CHAPTER 32
It was three a.m. when I finally returned to Sugar Manor. All was dark and quiet when I arrived. His car was still in the driveway, so it was official: he was sleeping over. I could imagine them cuddled up together in bed. I felt sorry for Ash—she was so lovely and didn’t deserve a canoodling wandering husband/boyfriend! But that wasn’t my problem, was it? My problem was getting all my things packed and then hightailing it back to Johannesburg. I packed my bag as silently as I could. I was almost done, when one of my shoes fell into the gap between the bed and the wall.
“Damn it.” I tried to grab it, but the space was too tight. I attempted to pull the bed away from the wall, but it was heavy and made a squeaking sound as it went.
“Shit!” I paused and held my breath, hoping that the sound had not traveled to the other side of the house. And when I was sure no one had heard me, I stuck my hand into the gap and felt around for my shoe. I couldn’t find it, so I turned my phone torch on for a better look, and that’s wheneverythingchanged.
“What the . . . ?” My breath and the words got stuck in my throat.Impossible!I pulled the bed away more, not caring about the noise this time, and shone my torch on the wall in utter disbelief. I ran my fingers over the lines and white powdery cement came away on my fingertips. My heart started racing in my chest, thumping like the hooves of wild horses. This wasn’t possible. But there it was . . .
I raced over to the letters and started going through them frantically, until I found what I was looking for.
It’s been thirteen days since I saw you. I’ve been making markings in the wall behind my bed, like someone in prison might do. Because that’s what it feels like without you—that I’m trapped in prison.
I rushed back and counted the markings on the wall; thirteen days and more. My mind whizzed around and it started to fill with other images and pictures and words and . . . I ran and grabbed more letters, and frantically paged through them, looking for specific paragraphs.
I’ll meet you in the passage tonight. I’ll be there at midnight. Don’t worry, I won’t be seen. I’ll hide in the stables and wait until it’s dark. I can’t wait to see you.
This was totally, utterly impossible! I dropped on to my hands and knees, so hard that the wooden floorboards shook. I lowered my head to the floor and rested it there, my brain racing and swirling so much that I gave it a little bash against the wood in the hope that it would stop. But, as I did, I heard a noise. I felt something move. I pulled my head up and looked down at the floor. A floorboard seemed loose. I stared at the thing. Instinctively, on some strange subconscious level that I had no understanding of, I knew what was under it. I knew what I was going to find, before I’d even looked. I took a deep breath, then I reached out with trembling fingers and slowly pulled on the panel of wood. It popped out with a click. My heart thumped as I scrambled to find my phone torch. I grabbed it with a very shaky hand and looked inside the hole in the floor. And, as I did . . .
I gasped and dropped the phone as the hairs on the back of my neck prickled again, just as they had when I’d first walked into the house.This house.This house that, on some level, I’d felt I recognized. This house, this room, this bed, these floorboards . . .
“Oh my God, oh my God.” I scrambled to my feet and looked down at the hole in the floor, almost too afraid to reach in and take it, to acknowledge what was there. But I had to. I slowly crouched back down and lowered my hand into the hole . . .
