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
The few minutes it takes for him to get back to the table feel like hours. Beads of sweat form on her forehead, she can feel them, and her whole body heats up. He’s barely sat down before she asks him if he’s ever been to Brighton.
Mark frowns. ‘No, never. Why? We’ve got plenty of beaches near Ipswich, and I heard Brighton’s only a pebble one anyway.’
‘Just wondered.’ Abby feels sick. ‘By the way, Cassie just tried to call you.’
FORTY-FIVE
Sienna
Leela Hall. It’s a beautiful name, and the young woman whose picture Sienna is staring at suits it perfectly. She looks so young – she was so young – and she has to remind herself that Greg would have been younger too, not as youthful as Leela, but not the forty-two-year-old man he was when he died. This should be a comforting thought, but it isn’t. Sienna already knows from comparing herself to Holly that Greg didn’t have a type, and Leela is a contrast to both of them. It’s hard to tell her ethnicity, but her coffee-coloured skin looks radiant in this photo. She was stunning. What did Greg do to her?
She doesn’t know for sure that this is the patient Greg was seeing, but Sienna feels something. A connection to it? All she’s found is a Facebook account she can’t get into, but across the photo is written ‘R.I.P.’ She wonders why people don’t close accounts down after someone dies; isn’t it too painful to still have it out there, as if the person they’ve lost is somehow still communicating with them? Maybe it brings them comfort. All she knows is that if Greg had had any social media accounts, she would have deleted them all.
Sienna shuts down Facebook; she’s already taken a screenshot of the photo, stored in her photos, easily accessible whenever she needs to see it. What she needs now is an address, and there is no way Rosa will get that for her.
But she knows someone who might.
‘Well, this is a surprise,’ Reuben says, joining her where she already sits by the bar. It’s the same place they all met just before Greg went missing, although it’s far quieter on an early Wednesday evening. He leans forward and kisses her cheek, lingering just a bit too long, leaving a trace of his saliva on her skin. Repulsed, she fights the urge to scrub her face, and almost pulls away. But she’s expected this. ‘What can I get you?’ he asks.
She holds up her glass – still full with tonic water. ‘Already got a gin,’ she says. ‘But thanks.’
He orders a whisky and turns to her. ‘So how have you been?’
‘I’d love to say great, but, you know.’