“Please. Don’t,” she whispers through her bloody mouth.
I draw the knife across her neck, and then the world goes black.
Chapter Forty-Two
Leah
Time stops and my son is suspended in the air. Time stops and he has his arms around a girl. Time stops.
And then it starts again. A scream rips from my throat, almost as loud as the sirens down below. Blue lights flash. Flash. Tom tackles Isabel. Flash. They go over the cliff edge. Flash. I’m screaming.
I move as fast as I can to the edge of the cliff. I drop to my knees, crying into my bloody hands. I heard them land before I even made it to the edge. I heard the sickening thud. Slowly, I crawl on my belly until I’m looking over the edge, and then I strain my eyes, begging to see movement. There’s nothing.
I wipe my tears, get to my feet and begin to walk along the cliff until I can find a place to climb down. It’s all too steep. I yell out to the police below, waving my unhurt arm, then pointing towards where I believe Tom and Isabel landed.
“Help him,” I cry, sobs racking through me. I can’t help them. My body gives in and I drop to my knees again, but this time I can’t get back up. The knife falls from my fingers. Someone’s hands wrap around my shoulders and I fall into their body. The girl from the ravine, it has to be her.
Shortly after I hear the sound of boots on snow.
“At the bottom of the cliff,” I shout. “My son is down there! We need an ambulance.”
“Leah? Leah is that you?”
I lift my hand to shield my eyes from the light. DCI Murphy comes into view, covered in a thick coat and gloves. He swears when he sees the wound on my shoulder and calls someone over who must have a first aid kit.
“It’s Tom. He jumped off the cliff with Isabel.”
“I have officers down there,” he says. “They’ll find them. Now, tell me about your injuries. Tell me what else I need to know.”
But I can’t, because the slow realisation that Tom is dead seems to be spreading over me like the blood from my shoulder. Through a strange, thudding sound in my ears, I hear the girl begin to talk.
“There’s a man tied up in the farmhouse. Isabel Fielding killed… I think she killed my boyfriend. I ran away.” Sniff. “Then she came after us. We hid over there. A man came and he shot her, but it wasn’t enough…”
It all fades away.
Murphy catches me as I fall forwards.
***
When the bright light filters in through the tiny gap in my eyelids, at first I think DCI Murphy is shining a torch in my eyes. But then I see the hospital lights.
I squint for a moment, adjusting to the brightness, and then I glance down at my hand, which is covered by a larger, stronger hand. Seb’s hand.
He has tears in his eyes. He rests his head on the bed next to me and I try to stroke his hair, but when I move my other arm, a searing pain rips through me. That’s when it all comes flooding back. It started with Jess Hopkins’s dead body in the abandoned house. Then Cassie Keats and her betrayal. Followed by Isabel waiting for me at the farmhouse and Tom showing up to save my life.
And then…
I don’t want to think about what happened after that, and yet I must.
When I say his name, I’m crying. Seb lifts his head and I don’t need him to answer me, because I can see the answer on his face.
“I’m so sorry, Leah. He didn’t make it.”
***
I’m out of the hospital bed and on my feet the next day. It wasn’t so much of an issue of whether I could or couldn’t, I was always going to make this journey. My child could never be alone in such a place for any longer. Seb holds my hand as we make our way to the back of the hospital. DCI Murphy accompanies us. He’s silent, too. His shoulders are stooped and weary, as are mine. Both men keep in stride with me as I limp my way through the long, stretching corridors. None of us came out of this unscathed. Seb has his shoulder injury. Murphy is clearly haunted by everything that has happened. But none of that matters because we made it, and Tom didn’t.
He’s presented to me as a sleeping man on a gurney. A white sheet covers everything but his face. There’s part of his skull missing at the back. Someone has attempted to cover this, but the sheet has fallen back slightly. There’s also a lump where his cheekbone and nose smashed. It almost makes me detach from the boy I used to know.
There are two other bodies in the room. Isabel and Owen. The white sheets cover their faces, but I still feel their presence. But for now, it’s Tom that occupies my thoughts. My boy. My son.
I remove my fingers from Seb’s and place the palm of my hand on Tom’s cheek. Cold. So cold. But touching him helps me remember. I keep my hand on his face and close my eyes. In my mind he’s that same kid with the black hair – dyed in rebellion – eyeliner in his back pocket, band t-shirts folded in his cabinet. We could have had a life together, him and me.
I remember the way we’d put music on loud as we were doing housework. The horror films we watched together. The laughter we shared. All of that stopped when Isabel came into our lives. Maybe it can start again, in my memories; a time that should have lasted longer than it did.
“He died saving you,” Murphy says. “He’s a hero.”
No, I think, my son wasn’t a hero. He was complex. He was capable of great good, and great evil. He saved my life, but he took another. Murphy can never know that. I won’t have his memory ruined as well as his life taken from me.
I clear my throat and face the detective. “I want to see her, too.”
“Are you sure?” he asks. “She isn’t in great… condition.”
I nod my head. I’ve faced the worst life has to offer already.
I’m led to another gurney and a sheet is pulled back. Even though I was warned, I wince at what I see before me. Most of the blood has been cleaned from her face, but there is bruising all over her. There’s nothing missing from her skull, but she’s the wrong colour. Then I see the red line across her throat.
“Tom did that?”
Murphy nods.
“Can we keep that out of the papers?”
“I’ll do my best,” he says.
“He did what he had to do to keep me alive,” I say.
I stare down at her, the small girl who made my life a misery for several years, who stalked me and my family, who desecrated my mother’s grave, who taunted me, physically hurt me, psychologically abused me. I look at her lifeless face expecting to feel a surge of hatred. There is none. Nothing but pity and confusion. What did you see in me, Isabel? Was it a spark of specialness, or the kind of utter mundanity of which you had to take advantage? Was it a part of my personality that you could manipulate? Or was it a connection?
I thought you were the most innocent creature when I met you. There was a gentleness about everything you did. Even when I discovered the truth beneath the mask, that gentle side never went away. Did you know that, Isabel? Did you know that you could be gentle? Did you understand it? Did you know that there were times when I loved you, wanted to fix you, and the love didn’t truly go away until I began to hate you? Did you know that I sent you books when you were in prison because I began to think you could get better away from your family?
It hurts to let those thoughts finally come to the surface. To face up to the fact that my feelings for Isabel were as complex as Tom’s personality. She’ll always be someone who hurt me and my family, but she’ll always be the person I pitied, and she’ll always be the person that part of me loved.
Goodbye, Isabel, I think.
I move back to Tom. “Can you move the sheet so I can see his hand?”
The coroner lifts the sheet. I wrap my fingers around his.
“Can you leave me for a minute?”
Seb kisses my forehead as the men filter away. It leaves me alone with death, somewhere I’ve been before.
I take a deep breath and begin. “Tom. This is what I would have said to you if I’d been able to. It’s w
hat I should have told you years ago, so that you didn’t overhear it. I’d say, I’m not your sister, I’m your mother. Your father is your father. I know it’s scary, and confusing, but I need you to know. There was a night when Dad was drunk, right in the middle of one of his bouts. He was ill. He’d always been ill. And he came into my room at night. I’m not convinced he knew who I was or quite what he was doing, but it happened, and it was wrong, and I was devastated. I was young. Far too young to have a child.
“When I told your grandma, she was so angry with me. She didn’t believe me. But when I told her that I didn’t know how to be a mother, she told me that she would help me, and she did. I’m grateful for that, because I wasn’t ready, Tom.
“I’m so sorry that I left you with them, knowing what a monster he was. Is. I should’ve stayed behind and taken care of you. But I didn’t. It was the worst mistake of my entire life. That was the right time to tell you who I am so that we could live together away from them both.
“I don’t think anything we would’ve changed what Dad did to her. She wouldn’t leave him, and he was determined to take it further every time he hurt her. I know you blamed yourself for a long time, but it was misplaced blame. You didn’t do anything wrong.” I pause, wipe away tears, take a shaky breath. “I always knew you were different, no matter how hard you tried to cover it up. I wanted to tell you that if you were gay, that was okay, and not to listen to anything a bully at school had to say. But I didn’t know if you knew yourself and I didn’t want to rush you. I wanted to be the cool Mum. Cool big sister, whatever I was to you, then. Maybe I didn’t know what I wanted to be. But I wanted you to be happy, that much I know. You were the best of us. Sensible. Kind. Quietly strong. What I hate about Isabel is that she made you abandon those qualities for a while. I’m so sorry I didn’t see it happening fast enough to stop what you did to that poor woman. I wish I hadn’t been too ill to properly take care of you. I wish I’d been there for you, always. I know you found yourself on a dark path, I’m proud of you for coming back. For choosing to be better. You saved my life, you took two monsters out of the world, but I will always remember you as you were before any of this happened.” I take my fingers, kiss them, and place them on his forehead.
Chapter Forty-Three
Leah
“Well, it looks like you’re having a little girl.”
The nurse gives my hand a squeeze, but I can’t stop staring at the image on the screen. The wobbly, scribbled at the edges, image of our child. A survivor. She outlasted a serial killer. She lived when I tumbled down the moors, when I fought back against Isabel. She’s strong.
“Would you like a photograph?” the nurse asks.
I pull my eyes away from the screen and nod to Seb.
“Great,” she says. “I’ll get that printed out for you.” She removes the transducer and disappears from the room.
“Are you happy?” Seb asks, stroking the side of my face. His eyebrows are pulled up in concern, but even still I see the joy in his eyes.
“Of course, I am,” I reply, laughter in my voice for the first time in a long while.
It’s only partly a lie. I’m happy about the baby. I’m happy that I have a small bump now. But it’s only three months since Tom’s death, and I’m sad that I don’t get to share this news with him. He’ll never know that he was going to have a little sister.
“It’s okay to be sad,” Seb says, reading my mind. He kisses me gently on the lips. “I know you miss him.”
“It’ll take time, I suppose. I am happy, though. I’m just sad as well.”
“Are you still okay for later?” he asks.
By later, he means taking the ultrasound photo to show his mother and brother at the farm. Josh needed a blood transfusion after what Isabel and Owen did to him. He also needed plenty of therapy to deal with the trauma. But like the rest of us, he’s on the mend. We’re all more fragile than we were before. At least Seb was reunited with his brother after we were certain he was dead. It was the one and only beautiful outcome after so much violence and pain.
Since Tom’s death, which is how I think of that day, it’s been tricky to work through everything that happened. But DCI Murphy has been a great help with piecing it all together.
It turned out that what Cassie Keats said about her past was all true. She did have a very unfortunate childhood which involved several foster homes. There was no way to corroborate what she said about one of her foster fathers, but I told Murphy everything in case it helped.
After searching her room, the police found a burner phone filled with messages between Isabel, Owen and Cassie. She’d been on Isabel’s side right from the start. I don’t think she ever intended to play Isabel in the movie; she wanted to act as Isabel, but in real life, not on screen. And her revenge on Neal was revenge on every man who had let her down throughout her life. What I don’t think she fully understood was that Isabel and Owen were using her in the same way she’d always been used, and they threw her away like rubbish.
Cassie’s claims against Neal found their way onto the internet via an anonymous source, which prompted three other women to come forward about his habit of slipping a pill into a champagne flute. Some online message boards speculate that it was me who leaked the information, and they would be right. Neal stands trial when the investigation into his crimes is complete. His face is disfigured after Isabel’s torture, and he had a few broken ribs to heal, but apart from that he was fine.
He revelled in telling the police about the way I pummelled him with my fists. But despite his claims, no case was filed against me. Isabel had been holding the knife at the time, forcing me to do it.
Murphy and his team found Josh at the hotel and soon realised that they’d been tricked when Seb called from a second location. He then discovered that I had been taken to a third location and my life was in danger. But it wasn’t until Tom got the address from Owen that he knew where to go.
After Tom shot Owen, Seb was found by police and taken to the nearest hospital. The wound didn’t hit any arteries and after the bullet was removed, he was sewn shut. However, Seb has difficulty raising his arm even now, and doctors suspect that he might lose fifty per cent of the mobility in his shoulder. It means his farming days are numbered. It’s time to sell, Ma, he’d said to her when he came out of hospital. And he said it with a smile on his face.
Owen died from the gunshot wound. He and Isabel were cremated in a quiet, lonely ceremony. The last of the Fieldings. I didn’t go. I’d said all I wanted to say to my serial killer stalker. A young woman called Genna, Isabel’s friend from prison, scattered their ashes somewhere quiet on the coast, surrounded by seagulls.
The boy Isabel stabbed pulled through but is suffering from severe nerve damage. The young girl, his girlfriend, called Mia, came to visit me in hospital. She told me that she’s given up obsessing over serial killers. I can’t decide whether or not I believe her, but I email her every now and then to see how she’s doing.
“Right, let’s get you cleaned up and out of here,” the nurse says as she bustles back into the room. “Here are your two copies. You can pay on your way out.” She grabs a wad of tissue and cleans the gel from my bump. “You’re both doing well, all your vitals are normal. But try not to get too stressed, okay?”
“I’m working on it,” I reply.
She nods in approval.
I pull on my dress and Seb zips me up. I’ll never get used to smoothing the fabric around my bump. The last time I did this, when I was pregnant with Tom, the sight of the bump made me feel sick. But now there’s nothing but love. As I always do, when I think about the baby, I remind myself to think of my Tom, to send him love, even if he can’t feel it anymore. I’ll never stop loving him, no matter how he came into the world and went out of it.
“Ready?” Seb grabs my bag and I slip an arm through his, nodding my head.
“We’ll meet in a few months to discuss your birthing plan,” the nurse says. “And you’ll get to me
et your midwife.”
“Can’t wait,” I reply.
She scans me, probably trying to detect sarcasm, but I genuinely mean it and she smiles. “Great!”
We make our way through the hospital corridors. As a former nurse, hospitals have always meant something else to me in comparison to other people. This is where I’ve made friends, learned my craft, helped those in need. It was in Crowmont Hospital that I tried to make a new start. But it was a false start because I didn’t know I was ill. So much has happened since then that I barely recognise myself as we walk into the fresh air. I’ve lost people and that grief will never go away. But on a day like this, with the sun shining, the ultrasound picture in Seb’s pocket, and his comforting arm around mine, I see a bright future. The darkness is behind me.
THE END
About the Author:
Sarah A. Denzil is a Wall Street Journal bestselling suspense writer from Derbyshire. Her thrillers include the number one bestseller Silent Child, as well as The Broken Ones, Saving April, The Isabel Fielding series, Only Daughter and The Liar’s Sister. Sarah lives in Yorkshire with her husband and cat, enjoying the scenic countryside and rather unpredictable weather.
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Three For A Girl (Isabel Fielding Book 3) Page 23
