And So It Begins (Stephanie King #1)

by Rachel Abbott

It’s twenty-two months since we had that conversation the first time I came to this house, and more than eleven months since I moved in. Even now I do everything possible to avoid the gaze of Mia North, Mark’s dead wife.

But each time he leaves this house I’m certain he remembers the time he left his wife here, and returned to find her dead.

It was the first move I’d made to place myself with Mark. The two of us together, facing Cleo. And so it began.

I’m always fascinated by the thought of how one single decision can alter the course of not just one life but potentially so many.

‘You don’t want to admit that you’ve made such a bad choice of partner – that your judgement is so flawed,’ one woman had told her. Another said, ‘It’s because people don’t understand why you let it happen – they think it’s easy to walk away. They don’t get it that you’re made to feel it’s all your fault, that he had to hit you, and every ounce of your self-confidence crumbles to nothing. Then he’ll do something especially nice and you begin to kid yourself it’s all going to be okay.’

Mark had no idea that Miss Clarke is, in fact, already married and has been for some years.’

There was one secret that had loomed large between her and Mark, both of them too scared to admit to the other what they had done. And now it was too late.

‘Look, people hurt each other in relationships. They don’t always respond the way their partner wants or expects them to. It shouldn’t mean the end.’

Was it worth killing him? Did I do the right thing? My brain suddenly explodes with a memory – the sea pounding on the rocks, the cry of a gull as it skims the surface of the water. And a child’s scream of terror. And then I know. Yes. It was worth it.

Every cut, every broken bone, every second of pain stokes the fire of revenge. The more brutal the attack, the deeper bores the canker of hatred.