Chapter 2
Twenty-Two-Year-Old Woman Dies in a Hit-and-Run
A two-month-old headline
Grace
Seven Weeks Later
There had been three decisive turning points in my life so far. The first was the birth of my younger brother, Jason. The second was the decision to quit my law degree and get a job as a chambermaid at The Darlington. The third, and by far the most terrible, was the death of my twin sister, Amy.
It hadn’t just changed my life; it had thrown me completely off course.
Like a car taking a curve too fast, I had veered off the road and plummeted off a cliff, doing several somersaults.
After falling for an eternity, I’d landed headfirst. Every bone in my body felt like it had been broken into shards that pierced my heart deeper and deeper with every breath.
“Are you coming, Grace? We have to go,” my dad bellowed through the flat.
I blinked blearily, snapping back to reality.
It took me a moment to realise I wasn’t lying bleeding at the bottom of a cliff.
I was standing unscathed in my bedroom, getting ready for my first day back at work.
After Amy’s accident, I’d taken some time off.
But sitting around at home doing nothing wasn’t going to bring my sister back.
“Be right there!” I called back.
Not wanting to keep him waiting any longer, I cast a final glance in the mirror.
Thanks to the magic of concealer and the power of caffeine, I looked like a semifunctioning human being.
I tried curving my lips up into a smile.
It looked fake and joyless. The muscles in my face carried out the movement, but my heart felt none of the feelings that were supposed to accompany a smile.
It was still paralysed by grief and pain, and that wasn’t about to change in the next few minutes.
I decided I was as ready as I’d ever be.
I grabbed my handbag and cast one last look around my room, taking in the light furniture with its scuffed edges and the unmade bed that was only just big enough for two people.
The beige curtains that were still drawn.
I hadn’t bothered to open them. It was late February in London, and the city lay bleak and grey under the rain.
I walked down the hallway into the kitchen.
My dad was sitting at the table with my mum and Jason.
They all looked up when I came in—but not really at me.
Their eyes settled on the strap of my bag, the pendant on my necklace, the neckline of my jumper.
It had been like this for two months. They avoided looking at my face at all costs.
The reason: I was the spitting image of Amy. A flesh-and-blood reminder of their loss. My hair was blond like hers. My eyes brown like hers. My lips curved like hers. And my nose angular like hers.
I was her.
She was me.
Only she was dead, while I was alive, constantly reminding my family of the daughter and sister they’d lost. I didn’t blame them—if I could, I would have avoided my own reflection in the mirror too.
In the days after Amy’s death, I’d done just that.
I had let myself go completely, until my friends Rose and Kate had forced me to shower and go out for a walk.
“We can go,” I said. My voice sounded hoarse, even though I hadn’t cried yet today.
It was as though the last few weeks of tears had permanently damaged my vocal cords.
Some days I hadn’t been able to stop crying at all.
My cheeks had been wet from morning till night, and I’d felt as though I were drowning in grief.
My dad pushed back his chair and picked up the briefcase at his feet.
He gave my mum a kiss on her forehead and ruffled Jason’s light-brown hair in parting.
In typical teenage fashion, Jason let out an annoyed groan and whipped out his phone to fix his hair with the help of the front camera.
Before Amy’s death, he had been trying to impress Tamil, a girl in his class, but I didn’t know how that was going anymore.
I wished Jason and my mum—who taught at his school—a good day and then left with my dad.
His Toyota was parked in front of the house.
We got in, and he started the engine. I usually took the Tube to work.
It was far more practical than driving, since The Darlington was in the busy city centre, right on the Thames near Big Ben and the London Eye.
But my dad had insisted on driving me today, even though it meant a detour for him.
“Ready for your first day back at work?” he asked as we came to a stop behind a long queue of cars stuck at a red light.
Rush hour in London was hell, and I was already regretting having taken up his offer.
Not just because of the traffic, but because of the small talk.
Ever since Amy’s death, every conversation I had with my parents felt strained.
It was like we were strangers forced to live together rather than family.
I shrugged and toyed nervously with my rings. I had a large collection of them. As a teenager, I’d made a habit of buying a ring in every new place I visited. My friends and relatives had eventually started bringing me back rings from all over the world. “I guess so.”
“You know it would be fine with me and your mum if you took more time off. Amy has only been . . . gone . . . for two months.” He stumbled over the words.
He would say that Amy was “gone,” that she’d “passed” or was “no longer with us”—but never that she was dead.
It was as if he couldn’t bring himself to utter the word, with all its finality.
“You don’t have to force yourself to go back to work if you’re not ready. ”
“You’ve been back at the hospital for weeks.”
He frowned. The furrows in his brow had grown deeper in the last few weeks. “That’s different.”
I didn’t have to ask what he meant. Amy had been killed on a side street next to The Darlington.
The place where it had happened was even visible from some of the rooms. The accident had taken place on the evening of the Pearl Gala, a charity event that took place at the hotel every year between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Amy had been on her way to pick me up to go to the pub when she’d been hit by a car.
Judging by her injuries, the driver had been well over the speed limit in the Low Traffic Neighbourhood.
They’d hit Amy head-on and hadn’t had the decency to stop, let alone get help.
A stranger had called an ambulance, but it had been too late.
The paramedics hadn’t been able to save her.
“Maybe you should look for a new job,” my dad said, breaking my silence. He’d hinted at the idea plenty of times before, but this was the first time he had said it outright.
“I don’t want to.”
“It’s not healthy to be confronted every day with the place where your sister was taken from us,” he said in his gentle but clinical doctor’s voice, as if I were a relation of some patient who had died on his operating table. “I’m sure people at the hotel would understand.”
“I don’t want a new job,” I replied, staring out the window.
My dad sighed, as if I were the source of all his troubles. “Please consider it, at least. You don’t have to go to university. You can work at another hotel. They’re two-a-penny in this city. I’m sure you’d find something new quickly, and if money is tight, your mum and I can help you out.”
I shook my head. I was resolute about my decision to stay on at The Darlington.
It had nothing to do with money or the fear of being unemployed.
It was about justice, pure and simple. The Darlington was my only connection to my sister’s death.
Amy’s life may have been lost in an accident, but I was sure it was no accident that the driver hadn’t yet been caught.
The police showed a shocking lack of interest in the case.
It was almost as though they’d been paid to put their feet up.
And the mysterious disappearance of the hotel’s CCTV footage, which must have recorded the accident, was never questioned either.
But I would ask questions until the bitter end.
Until my sister’s murderer was arrested.
Forty minutes later, my dad double-parked in front of the hotel, setting off a chorus of car horns. I grabbed my bag and opened the door.
“Thanks for driving me. I’ll take the Tube back later.”
“If you want to,” he said, his tone concerned and his smile strained.
I climbed out, zipping up my jacket to ward off the cold wind, and headed straight for The Darlington.
The building never failed to impress. London was a mix of old and new, modern and historic.
Glass skyscrapers were just as much a part of the skyline as massive stone walls and grand old buildings.
With its cream limestone facade, sweeping arches, and dainty wrought-iron balconies, The Darlington fell somewhere in between.
Rather than use the hotel’s main entrance, I headed for the back door, which was used by staff and celebrities who wanted to sneak in unnoticed. Staring straight ahead, I tried to block out the street where Amy had been killed. Even so, the hairs on the nape of my neck stood on end.
I fished out my key card from my bag as I walked, so I would be ready to scan it as quickly as possible when I reached the entrance.
But with my trembling hands, it took three attempts before the reader flashed green and the lock clicked open.
I hurried inside and pulled the door shut behind me, as if to create a barrier between myself and the place where the accident had happened.
I’d expected coming back wouldn’t be easy, but even so, I was surprised by how tight my chest suddenly felt.
Memories of that night flooded back. After leaving Kate and Henry to their happily ever after, I’d waited impatiently for Amy in the hotel foyer.
Thanks to the chatter, laughter, and music coming from the ballroom, I’d barely noticed the brief wail of the sirens.