“I took his pulse. I remembered how to from school.”

“Actually you didn’t,” she said. “But never mind that.”

The siren grew louder and I knew it was near my street.

“It’s just as it happened, but you were in the living room. You and Tom were getting on well. You were in the living room, heard him fall, saw me at the front door. Remember?”

I could hardly concentrate. I didn’t know what she was doing there. When I saw her I thought she’d hunted me down, intending to hurt me, but now she was helping me. “Why are you doing this for me?” I asked.

For a moment I saw pity on her face, then her eyes hardened. “Don’t flatter yourself, Ruby. Your husband tried to destroy me. You’ve just done me a huge favor. I’m hardly going to turn you in.”

“But you don’t even know him!”

“Oh yes, I do.” She fumbled in her handbag and brought out an envelope. Inside it were two sheets of paper, one scrawled on, one typed. She handed me the typed copy. “Read it.”

Honestly, I had no idea what was going to be on it. No idea at all. I opened the sheet of paper and stared blankly at it.

On the paper was a table of figures. I saw DNA and 99.99%. I blinked. I didn’t have a clue what I was looking at. Then I saw the word: Mother. Next to it was: Emma Sheridan. It seemed to take a long time for my eyes to find the words Biological Father. There it said, Harry Sheridan.

I looked up at her. It was too late to pretend we didn’t know each other.

“Why do you think I was here?” she said gently.

Still I didn’t get it. And the ambulance was roaring up the street with its sirens blaring. Blue lights flashed through the window as it parked on the path behind Tom’s car.

Slowly she put the document and the envelope into her bag and turned to look me straight in the eyes. “You’re not the only one who can sleep with someone’s husband,” she said.

CHAPTER 71

Emma

They bought it. Totally and utterly bought it. After all, I was an independent witness who said Ruby was in the living room at the time Tom accidentally fell downstairs. Why would I lie about that? Even I wasn’t always sure why I had. Not really.

She stayed in the kitchen while the ambulance crew was there. She was crying so hard by then. Well, we both were. I don’t know whether her tears were from losing him or from the shock of being responsible. Which she was, really.