The Ones You Trust
Page 27
She had texted Liam: Everything okay for tomorrow?
Easy to explain. Liam picked her up every day.
He had texted: Yes, all good, see you tomorrow.
Like he might do on any ordinary day.
Emma had gone home, anxious of course, and there she had found Brandon utterly oblivious to the fact that his daughter was missing. Then had come the dramatic scenes at Crayon and Clay. Then the first sighting of Emma’s little girl alone in Gallery Main Street.
Alone.
Emma had almost lost it.
Because why would Fox be alone?
She had no idea, except that Liam had come in the night, and he hadn’t said that anything was wrong, on the contrary, he had given her a nod, like reassurance.
Everything was fine.
And then, the final disaster. Pap had followed Liam home, and he’d found Fox, and Emma could still remember how it felt like she might vomit when the call had come in, and Franklin had said:
They’ve found her.
They’ve found her? How could they have found her?
She’s at your bodyguard’s house. A pap tracked her down.
Oh my God, no.
She hadn’t said that, of course, but that’s what she had been thinking: oh no, oh no, what are we going to do now?
Then, from the urgent news bulletins: shots fired. Paramedics on the way.
Cold, blind panic. That was how Emma remembered the final events of the day. Panic and prayers that she, at least, didn’t deserve to have answered: Oh God, please don’t let anything have happened to my daughter.
It hadn’t been her daughter. It had been Liam.
Liam had been shot, and he had been killed.
It had been gut-wrenching, horrible, but really, what could Emma do about it?
Nothing.
There was nothing she could do. Yes, of course she could have confessed her role in the saga but what would that solve? Nothing. And would Liam even want that? He had always been on Emma’s side. He’d gone along with the plan. And he had not survived it. But surely he wouldn’t now want her to go to prison? To lose her job, her reputation, her children, her freedom, her marriage?
No. He’d want for her to keep going.
Because he was Liam. Her friend and protector. Her confidant. Her partner in crime.
No, what Emma needed to do was get on with things. Her profile, not just locally but around the world, had exploded during the kidnap drama. She had been a Trending Topic on social media for forty-eight hours; she’d had 42,000 retweets of the #FoundFox picture she’d posted; and she’d had a Like from the Prime Minister, which had given everyone at Stellar a buzz.
And then the attention had faded. Because that is just how things work now, isn’t it? Some great scandal will break and everyone will be all agog and then, with lightning speed, something else will come along – a fire, a terrorist attack, a big star has a baby or a scandalous affair – and everyone will run over to look at that, instead.
It hadn’t felt good. The fading of attention, of glory, of Likes. And Emma hadn’t wanted to let the momentum go. And so she had saddled up for the next step in her career – the posting in London – which had of course meant going back into Stellar, for a glamorous new make-over.
‘You’ll need a whole new look,’ Maven had said. ‘More mature, professional. A woman who has been through a terrible ordeal, and survived. We’ll take new promotional shots and I’ll get them going viral.’
Yes. For more Likes, more retweets, more praise.
The process of getting Emma ready in the make-up chair had taken a little longer than usual.
‘I’m getting older,’ Emma joked. ‘It’s getting harder to make me look good.’
‘You actually look great,’ said Maven, dropping by to approve the look. ‘Open your eyes, see for yourself.’
Emma opened her eyes, and stared at the woman in the bulb-framed mirror, and for a moment, she had been startled.
‘Who is that? Oh, wait it’s me,’ she said, blind to the irony that yes, there she was, more famous than ever, and yet so corrupted as to be unrecognisable even to herself.
About the Author
CAROLINE OVERINGTON is a bestselling Australian author and the Associate Editor of The Australian newspaper. She has been a foreign correspondent in New York and in Hollywood; she has previously worked for The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and the Australian Women’s Weekly; and she has written eleven books, including some prize winners. Caroline lives in Sydney with her now-adult twins, and an adored blue dog.
Praise for Caroline Overington
The One Who Got Away
‘Caroline Overington has an ability to home in on the darker, unsettling sides of life, seizing upon topics you might see headlining the news and spinning them into gripping pageturners . . . Guaranteed to have you reading late into the night’ Hannah Richell, Australian Women’s Weekly
‘Welcome to 2016’s thriller du jour (hello Gone Girl) that will have you late for work’ Cosmopolitan
‘Twisted yet funny psychological thriller that culminates in a gripping courtroom drama’ Better Reading
‘The One Who Got Away is the new Gone Girl and then some . . . The twists and turns are masterful and the way she channels the voices of her characters is a dream to read. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Bring on the movie’ Mia Freedman
The Lucky One
‘You may think you know whodunit and even whydunit, but The Lucky One will blindside you . . . Not everything is wrapped up in a tidy bow: there are some loose ends and a rather ominous final page. If you like your thrillers with corpses in varying stages of decay, with seemingly clear motives for murder muddied by shock-horror twists at the end, The Lucky One delivers’ Weekend Australian
‘The Lucky One will keep you guessing until the very end’ Sun Herald, Sunday Age
‘Using her years of experience in the news industry Overington is able to draw on stories she knows to be true, rewrap them and with a touch of editorial alchemy convert them from base details to shining gems’ Riverine Herald
‘The Lucky One is a delightful romp through murder and the machinations of a greedy family. It will be enjoyed by lovers of farce and crime, particularly if you like the two combined. Fans of Dead Famous and Fargo will be captivated.’ Newtown Review of Books
Copyright
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2018
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Caroline Overington 2018
The right of Caroline Overington to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
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ISBN: 978 1 4607 5582 2 (paperback)
ISBN: 978 1 4607 0996 2 (ebook)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
Cover design by Laura Thomas
Cover images by shutterstock.com
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