Deceive Me by Karen Cole

Author:Karen Cole
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus Editions Ltd
Published: 2019-05-15T16:53:21+00:00

Later, when I’m in bed, there’s a knock on my door. When I open it, Hakan is standing in the doorway swaying. He’s been drinking. I can smell the raki on his breath and his eyes are unfocused and full of lust.

‘Joanna . . . I . . .’ he says.

And I throw myself into his arms.

Friday, 22nd September 2017

Chapter 23

I should have protected her. I should have kept her safe. I’ve failed in the first and most important duty of a mother. I’ve failed spectacularly, and the thought torments me.

I’m tortured by memories: Grace as a toddler falling and grazing her knee, me kissing it better. Grace crying because some girl in her class had been mean to her and me storming to the head teacher’s office to complain. Her problems were so easy to fix in those days. When I close my eyes, I see Grace’s first smile and the magical purity of it. I remember that moment so clearly and I remember thinking, ‘I will always protect you. I never want you to be hurt. I never want you to feel any pain or sorrow, not ever.’

I’m clinging on to my sanity by a thread. On Thursday I wake in the middle of the night, after a couple of hours of shredded sleep, my heart pounding. It’s still pitch-black outside. The windows are wide open, letting in the cool night air, and Chris is lying next to me snoring away. How can he sleep so peacefully with Grace missing? I think. How can we both be lying here doing nothing? There’s a pain and a rage in my chest that is too big to contain in one small body. I can’t just lie here. I must do something. So, I climb out of bed, creep past Jack’s bedroom and down the stairs. In the living room I pace up and down, tugging at my hair. Thinking, thinking. Where is she? Where is she?

What if she’s somewhere nearby, ill or injured? We searched the area close to our house already but what if we missed something? I stare out at the empty house across the road. Its black windows seem to be trying to communicate something to me. Half the houses in our estate are empty. The gardens are overgrown, the swimming pools empty. I remember Grace’s fascination with that house, the way she always wanted to go inside and explore, and I’m seized by the sudden conviction that she could be there, right under our noses – hiding in plain sight.

Within seconds I’ve shoved on my flip-flops, grabbed a torch and am out of the front door. I haven’t bothered dressing and I suppose I must look like a crazy woman, wandering around in just my nightshirt in the middle of the night, but who cares? It’s dark and there’s no one about anyway. I cross the street and push my way in through the gate, up the overgrown path, treading gingerly through the long, dry grass.

The door is ajar, and I push it open and walk in.

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