The police couldn’t prove Jack’s involvement in Jeffrey’s death, but they could prove his involvement in Noah’s. Going back through his bank statements, they saw Jack had hired a car the day before Noah was hit. After some investigating, they discovered Jack had taken that same car to a garage out of town to repair a shattered windscreen, and with paint traces found on Noah’s body, they were able to positively identify the car Jack hired as the one which hit Noah. I think this, along with my story and, eventually, Ada’s too, they were lenient, giving me a one-year suspended sentence.
‘It’s wonderful to have everyone together,’ says Mum.
I look around the room and feel lucky. George, our adoptive grandfather, catches our eye and lifts the biscotti by way of greeting. He’s in possession of the most loved copy of our book. Mum smiles back, but there’s a flicker of sorrow in her eyes. She’s thinking about Kathryn and Charlie. I know because I feel it too. Kathryn sold the house and left Crosshaven a week after Jack’s funeral. She’s living in London now, not far from her son and his husband. Mum and Kathryn exchanged a couple of emails after she moved, but they haven’t spoken in over a year.
‘Don’t keep apologising, Elodie,’ said Mum all those months ago. We were planting lavender in her garden. My counsellor said gardening would help with the panic attacks, the flashbacks, so I spent a lot of time in my parents’ garden. ‘It’s done. Jack’s fate was sealed the day you met as children on the front steps of Wisteria,’ she told me. ‘Even if you’d refused to go with Jack that day in the woods, he would’ve forced you to anyway.’
Which was true, though I couldn’t help but think Mum and Kathryn’s friendship turned to ash the night Wisteria did.
I wrote to Kathryn once, but she never replied. I didn’t expect her to. After all, I burned down her holiday home and took her son’s life. But I needed her to know I was sorry. That I loved Jack, even after everything, I loved him. This is a carefully guarded secret. I mentioned it to my counsellor once and she started talking about Stockholm syndrome, so I never spoke about it again.
‘Elodie, love, are you sure you won’t write another book?’ asks Mum.
I shake my head.
‘But writing is who you are. And think about all the money you could donate to charity with a second advance. All the people you’d help.’
‘I am helping, Mum. I work for the charity.’ After Jack, I couldn’t go back to marketing. I couldn’t sit behind a desk and pretend I was the same person. The need to connect with people who’d been through what I’d been through, the need to help them, was an itch, a nettle beneath my skin that only eased when I got the role at the Somerset Rape Crisis Centre.
‘I know …’ she says. ‘But don’t you listen to that nasty reporter or whoever she was. You had to write this book. People needed to hear your story. And you’ve done so much good with the money.’
Then Ada and I are alone.
‘You should tell them about your new book,’ she says.
‘No. And neither can you.’
‘Elodie—’
‘No one can ever know.’
This secret is my most valuable and Ada is the only person trusted with it. I do not want to be Elodie Fray, the girl who gained a career from a fake kidnapping gone wrong. But Mum was telling the truth; writing is who I am. It is sewn into the fabric of me. So I have written another book, submitted anonymously to another agent, penned under Noah Pine. His green vase sits on my writing desk; a reminder to live life doing the things I love. Without him, I’d never have quit my job and finished my first manuscript. I was lucky to have been loved by him. Writing this book under his name is the best way to honour that. To honour him.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I won’t tell them, I promise.’ Ada watches me over the rim of her champagne glass then asks, ‘Will you tell Josh?’
‘Of course not. Why would you ask that?’
‘I see the way you look at him. The way he looks at you.’
I glance over my shoulder. He is across the room, talking to Christopher, though his eyes are on me – were before I looked over – and my heart beats just a little faster. He smiles, all white teeth and dimples. ‘He’s kind,’ I say, dragging my focus back to my sister. ‘He plays football. And he cycles. It’s a universal rule that all men who cycle have kind hearts.’
‘And great legs.’
I smile.