The Engagement: An absolutely unputdownable psychological thriller with a heart-pounding twist by Samantha Hayes

Author:Samantha Hayes [Hayes, Samantha]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803148816
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2023-01-09T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

HANNAH – NOW

I don’t know why I google her name. Perhaps it’s because Rob is away on one of his meet-ups – something he’s done every couple of months for years. A group of his fellow industry mates get together periodically to discuss ‘all things financial’, according to Rob. It brought a smile to my face when he first told me what they got up to, as we both knew it was simply an excuse to stay in a decent hotel overnight, eat too much rich food, drink too much expensive wine and, hung-over the next day, play a few holes on the golf course before going their separate ways, most likely not having discussed anything financial at all. But tonight, there’s no smile on my face. Just a sense of relief that he’s not here, even if he did depart with less enthusiasm this time, as if he didn’t want to be a part of the gathering. I assumed it was because he wouldn’t be able to grill me further about the photographs, pummel me for information. He still doesn’t believe I don’t know anything about the dead girl, and he still can’t bring himself to confront Belle about the pictures. That’s my job. And I haven’t done it.

I type my mother’s name into the search engine. I haven’t looked for information about her for years, not since Belle was at primary school. Last time I searched, she had a locked-down Facebook account with a profile picture that made me gasp. I never use my outdated profile, and only have about ten friends on my list, and she’s not one of them. While she still looked like my mother, with her unmistakable pinched eyes as if there was a permanent bright light shining in them, her string-thin lips and her earlobes heavy with chunky gold hoops, there’d been something about her that screamed different at me. Beneath the features of the neglectful woman I remembered, there was an undeniable sense of happiness about her. It cut me deep to think that she couldn’t have tapped into it when I was in her care. When I was her daughter.

And now, clicking on her guarded Facebook profile again, I see there’s a more recent photograph of her staring back at me. In this one, her eyes are fully open, as if she’s finally woken up, and her lips seem fuller, perhaps kissed back to life. Part of me is happy for her. While the other part of me is angry as hell.

On a whim, I dig the card that Grant from the café gave me out of the bedroom bin. Back at my laptop, I google his name too. I’m not expecting to find much by searching for Grant Webster, and indeed dozens of results with the same name come up, but none of them seem to be him, or relevant. I know nothing about him – his job, where he lives, his age (in his forties, I’m guessing), and even an image search doesn’t give me anything to go on.

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