she had messaged Cherie. One of them had to be trying to kill her, to shut her up. If only Cherie could persuade her to shut up but in a nicer way. Her one last chance came with turning up at the meeting point in the message. A chance she couldn’t blow. Everything else was lost but not this, this was her chance to make things right. Maybe she and Penny could do the right thing for once. That was what scared Marcus and Isaac the most.
A flashback to the previous night filled her mind, of her driving badly through a red light. The rest was a blur. She’d come back with more wine though, evident by the third empty bottle she’d found next to the bed.
She could still turn things around by facing the consequences; that option still had to be on the table. Everyone’s shock and hatred filled her mind: the one reason she’d remained silent. Now, it seemed irrelevant. Her children and husband were gone. Her husband. The words rang in her head in time with the pain from her hangover. She’d taken Christian for a fool with her lies and she’d inwardly laughed as she won him over every time. She caught her reflection in the stainless steel kettle that lay on the floor, dotted in damp coffee granules. If Christian could see her straggly hair and mascara-streaked face, he’d know he did the right thing by leaving. If he was close enough to smell the staleness of her breath, he’d recoil just as he’d been doing for a long time. She was way beyond fixing.
Wiping the tears away with her sleeve she knew what she had to do next on this dark and gloomy morning. She had to take a couple of paracetamol, get freshened up as much as she was able and prepare to meet Penny. At least she’d find out what was going on.
Her legs shook as she stood and walked to the stairway. She grabbed the old black coat and began to shred it with the scissors. As she hacked through the material, she hoped that it would finally stop haunting her.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
12 years ago
Halloween
In a daze, somewhere between hallucination and reality, I grab the cord and drag my weary body back towards the satellite. As I watch Earth from the skies, what I see becomes blurred and then I feel nothing but water. That’s when I snap out of my weird dream. I notice the cold liquid filling up my box and then I remember. I’m buried alive. The laughter from above booms out, throbbing through my head. Scratching around, I feel the matchbox and the final match on my chest. I must have left them there when I was lucid. One match; that is all I have left. One measly match.
As I inhale, my chest lets out a crackly wheeze. I’m fading fast.
Strike, and once again my confined world is lit up. It’s a far throw from my vision of being in space where I’m hanging on by a rope but I’m free still.
The match runs down. I’m sure my finger burned as the fire reached the end of the wood but I can’t feel anything. My whole body has stiffened. A tear escapes my eye as I think of rigor mortis. It’s coming for me. I wheeze again. This time I don’t panic. There’s nothing more I can do apart from accept my end. I’m at peace. I haven’t hurt anyone, I don’t have unfinished business.
Then I think of the person above, laughing. I do have unfinished business. I manage a weak murmur. ‘I’m going to come back and haunt you. You just wait and see. I’m going to haunt you all until you wished you were the ones in a box.’
I remember falling and hitting my head, but there’s more. I remember who and how and why. It’s flooding back. Great, my biggest moment of clarity has hit when I’m in no position to do anything. I’m at the mercy of whoever’s up there.
Chapter Sixty
Now
Tuesday, 3 November
Gina headed over to where forensics and uniform had congregated. A short dog sniffed at her ankle. She leaned over and stroked its long body as she continued over the rubble and mud. The three houses struck her. The symbol on the back of the diary extract had been as accurate as it could be. If that one was accurate and the woods had been accurate, what was with the ghost and