Chapter 40
FORTY
HAVEN
EVENING – VALERIE’S HOUSE
By now, Joel should have done what he was supposed to do and now it’s my turn to do what I need to do. That’s why I take out the stolen key I still have and put it into the lock on Valerie’s front door before going inside the cold, vacant house.
Once inside, I check my phone and see that I have a message from my boyfriend. My boyfriend who just pretended that he is single again.
I did it.
That’s the first part of this precarious plan taken care of, so I message Joel straight back with my appreciation.
Well done. It can’t have been easy.
That is an understatement, and the truth is, I have no idea how Joel has just done what he has.
But he is strong and, more than that, he has a passion for making things right.
That’s why we go so well together. That’s why we are not splitting up at all.
But it doesn’t hurt that Liane now thinks we have.
Do you still want to do this?
I send that message to Joel and wait for his response, keen to hear and respect his feelings and not just have tunnel vision in my pursuit of bringing his mother to justice.
No going back now.
That’s his reply and it tells me all I need to know, so there’s only one thing left to say.
I love you.
He replies with the same.
Now it’s back to the plan.
As I wander around the house, looking at all the piles of cardboard boxes full of things that Liane has packed away, I cannot believe how she was the killer hiding in plain sight all this time.
How I was in this house with her, hiding under the bed, worried that she might catch me because if she did, she would get angry, and shout, and maybe call the police.
But the reality was that if she had discovered me hiding here, she most likely would have done something much worse.
Something she had already done before.
Something like take my life without hesitation.
Thankfully, she never got that chance. But it doesn’t mean she won’t get it in the future.
That’s why I have to be careful. I’m playing with fire now.
Having heard the true depths of craziness that exist in my boyfriend’s family, I probably should have just left them all behind.
The second Scott told me about his mother and how evil she could be, I could have just bailed and never looked back.
Moved on. Got a new boyfriend. One who didn’t have a psycho for a mother.
Yet here I am, still with my current boyfriend and, right now, still trespassing in his grandmother’s home.
I never did like to take the easy option in life.
Because I stayed in that hotel room when Scott confessed to his mother’s real personality, and because I saw how broken that poor guy was about it all, I was the one who had to decide what happened next.
So I did.