The Moment She Left

by Susan Lewis

  Contents

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Fiction

  A Class Apart

  Dance While You Can

  Stolen Beginnings

  Darkest Longings

  Obsession

  Vengeance

  Summer Madness

  Last Resort

  Wildfire

  Cruel Venus

  Strange Allure

  The Mill House

  A French Affair

  Missing

  Out of the Shadows

  Lost Innocence

  The Choice

  Forgotten

  Stolen

  No Turning Back

  Losing You

  The Truth About You

  Never Say Goodbye

  Behind Closed Doors

  Too Close to Home

  No Place to Hide

  The Girl Who Came Back

  Books that run in sequence

  Chasing Dreams

  Taking Chances

  No Child of Mine

  Don’t Let Me Go

  Series featuring Laurie Forbes and Elliott Russell

  Silent Truths

  Wicked Beauty

  Intimate Strangers

  The Hornbeam Tree

  Memoir

  Just One More Day

  One Day at a Time

  One of the most thrilling parts of having a secret – especially the sort Jessica Leonard had been savouring these last two months – was the way it made her feel so powerful and excited. Added to that was the way everyone seemed to sense something different about her, but couldn’t quite decide what it was.

  Her friend Sadie had asked outright. ‘What is it with you?’ she’d cried, her laughter edged with notes of puzzlement and envy. ‘Are you in love, or something? You look like you are.’

  Jessica regarded herself in the mirror, feline navy eyes sparkling with a tease, soft, creamy cheeks flushed with knowing. ‘Is this how someone in love looks?’ she countered, mussing up her wavy dark hair and twisting her beautiful singer’s mouth into an awkward grimace.

  ‘No, it can’t be love, or you’d have told me,’ Sadie decided.

  Since she’d only known Jessica for a year Sadie wasn’t yet aware of how secretive her flatmate in halls could be, or how loyal (loyal was not to be forgotten, for it was one of Jess’s major qualities). And Jessica wasn’t surprised that Sadie was putting the new Jess down to love, it was the conclusion anyone would jump to. She knew she would.

  Electrified by the air of mystery she was creating, she blew Sadie a kiss and went back to rehearsing for a gig that night. She’d played at this particular ambassador’s home before, but apparently tonight she was going to receive an even more fantastic sum for her services than usual. She guessed the event must be for more people, or perhaps they wanted her to do more sets. She’d find out when she got there. She had the kind of voice, throaty, sultry, mesmerising, that had made her one of the most sought-after young singers on this exclusive circuit, and the many contacts she was making were opening up the kind of doors she’d hardly even known existed.

  One of these days she might share her secret with Sadie, but she was in no hurry. It would feel odd, she realised, to confide in someone other than her twin brother, Matt, who’d been her best friend and sharer of everything throughout their nineteen years. Not much had changed, in spite of them having been at different universities this past year. They were in touch every day, regularly went to concerts and exhibitions together, or parties, or sporting events (they shared a love of rugby with their father); they spent all holidays at home with their parents (Dad was definitely easier than Mum, especially these days), and whenever they could they performed together. Matt sang too, but usually he left the vocals to Jess and provided accompaniment on keyboard or guitar. Their parents – Dad mainly, but Mum could do it too – were constantly creating backing tracks for when she performed alone, making them easy to set up so she wouldn’t have to rely on anyone to attend gigs with her. Her repertoire was growing all the time, and the number of hits she was getting on YouTube was phenomenal.

  Right now, on this glorious sunny day in late June, Jess was making her way from the halls of residence in Marylebone across West London to Paddington station. Her tall, slender frame was weighed down by a monster backpack, a bag full of laundry, and a tatty old computer case containing vital laptop, both old and new tablets (latter still needed programming, Matt would do it), her precious music player and various chargers. Once on the train it shouldn’t take much more than three hours to get to the quaintly old-fashioned seaside town that she and her family now called home. They’d moved there a year ago when her dad had lost his job (been robbed of his job, more like) and her mum – well, who knew what to say about her mum? One day she was her normal upbeat self working with Dad (she never sat for him now the way she used to), and the next she could be floundering about in the depths of despair. It wasn’t that her mum didn’t like their new home and the people they were getting to know, it was simply that it had never been a part of her plan to leave the north, and she couldn’t seem to get her head around the fact that it had happened. As far as she was concerned they should never have had to pack up the lovely house where they’d lived since Jess and Matt were born, and start new lives in a place they didn’t even know. Worse than leaving, though, was the fact that there hadn’t been anyone around to wave them off the day they’d departed, and if any of the neighbours had watched them drive away Jess had been unaware of it because she’d kept her head down until they were out of the street, and she was fairly certain the rest of her family had done the same.

  Not that they’d had anything to feel ashamed of, it was just that everyone thought they did, and so that was how they’d behaved.

  Stupid really. She bitterly regretted it now, but the time had long gone for them to be able to look anyone in the eye and challenge them; life had moved on, so must they.

  Fortunately Jess and Matt had already sat their A levels and been accepted into their universities of choice by the time everything had imploded up north. However, the hurried move south, apart from what it had done to their parents (Dad was doing a better job of hiding it, but it had definitely badly affected him too), had completely changed the plans they’d made for a gap year. Instead of the fabulous world tour they’d had all worked out with a couple of mates, they’d decided they must stay close to their parents. Not so close as to keep them at home like a couple of nursemaids, but within easy striking distance if, for any reason, they were needed. So they’d taken up their places at uni a year earlier than planned.

  As much as she loved her parents and would always be there for them, Jessica couldn’t help feeling relieved that she was at University College London – in other words, a good two hundred miles away. Matt, on the other hand, was at Exeter and so felt that he had to go visit most weekends. Not that anyone expected it, her parents weren’t like that, it was just how he felt and Jessica was in no doubt that she would too if she were less than fifty miles
away. She knew it wasn’t easy on her brother; they talked about it for hours on the phone, although he handled it much better than she knew she would. He was a different sort of character to her, totally laid back, always able to shrug stuff off, never making a big deal out of issues – not even all the crap that had happened to their dad had seemed to faze him much.

  Of all the people in the world that Jessica loved most, her dad was top of the list. (Apart from Matt, but he didn’t count, when it stood to reason he was up there just by being her twin.) At various times in her life her mother had held the honoured top spot, but these days it was always her dad. This was why she’d made a firm promise to herself that while she was at home for the summer she was going to spend as much time with him as possible, sitting for him if he was in the mood to paint, going to galleries, which he loved, and generally making him remember just how very special he was. Not that he was moping around feeling sorry for himself. On the contrary, he actually seemed to be enjoying his new job, which was a big change to the old one, although still artistic in its way, for he was following in his father’s footsteps working as a furniture and picture restorer in a swanky antique shop in the middle of town. He’d made lots of new friends who Jessica and Matt had got to know during the last Christmas and Easter breaks, which wasn’t surprising given how friendly he was. It was just a shame her mum preferred to keep herself to herself.

  What had happened to drive them south was a secret so full of dark and negative stuff that Jessica just didn’t need it in her life, especially now when she had so much to feel optimistic and excited about.

  Starting as her mobile rang, she paused a favourite Sam Smith track playing through her earphones and clicked on. ‘Hey, you!’ she cried. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Everything’s cool,’ Matt told her in his usual laconic way. ‘Just wondering what time to expect you.’

  ‘You’re already home?’

  ‘Got here last night.’

  ‘So how are they?’

  ‘OK, I guess. Dad’s looking forward to seeing you.’

  Even though she knew it, it still pleased her. ‘How about Mum?’

  ‘Sure, she is too, she just forgot to say it. Dad’s getting everything ready for our gig at the Mermaid tomorrow night, so we can go over there in the morning to check it out. Apparently the tickets have already sold out.’

  ‘Wow!’ Jessica exclaimed. ‘It’ll be all those groupies who keep following you around.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ he said drily. ‘I’ve added a couple of special requests to the songlist, but we can go over them when you get here. Are you up for an Italian tonight, Dad wants to know.’

  ‘Deffo. Count me in. Will we go to the one on the promenade, what’s it called again?’

  ‘There are a few now, but Luigi’s is still the fave. Mum’s coming too.’

  ‘Great.’ That really was good news, for all too often it was just the three of them, and hard work as their mum could be at times it never felt right without her. ‘I should be there in plenty of time . . . Oh, someone’s trying to get through and my battery’s nearly out, so I’ll call you back from the train.’

  ‘Jess!’ Sadie cried excitedly. ‘Get ready for the most amazing news. We’ve only got the flat in Vauxhall for next year. The four-bed one?’

  Jessica immediately joined in Sadie’s shrieks of delight, oblivious to amused glances from passers-by.

  ‘I just had a call to say our offer’s been accepted,’ Sadie ran on, ‘but we have to start paying the rent right away. Are you OK with that?’

  Feeling a glorious charge of adrenalin lifting her skywards, Jessica declared, ‘No problem.’ They were going to pay rent for two months without actually living in the place, and it was no problem. Life was so cool.

  Caught up in a great surge of affection for Sadie, Jessica let the line drop and her earphones once again filled with the sound of Sam Smith singing ‘Lay Me Down’. More elation flooded her. She knew every word of the song, could feel every sentiment as though the music and lyrics were a part of her.

  She loved Sam Smith.

  She was about to descend into the depths of Goodge Street tube station when her mobile rang again. Seeing it was a voicemail, she held back to call it up, and when she heard the message her heart tripped to a fluttery halt.

  She pressed to replay and listened with her head down, realising that if she did what was being requested she’d miss the train, but it didn’t matter, she could always get a later one, or go in the morning if things worked out that way. She didn’t want to miss the meal with her parents, but this was somewhere she had to go, and with no one around to try and stop her she wasn’t going to fight it.

  Twenty minutes later, after changing on to the Central Line at Tottenham Court Road and taking it through to Notting Hill Gate, she was walking through a part of London that she’d only come to know in the last couple of months. Until then she’d always considered South Kensington or Knightsbridge, or a few other areas around the West End, to be gobsmackingly amazing. Then she’d come to Holland Park and her mind had been totally blown.

  As she turned from the main road, with her phone switched off to conserve what was left of the battery, the leafy residential streets became quiet, were practically deserted. After a couple of turns taking her deeper into the heart of the area, she entered a narrow, sun-baked alleyway that acted as a service divider between the backs of grand stucco villas on one side and elegant town houses on the other. Here there were only automated garages providing secure and spacious accommodation for rich people’s luxury vehicles. The door Jessica approached, about halfway along on the right, had a digital keypad beside it, but even before she could press in the code the door started to rise.

  By the time it was fully open and she could see who, and what, was inside, she was clasping her hands to her face.

  ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,’ she murmured, unable to believe her eyes. A flicker of fear flashed through her like summer lightning. This wasn’t what she’d expected. Was it going a step too far? Even if it was, how could she not take it?

  Two Years Later

  Chapter One

  Andee Lawrence was staring through her reflection in the window, across the busy promenade below and over to the foamy waves lapping the seashore. The sun was dazzling, dancing in bright, sharp sparks across the blue-black waters of the bay, glittering on the grassy headlands that jutted far out to sea, burning the exposed flesh of its many worshippers below.

  It was the beginning of summer: tourists were already piling into Kesterly-on-Sea, filling up caravan parks, campsites, hotels, B & Bs and holiday lets. Over on the beach they were taking hasty advantage of this rare sunny spell, setting up deckchairs and windbreaks, claiming their spot on the crowded sands while kids built sandcastles with moats, or splashed about in the muddy waves, kicked balls, tossed Frisbees and queued to ride the weary-looking donkeys.

  From today this was going to be her view, the scene she would look out at each time she gazed or glanced from this window. It would change with the seasons, of course, but this small, seafront apartment with its neat Juliet balconies, open-plan kitchen-diner and allocated parking space, was her new home.

  Her new home.

  ‘So this is it then?’ a voice said snappily behind her.

  Flinching at her husband’s tone, she forced herself to turn around.

  Their eyes met, and it was all she could do to stop herself going to him to try to soothe away some of the hurt.

  It wouldn’t help. It would only complicate matters further, since pity, guilt, regret were the last things he wanted, or needed.

  He wasn’t a weak man, he wouldn’t fall apart without her, although looking at him now, he was so tense, so pale, that it was as though his frustration might break right through his sun-weathered skin.

  Perhaps she was wrong about how able he was to cope.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he told her, unexpectedly, though the words came out roughly, resentfully.<
br />
  She might not feel it, or even think much about it, but she was beautiful, in a forty-something, understated way. She had arresting aqua-green eyes, high cheekbones, and a wide, generous smile that was beguiling and infectious. Her hair, dark and full, was clasped in a bundle of curls at the nape of her neck; her slender body was partly disguised by baggy cotton capris and an old T-shirt top.

  She rocked slightly on her bare feet, having kicked off her shoes at the door, a habit she’d been in all her life, thanks to her mother.

  Martin, her husband, had done the same. His leather flip-flops and her thong sandals were bundled together at the end of the hall, overlapping one another, casually entwined, comfortable with each other, the way they, she and Martin, used to be. No doubt their shoes were expecting to leave together.

  How strange she’d sound if she told him to take her shoes with him, if she said that they probably wanted to go so they could stay with his.

  He’d be more convinced than ever that she was losing her mind, the excuse he was giving himself, and anyone who cared to listen, for her decision to leave him.

  ‘You’re losing it, Andee, you’re not thinking straight,’ he kept telling her. ‘We need to sit down and discuss this, sort out what’s really going on.’

  He knew exactly what was going on and she truly didn’t want to spell it out again. Once had been hard enough, repeating it wouldn’t make it easier.

  ‘I’m sorry, sorrier than you’ll ever know,’ she’d said when she’d finally plucked up the courage to tell him, ‘but I don’t want to be married to you any more.’

  His shock, when he’d first heard it, had frozen him for a moment before he’d stumbled into uneasy laughter. She was joking, of course.

  She wasn’t and he could see it.

  ‘Why?’ he’d asked, genuinely bemused. His ruggedly handsome face had seemed so much younger all of a sudden, reminding her of how he looked in photographs his mother had of him as a child. He was lost, vulnerable, needing someone to show him the way. ‘I thought we – you – were happy,’ he said.