pier. She wished she could open the window and fly out, over the sea, across to the silver line on the horizon where the sky and ocean met. And when she reached it, she would keep flying.