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Back Perfect Ten Save as PDF
Chapters (45)
  1. Chapter One
  2. Chapter Two
  3. Chapter Three
  4. Chapter Four
  5. Chapter Five
  6. Chapter Six
  7. Chapter Seven
  8. Chapter Eight
  9. Chapter Nine
  10. Chapter Ten
  11. Chapter Eleven
  12. Chapter Twelve
  13. Chapter Thirteen
  14. Chapter Fourteen
  15. Chapter Fifteen
  16. Chapter Sixteen
  17. Chapter Seventeen
  18. Chapter Eighteen
  19. Chapter Nineteen
  20. Chapter Twenty
  21. Chapter Twenty-one
  22. Chapter Twenty-two
  23. Chapter Twenty-three
  24. Chapter Twenty-four
  25. Chapter Twenty-five
  26. Chapter Twenty-six
  27. Chapter Twenty-seven
  28. Chapter Twenty-eight
  29. Chapter Twenty-nine
  30. Chapter Thirty
  31. Chapter Thirty-one
  32. Chapter Thirty-two
  33. Chapter Thirty-three
  34. Chapter Thirty-four
  35. Chapter Thirty-five
  36. Chapter Thirty-six
  37. Chapter Thirty-seven
  38. Chapter Thirty-eight
  39. Chapter Thirty-nine
  40. Chapter Forty
  41. Chapter Forty-one
  42. Chapter Forty-two
  43. Chapter Forty-three
  44. Chapter Forty-four
  45. Acknowledgements

‘I know. In fact, you’re too clever for your own good. Him – Jack – he’s not thinking about any of us. He doesn’t give a shit. All Jack gives a shit about is Jack.’ She shifts her position and leans on a chair. Her partner steadies her. ‘You know what you need to do now? Let it go. Everyone else has. Especially Jack.’

I leave the phone on the table and walk out. Then I run to my car and screech out of the cul-de-sac and drive back to the hotel.

Chapter Twenty-eight

As I sit in the dark behind the hotel, my hands gripping the steering wheel, I wonder if it’s worth it. I wonder if anything will actually change. If I’ve opened a can of worms. I hadn’t really considered the effect he had on those women’s lives. Are they as bad as him? Am I?

Of course Louise Shaw is angry now. Of course she hates him now. Like most of the others. All blazing eyes and pointing fingers, she’s mad as hell because she’s tied to him and his wrongdoing through a court case.

They think I’m stupid. They think I’m obsessed. They can’t see how I sat there day after day, trying to make things right, then when the kids were gone, slipping into some kind of pit of injustice. They just got on with their lives. Because he let them. That’s the difference. He didn’t subject them to the lies that I couldn’t prove and the slow destruction of my character to friends and family. Or did he? The doubt pushes its way in, making me wonder if I have seen the full picture here.

I know revenge is primal. It’s a response emotion to anger. To injury. To humiliation. An eye for an eye. Or an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind? All those things I did. But I was damaged. It doesn’t seem real because I don’t have the visible scars. But revenge is a response to hurt and I was hurt. It strikes me that all of those women have their own revenge agenda and this could go on for ever. Not for me. I’m tired and sorry and wishing now that there was another way. But didn’t Jack make any other way impossible? It’s this or lose my kids for good. But it can’t go on for ever. Once I’ve found Paula, it’s over.