“We’ll sleep in shifts, keeping an eye on her.”
“Why can’t we lock her in the boot?” Dina asks.
Magnus rolls his eyes. “Because I don’t want to. I want to look at her.”
Dina scowls and turns away from him to scroll on her phone. She is really getting under his skin. He realised a few hours into the journey that he’d rather be doing this alone. Even Penny seems like a burden to him now.
“Shit,” Dina exclaims.
Magnus looks up at her. “What is it?”
Dina’s eyes flick over to Penny. “I’ll send it to you.”
Magnus checks his phone and opens the link. He frowns as he reads the news article. Both Faye and Claire have been found. Both are alive. He expected Faye to be found, though he had hoped she might have been run over and injured on the road. But for Claire to turn up safe and well is infuriating. Where has she been all this time? He exhales so quickly that the air whistles through his nose.
There is no mention of Penny in the news article, but his and Dina’s names are all over it. Suspects at large. Wanted for questioning. He thought they had more time.
“What’s the plan?” Dina asks, raising an eyebrow. “Where are we going?”
“We head north. There’s no time for sleeping, let’s keep moving. Find somewhere remote. Then… we wait and see.”
Dina turns to him with her eyes as wide as a doe’s. “All right. As long as I’m with you, I’ll be happy.”
He smiles back but feels cold as he looks at her. He always admired her callous and cruel heart, her easy-going attitude to his wife and seeing him infrequently, always on his terms. But now he sees it was all a façade. She is jealous and weak, and he smells it like a shark tasting blood in the water. He can’t carry out his plan with her deadweight by his side. But he won’t get rid of her just yet, because she’s the only one with any money.
CHAPTER 62
CLAIRE
Faye’s eyelids flutter as she sleeps.
Her face is bruised and a thick bandage sits above her eye. I think of every time I looked in the mirror to find a new bruise to conceal. The lowest moments of my life. This is Faye’s most vulnerable moment too and I’m here to see it.Thisis how we finally meet. It isn’t how I wanted it to be.
We’re both strong because we’re here and we’re alive and I have this feeling deep down inside me that together we’ll be even stronger. I may not have had the strength to leave Jack but I sure as hell survived him. When Magnus chased me across the moors in the dead of night I fought back and I would do it again. I clutch my sister’s hand. It’s so strange how I feel like I know her already.
Faye was discharged from hospital this morning and Nathan and I brought her home. We have been fussing around her, driving her mad. But now she is getting some much-needed rest.
I walk over to the window and gaze out at the sea beyond the end of the garden. I understand why Faye writes her books here. A grey mist lingers over the foamy waters. Gulls dance above the cliffs and salt air drifts into the room on a warm breeze.
“Claire?” she whispers. “Claire. I’m not going mad. It’s really you.”
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Shitty,” she says. “But they put me back on my medication so my mind is a little clearer.”
“Good.” I smile.
I walk towards her, my eyes wide. I’m worried about how she’ll react, but it needs to be said. “I’m so sorry, Faye. For dragging you into this mess. Sorry for all the things I did. I… for breaking into your house. I was… not in my right mind and too scared to get any real help.”
She shakes her head. “It’s okay, I understand that you needed help but didn’t know how to approach me. Those awful things you said to my mother though when you visited?—”
“What visit to your mother? I never…”
Faye takes a deep breath. “What? That wasn’t you?”
I shake my head.
She raises her hand to her mouth. “Oh, God. Dina. It must have been her. But how did she…” Faye sits up in bed, leaning forward. “Wait, I arranged it all with mum’s neighbour. She needed her glasses repaired. I wrote down the dates on my calendar on the fridge. That means Dina has been spying on me for weeks, maybe months. She could have been inside my house even.”
