Two uniformed police officers burst into the room, flanked by two plainclothes detectives. Doctor Dickhead is taken away in an ambulance to the hospital where he used to work.
He’ll never work anywhere again. Not unless you count scrubbing prison toilets.
The police take statements. I email them CCTV footage from the previous few days. If I wasn’t so busy shagging my ward, I might have kept a better eye on it myself.
It looks as if our intruder slipped in behind the cleaner and hid in the house for four hours before we arrived home. He had no way of knowing we were coming. Sheer bad luck on our part. Or rather sheer neglect on mine.
I almost had it all.
‘Is it too soon to go back to the Cotswolds?’ Victoria asks. We watch from the kitchen as the forensics team traipses up the stairs, covered head to toe in white suits.
I pull her into me, inhaling the scent of her skin. Memorising the shape of her curves as they mould against me for the final time.
‘We’re not going back to the Cotswolds, sweetheart.’ No point delaying the inevitable.
‘What are you talking about?’ Her eyes flash up to mine.
A huge sigh whooshes from my lungs. ‘I can’t protect you, even with security cameras, a top-of-the-range alarm and police swarming within a mile radius. There’s no way I can bring you to the countryside where you’d only have me. It’s not enough. I’m not enough. Your safety is way more important than my happiness.’
‘Our happiness,’ she corrects me.
‘You call this happiness?’ My index finger points to the floor above, the image of her bound and gagged on the bed permanently etched into my brain.
‘Arch.’ Panic taints her tone. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying we’re over. I’ve been selfish for too long. I’m not what you need.’ Every sliver of skin aches in a silent protest as I take a step back from her.
She follows. Angry fists pound my chest as if she’s trying to shock my heart back into the familiar rhythm we’ve slipped into. ‘You’re what Iwant! Doesn’t that count for something?’
‘It’s not enough. I’m sorry.’ My feet shuffle backwards, dragging me away from her.
‘You mean,I’mnot enough,’ she yells. ‘You’re sick of babysitting me. Sick of suffering these creeps who won’t leave us alone. Admit it, I’m not enough to outweigh the hassle of being with a Sexton.’
I can’t admit it. Because it’s not true. But if I deny it, I’m giving her false hope.
‘Pierce is on his way. He’s going to step in until they can find a permanent replacement for me.’
‘Don’t do this, Archie.’ She runs at me, desperate fingers clinging to my shirt.
It takes every bit of self-control I have to peel her from me and push her into the arms of a female police officer.
31
VICTORIA
Ihadn’t planned on spending the remainder of my summer at Huxley Castle, but with the gaping hole Archie left in my chest when he ripped my heart straight from it, I couldn’t survive anywhere else.
A part of me thought he might show up here at some point. If not to see me, then to return to his cabin. But then again, why would he? It might have been his home once but, now he’s been reunited with his own family, he no longer needs mine to plug that void in his life.
The nights are endless without him. The terrors back in full force. I’m falling into oblivion. Not because of what happened with David Dickson, but because a future without Archie is like staring into the biggest, blackest hole of my life.
Sasha and I sit on the outdoor furniture, positioned near the edge of the dolphin-shaped water feature. We watch on as the twins run ragged, squealing and chasing each other on the pristinely manicured lawns of the garden, not a care in the world between them.
My mind strays to Lily-May. Is she okay? Did a family foster her?
I’m in no position to care for her right now. I can’t even care for myself.
The rhythmic trickling of water is supposed to be therapeutic. So far, it’s doing nothing to ease my troubled mind.
