Hiding in Plain Sight Read online

  Contents

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  About the Book

  Andee Lawrence is in heaven. Well, the South of France to be exact.

  Ex-detective Andee has swapped freelance investigation and a broken marriage, for two months in Provence, renovating a beautiful villa with the new man in her life. Pottering around a small picturesque town on an early summer’s day, she is at peace. But her world is about to be shattered.

  ‘Remember me?’

  Two words spoken by a woman from the back of a car that say so much yet reveal so little. As the car drives away Andee is left reeling, overwhelmed by shock, confusion, self-doubt and mounting trepidation.

  Almost thirty years ago, fourteen-year-old Penny had disappeared from her family’s life, never to be heard from again. It is the missing child case that has haunted Andee her whole life; and now Penny – Andee’s sister – is back.

  The question is: why?

  About the Author

  Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of thirty-eight novels. She is also the author of Just One More Day and One Day at a Time, the moving memoirs of her childhood in Bristol. She lives in Gloucestershire.

  To find out more about Susan Lewis, visit her website www.susanlewis.com, or join in on www.facebook.com/SusanLewisBooks.

  Susan is a supporter of the breast cancer charity Breast Cancer Care: www.breastcancercare.org.uk and of the childhood bereavement charity Winston’s Wish: www.winstonswish.org.uk.

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Fiction

  A Class Apart

  Dance While You Can

  Stolen Beginnings

  Darkest Longings

  Obsession

  Vengeance

  Summer Madness

  Last Resort

  Wildfire

  Cruel Venus

  Strange Allure

  The Mill House

  A French Affair

  Missing

  Out of the Shadows

  Lost Innocence

  The Choice

  Forgotten

  Stolen

  No Turning Back

  Losing You

  The Truth About You

  Never Say Goodbye

  Too Close to Home

  No Place to Hide

  Books that run in sequence

  Chasing Dreams

  Taking Chances

  No Child of Mine

  Don’t Let Me Go

  You Said Forever

  Series featuring Detective Andee Lawrence

  Behind Closed Doors

  The Girl Who Came Back

  The Moment She Left

  Hiding in Plain Sight

  Series featuring Laurie Forbes and Elliott Russell

  Silent Truths

  Wicked Beauty

  Intimate Strangers

  The Hornbeam Tree

  Memoir

  Just One More Day

  One Day at a Time

  In memory of Georgina Hawtrey-Woore, a truly talented editor and cherished friend, already missed by many and loved by all

  She’d dreamt about nothing else for years.

  That was when she’d been able to dream.

  Now here he was, standing in front of her, shaking so hard she’d surely have been able to hear his knees knocking if the wind weren’t so fierce.

  His once handsome, now dissolute face was a white, stricken moon in the dark night. His hair was tossing around like trapped straw in a gale. He’d have run if he could, but the men either side of him – nameless, faceless and handsomely paid – were preventing it.

  They were watching her too. Neither of them spoke. They were silent, solid, knew why they were there, knew that after they must silently disappear.

  A fleeting memory of little Michelle Cross on a busy street flashed into her mind and was gone. She’d been there one minute, gone the next – to the arms of the Virgin Mary.

  The Virgin Mary.

  She could see he was shouting, crying, begging, but the wind was snatching his words away, hurling them like feathers into the stormy night.

  The cliff edge was so close.

  A hundred feet below the sea was a foaming, furious black mass, heaving colossal waves on to the slick, jagged rocks.

  She wondered if he’d ever dreamt about her.

  Had she troubled his mind at all since he’d last seen her?

  She knew she must have. How had he felt?

  Guilty? Afraid? Vulnerable?

  Certainly not as terrified as he felt now.

  He’d no doubt hoped he’d never see her again.

  But here she was, standing before him on this deserted tourist spot at the edge of the world, and he knew why.

  What he didn’t know, yet, was whether she was going to let him live or die.

  Chapter One

  These meandering, cobbled streets in the heart of Provence, laced through with sleepy canals and narrow, filigree footbridges were known as the Venice of France. Surrounded by the River Sorgue, with glittering waterways, tree-lined banks and many splendid mossy mill wheels, the area was home to a whole host of pavement and waterfront cafés, along with antique shops of every period and description.

  It was through one of the leafy arcades that Andrea – Andee – Lawrence was strolling, aware of the ghosts she couldn’t see, but sense: children, old women, thieves, sociopaths, philanthropists, spurned lovers, victims of grisly murders. Their spirits were as light and intangible as the wispy clouds overhead; their stories embedded in a forgotten time.

  Andee Lawrence wasn’t French, but with her effortless elegance and dark, compelling looks she could easily have passed for a wealthy Parisienne, here to while away a few hours before other demands claimed her. In fact, she was a British ex-detective turned occasional freelance investigator, who’d lately developed an interest in – and talent for – interior design. She was also the mother of two, Luke aged twenty-one and Alayna nineteen; she was separated from her husband, Martin, and was now enjoying a new relationship with antique dealer and property developer Graeme Ogilvy, who’d brought her to France.

  Other than her striking looks, there was nothing to set her apart from the other browsers who’d come to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue today – not a Sunday in the middle of summer, but a Wednesday in early June. Sundays were crazy days when hundreds, thousands, of stalls cluttered the streets and eager bargain-hunters, tourists and vendors outnumbered even the ghosts of former times.

  No one, least of all Andee, was aware of fate trailing her today like a sinister bridesmaid. She was experiencing no sixth sense, no unease, nothing untoward at all, only the pleasure of wandering from one small emporium to another, as entranced by the treasures and oddities as she was by the nuances of possible stories.

  She’d left Graeme a few minutes ago discussing delivery of a neglected bergère chair to the villa they were here to renovate and furnish for a wealthy Spanish client. Their instructions were cl
ear. Nadia Abrego, the Catalonian beauty who could roll out several more surnames and possibly even titles if she so wished, had provided them with photographs of the Renaissance chateau she wanted copied as closely as possible. The villa was an inheritance, apparently, from a recently deceased great-aunt.

  The day was warm, the sounds of traffic, haggling, laughter, music were drifting like charms through the still air, passing by lace tablecloths and sombre tapestries, brushing scabbards and teapots, tangling an invisible web around people and relics of the past. A Frenchman in a beret and red neckerchief was posing for photographs with tourists, while an accordionist on the corner of Quai Jean Jaures was pumping out jolly tunes and winking at his admirers as they tossed coins into his waiting cap. As Andee crossed the Pont de la Rivière with its intricate iron balustrades and worn wooden treads, the aroma of freshly baked baguettes floated its temptation out of a nearby boulangerie, while the clink of glasses from pavement cafés provided its own irresistible lure.

  Taking out her phone she sent a text to Graeme.

  Fancy a glass of rosé? Meet you at the cafe next to Hubert’s Antiques.

  Graeme knew the heart of this small town so well that he’d have no trouble finding her, especially as Hubert was a friend of long standing.

  She didn’t notice the car approaching as she prepared to cross the road, she only knew it was there when it came to a stop in front of her, blocking the way. She was about to go round it when the rear window descended to reveal a blonde, middle-aged woman wearing dark glasses and crimson lipstick.

  ‘Are you lost?’ Andee asked, in French.

  The woman smiled and removed the glasses.

  Long, strange seconds ticked by before the woman said softly, in English, ‘Remember me?’

  Shock was twisting Andee’s heart into a terrible knot. It couldn’t be. It simply wasn’t possible. And yet those eyes, the colour and shape, the cheekbones, the retroussé nose …

  Apparently satisfied that she’d been recognised, the woman tapped the driver’s shoulder and the car moved on.

  Andee watched it go, too stunned to move, even to think beyond the shock that had trapped her in an unworldly grip.

  ‘Are you OK, madame?’ a voice asked from behind her.

  She turned to find a concerned man watching her.

  ‘Would you like to sit down?’ he offered, pulling up a shabbily upholstered parlour chair.

  Andee meant to thank him and move on, but her legs had turned weak. All she could do was sink into his kindness.

  ‘It is ’ot,’ he observed in heavily accented English. ‘I find you some water.’

  As he disappeared inside his shop Andee stared along the street searching for the silver Mercedes, but like the figment of a dream, it had vanished into thin air. She should have run after it, and would now if she had any idea of the direction it had taken. She tried again to make herself think, but her mind remained locked into that brief, earth-shattering moment of recognition.

  Remember me?

  How could Andee forget? Even after all these years she’d have known the woman anywhere, yet … How could it be? It simply wasn’t possible.

  The woman in the car was dead, so how could she possibly be here?

  Andee was with Graeme now, sitting beneath the parasols of a favourite canal-side café next to Hubert’s Antiques. She was watching his shrewd dark eyes dilating with shock as he connected with what she’d just told him.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, then apparently annoyed with himself, ‘Sorry, of course you are, you wouldn’t be saying it if you weren’t.’

  Feeling for him, Andee said, ‘Don’t worry, I keep asking myself the same question.’ She glanced up as a waiter brought a pichet of rosé to the table with two glasses. She couldn’t remember when she’d last been in such need of a drink.

  ‘I guess you didn’t catch the car’s number plate?’ he ventured.

  She hadn’t even thought to look. ‘It happened so fast. I can’t even tell you if it was French.’

  ‘Left-hand drive?’

  Andee thought about it. ‘She was in the back. She had to reach over to tap the driver, so I’d say it was right-hand, but I – I can’t be sure … I couldn’t stop looking at her.’ She finally understood now what it felt like to be a witness to something that happened so fast and unexpectedly that the memory could barely cope.

  Clearly as bewildered and stunned as she was, though probably not as badly shaken, Graeme stared hard at the wine as he poured it.

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ she murmured after taking a sip. ‘I don’t even know what to think.’ Her eyes were darting about the street, falling on random women, cars, empty windows behind lacy balconies where someone could be hiding, watching, waiting …

  Why was she thinking that?

  Because the car, the woman, had appeared out of nowhere?

  How had she known where to find Andee – and at that precise time?

  The questions rushing through her mind were as uncomfortable as they were impossible to answer. The woman must have been stalking her, but for how long, and why?

  ‘How on earth did she know you were here?’ Graeme demanded, echoing Andee’s thoughts.

  Their eyes met. His handsome face was taut with concern as he tried to make sense of what had happened.

  ‘I’m already starting to doubt myself,’ Andee confessed. ‘It might not have been her.’

  ‘So why would she ask if you remembered her?’

  Andee drank more wine as though it might sort the craziness in her head.

  ‘If she’d been a child, I mean a small child, two or three, when she disappeared,’ Graeme continued, ‘she’d have changed …’

  ‘She knew I’d recognise her,’ Andee cut across him. ‘She stopped only for that, and then she drove on. Why did she drive on?’

  Offering the only answer he could, Graeme said, ‘Whatever the reason, she’s decided she wants you to know she’s alive.’

  Andee’s head started to spin. Almost thirty years had passed since her younger sister, Penny, had vanished from their lives. At the age of fourteen she’d left them with nothing more than a one-page letter, sent weeks after she’d gone. Everyone had long believed it to be a suicide note.

  Dear Mum and Dad, I probably ought to say sorry for leaving the way I have, but maybe you already don’t mind very much that I’m not around any more, so instead I’ll say sorry for always being such a disappointment to you. I know Dad wanted a son when I was born, so I guess I’ve been a let-down to him from the start, and I don’t blame him for always loving Andee the most because she’s much nicer-looking than I am and likes sports, the same as him, and is really clever so it stands to reason that he’d be really proud of her. I know I shouldn’t say this, but sometimes I hate her for being so much better than I am at everything. No one ever seems to notice me when she’s in the room. It’s like I become invisible and I know she wishes I would go away. So that’s what I’m going to do.

  I don’t know what else to say, except sorry again. I expect you’ll all be much happier without me. Please tell Andee she can have whatever she likes of mine, although I don’t expect she’ll want anything at all.

  Your daughter, Penny

  Although Penny hadn’t actually said she was going to kill herself, it had certainly sounded that way. However, because of the doubt and failure to find a body, Andee and her parents had never quite been able to give up the hope of one day finding her. It was the reason Andee had followed her father into the police force instead of going to uni, in the naïve belief that she might succeed in finding Penny where others had failed. By then Penny’s disappearance had turned their father into a shadow of his former self. He’d never been able to get over it, and had died without ever knowing what had happened to his younger daughter.

  Andee’s mother was still alive, and Andee knew that she thought about Penny almost every day. Each case of a missing child that appeared on the news moved them both as deeply as if
it were happening to them all over again. It was part of the reason Andee had finally given up her job as a detective. Every search she became involved in for a missing child drew her focus back to Penny, and dealing with other people’s tragedies, finding bodies, uncovering murders, having so few happy endings, she’d come to realise, was keeping her own tragedy alive.

  ‘What do you want to do?’ Graeme asked gently, bringing her back to the present.

  She looked at him, so lost for an answer that she almost laughed.

  ‘We can lunch here, or go back to the villa,’ he said.

  Her gaze drifted along the street, as though lured there by the invisible Mercedes. ‘The ridiculous thing is,’ she said, ‘I’m feeling afraid to leave in case she comes back.’

  ‘Do you think she will?’

  Andee shook her head; she had no idea.

  He reached for her hand. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘We need to talk this through and here’s not the right place.’

  An hour later they were on the vine-covered terrace of the villa they’d rented for the two months they were planning to be in Provence. It was just a few kilometres from the stunning medieval village of Gordes, surrounded by lavender fields and vineyards and partly sheltered from the warm mistral winds by the magnificent Mont Ventoux.

  The villa’s sprawling gardens were alive with the incessant scrape of cicadas. On the table in front of them were prawns, pâté, cheese, ham, beefy tomatoes, and succulent peaches collapsing from their skins. Graeme had opened more wine, but neither of them ate or drank. Andee’s shock at seeing her sister hadn’t lessened, and in fact was only increasing as disbelief, confusion and a horrible unease stole through her.

  ‘Why did she do that?’ she demanded in frustration. ‘What was the point of showing herself to me, then simply driving off?’

  ‘I still can’t fathom how she even knew you were there?’

  The fact that neither of them could answer these questions didn’t matter, because it seemed clear that Penny had known; had indeed timed her return – if it could be called that – with the kind of precision that was as calculated as it was disturbing.