Chapter 33
Eve sat still for a moment or two, trying to make sense of what she had just seen.
Was Joe being spied on from the house across the street?
Why would Joe’s neighbour be tailing his probation officer?
And if the woman wasn’t his probation officer, who was she – and why had she looked so upset?
Eve turned to look back at the house the Lexus had just left.
As she did so, a curtain moved in one of the upstairs windows.
The police. It had to be the police. They were watching him. But why? What possible risk did Joe present that they were going to this much trouble to track his movements?
Unless … was Joe in a relationship with the woman?
Eve switched on her engine and drove home fast. She walked into the living room, where she sank down into the armchair and closed her eyes, breathing in deeply and counting to ten as she attempted to untangle the knot of new information.
Joe and another woman. Joe and an attractive young woman.
So that was why he hadn’t answered her calls – he had been with this woman.
She could have been inside the house with him for hours.
Maybe all day. Maybe she had woken up there.
Eve felt ashamed of the tight ball of pain and jealousy that had begun to swell up inside her.
She had no right to feel the way she did.
Joe wasn’t hers – he’d made that perfectly clear.
But she had thought he wasn’t going to be anybody else’s either, and after everything else that had happened that day – after the huge bust-up with Sascha and Mackenzie over her supposed relationship with him – she couldn’t help feeling hurt and used.
Mackenzie’s voice came into her head. ‘You haven’t given him any money, have you?
’ But she had. And now she felt foolish.
Had that been all Joe wanted from her? Had that been her purpose, all along?
It wouldn’t have been hard to tell from her appearance that she wasn’t short of a bob or two.
And then … Christ! First, she had cried on his shoulder and told him she felt cut off from her family, and then she had told him she was renting her home until she could find somewhere to buy.
She might as well have worn a T-shirt saying: I’m desperate and I’ve got a few hundred thousand pounds in the bank.
She squeezed her eyes shut as the shame and hurt intensified, then forced herself to breathe deeply.
What she’d seen didn’t make any sense. The woman was attractive, stylish and young, which might not be so surprising if Joe wasn’t a convicted sex offender, if he actually owned a ten-million-pound house in one of the most prestigious streets in Oxford.
But then again, wasn’t that the exact same way Eve had been lured in?
She could bear it no longer. She picked up her phone. Joe. You need to talk to me, she typed. Then she placed the handset in her lap and waited.
After a moment, there was a vibrating sound and a loud bleep. Eve jumped.
But it was her mum. Just checking you got home safely? I hope you’re feeling a little better?
Yes, Eve typed. Just the beginnings of a migraine. Under control now. Sorry to have left. I wanted to get home before it got too bad.
Of course. What a shame. We miss you. Dad sends his love.
Eve flopped back in her chair and closed her eyes.
She thought about what her family would be doing right now: her mum and dad, Mackenzie and Simon, Graham and Sascha.
Ruby and Ella, Sascha’s girls. She imagined them all huddled over a board game, laughing, the adults drinking wine.
Happy. She could have stayed the whole weekend at Sascha’s, as planned.
She could have acted like a normal mother, a normal daughter, instead of the desperate mess that she seemed to have turned into.
She moved over to the sofa and curled up, pulling the throw around her, then closed her eyes again, shutting out the world.