My Perfect Family: An absolutely addictive and unputdownable psychological thriller with a shocking twist by Melanie Price

Author:Melanie Price [Price, Melanie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wendlebury
Published: 2024-02-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Four

I dash back into the corridor and run until I’m face to face with that door once more. I take a deep, reassuring breath to prepare myself.

As I push it open, the cool air of the room floods over me and a chill tingles down the back of my neck. I shake as I move closer and closer to the table. My eyes fill with tears as I take in the outline of the battered body. It’s hidden behind the delicate folds of the sheet. But I blink my tears back and edge closer.

With every step, my pulse races. Is this going to be her or the face of a stranger?

And all at once, I realise that it’s both.

I guess I should have known that I would feel shattered at the strange unreality of seeing someone like this.

And I know now that there is truly nothing that can ever prepare you for that feeling of total devastation. For that immense feeling of the deepest loss when you see the person you loved most in the world laid out in a small, bare room. Silent, and not there.

As you edge closer, you begin to realise that the face that you once knew so completely does not seem quite theirs anymore. And when you inch another step, you start to notice the chalky white of the sallow complexion and begin to understand that despite the make-up the funeral home has applied to your dearest loved one, though it is them, it really is not them. Then, the creeping feeling like a fingernail streaking slowly down a chalkboard starts to spindle up your spine.

It hits me all at once – and for a moment, an awful giggle tries to escape me. I swallow it down with a shove.

Because at last, I’m close enough to properly see this eerily familiar face.

And there’s now no doubt in my mind that it is her.

My mum.

My knees buckle at the realisation, and I fly back against the wall for support as I try to keep upright against the shock.

I’d immediately jumped to the conclusion that Glenn was keeping the biggest secret of all: that the person who died off the cliff wasn’t Mum.

I’d been preparing myself for that reality the last couple of hours and had hoped that, somehow, that could be the case. Because it would mean that my mum would still have been alive somewhere out there.

But instead, in front of me is the one person whose face I know better than my own.

My mum, whose face had been full of a million and one expressions, but never this one. It is devoid of any expression, a sunken appearance etched across her features. It’s like I am gazing upon an incomplete waxwork version of her, where the creator had missed out on all the important details – all the details that made her look alive.

I drop my head over my knees to stop myself from retching. This figure that used to be my mother is covered in gashes, which are plain to see despite the funeral home’s efforts to cover them up.

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