Chapter 29
At three o’clock in the afternoon, when she woke up and stretched, letting out a satisfying yawn, her hand brushed across a piece of paper on the pillow next to her. She picked up the folded missive, which had a heart drawn on the front, and opened it.
You were right about the exercise. I didn’t want to wake you to say goodbye. So, I’m writing it instead. Bye! Thank you for an unexpectedly lovely morning. I’ll be smiling all day!
A xx
He’d drawn another heart after the kisses and she smiled, holding the note to her chest and thinking that this was the nicest way to wake up.
When she was showered and dressed, she wandered along to Nate’s in time for the children to be back from school.
Conner was sat up at the breakfast bar drawing, his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth as he concentrated.
Ellory was watching kids’ TV with a bowl of chopped apple on her lap.
Her plaits looked as though she’d slept in them for a fortnight, even though Casey knew that Nate would have tied them fresh this morning.
They both waved at her, grinning as she stepped into the warm kitchen diner.
“Hey, you,” said Nate, looking up from unwrapping his Christmas cake. He drizzled two large spoonfuls of brandy over the cake, and one more for luck, before beginning the process of rewrapping it.
“Hey,” she replied. “I can smell that cake from here. It should come with a ‘Do Not Eat and Drive’ warning.”
Nate laughed. “I’ve been feeding this bad boy brandy for a month; I am determined that this year my cake will be as good as Sylvie’s, if not better.”
“Whoa there! That’s fighting talk,” she teased. “But I’ve got to tell you that I don’t think Sylvie’s Christmas cake can be beaten.”
“Oh ye of little faith!” He chortled.
“Hey, can I borrow one of your gardening books? I need something vegetably.”
“Vegetably? Since when are you interested in gardening?”
“Since now. Anyway, I help around the garden.”
“Only because I badger you into it,” her brother retorted.
“Well, maybe if you weren’t such a tiresome nag, I’d be more inclined to help,” she said, poking her tongue out at him before going to the bookcase and pulling out a couple of gardening manuals. “So, when is your meeting with HP?” she asked, aware that little ears were always listening.
Nate looked at her, frowning. “Who?”
“You know!” she said, delving her hand into the loose-change jar and pulling out a penny, then touching her finger to it and making a tsst sound.
Her brother shook his head at her. “You’re such a child.”
“Am not! Anyway, when is it?”
He looked at Conner and Ellory, his smile slipping, and Casey knew he was worrying about potential ramifications. She wished he’d give himself a break.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said, matter-of-factly. “After school drop-off.”
She worked hard to tamp down her smile. “Where will you go?”
“I was thinking the Cote in town?” He said it like a question. “I thought about going to Flour Power but, I don’t know, maybe that’s too close to home or something…”
“Cote sounds great,” she said quickly before he could talk himself out of it entirely.
“What about you?” he asked, clearly wanting to change the topic. “You feeling okay after last night?”
“Yeah, I am. I haven’t looked at social media. I figure what I don’t know can’t hurt me. I plan to live in denial.”
“That’s the spirit,” Nate said dryly.
“Have you seen anything?” she asked hesitantly.
“Don’t make me your harbinger of doom. And besides, I haven’t got time for TikTok; I can barely keep up with the school WhatsApp group.”
—
In that continued spirit of denial, Casey wheeled her bike down Nate’s driveway without even bothering to check that the coast was clear. If she didn’t acknowledge it, it wasn’t happening, and besides, there was no reason for anyone sinister to have her home address.
A car door slammed just as she swung her leg over her bike.
“Casey!” someone shouted. “Wait up, please!” It was a man’s voice but not one she recognized.
She ignored him and went to push off, her calm replaced by adrenaline, but the man hurried around her and stepped in front of her handlebars.
“Please,” he said. “I’ve been waiting in my car for two hours to talk to you. ”
“I don’t know who you are,” she said, angling her front wheel away from him, but he stepped ahead of her again. “I need to get to work.”
“All I want is one interview,” he went on. “If you let me have an exclusive, I can keep the others off your back. I don’t expect you to do it for free. We can pay.”
“Please just leave me alone. I don’t want to give any interviews to anyone.”
“Listen, I get it, you want a quiet life. If you talk to me, I can make sure you have one.”
“I’m going to be late for work,” she said, maneuvering out of his way again, but the man was like an eel, slithering up in front of her every which way she turned.
“Ajay’s a nice chap, isn’t he? Got a bit of history, though, eh?
How’s your brother these days? Terrible what happened to his wife—and the kids so young too.
I spoke to Sam earlier; he’s keen to sit down with us, says there’s a lot left unsaid, would be great if you joined us, put your side across… ”
Casey jammed her front wheel into the man’s shin, and as he cursed and stepped back, she pushed off on her bicycle, pumping her legs as hard as they would go.
She knew he could easily catch up to her in his car, but if she could reach the park before he had the chance, she could leave him behind.
She didn’t look back, and she didn’t slow down, bouncing up onto the pavement to avoid being caught by the traffic lights.
Her breath was coming fast, and her thighs were screaming at her, but she kept pushing until she turned in through the ornate park gates and quickly rode into the wooded area, where there was no way she could be seen by any cars driving past the entrance.
She climbed off her bike, leaned it up against a tree, and collapsed down into a pile of fallen leaves at its base, breathing heavily.
They knew where she lived. They knew about Grace.
“Oh god!” she groaned. When she’d caught her breath, she called Nate and relayed the encounter.
“I think it would be best if I move out, just for a little while until things calm down. I’m sure I can stay with Nigel and Vern—”
“What are you talking about?” Nate cut her off.
“These vultures know where I live!” Her voice squeaked, hinting at the hysteria she could feel growing inside her chest. “He talked about Grace’s accident. I can’t have them around you and the kids, it’s not fair.”
She heard Nate’s sharp intake of breath. “You will not be driven out of your own home,” he said resolutely.
“But, Nate…”
“No, Casey. Just no. We’ll be fine. The kids will be fine. God only knows we’ve been through worse.”
She had nothing to say to that.
“Let me be here for you,” he said.
“You shouldn’t have to be dragged into my mess,” she argued weakly.
Bloody hell, she felt tired. And cold. Now that she wasn’t furiously pedaling, the sweat on her back was beginning to feel frosty, and the chill from the ground was rising through her bones; she couldn’t feel her bum cheeks anymore.
“We’re family,” said Nate. “If you’re in the shit, I am too. That’s how it works.”
“Lucky us.” She leaned her head back against the rough bark of the tree.
“Ha, yeah. I’ll put Sylvie and Ken on alert. One of my clients is a solicitor. I’ll drop her a line, see if there’s anything we can do to keep them away from the house.”
“Thanks, bruv.” Not for the first time, she was tempted to hop on a train and hightail it out of town, but her problems would still be there when she got back, and it wasn’t fair to leave Nate to deal with the fallout.
She took a couple more minutes to gather herself and then carried on to work. At the road that led to the goods yard behind the store, she held out her arm to signal that she was turning right, only to be greeted by a gaggle of people buttoned up in coats and scarves waiting outside the gates.
“There she is!” A woman in a blue peacoat shouted so loudly that Casey almost fell off her bicycle.
The way they converged when they saw her gave her no choice but to slow down, but she didn’t get off her bike.
“Casey! Is it true that you’re getting back with Sam?” yelled a man in a bobble hat as she tried to cycle past him, the handlebars wobbling this way and that as she tried to swerve around the crush of people.
Phones were pointed at her, some thrust close to her face, causing her to rear her head away from them. Two women with selfie sticks were giving a running commentary as they trotted alongside her.
“I need to go to work,” Casey said pleadingly. “Let me through.”
“Are you still in love with Sam Moon?”
“Why did you jilt him?”
“Do you have anything to say to Sam?”
“Have you read Hopeless Romantic?”
“Casey!”
“Casey!”
“Casey!”
She kept her head down. When she finally broke through into the goods yard, she’d hoped the signs of No Trespassing and Private Property might deter her pursuers, but no such luck.
They followed her in, still shouting a barrage of questions that made her ears ring.
Just as she was considering cycling back to her tree in the park, the steel door flew open, and Dave and Kerry burst out of it, arms waving, a stream of abuse flying out of their mouths toward Casey’s chasers.
Dave’s expression was apoplectic as he yelled, “GET OUTTA HERE!” At the sight of the giant shouting hairy man, the crowd fell back enough for Casey to cycle quickly forward.
Her colleagues parted for her to ride between them, then closed ranks again.
She kept on riding, bounced up the small step and straight into the loading bay.
When she was safely inside, Dave and Kerry hurried in behind her and slammed the steel door shut.
“Well, bugger me, I think that’s the most excitement we’ve ever had at Coopers and Co.,” Dave exclaimed, and Kerry agreed heartily.
“To be honest, I’d expected you to call in sick or something after this morning,” Kerry puffed as she caught her breath.
“What happened this morning?” Casey asked, feeling blindsided.
Kerry looked at Dave, who shrugged as though to say, I’m not going to tell her.
“Sam gave an interview on breakfast telly,” Kerry said reluctantly.
“About the book?” Casey asked hopefully.
“Kinda.” Kerry sounded apologetic. “He did talk about the book. But you know, after what happened last night, he also talked a lot about you…”
“Oh, for god’s sake,” Casey groaned. This is what denial gets you, she chastised herself. “Was it really bad?”
Kerry scrunched her face up. “Ummmmm…” She drew the word out. “It was…what would you say about it, Dave?”
Dave rolled his eyes. “I’d say the little weasel loved every second.
He said that seeing you again had brought up a lot of trauma for him and he’d like the chance to get some closure.
” He did air quotes around the word closure, as though it was a made-up thing.
He sniffed. “They had it playing on the TV in the staff room, otherwise I never would have watched it.”
This time Kerry rolled her eyes. “Yeah right, Dave. It’s always accidental, isn’t it? Like how you only watch Love Island because your daughter has it on and Real Housewives because your wife makes you…”
Dave held his hand out, palms up, a big soppy grin on his face. “What can I tell ya, I live with strong-willed women.”