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Back One White Lie Save as PDF
Chapters (59)
  1. COVER
  2. About the Author
  3. DEDICATION
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. TWENTY-NINE
  33. THIRTY
  34. THIRTY-ONE
  35. THIRTY-TWO
  36. THIRTY-THREE
  37. THIRTY-FOUR
  38. THIRTY-FIVE
  39. THIRTY-SIX
  40. THIRTY-SEVEN
  41. THIRTY-EIGHT
  42. THIRTY-NINE
  43. FORTY
  44. FORTY-ONE
  45. FORTY-TWO
  46. FORTY-THREE
  47. FORTY-FOUR
  48. FORTY-FIVE
  49. FORTY-SIX
  50. FORTY-SEVEN
  51. FORTY-EIGHT
  52. FORTY-NINE
  53. FIFTY
  54. FIFTY-ONE
  55. FIFTY-TWO
  56. FIFTY-THREE
  57. FIFTY-FOUR
  58. Acknowledgments
  59. THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING

‘I’m sorry,’ Maggie said, reaching for my arm to console me. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. Shall we take another turn?’ she asked, as if she were a character in an Austen novel, her hand dropping again to her side. ‘If Dusty’s up for it?’

I nodded eagerly, desperate to fill the next few hours, to make it to eight, when I’d have Vera, once again. These women, the women of Shadow Creek Road, were like buoys, bobbing along, the only things breaking up a stretched-out sea of loneliness and fear.

‘Yes, I think we should.’

It was nearly dark by the time I returned to my cottage, the sky velvet, the light fading quickly away. Maggie had turned off with Pepper at her house, and Dusty had dragged me home, eager for rest.

Beneath my feet, gravel crunched, and as I approached the porch, I realized I hadn’t turned the light on – our walk had gone on so long, I hadn’t thought I’d need to. I looked at my watch. It was five thirty. Only another two and a half hours, I thought. One hundred fifty more minutes until I was with Vera again, until, together, she and I could formulate some sort of plan.

I took off my gloves, fumbling for the keys in the dark of the porch, the cold shocking my skin, Dusty scratching at the door. Finally, I sank the right key into the lock, twisting just so. Inside, I unhooked Dusty’s leash, shrugged out of my coat, tossed my bag on the ground, and reached for the light switch, then stopped short.

There was a shadow on the sofa, impossible to ignore. And at the bottom of the shadow, the outline of a shoe. Dusty ran right toward it, his tail wagging, back and forth, back and forth.

I blinked twice, trying to adjust my eyes in the dark, trying to think amid the feeling of my racing heart, the nausea swimming in my stomach, frozen between fight and flight, a scream and a run.

The shadow took a breath. The shadow stood up.

In the dim remnants of light coming through the edges of the drapes, I recognized the outline of his face, an outline I knew too well.

‘Hey, babe.’

Penguin walking logo

THIRTY-THREE

Frantically, I flipped on the light.

My heart beat mercilessly as I took him in. He looked exactly the same as when I’d left him – clean-shaven, thick glasses perched on his nose, blond hair sweeping across his forehead just so. It was like not even a day had passed, as if I were back to exactly what I’d run away from. A hollow feeling rippled through my body, and I felt fragile as an eggshell, easy to break.

‘Found you,’ he said, an awful smile creeping across his face. ‘Didn’t think I would, huh?’