Chapters (68)
- Cover
- Praise for
- PART ONE
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
- 11
- 12
- 13
- 14
- 15
- 16
- NETWORK RAIL SAFETY UPGRADES TOO LATE FOR “OUR ALICE”
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- 24
- 25
- 26
- 27
- 28
- 29
- 30
- 31
- 32
- 33
- 34
- PART TWO
- 35
- 36
- 37
- 38
- 39
- 40
- 41
- 42
- 43
- 44
- 45
- 46
- PART THREE
- 47
- 48
- 49
- 50
- 51
- 52
- 53
- 54
- 55
- 56
- THREE MONTHS LATER
- Dedication
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- BY LESLEY KARA
- About the Author
- What’s next onyour reading list?
Ross must have taken mine by mistake. He’s done that before, ended up at work with both sets in his pocket. Not that it matters. It just means I won’t be able to lock the house when I leave. Even so, I wanted to take them with me, so that Dad and I can come back at some point and get the rest of my things. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Whatever I can’t take with me can be replaced. All that really matters is leaving.
Hang on, though, where are the spare keys? I took them off Catherine last night, didn’t I? They should be in the dish, too. He can’t have taken all three sets.
I try to open the front door, but I can’t. I rattle the handle. He’s locked it. I run back to the kitchen and rattle the handle of the back door, but that’s locked, too, and the keys aren’t in the door, where they usually are.
Exasperation turns to rage. White-hot fury. Ross has locked me in the house and taken all the phones away, knowing I don’t have my mobile either. How dare he do this to me? How fucking dare he! Oh my God. All that searching for my phone in the hospital, then Ross filling in the lost-property form. What’re the odds he never put it in my bag in the first place?
I move swiftly into the living room, my anger now transmuting into a calm, steady determination to get out of this house by any means possible.
The curtains are still drawn, so I yank them back. But even as my fingers close round the brass handle of one of the windows, I know it won’t open. The little keys are missing.
I press my forehead into the glass. Solid, triple-glazed, energy-efficient window units. It was one of the things Ross was so pleased about when he first bought the property. Will anyone even hear if I bang on them and shout? Because that’s what I might end up doing. Unless the ones upstairs are still unlocked. With any luck, he’s forgotten about those and I can alert a passerby, get them to call the police.
I turn to leave the room. I’ll get out of this house if it kills me.
I stop dead in my tracks. Terror squeezes my heart as I see her, sitting in the armchair in the far corner.
“Going somewhere, Lizzie?” she says.