The Family Across the Street
A totally unputdownable psychological thriller with a shocking twist
Nicole Trope
Books by Nicole Trope
The Family Across the Street
Bring Him Home
The Girl Who Never Came Home
The Life She Left Behind
The Nowhere Girl
The Boy in the Photo
My Daughter’s Secret
Available in Audio
Bring Him Home (Available in the UK and the US)
The Girl Who Never Came Home (Available in the UK and the US)
The Life She Left Behind (Available in the UK and the US)
The Nowhere Girl (Available in the UK and the US)
The Boy in the Photo (Available in the UK and the US)
My Daughter’s Secret (Available in the UK and the US)
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Epilogue
The Boy in the Photo
Hear More from Nicole
Books by Nicole Trope
A Letter from Nicole
The Girl Who Never Came Home
The Life She Left Behind
The Nowhere Girl
My Daughter’s Secret
Acknowledgements
*
For Mikhayla
As your wings grow stronger and the distances you fly grow further, remember the nest is always here.
Prologue
15 December, 2.30 p.m.
Margo lifts her son, Joseph, from his cot after his afternoon nap. His back is damp despite the air conditioning in the house. Outside the cicadas wail in the unrelenting heat. The temperature has reached the high of thirty-nine degrees predicted by the weatherman this morning, and Margo hopes that the cool change he also promised will be along soon.
‘You’re a hot baby, aren’t you?’ She smiles at her five-month-old son, and he gurgles in reply. ‘Welcome to your first Australian heatwave – the first of many, I’m sure.’ She smooths his damp brown curls with a soft brush and wipes his face with a cloth as she holds him.
As she lays Joseph down on his change table, she hears a crack outside, a burst of sound, and the loud noise startles him, his little mouth opening, blue eyes creasing as he gets ready to cry.
‘Oh no, baby, it’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a car backfiring or a tree branch falling. Don’t cry, little man.’ She speaks in a low, soothing tone and his face relaxes. Scott thinks he’s too sensitive to noise because Margo insists on the house being virtually silent while he sleeps, but Scott is at work all day and doesn’t have to get up at night, and Margo knows that Joseph sleeps better when it’s quiet.
The sound was close; she hopes it’s not a branch from one of the big brush box trees on the street outside. A few months ago, during a storm, one fell onto a car parked outside a house down the street, shattering the windscreen and denting the bonnet. At least there was no one inside the car at the time. After the storm all the neighbours came out to watch the branch being removed and the car towed away. It was the most exciting thing to happen on the street all year.
Joseph smiles up at her.
‘Now then,’ she says, as she changes his nappy, ‘what are we going to do this afternoon? Shall we go for a walk around the park? We can look at the ducks. “Quack, quack,” says the duck.’
She lifts him up and lets him look in the mirror, something that he loves to do. ‘Who’s that little boy? Is it Joseph? Is that Joseph in the mirror?’ She smiles at their matching pale blue eyes.
And then two more bursts of sharp sound fly through the air, startling Margo, who jumps a little.
Joseph starts to wail.
She carries him over to the window. Tall trees that line the road obscure the other houses, but Margo has a good view of the usually quiet street.
She wouldn’t tell anyone this, but to her, the noises sounded like gunfire, a burst of thick sound that pierced the air. Not that she’s heard gunfire anywhere except on television and in movies, but she cannot imagine what else it could be.
She experiences a moment of panic, suddenly aware of how isolated she is in her new house. She goes to find her mobile phone to call Scott at work.
Returning to the window, she waits for him to answer, clicking her tongue when she gets his message bank. Heat rises off the asphalt. A white van is parked outside Katherine’s house across the street. Margo looks a little to the side and sees the old busybody Gladys standing on the pavement, staring at Katherine’s house, her phone to her ear.
Margo watches as a police car pulls to a lazy stop outside the house. She and Scott have lived here for nine months now and she’s never even seen a police car cruise past on the way to somewhere else. She stands frozen at the window, watching a drama unfold right across the street from her.
Gladys says something Margo can’t hear, her hands gesturing frantically at Katherine’s house as the police slowly climb out of the car, and then there is nothing slow about them. They start running, a policewoman talking into the radio attached to her shoulder.
‘Oh my goodness,’ Margo says, holding her son close, her hands trembling as she remembers the sound of a slammed car door this morning, a hoarse shout and then John’s car screeching out of the neighbours’ driveway at 6 a.m. She remembers thinking, That must have been some argument.
She was going to mention it to Scott, ask him what the couple might have argued about. John and Scott enjoy a beer on a Sunday afternoon sometimes, though she and Katherine have never really had much to say to each other. Margo thought that might have something to do with their different stages of life. Katherine’s twins are five years old and the baby stage is far behind for her while Margo still feels like such an amateur.
But when Scott finished his shower this morning, Joseph needed a nappy change and she hadn’t had the chance to speak to him. I’ll ask him tonight, she remembers thinking.
And then she went about her day, thinking no more about it. Couples argue, husbands leave in a huff and everything is resolved that evening.
But the police don’t get called for just an argument.
Margo bites her lip. She plants a soft kiss on her son’s cheek and wonders exactly why the police have been called.
‘Nosy old Gladys will know what’s going on,’ she says to her son. She goes to her front door and opens it, a blast of heat enveloping her cool body.
‘What’s happening, Gladys?’ she calls, f
eeling like she’s the nosy one now but dying to know.
‘Oh, Margo,’ says Gladys when she sees her, ‘go back inside, go back. He has a gun. Go inside.’
‘What?’ Margo asks, believing she’s misheard the older woman.
Gladys waves her arms. ‘Get back inside, Margo,’ she shouts. ‘It’s Katherine, it was… Didn’t you hear? It was gunshots… Please go back, take the baby away.’
Margo opens her mouth to reply, but then Joseph moves in her arms and fear makes her clutch her son tight. Stepping back, she slams and locks the front door, and then she takes Joseph to her bedroom, locking that door behind her as well. She sits down in front of her bed, out of sight of the window, and holds her phone, dialling Scott again and again though she keeps getting his voicemail.
It doesn’t seem long before the air is filled with sirens, drowning out the cicadas and every other sound. Margo waits on the floor with her son, her heartbeat drumming in her ear. Scott is not picking up but she keeps hitting his name on her screen, overwhelmed with the urge to tell him she loves him.
‘It’s fine, baby, it’s fine,’ she murmurs to Joseph, who is lying on his back beside her, trying to get his feet into his mouth. ‘It’s fine,’ she repeats as she waits for her suburb to return to the peaceful place she has grown to love, though she knows, somehow, that it will never be the same again.
1
Logan
Seven hours ago
Logan pulls his van to a stop outside a large house with an emerald-green front lawn, cut short and neat. The hedging in front of the black metal fence is precisely square. An arch over the front gate has ivy curled around it, white flowers dotted here and there in the green foliage.
The van’s temperature gauge reads twenty-four degrees and it’s only seven thirty in the morning. It’s going to be a scorcher of a summer’s day and he’s grateful that he only has to get in and out of the van to deliver his parcels, rather than actually working outside. He takes a deep breath and silently thanks his brother-in-law, Mack, for giving him this chance.
‘I’m doing this for Debbie, mate,’ Mack told him two months ago when he gave him the keys to one of his vans. ‘I’ve always liked you, you know that, but I can’t have anything out of order on your delivery runs. The first complaint I get and you’re out on your ear – okay?’ he said, pulling at the tufts of hair on his chin he insisted on calling a beard.
‘I understand,’ Logan answered, looking up at his tall, skinny brother-in-law and clenching his fists to control the anger he was feeling, knowing it was more humiliation than anger. He was too old to be begging for jobs. If Mack had spoken to him in such a condescending way five years ago, he would have felt the need to belt him one, brother-in-law or not. But that was then and this is now.
He gets out of his van and breathes in the morning heat, suffused with the scent of honeysuckle and something else that could be rotting fruit. The garbage bins line the street, waiting for collection, which explains it. He listens and can hear the hiss, whine and crash of a garbage truck doing its job a few streets away. Best if he gets this delivered and moves out of their way.
A text pings on his phone and he looks down.
Call me.
‘Not likely,’ he mutters and shoves the phone in his pocket, irritated that he can’t seem to get through a day without his past tapping him on the shoulder. His past is why he’s driving a van for Mack and nodding his head each time his brother-in-law tells him he needs to stay on the straight and narrow. His past and his hopes for the future with Debbie, who has the same high cheekbones, blonde hair and hazel eyes as her overprotective older brother but combined with full lips and a dimpled smile. Anna, Mack’s wife, is also tall and thin and blonde. In group photos with Debbie’s family, Logan – with his thick black hair, blue eyes and inked skin – looks like he must have wandered into the frame by mistake.
He slides open the side door of the van and locates the box containing what is clearly a new laptop. It needs to be signed for or he has to leave it at the local post office at the end of the day. He really hopes the owner is home. He hates driving around all day with expensive electronics in the back of the van. The fear of something being stolen and him getting the blame is always there.
Looking through the black metal gate at the front of the house, he admires the profusion of pink and purple in the summer garden and is relieved to see that there is no dog around. Two scooters lie on the grass, one blue and one neon-pink. They look about the same size; the kids who live here must be close in age.
He pushes open the gate and walks up the stone path to a timber front door with a large black handle and a small metal square that must be a peephole. He hits the button on an electronic pad next to the front door and listens as a bell chimes throughout the house – some tune he recognises but can’t place.
He waits, expecting to hear footsteps or kids shouting. It’s a bit early for them to have left for school already and he hopes they’re still home. There’s a school just one street away; he reminds himself to drive carefully through the area for the next couple of hours.
Logan looks around, admiring the large grey pots filled with marigolds by the front door. Their whole flat could fit into just the front garden of this house. The back garden must be even bigger, and he knows there will be a swimming pool and maybe even a tennis court. He feels no envy about this. Everyone has their life to live and their path to follow. He likes where he is right now, despite the boring job and his slightly condescending brother-in-law. He likes that he has a brother-in-law and a job.
He hears a scrape and realises that the peephole has been opened from the inside.
‘Yes?’ says a woman’s voice, hesitant and wary.
‘Yes, I have a delivery here for Katherine West.’ He leans forward a little but he can’t see anything except dark glass.
‘Thanks… thanks… can you just leave it by the door?’
‘Sorry, but it needs to be signed for.’
‘I can’t do that now,’ says the woman.
Logan sighs. If he leaves the computer by the front door and she calls to complain it never got to her, it will mean the end of his job.
‘I really can’t leave it here, ma’am. It has to be signed for. If you need to… get dressed or something, I can wait.’
‘No,’ says the woman. ‘I can’t open the door.’ Her voice is firm, as though she is explaining something to him that he should understand.
He feels his face flush. He is already sweating out here in the morning heat.
‘I can’t leave it here so I’ll have to take it back to your local post office, okay? You can pick it up there any time after five.’ He steps back, ready to go before he says anything stupid. He hates the way some of these people in their big houses look at him. He imagines her thought process as she peers at him through her peephole. She won’t be able to see much except the small skull and crossbones tattoo on his cheekbone but that’s enough for her to make a decision about who he is.
He gets it, but he’s in a uniform and he’s holding the box. He lifts it higher, almost covering his face. A trickle of sweat slides down his spine. The woman doesn’t say anything else, although he can sense she hasn’t moved away from the door. This is not worth it. He turns around.
‘I can’t open the door,’ she repeats. ‘Please just leave the box,’ she says as he steps onto the path to leave. ‘Please understand.’
‘I’ll leave it at the post office – you can collect it after five.’
‘Please…’ Her voice is strained, pleading.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ he says firmly.
He turns again and walks to the front gate, cursing under his breath. Sometimes he feels like the first delivery sets the tone for how the whole day will go. Judging by this one, it’s going to be a stinker.
Back in his van he cranks up the air conditioning and takes a few deep breaths. He mentally counts to twenty, feeling the anger settle and cool inside him. When Aaron firs
t told him about the breathing and the counting, he thought it was crap. But the counsellor asked him to give it a try, and Logan has found that it does actually work. Logan was not the kind of person who took the advice of a psychologist. He wasn’t the kind of person who even went to see a psychologist, unless it was mandated, and it had been mandated by the court. But once he started talking to Aaron, once he stopped sitting in every session with his arms folded, he actually got a lot out of it.
‘Wouldn’t you like someone to know what you’ve been through? Not what you’ve done, but what you’ve been through,’ said Aaron after their third silent session.
‘Maybe I haven’t been through anything,’ Logan said, feeling his jaw tighten.
‘Really?’ Aaron looked around the room, at the pale green walls and the bars on the window. ‘Really?’
Logan scratched at his chin, where he was growing a beard, and said, ‘My father used to slap me across the back of my head and laugh, telling me I was his drunken mistake.’ As he said the words, he saw the look of disgust on his father’s face, the same face he saw in the mirror now. Debbie says that all the ink is so that he looks different to the man who greeted his first tattoo with the words, ‘Makes you even uglier than you were and that’s saying a lot.’
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