Keep My Secrets by Elena Wilkes (management books to read .txt) 📕

into the silence as it tries to make the connection. Her mind is empty of everything but Chloe. She knows what she’s done to Alex. Her betrayal is enormous, but protecting Chloe overrides everything.

‘Hello?’ says the familiar voice.

‘I’m coming to get you,’ she says. ‘Where are you?’

‘Where I’ve always been.’ She can hear the smile in his voice. ‘Waiting for you to find me.’

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The flat looks like a kind of wartime bunker. She pulls up to find Martin standing in the doorway, jacket already on and zipped. He runs over, scrambling to get into the car. He’s excited and breathless. She knows what she’s about to tell him will change his life forever.

‘I never really thought you’d ring.’

She pulls out of the shabby, run-down estate and onto the main road.

‘It was my one and only chance to persuade you to talk to me, but I never thought you’d agree, I thought—’

‘Stop talking,’ she says abruptly. ‘Stop talking, Martin, and listen.’

She hauls the wheel round to the kerb, rams on the brakes with a jerk and kills the engine.

‘This isn’t about you or us. This isn’t about Charlotte Vale, or Alex, it’s about Chloe.’

He looks puzzled at the name.

‘Our daughter.’

His eyes quicken with surprise but also fear.

‘She wasn’t put up for adoption.’

He turns his head slightly towards her. His cheek flinches, unsure.

‘She wasn’t?’

‘I was staying with Peter and Vanessa Vale when I had her. Jack – you remember Jack at that party? – He’s their son. He got involved with drug dealers, and I helped him – only Vanessa and Peter caught me. I lied to cover for him, and they took Chloe.’

Martin is staring as though she’s fantasising.

‘It’s all true. What were my choices? I was seventeen and living in a care home. I’d just been caught with three kilos of cocaine; what chance do you think I would’ve had of keeping a baby?’

He looks back at her in disbelief.

‘The answer you’re looking for is none. So I lied. I told Jude I was still living there. Once I was eighteen no one bothered checking. Kids like me usually end up on the streets or worse. There’s no safety net, no one cares. I knew Chloe would have a good life with them. Jack sent me photographs and little videos. I got to see her at first. If they’d taken her into the system I would never have seen her again.’

‘Peter Vale had our daughter?’

Something terrible is happening to Martin’s face. It doesn’t look human. His mouth contorts as though he might scream or roar or…

‘Peter Vale has our daughter now?’

Frankie puts her hand on his wrist. The feel of his skin beneath her fingers makes something inside her give way.

‘I’m back in contact with Jack. He’s always been on my side. He was the one who went to the police about the images he found on Peter’s computer. It was Jack who got him put away. But Peter’s out now, and Jack’s worried that Vanessa will let him back into that house. He’s lurking around. I went to the school today – Chloe’s school. I saw her.’

‘You actually laid eyes on her?’

Frankie nods emphatically. ‘All grown up and gorgeous. It’s the first time I’ve seen her since she was a little baby. She’s fifteen, Martin. She really is beautiful…’ She smiles, but then swallows it. ‘But I saw Peter Vale too. He was hanging around by the school gates. Vanessa doesn’t believe he’s done anything wrong. Jack says we have to get Peter Vale put away again. It’s the only sure way of stopping him.’

‘We can maybe do that.’ Martin looks quickly at her. ‘The notes, the necklace: we have those. You remember at the court there were unexplained marks around Charlotte’s neck? That was from the necklace they never found. The one you were wearing.’

Frankie’s hand comes up to touch her throat where the pendant used to be.

‘If you want to hide something, do it in plain sight, remember? I’m telling you, it’s Peter Vale. He’s the one.’

‘And the hairband?’

‘If that’s got his DNA on it, it could be vital… Jesus, Frankie, it’s like he’s taunting you, like he wants you to know these things.’

She doesn’t say anything, but she can guess why. He’s getting off on it. She thinks back to how Peter made her feel: the way he looked at her, the way he made her skin crawl. He’d killed Charlotte and got away with it. He wanted her to know as a kind of sick torture. He’d been at the school gates in full view: provoking and gloating, not caring if she saw him.

A dawning of some terrible realisation slides into her stomach. The stalking, the notes, the phone calls had all started when Martin was released. She and Martin were the only two people who could possibly work out what he did – He was enjoying the fact that they knew.

The hand on her back.

The finger on her neck.

The whispering in the darkness.

‘I really believe that he’s…’ She can only just say the words. ‘… He’s out of control. He’s got away with it once. He thinks he’s untouchable.’ The disgust in her throat tightens. ‘He’s sick, he’s dangerous and he’s free. He wants us to see him, he wants us to work out what he did, Martin.’ She swallows thickly. ‘He wants us to know he’s after Chloe.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

She parks a little way down the road. From here they have a good view of Vanessa’s house. A light is burning behind the living room curtains. Every so often there’s a flicker that tells them whoever’s inside is watching TV.

‘You know the layout of the rooms, yes?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘And you’ll know exactly how to get in?’

‘Of course. I’ve already thought it through.’

They look at each other in the gauzy interior darkness. She feels seventeen again. Martin is twenty-one. For those few seconds, they’re the people they used to be. She looks down into her lap. Her hand lies flat on her thigh, her