THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY…
“Wait… it’s her in there, isn’t it?” Her own voice sounded faint, as if she’d uttered the words from far away or long ago. Pain flared behind Catherine’s eyes as the sickening sight of the two of them blurred into focus. They lay in a tableau of tangled sheets and betrayal. Her mind had conjured this image a hundred times — no, a thousand — and even after all this time, it still stung like the first.
The deception.
The humiliation.
The bloody obvious truth of it all.
Catherine had been a fool — careless with her heart, and now it was broken. As their monstrous voices morphed into mocking laughter, she clutched her aching chest and ran. One foot tumbled over the other until she was shivering in the frigid air, hot tears spilling down her face.
Catherine’s breath plumed out in ragged gasps as shelurched through the snow, every step a laboured effort. She stumbled, collapsing onto the ground in a pathetic heap, her hand brushing something soft. With freezing fingers, she dug until she uncovered a pair of scruffy bunny slippers, their once-pink fur matted and filthy.
A raw, guttural sob tore from her throat — the sound of a wounded animal. She scrambled to her feet, retching as she shouldered through the crowd that had gathered around her. They were little more than silhouettes: blank faces with gaping mouths. Their voices blended into a hollow hum, as she turned to run again.
Where was she even going?Before her mind could latch onto an answer, brakes squealed, and someone shouted, “Look out!”
Catherine whipped her head around, but it was too late. Something blunt and hard slammed into her side, tipping her up, over and out.
1
AFTERMATH
PRESENT DAY
The rigid smile slipped from Catherine’s lips as Alice left the building.
The buoyant blonde walked away with a spring in her step and a boxful of office plants tucked under her arm. Probably for the best; Catherine and Jeremy would only forget to water them anyway, and the new temp, Stephanie, could hardly be relied upon. More often than not, Stephanie forgot to boil the water before making coffee; adding another task to her meagre to-do list would be futile.
Catherine’s chest ached for Alice; after all, she too had once been wrung out by the same pair of hands. Watching it unfold had been like replaying an old movie. Catherine had known how it would end, but she hadn’t been able to stop it.
She sighed and stepped away from the window.
Her swift response had been a win-win for everyone involved. She should have been flooded with relief;everything had gone their way when it could so easily have blown up around them. The reputation of Truscote & Dalton remained intact, Alice had received a generous payout and seemed happy to be moving on, and Jeremy had been spared any further embarrassment. Not that Jeremy deserved protecting. What was it Alice had called him?
Depraved.
The word echoed in Catherine’s mind, a mocking reminder of her own complicity. She’d defended Jeremy, she’d called him a good man, and now she felt sick just thinking about it. But her reputation was inextricably tied up with his; if he went down, they both would. She’d invested her entire career in this practice, and she wasn’t prepared to let the bloody Daltons ruin everything she’d worked for. So Trusty-old-Truscote swooped in to save the day and sweep up their mess.
She glanced at the young woman behind the Reception desk, who sat swiping at her phone screen.
“Stephanie?”
Stephanie’s head whipped up. “Hmm?”
“Let’s finish up early today.”
“What about Doctor Dalton?”
“He won’t be back in for the rest of the day… the rest of the week, actually. He’s taken a few days off. Personal reasons.” Her voice wavered, the euphemism tasting like ash in her mouth. Before Catherine had even finished her sentence, Stephanie was heading out the door.
Catherine detouredthrough Jephson Gardens before heading home. She squinted in the glorious afternoon sunshine, a surprising turnabout after the menacing dark skies that had threatened rain earlier. She slipped off her jacket and draped it over her satchel.
Tulips and hyacinths lined the paths, sun-dappled by the light filtering through the canopy of new leaves unfurling above. After a brisk walk around the lake, Catherine bought an oat milk latte from the café and sat, people-watching — a weary-looking mother pushing a pram, an untidy knot of teenagers in school uniform, and a young couple holding hands, swaying into each other as they walked. None of them paid her the slightest attention; she may as well have been part of the greenery — a shrub, unremarkable and blending into the background. But that’s how she liked it.Observing, but unobserved.
Her phone pinged in her pocket; she pulled it out and tutted at the name on the screen.Jeremy.She really should have it out with him properly; unleash the seething resentment that had been bubbling under the surface for years. But despite being her professional equal and business partner for two decades, an unspoken hierarchy remained between them. She had proved to be as much a loyal servant of the Daltons as her father — the family’s estate manager of forty years — had been. Catherine didn’t want the same for herself — the Daltons until death.
At that grim thought, Catherine slipped her phone back into her pocket. She’d come here to cleanse the palate of her mind, not to stew over the deviant bloody Daltons.She sipped her lukewarm coffee, wishing now that it were something a little stronger.
