Forgive Me Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  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

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Acknowledgments

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Read On

  Praise

  Also by Susan Lewis

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  You know how it goes, some people you like and some you just don’t. I can tell you this much, you’re not going to like me. No one does. I don’t even like myself, especially not after what I did. Not even before it, really.

  My name is Archie (you might already know that), I’m nineteen, and before all this I lived with my weirdo mother in the kind of house someone like you wouldn’t want to put a foot inside of. She’s not into housework, see, or decorating, or stuff to make the place smell and look good. She doesn’t really get any of that. Everyone laughs at her like she’s mental and doesn’t understand what’s going on. OK, she’s different, but it don’t mean she’s not a good person inside, despite all the stuff that goes on with her. I know she is, and that makes me feel even worse about being ashamed of her sometimes. Trouble is, it’s not easy having a mum like her, and I hate myself for minding—really, really hate myself. I want her to be normal like everyone else so she won’t get poked fun at and have stuff thrown at her when she walks down the street. Kids do that to make her chase them and she nearly always does.

  When BJ came to take me away to work for him he beat her up to make her let me go, and I didn’t stop him because I wanted to go.

  BJ’s another story, don’t let’s get into him here.

  We haven’t ever met, you and me. I don’t know if we ever will, but I’m laying all this out for you because Dan talked me into it. I know you know him, although he doesn’t talk about you much, but we both know you’re the reason he comes to see me. I find him to be a regular bloke who looks a lot like Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, with his black-framed glasses and chiseled features. OK, he’s got Prince Harry hair, but catch one of his smiles and they light him up like a proper movie star, don’t you reckon? He’s a decent type, you can tell by looking at him, with the right sort of manners and a way of listening that makes you talk even when you don’t want to.

  He does that to me a lot. If he didn’t, I don’t suppose I’d be writing this, it would never have occurred to me. I guess Dan’s superpowers are of a particular sort.

  No one would feel worried about letting him into their front room, the way they would me; and I have to be honest, I’m getting to like the time we spend together. I don’t know anything about him personally, like if he’s married or has kids or anything; I’ve never asked and I don’t think he’d tell me if I did.

  He’s probably afraid I might send someone to find his family and hurt them.

  I wouldn’t, but I don’t blame him for thinking I would.

  The first time I met him I didn’t bother speaking to him. To me he was just another tosser wanting to get inside my head. I’m only doing this now because over time I’ve found it’s easier to go along with him than to fight him. He’s got something about him that makes you want to shut him up, not in a rough way—I’ve never felt like smacking him—but in a way that if you do what he’s asking you’re both happy. I could say he has some serious personable shit going on that everyone warms to, even someone like me.

  I can hear him in my head telling me to stop writing about him and get back to the point of why I’m doing this.

  I can’t see the point myself, because it’s not going to get me anywhere, but now I’m visualizing one of his looks that usually ends up with me thinking he knows more than I do—and frankly that wouldn’t be hard. He’s a smart bloke. Do I wish I was like him? Sure, I’d have to be crazy not to when he seems to have everything going for him. I wonder how rich he is; he gives off the scent of it and I should know, I’ve sniffed enough of it.

  So, what can I tell you about me that you’d be interested to know?

  I’m not as tall as Dan—he’s about six foot and I’m five ten—and he’s probably twice my age.

  What a crack if he turned out to be my long-lost dad.

  If he was, I wouldn’t have done what I did to you. That’s a fact.

  I asked him before I started this letter if I had to spell out what I did.

  “We already know what you did,” he reminded me.

  He’s right, and it was a dumbass question. I guess you want to know why I did it?

  Well, that’s not something I can tell you without bringing a whole heap of trouble down on us all, and I think you’ve already had enough of that, thanks to me.

  So, where do we go from here?

  Dan’s advice was to keep writing anything that comes into my head, and he’ll look it over the next time he’s here. He has to do this because of all the swearing and street slang that comes out of me. He says you won’t want to read all that and I can see he’s probably right.

  It’s weird, me sitting here thinking about you and how our paths crossed. It shouldn’t have happened, but it’s no good saying that now because it did, and in our different ways we’re both paying the price. It’s a high one for me, I’m coming to terms with that, but for you . . . I don’t know how you’re going to live with what happened to you.

  Chapter One

  Marcus Huxley-Browne looked up from the warning call he’d just received on his mobile phone. His handsome face was taut, pale, showing none of its usual boredom or arrogance—or the self-satisfaction that came from having so much. He’d been born into an established family; he had all the right contacts and was as famed for his City successes as he was for the celebrations he threw when deals came off.

  “They’re coming for me,” he muttered, the paleness of his skin turning to gray. He wasn’t looking at his wife, maybe he wasn’t even speaking to her.

  “Who?” she asked, unnerved by the fear in his deep gray eyes.
/>   He stared at her, seeing her past the commotion in his head. “You know nothing,” he instructed her tightly. “You’ve seen nothing. You’ve heard nothing. Have you got that?” His fists clenched, and she wondered if he was going to hit her, blame her, or something worse.

  Who was coming?

  She knew better than to ask a second time and stepped aside as he headed out of the room, across the hall, and into his study.

  “Come here!” he shouted.

  Obediently she hastened after him and stopped on the threshold of the room she was rarely invited into. He was standing behind his desk, a Huxley-Browne heirloom, one of many that cluttered the house with stately gloom. He looked haunted now, agitated—hunted—as if not knowing where to turn or what to do. Had things been different, she might have felt sorry for him.

  “You don’t speak to anyone,” he told her gruffly.

  She nodded. She’d had this instruction before, but usually he didn’t take any chances; he’d whisk her upstairs and lock her in one of the top-floor rooms.

  She used to fight it, but she’d learned not to.

  She often heard things from up there, but she never saw the comings and goings outside—cars pulling up, people entering or leaving the house—the windows were too high. However, voices carried even if she couldn’t make out who they belonged to, or what was being said.

  She knew what kind of people came. They were his set: the all-male network that he and others of his ilk had created at university, in the City, in private clubs, in various capitals, to trade information, or to start rumors, or to import and export insider knowledge. Girls came too, for the after-parties, lots of them, paid well she imagined—and the dealers in mood- and sexual-performance enhancers came too. Shady, sinister characters from an underworld she could barely imagine.

  On the nights Marcus didn’t come home she guessed someone else was hosting proceedings at their luxury apartment or town house. She never asked, and he never told her, but she’d come to recognize a descent from the drug-fueled highs when it was in front of her.

  There were other nights—lots of them—when he behaved like a regular family man, sober, a little tired, but happy and feeling generous at the end of a long, productive day. She could easily mistake him then for the man who’d comforted and befriended her after the tragedy of her first husband’s death. She still felt strangely attached to that man and the way he’d spoken so softly to her during that terrible time, and had smiled into her eyes as if he couldn’t believe how fortunate he was to have found her. He’d never been frightening then, just loving, attentive, interested. She’d married him believing he loved her, and feeling certain it was the right thing to do for her—and for her eleven-year-old daughter who’d been devastated by the loss of her father.

  Now here they were, or here she was, watching him frantically snatching files from his desk and stuffing them into an old-fashioned attaché case. She hadn’t seen it before.

  “For Christ’s sake, don’t just stand there,” he raged, “get that cabinet away from the wall.”

  Quickly she moved to do as she was told, but the cabinet was too heavy.

  He shoved her aside and did it himself, grunting, sweating, swearing . . . Was he crying? Or were those beads of sweat? How much did she care? How afraid was she?

  She wasn’t surprised to see the safe behind the cabinet. She’d known it was there, but this was the first time he’d opened it in front of her, pressing the numbers in slowly, deliberately, not wanting to waste time on mistakes.

  She couldn’t calculate how much cash was stacked on the five shelves inside, but it surely ran into hundreds of thousands of pounds, all the bills neatly bundled until they were chaotically rammed into the case along with the files. Too much to fit in, but he was going to make it happen . . .

  Someone knocked at the front door. Three heavy raps.

  “Shit!” He turned to the window. Beyond was the back garden, and she wondered if he was about to throw himself out onto the lawn and make a run for it.

  With lightning speed he rammed the case into the safe, spun the combination lock and heaved the cabinet back into place.

  Their visitor—or visitors—tried the bell.

  Police? Drug dealers? Who else would he be so afraid of?

  She gasped as he grabbed her by the neck with one hand and pressed her against the wall. “Remember, you know nothing,” he hissed into her face, “you’ve seen nothing, and you’ve heard nothing.”

  She nodded, gasping for breath, clawing at his hand.

  He let her go and pointed along the hall to the door. “Answer it, but if you even think about betraying me . . .” His eyes bored into hers; he didn’t have to tell her that it wouldn’t end well, she already knew.

  She started to move, hardly knowing who or what to expect when she opened the door.

  “Stop!” he seethed under his breath.

  She turned around. “I don’t know where this is going to end,” he growled, “but just in case you get any ideas about leaving me, you’ll be watched; you won’t get away and if you try, I’ll find you and by then you’ll wish I hadn’t.”

  She didn’t doubt him; she never had. She knew what he was capable of, and as he turned to the door she found herself hoping with all her heart and soul that he was about to be taken out, not merely taken away.

  Chapter Two

  “Are you sure you’re OK to drive?”

  Claudia Winters glanced at her sixteen-year-old daughter, the one who was sounding like the parent right now, and tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Sure,” she confirmed, and fixing her eyes on the road ahead, she pressed down on the accelerator to pull away from the curb. It was a jerky start, but it was a new car—bought with cash from a South London dealer who’d asked no questions—and at least she didn’t stall the engine.

  “Don’t look back,” she advised Jasmine.

  “Would it make a difference if I did?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “No! Let’s just go.”

  The place they were leaving was a smart redbrick town house in the heart of Kensington, where they’d lived for the past five years. Their departure—escape, to give it the correct term—had been carefully planned during the last few months. They’d removed their most precious belongings in bags and suitcases as if they were just off for long weekends, or perhaps to make generous donations to a charity shop. Where they’d actually been taking their cargo was to Claudia’s mother’s house in Somerset, in order to store it in a weatherproof garage. Yesterday, under her mother’s supervision, everything had been transported from the garage to the place Claudia and Jasmine were traveling to now.

  Nauseous with nerves, Claudia drove along the leafy street, careful to avoid the parked cars on either side of her, aware of a hundred or more windows bearing witness to their departure.

  Was anyone actually watching? He’d said someone would be, but they’d never spotted anyone, nor had the private investigator they’d hired to check for them.

  There were the neighbors, of course, but it surely wouldn’t occur to any of them that the mother and daughter from number forty-six were about to disappear without trace.

  Claudia hoped it would be that way, but a lot could happen between now and the day they finally felt safe. The past could reach for them in any number of ways; traps they hadn’t yet been able to imagine might already have been set by their own oversights and unwitting mistakes, or even by fate.

  Pushing the dread of it all aside, she drove on past the homes that backed onto the school her daughter had attended since they’d moved here. It was private, expensive, and should have been where she’d complete sixth form before going to uni. Now she was set to continue her education at a school close to their new home, using the name she’d chosen for herself—Jasmine—and sporting a totally new look.

  Once as dark-haired as her beloved father, Jasmine was now blond, with a cute pixie cut that had been executed by her mother’s inexpert hand
only last night. Jasmine loved it, thank goodness. Up to the age of eleven, she’d been a bright girl with a warm personality, and her dad’s sparkling enthusiasm for life. However, these past years in her stepfather’s home, subjected to his erratic moods and overbearing personality, she’d lost the buoyancy of her spirit and had even withdrawn from friendships and activities that should have been normal for a girl her age. So she was as ready to escape and start again as her mother was—as relieved to be making this journey as she’d ever been about anything in her young life.

  At the end of the road Claudia indicated to turn left and headed toward the Hammersmith overpass. As they passed the shop that used to be hers, Dream Interiors (secretly sold as a going concern over a month ago and soon to be renamed All About Home by the new owners), she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the empty window and it made her feel oddly light-headed. Until yesterday her hair had been fair, shoulder-length, and wavy—now it was a rich chestnut color styled in a messy sort of bob that she actually quite liked. It gave her features more definition, she thought, and seemed to warm her pale complexion. She was nothing like the woman who’d started the shop fifteen years ago, although her eyes were still sky blue, and the delicate bone structure that Jasmine’s father, Joel, had captured in so many paintings and sketches remained the same. She’d been tall and curvaceous back then; confident, ambitious, and quick to make friends. She was still tall, of course, but so slender now, even gaunt, that it was like watching the ghost of herself passing from the windows of her old life on her way to the new.

  She was going to miss her business, and her workers and the clients, but when the time was right she’d start creating the same all over again.

  As they circled under the overpass and joined the A4 she was still regularly checking the rearview mirror, not so much for moving traffic as for anyone who might be following. It wasn’t possible to tell, nor was it possible, surely, for Marcus to have set someone on their tail so soon.

  She glanced anxiously at Jasmine, and felt a momentary relief when she received an ironic smile in return.

  “Will you please stop stressing?” Jasmine scolded with teenage exasperation. “You have to let it go, Mum. We’re on our way to a new life and that’s all we should think about. We’re actually pulling it off.”