The Keeper of Secrets Read Online Free Page A

in this very spot, she was keenly aware that life hadn’t turned out as she had imagined. With disappointment weighing heavily on her mind, sleep finally found her.
    The chirp of her mobile phone was a rude awakening and not only for her.
    â€˜Mum?’ moaned Charlie as Elle scrambled for the phone.
    â€˜It’s fine, it’s just your dad,’ she whispered, doing her best to hide her annoyance as she checked the time. It was two thirty in the morning. She kissed the top of Charlie’s head which was damp with sweat. ‘Go back to sleep.’
    Charlie objected only briefly as Elle tiptoed out of the room and closed the door.
    â€˜What is it?’ she asked.
    â€˜Did I wake you?’ Rick’s words were slurred and his teeth chattered.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜It’s freezing out here,’ he moaned.
    With a sinking heart, Elle knew what he meant. She could hear the dull rumble of a taxi-cab engine. ‘You’re outside, aren’t you?’
    â€˜I couldn’t go home to an empty house now, could I?’
    Elle had no choice and held her tongue as she let Rick into the house. He smelled of alcohol and although it wasn’t unusual for him to be a touch worse for wear, he seemed more drunk than usual. He began rambling on about his night out and repeated what was becoming a regular complaint in recent months: how heartbroken Chris was; how much of a bitch Angie had always been; how Chris should leave her penniless for walking out on him. Elle held a different view. There had been no affairs, no betrayal. Angie and Chris had simply drifted apart. They didn’t have children and had simply agreed to divide the assets. The divorce when it came ought to be perfectly amicable – and would be, as long as Rick didn’t try to persuade Chris otherwise. But this was a view that she didn’t share with Rick. He rarely listened to her when he was sober, less so when drunk. Instead she made a point of telling him it was late and that Charlie had already been disturbed by the phone call.
    With a little persuasion and a lot of patience she convinced Rick it was time for bed, intending to settle him on the sofa in the living room. But her husband had other ideas.
    â€˜I can’t sleep down here on that grubby sofa, not when we can use the double bed upstairs,’ he told her.
    â€˜No, Rick, please,’ she said, ‘I don’t want to sleep in the bed where my dad died. Besides, I’ve stripped it.’
    Rick smiled woozily. ‘Who said anything about sleeping?’
    Rick’s soft snores blew clouds of stale breath across Elle’s face and neck making her skin crawl. She was lying on her back wide awake as the four walls of her parents’ room closed in around her until there was nowhere to hide her shame. She didn’t want to be there. She certainly didn’t want to think about what she had just been doing. Unable to bear it a minute longer, she slipped off the bare mattress as quickly and quietly as she could, although from experience she knew there was little risk of raising Rick from his ale-induced stupor.
    She locked the bathroom door and filled the sink with warm soapy water then slipped out of her nightdress. The house was cold and her skin burned as she scrubbed herself raw, but even as she dried off, she still felt unclean. There was no way she could lie back down on her dad’s bed so she returned to her old room, desperate to breathe in Charlie’s sweet, sweaty innocence. She only made it as far as the door. In the dimness of the streetlight leaching through the curtains she could see rumpled sheets littering an empty bed.
    Elle took the stairs two at a time and cast a quick glance around the living room. The air downstairs was markedly colder and the reason became apparent as she rushed into the kitchen. The back door was wide open. She was ready to storm out into the night in nothing more than a thin layer of blue satin but