COVER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Heidi Perks worked as a marketing director before leaving to become a full-time mother and writer. Her first novel, Now You See Her, was a Sunday Times bestseller and a Richard and Judy Book Club pick. Heidi is a voracious reader of crime fiction and thrillers and endlessly interested in what makes people tick. She lives in Bournemouth with her family, where she is writing her next thriller.

ALSO AVAILABLE BY HEIDI PERKS

Also available by Heidi Perks

Now You See Her

DEDICATION

For my husband, John.

For believing in me.

And for Bethany and Joseph.

I believe in you.

Evergreen Island

9 September 1993

We left in a storm. The sea was rising in sharp clumps of angry waves, rain hitting my feet like bullets. Dad must have known we shouldn’t be making the crossing to the mainland, yet he stood on the boat, one hand frantically flapping for one of us to reach out and take it. The hood of his red mac had whipped off his head, the rain plastering his hair to his scalp. He yelled over the wind for us to get in, but we wouldn’t move from the end of the jetty.

The boat rocked violently as it tugged at the rope that kept it tethered to the dock, and I noticed Dad’s other hand gripping tighter to the steel railing of the steps. ‘Get in, Stella,’ he shouted.

Thunder cracked overhead and the sky lit up with magnificent streaks of light. Behind me our house flashed bright between the silhouettes of our tall pines, making it look like something from a horror film. I pushed my hands deeper inside my raincoat, clutching Grey Bear harder to my chest. I didn’t want to leave the only home I had ever known, but I had never seen my dad so determined. His jaw was set, his teeth bared. It wasn’t like him to be so persistent, so unrelenting, and I found myself shrinking further back.

‘I’m not going anywhere,’ Bonnie screamed from beside me. ‘We’ll all die if we do.’ My sister held her hood tightly against her head but I could just make out the paleness of her face in the moonlight. Bonnie had yearned to leave the island for years, but this wasn’t the way she wanted to go.

‘We will not die and we need to go,’ Dad yelled back. He turned to me and added more softly, ‘I promise you. It’s fine. We’ll be safe.’ Dad owned the small ferry that he was demanding we board, and he’d run the thirty-minute crossing between Evergreen and Poole Harbour every day for the last sixteen years. If anyone could take us to the mainland safely, it was him, but we’d never dared attempting a crossing in weather like this before. Mum wouldn’t usually let us out of the house when it was this bad.