AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I wish I could say I’d had the courage to wield the axe, as it were, but someone else beat me to it. Not that I expect you to believe me. After everything that’s gone on since then, I can’t blame you for thinking the worst of me.
The truth is, all I’ve ever wanted is to fit in. To have friends: to be loved and cared for, just like you. But I was left to sink or swim on my own. No one gave me an instruction manual. No one taught me how to speak your language. I had to figure that out alone. So I did my best to mimic you without ever understanding whatnormalmeant. Is it any wonder I made a few mistakes along the way?
But I learned from them.
I’m immune to guilt and I’m immune to fear, but I havea very good instinct for self-preservation.
I’ve lifted the veil and shown you my soul. I’ve told you who and what I am. I’ve admitted my crime: I killed my father, and I accept now that by your lights, what I did was wrong. It might surprise you to learn I actuallymisshim. I may not be able to feel fear or remorse, but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of love.
But the Glass House Murders – that wasn’t me.
I didn’t kill any of those people. I’d tell you if I had. I’ve done the work on myself. I’ve owned my past behaviour – it’s the reason I’m here now.
I’ve told you the truth. I’m one of thesafeones.
You can trust me now.
chapter 66
tom
This damn house.
I look up at the spectacular glass facade through the windscreen of my car. There’s no denying it’s an extraordinary property, but it doesn’t exert the same magnetic pull on me as it does on my wife. All this craziness only started when Millie went to view the Glass House four months ago. I suppose it’s fitting if it ends here, too.
I reread the text Millie sent me yesterday. It makes no more sense now than it did last night. I was tired then, so I didn’t question the idea that Millie had taken Peter off on an impromptu road trip to see if she could get him to open up to her about what’s going on in his head, but in the cold light of day I realise she’d never take him out of school without damn good reason. And I havenoidea why her phone is located in Abingdon. Maybe Stacey took Peter there for some reason and she went after them, but that makes evenlesssense.
I slide my phone back into my jeans and climb out of my car. I put on a good front for Harper when she was at panic stations earlier and wanted to call the cops, but I’m rattled. Millie’s never taken Peter on one of her prison breaks before. And now Harper’s gone running off to find them, and if I don’t follow her I’m going to look like a total shit.
My alarm grows as I walk up the road. Thedoor to the Glass House is not just unlocked, but wide open.No oneleaves their front door open in London unless they’re literally walking through it – not if they don’t want to be robbed or murdered in their beds. But there’s no sign of Stacey or anyone else going in or out of the house, no signs of life at all: no shopping bags in the hall, no lights on, no TV or radio playing. I’ve got a really bad feeling about this. It just seemsoff.
I glance back down the street. Stacey’s yellow Mini convertible is parked a couple of houses away, which presumably means she’s here. Maybe she’s upstairs, or out by the pool, and didn’t realise she’d left the door open.
I finally screw up the courage to go inside, bracing myself for some sort of jump scare, like I’m in a teen slasher movie.
What I find is my son, sitting cross-legged on the floor at the end of the hallway in his school uniform, looking for all the world like he’s waiting for assembly to start.
‘What the hell is going on?’ I demand, relief making my tone sharper than I intend. ‘Are you all right? Where’s your mother?’
‘Stacey and Harper had a fight,’ he says.
‘What sort of fight? Where are they now?’ I glance up the stairs to the kitchen, and then back out into the street. ‘And where on earth is your mother?’
‘Stacey locked us in the cellar,’ he says. ‘She put me in the freezer. Mummy got me out, and Harper came to rescue us, but then Stacey caught us and she and Harper started fighting.’ He delivers all this in a strange monotone, as if he’s rehearsing lines from a play. ‘Harper told me to call you. But I couldn’t find my phone and then there was an accident and I didn’t know what to do.’
The only thing I can get my head around in this insane catalogue of horror movie clichés is that there has been an accident andI still don’t know where my wife is.
‘Where are they?’ I shout. ‘Peter,where are they?’
He points dumbly towards theother end of the hall. A half-hidden flight of stairs leads down into the dark.
I run towards the stairwell, shouting Millie’s name. A faint sound comes from the cellar: a thump, then a low groan. A wash of panic floods through me as I pull out my phone for light and take the stairs as fast as I dare, terrified of what I might find at the bottom. If that woman has hurt Millie, if anything has happened to my wife, I will kill her, I swear to God.
I almost trip at the foot of the stairs. My foot connects with something warm, soft: someone.
‘Oh, Jesus, no,’ I breathe.
But it’s not Millie crumpled at the bottom of the concrete steps.
