Chapter Sixty-Nine
Sixty-nine
I let myself back into Jack’s house and head straight for the shower, doing my best to wash the sweat and fear away.
I thought Maggie and John were dead but this is too much of a coincidence, it all has to be linked, I just don’t know how.
The police have already confirmed that John survived the shooting.
Why did he never get in touch? I thought he cared about me, in his own way.
Did he blame me for what happened? The memory of John’s face had smudged over the years, but now that I’ve seen his name written on the back of the black-and-white photo, I know it is him, I recognize his eyes.
Why would the man I married have a picture of John as a child and pretend it was him?
I should go to the police, but I can’t trust them.
I can’t trust anybody. I try to think it all through, but none of it makes any sense to me.
My husband was pretending to be Ben Bailey, but that isn’t who he was.
I’m pretending to be Aimee Sinclair, but I’m not really her either.
Someone is pretending to be Maggie O’Neil; at least I think they are pretending. If John is alive, then what if she is too?
We’re all just pretending to be someone we’re not, but I still don’t know why.
The bathroom fills with steam, and I’m so lost in my thoughts that I don’t hear the door open. The shampoo stings my eyes, so I close them. I don’t see somebody walking into the room, or hear them climbing into the shower behind me. A hand touches my body, I scream and the hand covers my mouth.
“Hey, it’s only me, no need to wake the neighbors.
” Jack wipes the suds from my face, allowing me to see again.
My heart is beating so hard I can hear it inside my ears.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” I turn and he kisses me.
The whole thing seems deeply inappropriate at first, as though last night didn’t happen and this is somehow unexpected.
I suppose I just didn’t think this far ahead.
His hands move down my body, and the feeling they generate is so good, I give in to it.
I turn around, so that I am no longer facing him, and I love that he seems to know exactly what I want him to do without saying a word.
I lean against the glass and let myself forget everything else except this.
I’m enjoying things I thought I might never again experience, as though thirty-six were somehow old, and I were past my prime.
He doesn’t make me feel like that, he makes me feel new.
We eat breakfast afterwards, and when I say I need to pop out for a few hours, he doesn’t insist on me telling him where.
He doesn’t act as though he owns me, and this newfound sense of freedom makes me feel hopeful about the future for the first time in a long time.
I know I should tell him where I am going, but I can’t.
I don’t want anything to spoil this, whatever this is.
We all have secrets. Secrets from ourselves as well as from others.
We bury them deep down inside because we know if they were to slip out, they have the power to destroy not only us, but everyone we care about.
I make some more coffee and pour him a cup.
“What did I do to deserve meeting someone as nice as you?” he says, before kissing me again. I can still taste our kiss goodbye as I leave the room, hoping it won’t be our last.
I take my gun, my phone, and what little courage I can summon, then leave the house.
Nobody is nice all of the time.