Finding Grace(86)

Epilogue





Six months later





There’s been so much stuff uncovered by what happened to Grace, so much fallout to work through… the last six months feel like a mere six days.

Dad has just been discharged from his rehabilitation programme for his gambling addiction. We begged him to involve the police in the intimidation he’d suffered from the loan sharks but he was adamant he wouldn’t do it.

‘I borrowed the money. I have to take responsibility for that, love,’ he told me as I sat holding his hand. ‘I didn’t know it would escalate like it did but you know, I would still have borrowed it if I had.’

Blake said he had the right to deal with it as he saw fit but I still feel unhappy they got away with it to do it to others. But Dad is dealing with it in his own way. As part of the work the rehab centre does, he’s visiting senior schools and colleges in the area and speaking candidly about what happened to him.

‘Hopefully, I can warn young people not to follow the path I did,’ he told us. ‘At least some good can come out of it.’

The detectives told us that Jeffery would be nominated for a posthumous bravery award for his actions. When I thought he’d been skulking around making a nuisance of himself, he’d been watching and monitoring and had noticed the woman – Angela – hanging around the house. He’d followed her to the park that day and tracked us to the house. He’d then called the police before coming in to assist me.

The biggest shock has been that he left his house to Blake in his will. He described my husband as his ‘best and only friend’.

Mike and Bev have been our rocks through it all and if anything, I think even more of Bev for helping Dad out like she did. They got over their differences together after Mike looked carefully into the remortgage she’d sorted out for Dad. Although she’d been a little lenient on one or two points, he was satisfied she hadn’t broken any regulations.

DI Pearlman called to tell us Rhonda had taken her own life in prison. She’d left a note saying she wanted to be with her brother, even after everything he’d kept from her.

We’ve all learned painful and valuable lessons about keeping secrets from the people we love the most. We’ve learned that when the truth comes out of its own accord – as it always does – it can be a hundred times worse to deal with.

That’s why I never want to keep another secret from my husband.

That’s why the time has come to speak to him about Grace.



Blake sits in his chair and I sit opposite him, on the couch. I pick up a scatter cushion and hug it close to my body. He notices the gesture but doesn’t comment.

Despite the calming effect of my medication, I can feel a maelstrom of emotions swirling beneath the surface, kept at bay, for now, with Dr Mahmoud’s help.

Blake’s voice is soft when he breaks the silence.

‘I know you have something to tell me, Luce, but I want you to take your time. There’s no rush now this nightmare is over. Grace is safe, upstairs in her bed. Now it’s time to draw a line so we can begin to live again.’

I’m so grateful our daughter is OK. She was weak for a few days after coming home and spent some time each day at the hospital – both for treatment and therapy – but she bounced right back and seems her normal self again now, albeit a little more nervous. I now feel fortunate she was in a vague, semi-trance state when I found her because it appears she took in nothing of what was said and done in those awful last minutes in the house.

Blake’s words are beautiful when he talks about learning to live again… but they are also na?ve. I’m about to rip his world apart, this man who has loved and supported me through so many years, since the day I met him.

But he’s right. It really is time to draw a line under the lies, the deceit… time to give up the secrets of the past and free ourselves from its vicelike grip. Whatever the outcome.

It feels strange, just the four of us again in the house. No press gathered at the gate, no Fiona lurking in the hallway.

The living room looks like ours again. Lamps glow warmly, and the fire glow is on. I even lit a candle earlier, and the air is laced with the tranquil scents of lavender and jasmine. It feels like home once more.

‘Lucie?’

I look at him now, his handsome face lined with patient concern. I have kept him waiting long enough, but to show him how much I respect and love him, I have to break his heart into a million pieces.

So I tell him what happened that day nearly ten years ago. I take him way back to the night he visited me at Dad’s house and I cooked his favourite meal.

‘Steak and chips, my favourite.’ He smiles faintly at the memory. ‘Some things don’t change.’

I remind him how we chatted excitedly about our wedding plans, how we couldn’t wait for the bright, wonderful future we had planned so enthusiastically together.

‘And then you left, you went home,’ I tell him. ‘And I had another visitor. Someone I’d hoped never to set eyes on again after university. Stefan O’Hara.’

‘The abusive relationship you were in?’ He frowns. I’ve only given him the bare bones about my time at Newcastle, I never found the words to admit what I believed at the time were murderous deeds.

I nod.