Page 6 of Final Betrayal

She had to concentrate. No point in going back to that disturbing time. Or was there? Recently the nightmares waking her at three in the morning had left her wrapped in soaking sheets with a raging fever. Her subconscious was telling her she had made a mistake all those years ago. Her conscious self told her she hadn’t. Which was correct?

A shadow dimmed the light in the doorway and she looked up. Her mouth formed a perfect O and pearls of perspiration dribbled down her spine. He was there, accusation flaring in his eyes as he stared at her. Then in an instant he was gone, and she shook her head. Had she imagined it? Had it been a vision from her subconscious mind? Her hands clutched the laptop tightly. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t talk.

She realised she’d been holding her breath. As she exhaled, her eyes filled and tears began to leak down her cheeks.

Louise Gill didn’t know what was real any more. She had to talk to Cristina.

Unwrapping herself from her lover’s arms, Louise went to search the refrigerator for something to drink. She felt safer with Cristina than anywhere else. The fact that her best friend was now her partner, was her secret. The two of them had debated long into the summer nights, often resulting in heated arguments, about ‘coming out’ to her parents. Louise was no longer the fourteen-year-old who had idolised the only man in her life. The man who had let her down so badly that she’d talked herself into believing that that was why she was attracted to a woman. Or maybe it was just that she loved Cristina more than anyone since she’d been fourteen years old. In any case, whatever the reason, she didn’t want to tell her father.

‘Why are you so on edge?’ Cristina’s voice followed her into the kitchen.

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ A can of Coke would have to do. Too early to drink the white wine that nestled in the door, condensation running down the bottle.

‘It’s him, isn’t it?’

Louise turned to see Cristina leaning naked against the door frame, smoke curling from the cigarette in her long-fingered hand. She looked like an exotic actress who had stepped from a 1930s movie set. Her black hair lay like a snake over one shoulder and her eyes were dark and inviting, displaying her Asian heritage. At four foot eleven, she was six inches smaller than Louise, but today she appeared taller.

‘I don’t know who you mean,’ Louise said, biting the inside of her lip.

A smile lit up Cristina’s face. ‘See. I was right. You are thinking of him.’

‘I don’t want to talk about Conor Dowling.’

Cristina’s hand caressed Louise’s arm. ‘Whether you do or not, I think you have to. Otherwise, sweetheart, it is going to eat you up inside.’

‘Leave it for now, okay?’ Louise took a drink of the Coke. ‘Maybe later.’

Cristina moved away, back into the bedroom. But her voice carried loud and clear to Louise’s ears. ‘You can’t keep everything for later. First of all you have to face up to Dowling, and then you need to tell your father about us. That arsehole needs to know the truth.’

SIX

Wind feathered up along Amy Whyte’s bare legs as she pulled hard on her cigarette before dropping it to the floor and grinding it out with the heel of her silver-glittered sandal. A drift of cold air swirled around her shoulders and she felt the first smattering of rain. Oh no! Her false tan would run down her legs. She wanted to go home. Now.

Looking around for Penny, she saw her laughing with a group of lads under the Perspex roof of the smoking shelter. How was she going to get her to leave? It was gone one o’clock and the nightclub was in full swing, but Amy was tired. Getting too old, she thought as she scanned the crowd of teenagers. It was supposed to be strictly over twenty-ones, but that rule was never adhered to.

She approached her friend. ‘Penny, are you coming?’

‘No, it’s just the way she’s standing,’ one of the men joked.

Typical of Ducky Reilly. He always had to be the smart one. Amy’s lips trembled with the cold and she couldn’t find a suitable reply in her vodka-soaked brain. Maybe she shouldn’t have had that last drink. Too late now, she told herself, and wished she had a warmer jacket.

‘Let’s have one more,’ Penny Brogan said, smiling coyly at Ducky while wrapping her blonde hair around her hand, her little finger sticking up in what looked to Amy like a sexual gesture. Penny should know better, even if she was drunk.

‘Yeah, one for the road, as my auld fella says. Or a little blow?’

Amy wasn’t sure who had said this, but she wasn’t hanging around to find out. She shook her head and balled her hands in frustration. ‘I’ve to work tomorrow, so I’m heading off.’ Working on Sunday was a bitch.

‘Don’t be a spoilsport.’

She felt her arm being clutched by someone who dragged her into the middle of the crowd lounging under the canopy. Cigarette smoke clogged the air. She was sure the last vodka had yet to reach her stomach, and it was likely to rise up her gullet if she didn’t get out quickly.

Arms snaked around her shoulders, huddling her into a group, as a phone appeared and someone took a photo. Shit, now she’d feature in a Snapchat or Instagram story. Bad enough trying to hide a hangover without the world seeing the evidence of how she’d come by it.

Wriggling out from the centipede of limbs, she squeezed through the pulsing bodies and headed back towards the club. ‘Text me when you get home.’

‘Yes, Mammy,’ Penny laughed, and the crowd around her shouted, ‘Night night, Mammy!’

Immature imbeciles, Amy thought as she barrelled through sweating torsos towards the chair where she’d been sitting earlier. Her jacket was nowhere. Now she’d have to walk home in the rain bare-shouldered, and would probably catch a cold. Hoisting her sparkly red top up as far as it would go, she dragged her skirt down to her knees. It was the best she could do.

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