The Boyfriend: Absolutely gripping psychological suspense with a shocking twist by Kerry Wilkinson

Author:Kerry Wilkinson [Wilkinson, Kerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803142746
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2022-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

Jodie stewed at the kitchen table, running through the events of the day. It had unquestionably been a mistake to confide in her mum. She had spent twenty-odd years not sharing secrets with her, only to blab about the important one. She wasn’t sure what had come over her, other than temporary madness.

It had been that sort of day.

Owen’s war game chattered down the stairs and, after the day she’d had, Jodie didn’t feel ready to confront him again over what had been said at the school. For once, his dad could do the talking – if he remembered to come over.

Her father’s death could have been something to bring together the family but, instead, they were further apart than ever. She’d learned her brother had apparently tried to start a fire, which her dad had covered up. Her mum showed no surprise that the T-shirt belonging to a missing teenager was in her ex-husband’s attic. Her son was apparently a bully – and then there was Jodie herself, with her five figures of debt and a series of questions that seemed destined not to be answered.

It occurred that the connecting part in everything was her.

Jodie was in her kitchen, nursing a mug of tea, lost in those dark thoughts, when the doorbell sounded three times in quick succession. She didn’t need to answer it to know her ex-husband would be on the other side. He’d always had that annoying habit of pressing buttons three times in rapid sequence. He did it at pelican crossings, or in lifts. A rat-a-tat-tat reflex that he likely didn’t know he did but which had always driven Jodie crazy. He did a lot of things like that.

She pushed herself up from the table and headed along the hall. When she opened the door, Darren was thumbing his phone and seemed almost surprised to be interrupted.

‘Is he in?’ Darren asked.

‘Nice to see you too,’ Jodie replied.

Darren shrugged his way into the house, not making eye contact as he pocketed his phone. He dealt with things he didn’t want to do by trying to avoid them – and then sulking if there was no alternative.

He paused at the bottom of the stairs as Jodie closed the door. ‘Do you want to come up with me? We can double-team him.’

‘That’s exactly what I was trying to avoid.’

Darren sighed and started tapping his foot, trying to come up with another reason to get out of talking to their son by himself. It was the same when Jodie asked him to talk to Owen about shaving when the first wisps of stubble appeared on their son’s face. The same when Owen needed to be fitted for his school uniform and she asked Darren to go with him. The same with dozens of things before. Hundreds.

‘Shall I call him down, or…?’

‘Just go up.’

Darren put a foot on the lowest step, paused, half turned. Jodie could sense the cogs whirring as he continued to look for a way out. She’d ducked

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