Arriving at the house, she fumbled her key into the lock and almost fell through the front door. Relief sweeping through her when she saw Justin standing on the stairs, she took a step towards him. ‘Justin? What’s—’ Oh God! He’d been injured. Her heart lurching against her ribcage, Alicia flew towards him. And then she stopped uncertainly.
His face white, his expression inscrutable, Justin didn’t move. He simply looked at her as if she were a stranger, and Alicia’s heart, already heavy with guilt and unbearable sorrow, plummeted like a lead weight in her chest.
‘Justin, you’re hurt.’ Her gaze dropped to the spatters of blood on his shirt, then back to his face.
‘I’m fine.’ Justin scanned her eyes, his own thunderously dark, and then looked past her, his expression hardening.
‘Sorry,’ Paul Radley said from behind Alicia. ‘I wouldn’t have come in, but I saw the door was open. You dropped your phone in the car, Alicia.’
Oh no. Alicia felt her stomach turn over. She’d asked him to let her out of the car away from the house. He must have known why she had. And now he was walking into the hall as bold as brass. Why would he do that?
‘Paul gave me a lift to the reception.’ She fumbled hopelessly for an explanation. ‘He came to the funeral and when I got your—’
‘Right. Well, now he’s played the hero, Paul can just fuck off again, can’t he?’ Justin cut in angrily, his gaze fixed stonily on Paul’s.
Cold fear pierced through Alicia like a knife. ‘He offered me a lift, Justin,’ she said, falteringly, willing God to strike her down dead if it saved her husband any more hurt. ‘Jess brought Sophie back and I didn’t have any transport, so—’
‘Drives a taxi then, does he?’ Justin interrupted bitterly.
‘No, I…’ Alicia shook her head, confused and, above all, frightened. He was bleeding. She needed to know why. She needed to know what had happened. ‘Justin, please, the text. ‘You said it was urgent. Please tell me what’s happened. Where’s Sophie?’
Justin’s eyes flicked to hers. ‘She’s fine, I think,’ he said, emphasis on the ‘think’. ‘She’s with Jessica.’
Thank God. Alicia closed her eyes.
Looking between her and Paul, Justin finally came down the stairs. ‘We’ve been broken into,’ he said bluntly, causing Alicia’s world to shift further off-kilter.
‘Broken into?’ She stared at him, shocked. ‘But… how? When?’ Not last night. They would have noticed. As devastated as they had all been this morning, they would have noticed a breakin.
‘Today,’ Justin supplied, glancing away. ‘The police are on their way.’ He looked back to her. ‘I suspect Paul, who has an uncanny knack for turning up uninvited, might be better off out of the way, if you don’t mind my suggesting.’
His gaze travelled pointedly back to him.
Paul nodded understandingly. ‘Of course. My timing couldn’t have been worse, could it? This is unbelievable, when you already have so much to contend with. Please accept my sincere condolences. This must be a very difficult time for you both.’
‘It is,’ Justin assured him.
Someone had broken in while they were at the funeral? While they were burying their child! Alicia felt anger unfurl inside her. The absolute bastards! ‘Have they touched anything?’ she asked, her blood running cold as she imagined the things they might have touched, desecrated, stolen. Memories broken. Her children’s things. Her baby’s. Please… not her baby’s. She swallowed back a jagged knot in her throat. ‘Have they taken anything?’
His hostility seeming to wane, Justin turned his attention to her, focussing on her at last. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve looked, but—’
‘Have they been in the nursery?’ Feeling sick now to her very soul, Alicia stepped shakily towards the stairs.
‘Alicia, wait.’ Catching her shoulders, Justin stopped her. ‘You need to wait, Alicia. The police said not to go into any of the upstairs rooms. They said not to touch anything.’
Alicia wavered, every one of her emotions colliding. This was her punishment. She’d lost her dear precious child, but she would not let the lowlife who’d done this sully her baby’s memories. She prayed his tiny space hadn’t been invaded. It still smelled of him. Her baby!
Clamping a hand to her mouth, she pushed past him. She had to see. She had to know.
‘Alicia!’ Justin was right behind her as she stumbled up the stairs.
Finding the nursery untouched, Alicia gave way to the sobs climbing her throat, and thanked God for this one small mercy. Her next thought of her daughter, she squeezed past Justin to Sophie’s room.
Seeing nothing obviously missing or touched, she allowed herself to breathe out, and turned to go to the main bedroom.
Close behind her, Justin caught her arm as she neared the door. ‘You shouldn’t go in there, Alicia,’ he said quietly, his eyes now holding a warning.
There was something he didn’t want her to see. Something he knew would upset her. She searched his face. There was no anger there now, just heartbreaking bewilderment and so much pain. Concern also, for her. Guilt consuming her, Alicia dropped her gaze. ‘I need to, Justin,’ she said. ‘I have to know.’
Once inside the door, she stopped dead. Studying the mirror in disbelief, reading the cruel message left there, realising it was Justin’s blood at the smashed centre of it, that her husband would be suffering because of it, because of her, Alicia felt her heart falter.
It wasn’t whoever had broken into their house who’d sullied their memories.
It was her.
Twenty-One
JUSTIN
It had taken every ounce of Justin’s willpower to control himself when Alicia had come home with the man who might well be Sophie’s father. Now he was restraining himself from asking her to stay, instead of going to her sister’s and leaving things hanging between them. But then, knowing what he now did, Justin guessed it was him, rather than a houseful of tainted memories, she might prefer to be away from.
He supposed he should be grateful, given the lack of police resources, that the detective in charge of the hit-and-run case had turned up personally. They were giving the breakin some priority, but the scene of crime officers seemed to be taking their sweet time trying to establish whether they might have any forensic evidence to go on, meaning Alicia would most likely take up Radley’s offer of a lift to her sister’s. How ironic that when Justin had asked him to leave, wanting the bastard out of his house and away from his wife, the police had requested he wait around – to eliminate any fingerprints he might have left, they’d said.
He’d gleaned from Radley’s expression that he’d been more than happy to oblige, eager to hang around Alicia. Was he getting some perverse kick out of it, humiliating the man whose wife he was having a seedy affair with? Justin glanced contemptuously to where he stood in the middle of his lounge, looking at him as if he were weighing him up. Prat. Justin sucked in a terse breath and turned his attention to Detective Inspector Taylor, willing him to hurry it up.
‘What about the writing?’ Alicia asked him, as DI Taylor scribbled in his notebook.
‘We might have been able to get a handwriting analyst on it. Unfortunately, now the mirror’s smashed and spattered with blood…’ Shrugging hopelessly, Taylor looked regretfully towards Justin.
Justin glanced down. It had been a kneejerk reaction. Probably the only one who would understand why he’d reacted that way was Alicia, because she knew the circumstances under which he’d found his family.
‘So, it’s just the items you mentioned that you think are missing?’ Taylor double-checked, referring to his notes. ‘One half-carat diamond ring; one ladies’ Radley watch; one ladies’ nine-carat gold bar-and-chain bracelet; and one yellow gold locket, enhanced with a white gold floral motif?’