No matter. It’s not much money, but it’s enough for a fresh start. To just disappear, and never be seen again. And if I am found, I was suffering from amnesia.
But no one will ever find me, I will make quite sure of it.
I pull out my phone, and let the digital voice speak that sounds like Shane, tapping in the words that I wish it to say. “Hello Isla, how are you today?”
I only came up for the cans of gasoline which I hid in the bottom of a large box of curtains. Isla will never see Shane – or anyone else for that matter – again.
“Mmm mmm,” she moans into the electrical tape covering her blood-caked mouth.
I spent some time torturing Isla using my husband’s voice, in an attempt to find out the truth of their relationship. It turns out, they just shared one kiss. I can still hear Isla’s voice in my mind, as clear as day, and I believe her: It was just a kiss, Shane! I’m so sorry! I’m not a homewrecker, we only shared one, drunken kiss…
But a kiss is still a kiss. He crossed a line, and there’s no coming back from that.
I’m surprised that she is still alive, to be entirely honest. I removed all her teeth, so there could be no dental records of her – if I were to go with Plan B of course.
With Plan A, Isla was going to be found. Because Shane kidnapped her, and took her up to his attic. It was up here that he kept her prisoner and tortured her, unbeknown to his wife, family and friends. He kept her naked and hogtied because he wanted to punish her for being such a slut and a temptress and yada yada yada.
Shane was such a damaged man, don’t you know.
I kidnapped her via services on the darknet, and now here she is, safely delivered to me, while Shane was at work. It was the day when I last went to see Jack at the car lot. I made sure that the people I paid used a voice modifying tool, to make her believe that it was Shane kidnapping her.
Modern technology is a marvellous thing. And when the police would interview her, she would have cited Shane as her captor.
But as it happens, we’re going with Plan B. Shane still went mad, and killed his brother-in-law. Then, he was so overcome with grief at his wife’s perceived infidelity, that he saw no other option but to burn down himself, his wife and his sister. All he saw fit to do was set the whole bastard lot on fire, overcome with grief as he was by his wife’s suspected indiscretions.
Isla’s body will be mine. Bones are bones. Ashes are ashes. Shane kept me locked in the attic for my remaining days, and now I am just a dead, burned woman, like my husband and sister-in-law. And as for the real Isla, she ran off on an amazing adventure to find herself. I ate into a good chunk of my budget to make sure that would happen, in the event of Plan B.
Plan B looks to be the one. Without saying another word, I take out the two red cans of petrol from the curtain box. I proceed to slosh a little of it around the attic, ignoring the whimpering woman.
Then I leave my little friend alone and go back downstairs to join my husband and sister-in-law.
*
Two sets of eyes swivel towards me when I re-enter the kitchen. Shane and Kirsty are seated opposite each other at the kitchen table.
On my way down to join them, I have sloshed a good amount of petrol around the house, in each room I have passed. Every room and hallway is ready to go, apart from the kitchen. Before I enter the kitchen, I leave the near-empty cans on the other side of the door tucked against the wall, out of sight. I have also made sure that the front door is locked, that Shane’s keys are in his jeans’ pocket upstairs on the bedroom floor. The same goes for the kitchen door – usually, the backdoor key dangles from the lock, but not today, because this morning I removed it from the door.
Kirsty is regarding me with a look that I know only too well – one of doctorly concern. To be honest, I am amazed that they haven’t yet caught the smell of the petrol that drifts around the house. Perhaps they think a window facing the street is open, letting in wafts of the heavy, morning traffic beyond. The house has been known to stink like a motorway if the conditions of wind and traffic flow are right.
“Shane and I were talking,” she says. I bet you were, bitch, I silently add, while smiling benignly. “Why don’t you pop into the surgery later for a little chat?”
“Yes,” I say sweetly. “Why don’t I? Shane, why don’t you open your present?”
He is looking at me like he has never seen me before, with an extra dash of worry and confusion. “I think I might get dressed, perhaps you two ladies could sit down and have a nice chat when I’m gone?”
Enough of this patronising tomfoolery. “Please, Shane. It would mean so much to me if you would just open the present. I’d like Kirsty to see it, too.”
Shane hesitates – he really wants to leave and for Kirsty to deal with what he perceives as my mental breakdown. But decency and his affection for me ultimately wins out.
“Fine,” he sighs. He looks at Kirsty across the table, as she is nearest the parcel. “Slide it over to me, would you?”
She does as he asks. “Gosh, it’s heavy, isn’t it?”
Shane tentatively lifts it off the tabletop. “It sure is. What’s in here, baby?”
“Why don’t you open it and see?” I say with a shy little smile.
He does just that, ripping at the shiny, red and gold paper, revealing the large shoebox underneath, lined with the plastic bags.
While they are both engrossed by the act of opening the present, I slosh petrol up the walls just on the other side of the kitchen door, and while they are not looking, I also slosh a little into the doorway for a good measure.
They are oblivious to me, for Shane has lifted the lid of the shoebox, and now they are both screaming and shouting, chairs scraping back across the slate floor. I want to pause a little longer to enjoy the show, but I need to get moving before Shane snaps into sensible mode and lunges for the door and for me. I know they don’t have their phones on them, as Shane’s is on his bedside table and Kirsty always leaves hers charging in the car.
I watch the chaos for a moment longer, savouring it. Kirsty is clutching her face like Munch’s famous painting, a high-pitched wail emitting from her screaming mouth. I should imagine that she’s very upset seeing her husband’s severed head in the box.
With their screams ringing in my ears, I slam shut the kitchen door, keys at the ready. I lock them in, and I can hear Shane bellowing in rage on the other side of the door.
Sure enough, a few seconds later the door handle rattles and Shane is screaming at me to open it. I take a step backwards, and reach into the back pocket of my jeans for the small packet of matches. I light one, and the flame flares into life at first swipe, as if invigorated by the petrol-soaked air enveloping it.
Without further ado, I fling the lit match at the kitchen door and immediately retreat at speed in the opposite direction as the fire wooshes into life. The kitchen door leading into the garden is solid, with no window. It is highly unlikely that Shane will manage to batter that down. The window above the sink is too small to crawl through, leaving them trapped. I know they will scream for help through that window, but the neighbours won’t hear, as our house is detached and our garden big.
I hurry up the stairs towards my room, and my exit. Behind me, I can hear their cries of terror, and the smell the smoke. I can also hear the fire crackling as it swoops through the house on a trail of petrol. I don’t look back, I never do, in every sense. No good ever comes from looking back.
I pause for a second when I reach my balcony door to grab my coat and bag where I have left them for just this moment. I have made this trip out my secret door many times, but this time will be my last. This will soon be nothing but a memory that I will bury.
I lock the door behind myself, and hurry down the wrought-iron, spiral steps, into the garden. I experience the briefest pang for Jemima, Kirsty’s daughter, but it passes over just as quickly. She will be okay, just like I am okay. It is better that she learns to fend for herself in life.
But it doesn’t matter anymore, because I’ve moved on. I will disappear like I’ve never been. Somewhere out there, the love of my life is waiting for me.
And when I find him we will start a family together, and live happily ever after.
THE END.
Hello, dear reader, you have reached the end of IN SPITE.
Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the tale.
Below I have enclosed a sample of a recent release, TWO DOORS DOWN, which is available for purchase on Amazon.
Please head on over to my Amazon author page for the full list of my work.
Thanks for giving my work a shot, I sure do appreciate it. Look after yourselves, it’s a mad, bad, crazy world out there.
Collette x
BOOK DESCRIPTION
TWO DOORS DOWN
BY
COLLETTE HEATHER
Claire Wilson has been in love with the boy two doors down for as long as she can remember. Mark Patterson loves her back…as a friend.
Now, both in their mid-thirties, Mark has finally found love.
But not with her.
Claire has never left the seaside town of Broadgate and has taken over her dead mother’s guest house next door but one from Mark’s childhood home. Lovestruck Mark – a brilliant artist currently living in London – is bringing back his lover, a notorious horror writer, to his childhood home of 27 Grange road. Ever since his parents died a few years back, he hasn’t had the heart to spend time at number 27, leaving his best-friend Claire to keep an eye on the place.
But things are different now. His girlfriend loves Broadgate – she is obsessed with the sleazy, decadent seaside town. She thinks it would be fabulous to do up the house and spend more time by the sea and Mark is happy to oblige.
But Claire thinks that there is something badly wrong with his girlfriend. Not that Mark could ever see it, for he is blindsided by his obsession with her.
Claire’s infatuation with her best friend is about to come to come to a head.
Welcome to Broadgate, a town with a dark past and even darker secrets, where love, desperation and evil will collide in horrible fashion…
ONE
MOON PHASE: WANING GIBBOUS
The Moon today is in the final day of a WANING GIBBOUS phase. This is the first phase after the FULL MOON occurs. It lasts roughly one week, during which time the Moon’s illumination grows smaller each day. At around day seven, the Moon becomes a LAST QUARTER MOON, with an illumination of fifty percent. The average Moon rise is between nine a.m. and midnight, depending on how much time has passed within this phase. Each night, the Moon rises later and sets after sunrise in the morning. During this phase, the Moon can be seen in early morning daylight hours on the western horizon.
7th October
“I can’t wait for you to meet her, I know that you’re going to love her.”
It’s a good job that I’m talking on the phone because I can’t keep my face from crumpling. His words are like a knife in my heart, each syllable a further, painful twist.
“She sounds lovely,” I say, with what I hope is a modicum of conviction.
“Oh, she is. She’s beautiful, inside and out.”
No, you are, I think, my eyes dangerously hot and prickly. Rapidly, I blink. “I’m glad you’ve found someone – I was beginning to think that you were going to stay a bachelor forever.”
“I guess I just never met the right woman.”
But I’ve been here all along, I think sadly.
“I guess not,” I say, my voice light and my heart heavy.
“How about you?” he asks. “Are you seeing anyone?”
I close my eyes for a second, picturing his perfect face. Or perfect, to me. I can see his close-set and intense, pale-blue eyes, shining with interest, his wonky half-smile that only raises the left corner of his mouth.
“No,” I reply, gazing forlornly around the empty, vast kitchen of my bed and breakfast. “Not right now.”
Fleetingly, I wonder how he’d react if I blurted out the truth; that the main reason I was still single was because no man had – or could ever – measure up to him.
“Well, you should get back into the dating game,” he says.
“Are you kidding me? Have you seen the guys in Broadgate?”
“Hey, that’s harsh,” he laughs. “I come from there too, you know.”
Yeah. And you don’t want me, do you?
“You’re different.”
I can feel the blush heating my cheeks and inwardly, I cringe in shame. I launch myself off the edge of the sink which I have been resting against. Thank God he can’t see me right now.
“I’m different? How so?”
“Just different, that’s all,” I mumble. “I’ve known you my entire life – you don’t count.” Oh God, I really don’t want to be having this conversation.
“I don’t count, now?”
He laughs, and all too easily I can picture his beautiful mouth, the way his smile showcases the top row of his slightly uneven, not-quite-white teeth. I hate how I think he has the sexiest smile in the world. The sexiest everything, in fact. I can’t remember not loving Mark – it is woven into the very fabric of my being.
“Of course you count, dumbass, you know exactly what I mean. All I meant was that you have to be the only person from Broadgate who’s actually made something of their life and managed to move away from this dump.”
“You haven’t done too badly.”
I make a funny pfft sound and wave my hand dismissively. “I’m a landlady, which makes me nothing more than a glorified cleaning lady. I’m hardly a world-famous artist, like you.”
“I’m world famous now? I wish. And stop being so down on yourself – you run your own business, and you make a living from it. That makes you a successful businesswoman.”
“I run my dead mother’s B and B,” I quip, for some reason his modesty and kindness making me feel even more sorry for myself. This man really is the whole package and I love him with all my heart and soul.
“And you do it very well. The only thing missing from your life is a man. If you don’t start dating again soon, you’re going to die an old spinster in your B and B. Or end up like Norman Bates – the female version of, anyway.”
As soon as the words leave his mouth, I can almost sense the way he physically winces on the other end of the line. “God, I’m so sorry, that was an incredibly stupid, insensitive thing to say.”
“Yes. It was, rather. And there’s more to life than men.”
I want to sound stern, but I feel the smile tugging at my lips. I could never be mad at him, it’s simply not in me. I love the way that he shoves his foot in his mouth on a regular basis – it is one of his many endearing qualities.
Besides, I often think the very same thing myself. Not the, ‘keeping the corpse of my dead mother’ in the attic part, but sometimes I feel my mother’s presence so strongly in this house; her memory is everywhere. The Atlantic View B and B was very much her baby, and, even though I have been running this place alone for seven years now, I still can’t quite shake the conviction that I am an imposter, that I will never run it as well as she did. Which is silly, as I’ve tripled the amount of bodies that she got through the door. Some days I feel grateful about this, and other days I feel trapped in a life that isn’t mine. A life that I can never break free from.
I will live and die in this B and B, of that I am certain.
“Never mind me, I want to hear more about this mysterious Holly Butler,” I say, putting him out of his misery.
“What do you want to know?” he asks with an irritating coyness. I can’t say that I have ever found Mark irritating – this has to be a first.
I think that I hate this Holly Butler already.
“Oh, I don’t know, how about everything? You spring on me the fact you’re in a serious relationship over the phone, and
I haven’t seen you since last Christmas. That’s almost a year, Mark.”
“You know you’re always welcome to come and stay with me in London.”
“And you know I’m usually stuck in this stupid B and B. I always seem to be waiting around for some bunch of guests or other to grace me with their presence.”
As true as this may be, I also get the feeling that I would be imposing if I were to take him up on his offer again. The last time I went, roughly a year and a half ago, he was so busy that I barely saw him. I was stuck in his flat, waiting around for him all the time. Also, I felt like I was in the way, not least because I took over his bedroom, forcing him to sleep on the sofa.
He laughs, and it strikes me then how genuine it sounds. I can’t remember the last time I heard him so damn pleased with himself, and a fresh bout of jealousy twists in my guts, because it is someone else who is making him so happy.
“Me not coming down so often is all about to change. When I told Holly that I have a place here, she got so excited. She says she loves Broadgate.”
My eyebrows shoot up in my head, I can’t help it. Again, I’m pleased he can’t see my face. “She does? What’s wrong with her?”
“That’s exactly what I said. She’s a writer, and she says she finds the faded grandeur and decadent vibe of the place pleasing and inspirational. I guess she has a point – it does have a certain, kitsch charm.”
“Kitsch. That’s one word to describe it,” I mutter darkly.
Broadgate isn’t that bad. I mean, if it was, you wouldn’t still be there, would you? You’d have sold The Atlantic View and moved on. And my parents loved it there.”
In Spite: A terrifying psychological thriller with a shocking twist you won't see coming Page 17
