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PROLOGUE
Night had crept in. A cold February moon hung in the clear, star-studded sky.
As I went to pull the blind, I glanced down briefly at the square of back lawn and the bushes encircling it. There wasn’t a breath of wind and the spiky branches of the hawthorn tree seemed unnaturally still, as if a creature of the night had swooped down and cast a petrifying spell on it.
A little shiver ran along my spine.
Why was it that a garden – loved in daylight – could transform into such a sinister and alien landscape when cloaked in darkness?
And that’s when I noticed it.
The hawthorn tree. It looked odd somehow and I realised it was the shape of the trunk. It seemed distorted, bulging slightly to one side.
At first, squinting into the darkness, I thought I must be imagining that a person was standing there, half-hidden by the tree. As humans, we’re hard-wired to see faces everywhere – in clouds, on the surface of the moon, in the froth on our coffee – so surely, I was conjuring a body out of the darkness, in order to make sense of the eerie garden at nightfall.
And then suddenly, the shape separated from the tree and my heart gave a giant lurch of shock.
It had moved only fractionally.
But it was enough for me to realise that there was someone out there, standing silently in the shadows, staring up at me...
One month earlier . . .
CHAPTER ONE
‘Guess what? We’ve found a house we like and we’re moving.’ Ellie leaned over the café counter towards us, pink-cheeked with excitement.
‘Really?’ Jaz, stirring her coffee opposite me, looked delighted for her friend. ‘Ellie, that’s fantastic.’
I smiled. ‘Congratulations!’ I knew that Ellie and her husband, Zak, had been searching for a property for a while now. The flat above the café was too small for them, what with Zak’s ten-year-old daughter living with them and their fond hopes of providing her with a little brother or sister in the not-too-distant future.
‘So what’s this house like, then?’ Jaz asked.
‘Well, it’s got four bedrooms and a lovely modern kitchen-diner, and a nice big garden. It’s in Orchard Close, just a five-minute walk from here.’
‘That’s a cul de sac, isn’t it? Safe for kids.’ Jaz hesitated. ‘Perfect for a growing family,’ she said carefully.
A shadow fell over Ellie’s face. But next second, she smiled and nodded. ‘Yes, perfect. So we’re moving. At last!’
‘That’s brilliant.’ Jaz got up, went round behind the counter and drew her into a tight hug, But I saw the tears in Ellie’s eyes and I knew this hug wasn’t just about the new house.
Ellie had been unable to conceive after more than four years of trying, so she and Zak had decided to embark on IVF treatments. So far, they’d been unsuccessful, but they’d decided to put the last of their savings into one final attempt. I knew Ellie was scared this last try would fail, just like the others.
They broke apart and I found I had a lump in my throat.
Ellie pulled herself together and smiled at me. ‘I guess you’ll be looking for somewhere to live yourself, Rori? Or are you too settled at Milo’s to want to move?’
I swallowed on the lump, still feeling ridiculously emotional on her behalf.
Not that this was unusual. I was a neurotic bundle of nerves these days after everything I’d been through with Nash over the past few years, culminating in my escape to Sunnybrook. Convinced I was being followed, I’d run all the way home last week from my shift at Roastery, Milo’s café. But when I arrived back, my lungs in agony, and I gasped my suspicions to Milo –saying I was sure someone was following me – he gently persuaded me that there was no one there.
‘We could have a drive around if you like?’ he’d offered, grabbing his car keys from the dish on the hall table. ‘If that would make you feel safer?’
But back with Milo in the warmth of his house – the place that had been my sanctuary since I’d arrived there before Christmas – I’d shaken my head. ‘I’m just being paranoid. Nash knows where I’m living. If he wanted to talk to me, he’d knock on the door. Like he did the last time.’ I shrugged ruefully. ‘Well,bashon the door is more like it...’
Milo had grunted. ‘Jaz said he woke the neighbours up, all the fuss he was making.’
‘It was scary,’ I’d agreed. ‘He was always like that when he was angry – full of threats and curses.’
