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

that paper pad on the desk. She saw endless questions and charge sheets and solicitors. It was the future she’d always feared.

They looked at each other.

‘I see. Right.’ The D.S. picked up her tea in its plastic cup.

‘Can I go home now please?’ Frankie gazed into those insipid eyes.

‘I don’t see why not. We’ll definitely want to talk to you again so don’t think of going anywhere, will you?’ Frankie looked down at her tea. The liquid surface shimmered with tension, shaking as though there might be an earthquake just waiting to happen.

Chapter Thirty-One

The exhaustion hits her like a tidal wave.

Home.

Sanctuary.

Away from all of this.

Away from Martin and police and questions and chaos.

She needs to find Vanessa, find Chloe and start again, start clean.

Alex. Alex would help.

In spite of everything, all the lies and the deception, Alex would lay down his life for her if she asked him to; she knows that. She’d married him because, on some fundamental level, Alex was the kind of man she could trust with her life.

And Chloe’s.

The journey home is a blank. The miles tick by under the wheels, the hedges flicker past in the blue gauzy light, the signs say one thing and then another.

The Truth.

What is the truth? Does she even know what that is? The thing that’s been buried for fifteen years? Martin… Chloe… Charlotte… She has no idea what the truth is anymore.

The roads become more familiar, the streets she knows come upon her one after the other. This is her truth; this is her reality. These houses, these fences, these stones are what a real life and real relationships are built from, not a fantasy from years ago.

This. Is. Her. Truth.

Swinging into the drive, she knows before she even looks up that he will have seen her. Alex will be waiting for her in the same place he’s waited for her for fifteen years – and she realises it’s so lovely to come home.

She gets out of the car and breathes in the sweet morning air. This is what being free smells like: fresh and clean and full of promise. She goes to close the door, but then sees the photograph caught between the seat and the floor mat. Bending down to retrieve it, she hurriedly pushes it into her bag. If she shows it to the police now, then what? What does it prove? Nothing in isolation. One dubious photograph of a boy looking into a camera lens. It would go nowhere but into D.S. Markham’s bin.

Alex opens the door to greet her. He pulls her into his arms, squeezing the life out of her.

‘Thank god. Thank god…’ he murmurs over and over. ‘I thought… I thought… Oh Christ, it’s not important, you’re here with me now. Nothing else matters. You’re here, you’re here…’

She lets him hold the weight of her, feeling as though she would love to let go right now and give up: let her legs collapse beneath her and be carried away. The door slams behind with a definite click and the sound is like music.

Shut the world out; shut everything out.

‘Hey, hey… No, don’t cry! No, Frankie! Come on, come on. Come and sit down.’ He pats her arm, her cheek, checking her over. ‘Where have you been? Are you hurt? What’s happened to you?’

She pushes the hair out of her eyes. ‘I’m going to have to get out of all these clothes. They’re ruined,’ she sniffs and starts weeping again. ‘They just need throwing away.’ She can’t get her words out.

‘You’re fine, you’re okay…’ he soothes. ‘Look, let’s not talk about anything right now. I’ll get a black plastic sack or something and bring it up to you. Go and shower, I’ll fix you something to eat. Are you hungry? Thirsty? No? Just go on up then. I’ll sort everything.’

She hiccoughs a sob and scrubs at her face with the back of her hand.

‘I’m in a mess, Alex.’ She sways with tiredness, but has a desperate need to say this one thing. ‘I’m not seventeen anymore, I’m a grown woman, I need to get a grip of my life, get a grip of this marriage and stop behaving like a bloody kid.’ She looks up at him through swollen, painful eyes. ‘Everything I’ve done to you… The hiding, the lies…’ She sobs again. ‘I want a second chance. I know I don’t deserve one.’ She bites her lip. ‘I’m so sorry for what I’ve put you through. I can’t imagine why you’re still with me.’

‘Because I’ve always loved you and I always will.’ He goes to pull her to him but then pauses and sniffs. ‘But maybe not before you’ve showered,’ he grins. ‘We’ve both got a lot to be sorry for, and we both need to put it behind us. I’ve told you; I’ll sort everything out, don’t worry so much.’ He gives her a little shake. ‘Now get in that bathroom!’

Somehow, she manages to get up the stairs and peels off all her clothes, leaving them on the side of the basin and switching on the shower. She steps into the water, the heat of it tingling her scalp and face as she pools shampoo into her palm and begins to scrub at the matted grease coating her hair.

She is aware of the door opening through the steam and the rustle of a plastic bag. The rustling stops.

‘Frankie.’ His voice sounds odd.

‘Yes. I’m going to tell you everything, Alex. All of it.’

‘I don’t mean that. I meant what I said earlier. I love you. You know that, don’t you? I have always loved you and I always will.’

‘Yes. I know you do and I’m incredibly grateful.’ She begins to wash her body, over and over as though there can never be enough soap to make her feel really clean again.

‘I know you feel bad, and guilty about what’s gone on between us.’

Squeezing her eyes tight, she tries to shut out the pain and the trauma of what’s happened. Pulling her