Chapters (67)
- Cover
- Dedication
- PROLOGUE
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- PART TWO
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- PART FOUR
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- EPILOGUE
- Mailing list
- A Letter from Kathryn
- Acknowledgements
- About the Author
- Also by Kathryn Croft
‘Everything was going well that night. We… talked. A lot. Opened up to each other and shared things. I told him about my mum, and he really listened. He just got it. He understood.’
This doesn’t surprise Sienna; it sounds similar to how she and Rob seemed to bond. A flicker of something – is it jealousy? – trickles through her. She should have been the one Greg was opening up to.
‘But then… he told me he had things he was running from.’
Sienna leans forward. ‘And how did that come up? How did you get to that point?’
‘I’m not sure – I can’t remember every word in the order they were spoken. We were drunk, remember? Anyway, he kind of broke down. Buried his head in his hands and started wailing. Terrifying animal noises. That’s the best way I can describe it. I didn’t know what to do. I tried to comfort him, tell him it couldn’t be that bad, and he looked straight at me and said that it was worse than I could possibly imagine.’
Sienna’s heart rate quickens, she can feel it. She wants to throw up because even though every part of her wants to believe that Abby is lying, something about the way she’s talking about Greg feels right. As if she’s just been given a missing jigsaw piece that she knows fits before she’s slotted it into place.
‘Then he just said it. “Abby, I hurt someone, and watched her die.”’
‘No… no, you’ve got it wrong. He’s a surgeon, Abby. He meant one of his patients died and there was nothing he could do to save her.’ Yes, this is it. This is the only thing that makes sense. ‘That was the part of his job he found the hardest. But it happens to all surgeons.’
Abby stares at her as though she’s a teacher feeling sorry for a student who just can’t grasp something, no matter how many different ways it’s explained. ‘No, Sienna. That’s what I assumed, so I asked him. I even talked about Mum, and how I didn’t hold any of the doctors responsible for missing her cancer. But he said it wasn’t like that.’ Abby looks up to the ceiling, takes a deep breath. ‘He was having an affair with one of his patients. He didn’t tell me her name or when it was.’
Any second now Sienna will wake from this nightmare. She will open her eyes and realise she is in her own house, not Abby’s, that she’s fallen asleep on her sofa after the funeral and none of this is real.