OTHER TITLES BY LOUISE VOSS AND MARK EDWARDS
Killing Cupid
Catch Your Death
All Fall Down
Forward Slash
From the Cradle
OTHER TITLES BY MARK EDWARDS
The Magpies
What You Wish For
Because She Loves Me
Follow You Home
OTHER TITLES BY LOUISE VOSS
To Be Someone
Are You My Mother?
Lifesaver
Games People Play
The Venus Trap
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organisations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Louise Voss & Mark Edwards
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 978-1503947474
ISBN-10: 1503947475
Cover design by bürosüdo Munich, www.buerosued.de
This one is for Louise’s fiancé, Nick Laughland, and for Mark’s wife, Sara Edwards.
Contents
Prologue
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
PART TWO
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Epilogue
Letter from the Authors
Acknowledgements
About the Authors
Download a Free Short Story by Voss & Edwards
Prologue
Rose looked up at the hotel, wishing she’d been allowed to save the image on her phone, that it wasn’t against the rules. This was definitely the place – although, as with everything in her life, she retained a niggle of doubt. She was surprised that he would stay in a Travel Inn. That was the kind of lame place her dad stayed in when he went away on business. But she guessed that was the point. He was being clever. He had arranged the rendezvous – the word sending a little frisson of excitement through her insides – here because it was exactly the kind of crap-hole where nobody would expect him to hang out.
She was wearing her new pants – pink with the word ‘LUCKY’ stamped across the front. She’d flushed the same shade of pink as the knickers when she’d put them on the counter in Primark, though the woman who served her didn’t even smile as she stuffed them in the paper bag. If only that woman knew who Rose was meeting, she would be sick with jealousy, and she would see – like everyone would see, soon enough, when the whole world found out about their love – that she, Rose Emily Sharp, was special.
Not different, as Dad said, thinking it was a compliment. Not weird, like the girls at school sneered.
Special.
The first photo had been of this hotel, taken from this very spot, with the caption ‘11 p.m.’. She stood and fiddled with her phone, drizzle spotting its shiny surface. There was hardly anyone about, probably because of the weather, and the streetlamps struggled to cut through the gloom. A couple of young blokes in hoodies strolled past. Her whole body clenched, but they ignored her, not even bothering to give her the once-over. Not that she cared, anymore, if boys noticed her.
It was 10.59, and as the time on her phone rolled over to eleven o’clock, she received another photo, dead on time. She stared at it, her heart pounding, knowing that she only had ten seconds before it would disappear. The picture showed a pair of grey doors, with one of those big wheelie bins in front. She looked up at the hotel, confused for a moment, then got it.
He wanted her to go round to the back entrance. Of course. This was a secret rendezvous. He didn’t want anyone at the front desk to see her or, worse, try to stop her. He wanted to make sure that nothing stood in their way.
She smiled. He was so thoughtful, even more so than she’d gathered from his interviews and tweets.
Rose waited for the green man and crossed the road on shaky legs. She felt as she had that time when she’d been sent to see the head teacher after screaming at that slut Bethany Douglas in class, who had spread a rumour that Rose had wet the bed on the school trip. Bethany also said that OnTarget were a band for tweenies and toddlers, and had made up her own lyrics to their biggest hit, ‘Forever Together’, replacing ‘together’ with ‘bed-wetter’. The head teacher, Mrs Morpurgo, had sighed and said, ‘What are we going to do with you, eh, Rose?’
Rose ground her teeth together at the memory. Mrs Morpurgo would regret it when Rose was famous and spent some of her millions on buying the school and firing the head teacher. She hadn’t yet worked out what she would do to Bethany, but it would involve public humiliation and Bethany sobbing an apology that Rose would gracefully accept.
It was dark behind the hotel, the rain coming down more heavily now, and Rose swore to herself. She’d spent ages doing her hair. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she thought she saw a figure move in the trees around the edge of the staff car park, but when she looked again there was nobody there.
She felt sick. Sick with nerves and adrenalin, and from the cheeseburger she’d consumed earlier because her tummy had a tendency to rumble embarrassingly when she was hungry. But she was regretting it now, as the burger was repeating unpleasantly on her. She wasn’t supposed to be out this late. Mum thought she was in her room. Rose had left the TV on and hung the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door. But what if Mum came up to bring her a cup of tea, as she sometimes did, got worried when Rose didn’t respond and crept inside? Rose just had to hope that tonight was one of the five nights out of seven, since the divorce, when Mum glugged a bottle of wine and passed out on the sofa with her ancient Whitney Houston CDs playing.