Also by Sarah Alderson
Can We Live Here?
Friends Like These
In Her Eyes
Sarah Alderson
www.hodder.co.uk
First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Mulholland Books
An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Sarah Alderson 2019
The right of Sarah Alderson to be identified as the Author of the
Work has been asserted by her in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that
in which it is published and without a similar condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
eBook ISBN 978 1 473 68185 9
Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
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To Theo and Clarissa
Contents
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
PART TWO
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
PART THREE
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Acknowledgements
PART ONE
Chapter 1
DAY 1
A sledgehammer slams into my chest, splintering my ribs. In its wake comes a lightning bolt of pain.
‘Ava!’ Someone is shouting my name over and over, but I can’t see who. The fog deepens, darkens. Cold, bony fingers are snaking around my throat, sliding over my mouth, clamping my lips together – and I start to panic. I can’t breathe. But the harder I fight, the more tightly I’m held. What’s happening? Where am I? Where’s June?
June. Her name rises up in front of me and I snatch for it, grasp it tightly, as though it’s a flashlight that will light a path out of the fog. June. Not just a name or a promise of summer. A face too; dark hair, deep blue eyes, freckles scattered across her cheeks – one on her lip that looks like a chocolate sprinkle. She’s smiling. She’s always smiling. I reach for her, but she vanishes. I try to scream her name but I can’t open my mouth. Fear surges through me. I need to reach her and so I start to fight – kicking and punching with every ounce of strength left in me, trying to get free, but it’s impossible.
It hits me then that June’s dead. And if she is, then I want to be too. I stop fighting and let the fog pour into my ears. It kills all sound and then it rams its fists into my eyes and blinds me. It’s a darkness so complete I might as well be encased in lead, free-falling to the bottom of the ocean.
Gratefully, I let myself sink.
Chapter 2
DAY 1: Earlier
‘An affair?’
Laurie hands me the olive from her martini and nods.
‘You honestly think Dave’s having an affair?’ I ask her, shaking my head in astonishment. I can’t believe it for a moment. It’s absurd. It would be easier to believe he was Grand Wizard of the KKK.
Laurie downs her drink in one swallow. ‘He’s been acting shifty for months, working late, refusing to open up and talk to me.’
‘How’s that any different to normal?’ I ask, and immediately realize I shouldn’t be making light of it. Laurie’s serious. I reach across the table and take her hand. ‘I’m sorry, I’m just finding it hard to imagine.’
She forces a terse smile and signals the waiter for another martini.
Now I get why she sounded so tearful when she called and begged me to meet her. I was meant to be having dinner with Robert. He’d arranged a special date night for our anniversary completely out of the blue (admitting to me that Hannah had reminded him). But given the last time he asked me out was about three hundred years ago, I had been looking forward to it. He wasn’t at all happy when I postponed. But Laurie has been there for me through so many ups and downs; I couldn’t not be there for her in her hour of need.
‘Do you have any proof?’ I ask Laurie, still incredulous.
‘What? Lipstick on his collar? Credit card receipts for a Motel 8?’ She shakes her head. ‘No. I just know there’s something going on.’
I take a big gulp of my wine and try to process what Laurie is telling me, but I just can’t. Dave’s Dave. If the Jeopardy answer was ‘Dependable’, the question would be ‘What is Dave?’ He and Laurie have been together for fifteen years. I was maid of honor at their wedding and I’m godmother to their son, Cory, who has just started college.
There are lots of our friends’ husbands who I’d lay money on playing away from home – in a small town like ours rumors fly like the winged monkeys in Oz – but not Dave. No way. It took him two years to pluck up the courage to ask Laurie out, and even then he made it a double date with Robert and me because he was worried he’d be too nervous to talk to her if he was on his own.
‘Are you sure you’re not just jumping to conclusions?’ I ask Laurie. ‘It doesn’t sound like the Dave I know.’
She snorts. ‘How well do we ever really know anyone?’ she asks, arching an eyebrow.
I ponder that.
‘He’s acting different,’ Laurie goes on. ‘He’s started taking care of himself. He gets up every morning at the crack of dawn and does this seven-minute workout thing.’
I stare at her blankly.
‘Siri barks orders at you as you do jumping jacks,’ she explains. ‘It’s some mid-life crisis app that someone out there is getting extremely rich off of.’ She glances my way for a
