‘I remember the things you got up to all those years ago. You and Quinn used to be such a nuisance. Your stupid aunt would always say, kids will be kids. Ray knows it was you who killed his fish too. Really, it’s been years. Grow up, for heaven’s sake.’
I hold Cora closely and run up the path. Tessa can’t even see that the author of the letters is blaming her, or are they doing this to make me look unstable? I’m even more confused now. This isn’t the work of a fourteen-year-old, and the first round of letters wasn’t the only round, that’s why Ray is constantly staring out of his window at me. They’re trying to catch me out.
I can’t breathe by the time I reach our house. I almost fall through the door and I can’t stop tears from pricking at my eyes. Whoever is sending those letters is doing it to hurt me. I reach into my pocket as we get back to our door and pull out the pendant. I shouldn’t have this pendant. It should be nowhere near this house, but it is, and I don’t know why.
All I know is that I’m terrified for myself and my family.
Twenty-Six
Gemma
I run up the stairs ignoring Ethan. He’s now working with the team who have arrived. Ethan calls out to me but I can’t stop. There’s no way I can face him or anyone at the moment. That necklace in my pocket is haunting me. Cora pulls at my hair as I open the apartment door, wrapping one of my curls in her fingers.
I flinch at the bang coming from the end of the corridor. The balcony room door must be open again. So much for Ethan locking it.
As I dash into the apartment, I pop Cora on the couch with her soft teddy blanky before turning the TV on to her favourite channel, and she’s now bouncing on the settee, laughing.
Ethan barges in. ‘Gemma, I called out but you didn’t hear me. We’re making good time with everything, and Robbie is working on the plumbing. It’s going really well. I thought you’d want to see.’
I grip the necklace in my pocket and the edge of the metal pendant sticks into my palm so hard, I’m worried it’ll draw blood. I need to ground myself. Either that or have some kind of meltdown.
‘Are you okay? What’s happened?’
‘It’s Tessa. I went over there with the chocolates. She’s had more letters and we’re definitely prime suspects. Everyone thinks I sent them because they mention something about her husband looking elsewhere, and we know what the last note she received said. It was about me. Our note in the hamper wasn’t written in capital letters, everyone else’s was. And they don’t even believe we had a letter anyway, and some idiot threw it in the bin.’ I bite my tongue. I shouldn’t have said that.
‘Gemma, where is this coming from? Seriously. You told me to throw it all in the bin.’
‘That was before I knew all this was going to happen.’
‘So, I’m to blame all of a sudden?’
I drop the pendant and pull my hands out of my pockets. That letter to Quinn is getting to me now and I’m lashing out at Ethan as I wonder if there’s some truth in it. Cora looks at us with her thumb in her mouth and her blanky pressed to her cheek, so I lower my voice. He isn’t to blame, I am. We should have kept that note. It was all we had. Even the police think we’re making everything up.
‘I thought we weren’t going to give the neighbours chocolates. There’s no point trying to reason with these people. You saw me try the other night.’
I’m still angry at him over that. ‘I didn’t see you reasoning at all. I saw you accusing Quinn. You upset her son and look where that got us,’ I say in a hushed voice.
‘So, someone broke into our home and you said you didn’t leave the main door open. I’m convinced I didn’t leave it on the latch and I didn’t leave the door unlocked to the balcony room. I don’t think assuming it was Quinn was too far out there. She had motive. She was friends with your aunt, so she might even have a key.’
‘Or you might have just left the doors unlocked.’ Again, I’m accusing him and that makes my stomach flutter in a bad way.
‘I didn’t.’
‘Then why is the door banging in the breeze again? We have a toddler and that door is open. Did you lock it?’
He frowns. ‘Everything happened so fast.’
‘So, you didn’t lock it?’
He pauses and runs his calloused hands through his messy hair. ‘With all that’s going on… you’re right, I shouldn’t have spoken to Quinn and her son like that.’ He hits the worktop, so I’m glad Cora is now singing along to her TV programme. ‘I feel like everything’s exploding and I don’t know how to stop it. All I saw was how upset Morgan was when the neighbours upset her, and then I go and upset Harry in the same way.’
We’re both tense and angry. I did try to tell him that I didn’t want to come back to Clover Lane. This is what it does to a person. It makes you doubt yourself and sends you crazy in the process. I think of that last day I spent here as a teen, doubting my own mind, promising to come back to visit Aunt Dorette in the next school holiday while Mum worked. I never did. I never came back, until now. That mistake is already costing me dearly and I don’t know how to fix the situation.
Ethan reaches out. He holds me and I sink into him. ‘What’s happening to us?’ I ask.
‘One day when we’ve left, this place will be a distant nightmare. Think of our future and the big plans we have and little Beanie.’ He places his hand over my stomach. ‘I’m going to lock that door and check on the guys downstairs. When I come back up, shall we drive into Whitby and have some lunch? We might even get a seat with a sea view.’ He kisses me on the forehead, and I hug him.
‘I’d love that. We need to get out of here. I’ll get Cora ready.’
