Playing Dead: Book One of The Whitechapel Chronicles

Chapter 18

The thought of Harper stalking my home had sent me into free fall and yet I didn't even know why I was so surprised. The apparent animal intruder in the garden. The open bedroom window. The signs had all been there and I had put it down to nothing more than my own paranoid, guilt-stricken mind. Looking at him now, knowing him the way I now did, I wondered how I could have been so blind not to put two and two together.

Still, he said angels were blind and if that is how he had seen me, then he was right. I had been blind. Completely, utterly blind to what had been creeping into my life and into my home.

A splinter sharp shard of fear pierced my heart when I thought about Brandon. Was he safe? If Harper had been able to gain access so easily, would he be tempted to go back and kill Brandon? Maybe he had done it already. I couldn't bear the thought of that. It was one thing to cause my downfall, but Brandon's? He was innocent and didn't deserve Harper's hate or malice.

"Have you been back to the house since?" I probed tentatively, trying to keep my voice from trembling.

Harper, who was still glowering furiously after his outburst, looked at me, his eyes narrowing shrewdly. "Why would I want to go back there? I got what I wanted."

"I know...I was just thinking. Loose ends and all that."

"If you mean did I go back and kill your husband, then no. It's a damn tempting idea, I've got to admit, but no, he's perfectly safe." His face wrinkled up in disgust.

I frowned. "But he must be looking for me? What if he asks too many questions? Gets too close to finding out what happened?"

"Do you want me to kill him or something?" he asked with a cruel smile.

"Of course not," I replied quickly. "I'm just trying to think logically. There's no body and if there's no body he probably thinks I'm still alive."

He laughed softly, calmly examining his fingernails before biting at one of them. "Oh trust me, he thinks you're very much dead. There might have been no body, but I'm afraid your pretty designer dress, fancy shoes and bag were found covered in your blood. The results were conclusive. You were abducted, probably murdered in the most violent, horrific way and by now you are just another unsolved case file festering in the drawers of some detective inspector's dusty filing cabinet."

I hated him. I hated how cruelly flippant he was about all this. Everything about him, from the way he casually sat there picking at his nails, to the way he spoke, made me just want to scream in sheer rage and frustration. Here he was, making jokes about what had happened to me and Brandon was at home, grieving, mourning the wife who had betrayed him. My chest hurt thinking about him.

"I want to go back. I want to see him."

I didn't even know I was thinking it until I heard myself say the words out loud.

Harper's head shot up and he stared at me, wide-eyed in alarm, his mouth falling open slightly. "Didn't you hear me? You're dead, Megan, or at least that's what he thinks. That's what everyone thinks. You can't go back. You can't see him."

"Please. I won't contact him. I just want to see if he's okay," I said imploringly.

"Are you fucking mental? I said no! You need to forget about him. Forget about your old life because it's as dead as you are. What do you think would happen if you rocked up there and he saw you?"

"He won't see me, I promise I'll be careful," I insisted, feeling the desperation engulfing me like an itch I couldn't scratch.

"No you won't. You're a newborn vampire, Megan. You think you're okay now because you've fed once? Forget it. Give it a few hours and the thirst will be killing you again. That's the way it is. I can't let you out until you're ready. You go now and you won't be able to help yourself and hubby will be lying on your kitchen tiles with his throat ripped to pieces. You've already destroyed his life; do you really want to destroy him too?"