Safe Home (ARC) Read online

  Safe Home

  An absolutely unputdownable crime thriller

  Kerry Watts

  Books by Kerry Watts

  Detective Jessie Blake Series

  Heartlands

  Safe Home

  AVAILABLE IN AUDIO

  Heartlands (Available in the UK and the US)

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Epilogue

  Hear More from Kerry

  Books by Kerry Watts

  A Letter from Kerry

  Heartlands

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks, Misty. You were the best x

  Prologue

  The deafening horn blast from the rusting white van startled her. Her eyes were stretched wide at the sudden sound, but her chaotic mind remained elsewhere. The heavily tattooed driver mouthed his discontent through the window and gesticulated with his fist. This was quickly followed by a close shave with a taxi, which had to slam on his brakes to avoid hitting her.

  ‘Idiot! Watch where you’re going!’

  The taxi driver’s gesture went unnoticed. She ran on past an elderly couple she recognised from the village, but her cloudy mind couldn’t recall their names. They gasped as she narrowly missed their neatly groomed bichon frise.

  ‘Watch where you’re going, lassie!’ The man tutted as his wife clung to his arm, the small dog barking at her as she left them behind.

  She couldn’t stop. She mustn’t. Her mind was racing so fast she didn’t notice the man ahead of her until she had already collided with him, sending her to the ground. The man reached out his sweaty hand to help her up. She took it, got to her feet and ran on with barely a backward glance.

  That was close.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ the man growled breathlessly, before pushing his earbuds back in and moving off, muttering something inaudible under his breath.

  She ran on, towards the children heading home from school. She narrowed her eyes at them as they passed, laughing and pointing at her. Two young mothers, both seemingly startled by her appearance, frowned in her direction before continuing to fuss with their toddlers, each already trussed up in thick ski suits. The cold wind blew harder, and the wind turbines that sat high above the village in the Ochil Hills spun with gusto as thick white clouds sped across the horizon.

  She was dressed only in skinny blue jeans and an orange T-shirt, and damp strands of her wavy auburn hair dangled across her face. But she couldn’t stop. On she ran, past the village school, moving against the flow of children and parents all chattering and laughing about their day, all the while repeating the word ‘no’ to herself.

  ‘Hey, are you OK?’ one father called out as he watched her slice through the crowd, but still she couldn’t stop. Finally clear of the throng, she headed towards the Moncreiffe Hill woodland.

  Hurry up. They’re coming.

  ‘I know, I know,’ she called out into the freezing air.

  She had to get out of the village. It had all happened so quickly. Why couldn’t she just have done what she was supposed to do today? If she had just gone there instead, this wouldn’t be happening. Her legs burned from running and her toes felt numb in the bitter January chill. Snow had been falling in the village for three days, and forecasters predicted the coldest winter for decades was on its way.

  As she passed McCabe’s garage, co-proprietor Tim McCabe was alarmed at the state of her. He considered calling out to see if she was OK, but his brother Peter had told him to stay out of sight. Tim watched her cross the bridge and head towards the entrance to Moncreiffe Wood, thinking she looked worse than he’d seen her for a long time. He eyed his van keys on the office table, before deciding it’d be quicker on foot – if he hurried he could catch up to her, no problem. His phone buzzed in his pocket. Peter. He answered it.

  ‘Aye, I know. I can handle it,’ Tim growled at his brother. ‘Just get back here, will you? I don’t see why I should be the one taking all the risk.’ He hung up and stuffed his phone deep into the pocket of his overalls. I don’t see why he even asked me if he doesn’t trust me, Tim thought, as he watched her figure disappear up the snow-covered path between the trees.

  Her chest tightened, as if caught in a vice, as she struggled to run uphill. Her heart pounded, and she jumped at the sound of the collared doves scattering above her. Their sudden flight caused snow to fall from the branches onto her already sweat-soaked hair. She ran because she’d panicked. It was just so awful – she couldn’t bear it.

  ‘OK, calm down, calm down.’ She tried to remember to breathe. In and out. In and out. She couldn’t think. Her brain seemed to have locked away her ability to process thoughts and she couldn’t find the key, no matter how hard she tried. All she felt was a heavy fog. A cloudy mist floating inside her head where the solution to this horrific problem should be. Why did she have to listen to them? Her fists tightened into balls and she hammered them against her thighs. She wanted to cry out. For something, anything to fix it.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ she screamed at a passing jogger, who’d simply glanced her way f
rom further up the track while adjusting the handles on her rucksack.

  The girl couldn’t handle this on her own any longer. They were going to be so angry with her. She sobbed uncontrollably and paced back and forth up the track, tugging on her knotted hair. Her whole body trembled in the freezing cold. Finally, she grabbed her phone and called the only person she knew who could fix this.

  ‘It’s me, I’ve done something terrible. You have to come. I am so sorry,’ she cried, her words almost lost in the foam of fizzy tears. ‘You have to hurry before anyone else finds out. She can’t ever know it was me.’

  One

  Dianne Davidson tightened her blue scarf against the bitter chill, the wind catching her as she rounded the bend at the furthest end of Moncreiffe Wood from the village of Bridge of Earn, parallel to the main Edinburgh–Perth road.

  The surgeon had been right. Exercise was great in helping her recover from the hysterectomy. This was a long walk – three miles – and it had taken her and her young Labrador, Benson, a good hour and a half, but it hadn’t felt that far at all. The bright winter sun was encouraging, necessarily so, given that Dianne’s mood when she got up that morning had been anything but bright. Two years ago to the day, but Dianne remembered that morning as if it were yesterday.

  She rubbed her gloved hand across the back of her neck, wiping away the stubborn patch of moisture that had gathered under her scarf from the bottom of her short brown hair. It would have been a good idea to dry her hair after her shower, perhaps, but the beckoning sunshine and Benson’s barking had made her skip it.

  As she reached her bench, Dianne pulled the small bunch of white carnations, tied neatly in a pink silk ribbon, from inside the bag and lowered herself onto the bench to rest. Benson stopped to look back to where his mistress had interrupted his walk and whimpered before turning to join her. He sat down close to Dianne’s knee and lifted a paw to pat her leg. Dianne smiled at his gesture. He had been more like a therapy pet than just a dog to her these past eighteen months. Dianne had barely been able to cross the front door for six months after it happened. Thank goodness for her husband Colin, too; without him she didn’t know what she would have done. He’d lost a child as well, though.

  She laid the flowers against the back of the bench and wiped away the single tear that gathered. She promised herself she wouldn’t cry today. Instead she would try to remember the happy, warm memories Stacey had created for her. Her first smile. Her first laugh. The way she’d raged with determination to roll over that first time. Her baby daughter had a lot to say for someone so young. Six months wasn’t nearly long enough to have had her in her life. It was explained away as a cot death, but Dianne had done everything right, hadn’t she? Didn’t she try to make sure she followed all the advice? When it happened, she wondered if people would blame her. Were they accusing her with their eyes, if not their words? She knew people were whispering behind her back. It didn’t matter how many times Colin tried to reassure her that was not true. She opened the bag again and pulled out the soft blue blanket. She held it close to her face and closed her eyes. That smell. The unmistakable baby smell. There was nothing in the world that compared to the sweet scent of a baby. Her mind filled with a sense of soothing comfort. Benson pawed her once more and whimpered, pulling her out of her trance. He was so in tune with her mood.

  ‘It’s OK, silly,’ Dianne smiled at him. ‘Mummy’s fine.’

  Benson barked loudly, just once. One short, sharp, deep bark, but certainly enough to startle a young doe, Dianne only catching a flash of the animal as it bolted deeper into the trees. The deer’s hurried flight caused a grey squirrel to scamper up the nearest tree it could find – the scaly trunk of a Scots pine. Dianne sighed contentedly, rubbed Benson roughly behind his ears and then leaned down to kiss the top of his big brown head.

  ‘You big softy. You are a silly boy, aren’t you?’ she teased, and he nuzzled his face deeper into her legs, almost lifting them off the ground with the force of his near thirty-kilogram bulk. ‘Hey, hey you, calm down, young man.’ She pulled a treat from the pocket of her duffle coat and watched him devour it in one bite.

  He really was a tonic. But another, human tonic had crash-landed into Dianne’s life six months ago. One that had done more good than any antidepressant or counsellor or hyperactive puppy. Dianne’s mouth had dropped open in horror when she saw the tatty white van pull into the drive of the empty bungalow next door. Her horror had deepened when out of it had climbed a young couple, the girl barely into her twenties, covered in tattoos and sporting a nose ring. But what had really filled Dianne with dread was the fact that the girl had been heavily pregnant.

  The young couple, it transpired, couldn’t have been nicer, but Claire Lucas didn’t take to motherhood as naturally as Dianne had, which only increased the bittersweet taste of having a new baby next door. As the weeks had gone by, Claire had been diagnosed with post-natal depression, and Dianne had found herself doing more and more for little Finlay Lucas – things that his mother should really have been doing but wasn’t able to. Dianne didn’t resent it – she enjoyed every minute of the time she spent feeding, bathing and taking care of this gorgeous baby boy, rediscovering some of the happiness she and Colin had been so cruelly robbed of. Pushing Finlay around the village in his pram felt right. Dianne felt whole again somehow.

  But in recent days it was getting harder and harder to give him back. Back to a house that was dirty and chaotic. To a mother who seemed indifferent to him. She wanted to give Claire a shake and scream Look at your son! This beautiful boy. Cherish him. Treasure every moment you get to spend with him. Dianne lifted Finlay’s blanket to her cheek and rubbed it gently over her skin, inhaling its scent one last time. She smiled. Her racing heart slowed while she folded and tucked the blanket back down into the bottom of her bag. She picked up Benson’s lead and stood up from the bench. She kissed the tips of the gloved fingers of one hand and laid them gently on the bench’s small silver plaque, which simply read: For Stacey x.

  Her iPhone buzzed in her pocket and she read the email and grinned. Their plane tickets were confirmed. She hoped Colin would be as excited as she was.

  ‘Come on, Benny boy.’ She patted her leg and tossed the dog’s ball ahead of them, and he shot after his toy without having to be told twice.

  Despite the date, today was a good day. The first day of the rest of their lives. They could finally put the past behind them and start again. She couldn’t wait to surprise Colin.

  Two

  Darren Lucas was exhausted, and yawned as he pulled into his drive. He switched off the engine and flopped his head back into the headrest then exhaled a long, slow breath before going inside to face her. He wondered what kind of mood she would be in – it was like walking on eggshells these days. On top of that, working for his father-in-law was taking it out of him. As well as taking care of Finlay during the night. Stopping by Maggie’s to share a stolen few moments had probably not been a good idea in his already exhausted state. Darren was ready for bed, but knew it would be a long time before his head would hit the pillow. He yawned again and waved to his neighbour, Colin Davidson, who nodded while he dropped a large black bag into his wheelie bin. Darren stared at his own overflowing bin and told himself that he must remember to wheel it out later tonight after missing the collection last time round.

  ‘It’s another cold one,’ Colin Davidson called out. ‘Roll on spring,’ he chuckled and blew warmth into his freezing-cold hands.

  ‘Aye, it’s bitter the night,’ Darren called back, before heading round to the back door. He unzipped his fleece and slung it over one of the kitchen chairs, cursing under his breath at the heat. How many times did he keep telling Claire they didn’t need the heating on so high? They were already behind with the gas and electric, among other things.

  He called out to her as he tossed his keys onto the hall table, before seeing her slumped on the sofa, surrounded by the debris she’d said she would tidy that morning. He shook
his head and grabbed a towel from the pile of laundry on the kitchen table. He needed a shower, needed to wash Maggie off him. Stopping by her place on his way home had become a habit. A habit that helped him deal with the stress he was facing at home. Darren hadn’t planned to have an affair. She was Claire’s best friend, after all. But it just sort of happened.

  He snatched up a clean T-shirt and joggers from another laundry pile in the corner of the bedroom and sniffed them. They didn’t smell of washing powder, but they were passable. He switched on the hot jets of water and peeled his sweaty work shirt over his head, then tossed it towards the laundry basket in the corner of the bathroom. He wiped the fog off the steamed-up mirror and glanced at his reflection. He did look tired. More like his thirties than his mid-twenties. He stepped into the shower and stood under the steaming-hot flow, trying to wash away his guilt.