Page 27 of Good Bad Girl

I dream about people finding out all of my secrets, and it is a relief when the sound of my alarm wakes me from my nightmare. I reach for my phone to turn it off, keeping my eyes closed, my fingers tapping the screen until the attic is silent again.

Except that it isn’t. Silent. I can hear someone breathing.

It isn’t me. And it isn’t Dickens—who always likes to sleep on my bed instead of in his own—there is someone else here.

My head hurts, the way it does when I drink too much. It takes a few seconds to remember the wine and what I did. The events of the day and night before start to uncurl and seep in, clouding the edges of my hangover and flooding my tired mind with memories, most of which I’d rather forget. If I were to tell someone my version of yesterday, I would paint myself as a hero who rescued a vulnerable person from a bad situation. But I worry other people will think I just kidnapped an elderly woman. I had my reasons, most of which were good. I sit up a little and see Edith’s mess of gray curls on the pillow at the other end of the bed. She’s stillasleep and the room is still dark except for my night-light projecting a galaxy of moving stars across the walls. Watching them normally makes me feel calm, but I hear another unfamiliar noise.

I’m not imagining it. I can hear footsteps coming up the staircase toward the attic. They are not creeping or quiet. It is the sound of someone who wants to be heard.

Mr. Kennedy did say he would come back when I refused to open the door last night. Experience has taught me that he is a man of his word, but I didn’t think he meant returning at six a.m. The gallery downstairs doesn’t open until nine. It seems so obvious now that I shouldn’t have brought Edith here, but I thought we had time to get up and get out before he came back.

If it is him then at least he can’t let himself in, since I installed the bolt and chain. My eyes dart to the door in search of reassurance but find none. I don’t understand, Ialwayslock the door. I must have forgotten after the pizza was delivered. Except that I’msureI remember checking everything was safe and secure before I went to bed. Someone knocks, just the once, and Edith’s eyes fly open and find me. If her face is mirroring mine then I must look terrified. I shake my head, lift my finger to my lips. I hear the jangle of keys. Edith pulls the covers back, picks up Dickens, and hurries to hide in the bathroom. Seconds later someone steps into the attic and switches on the light. The bare bulb always makes me think of interrogation scenes in movies.

“Well, isn’t this a pretty picture? Looks like you had a party,” Mr. Kennedy says, staring at the large pizza box and empty bottle of wine. “Have you had aboyup here?” Dickens emits a low growl and I cough to cover it.

Jude Kennedy likes to wear expensive suits and a permanent frown. He looks good for a man in his forties. The designer clothes suit him, as does his salt-and-pepper hair. He has an educated, velvety voice that could charm or destroy you with a single sentencedepending on his mood. The look on his face now makes me want to disappear.

“I thought I was very clear about the rules when I let you stay here, but evidently I was wrong. No noise.Novisitors. And after everything I’ve done for you,” he says.

I remember the first time I met Jude Kennedy and wish that I never had.

I always knew that my mother had more than her fair share of secrets. She was a painfully private woman with no real friends. Her world seemed to revolve around me, which I loved her for and loathed her for at the same time. She didn’t seem to want or need anyone or anything else, and she didn’t seem to want me to want or need anyone else either. I was homeschooled. Whenever I started to feel settled in a place, or make friends, she would insist we move location. Again. It felt like we were constantly running away, sometimes in the middle of the night. Despite all of that, my childhood was a happy one, happier than most probably. But it always felt as though something was missing. I knew moving around so often wasn’t normal. I was sure that it had something to do with my father, but she wouldn’t tell me who he was. Refused to tell me anything at all about him but promised that she would when I turned eighteen. Then she broke her promise.

My mother kept her secrets in a small, ancient, black and gold Japanese tea tin. She hid it behind the loose skirting board in the kitchen. She said it was only to be opened in an emergency, but I opened it in anger after my eighteenth birthday and the contents were a surprise. There was a roll of cash bigger than I had ever seen and an envelope addressed to me. Inside the envelope I found a note:

If I ever don’t come home, take this money and find somewhere safe to stay. I will find you when I can. Know that I love you more than I knew it was possible to love.

The only other thing in the tin was a business card for Kennedy’s Gallery in Covent Garden, with Jude Kennedy’s name in shiny gold letters on the front. Art is my first love and I certainly didn’t inherit that passion from my mother—she has spent her life hiding inside books and other people’s stories—but she had kept this man’s card in the emergency tin, formeto find.Andhe owned an art gallery. Of course I thought he was my father.

I stole the moneyandthe tea tin, packed a bag, ran away, took the train to London, and walked into Kennedy’s Gallery with my head held high and my heart full of hope.

“Are you Jude Kennedy?” I asked.

“I am him. How can I help?”

I didn’t hesitate despite all the clues that I was wrong. “I think you’re my dad.”

He laughed. Hard. Then stared at me. “Is this a joke?” I shook my head. “Who put you up to this? You had me for a minute.I think you’re my dad!Is this an early April fool?”

It wasn’t but I felt like one.

“Darling, I’m definitelynotyour father,” he said.

“How do you know?”

“Well, I’ve never slept with a woman. So there’s that...” I started crying like the little girl I still was back then. “Dear child, please don’t cry. It tends to put people off coming into the gallery and business is not booming as it is. Are you all right? Maybe I can help?” he said.

And that’s been the problem ever since.

He won’t stop helping me.

He offered me a place to stay in the attic above the gallery. “Better than you ending up on the streets, I can do without that on my overburdened conscience.” He even helped me to get a job at the Windsor Care Home. I was so grateful at first, for all of it. But sometimes people do kind things because they want you to feel in their debt. Because at some point they’re going to ask you to givethem something in return. And he did, and I have, and it has cost me more than I can afford to live with.

That’s why he is here now.

He takes a closer look at one of my papercuts on the wall. “You owe me one of these to sell downstairs.” He insists on choosing which one and never gives me a penny for them, it was the monthly “rent” we agreed on almost as soon as I’d unpacked my things. Then, in addition to that, he asked me to spy on someone at the Windsor Care Home. That was the real reason he helped me to get a job there. And that was why I befriended Edith at first, but then when I got to know her, I started to like her. I don’t understand why he doesn’t.

Last week he asked me to do somethingunthinkable.

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