Louise Jensen - The Family

LOUISE JENSEN is a global No.1 bestselling author of psychological thrillers. Louise has sold over a million English language books and her novels have been sold for translation to twenty-five territories, as well as being featured on the USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestsellers lists. Louise was nominated for the Goodreads Debut Author of 2016 Award and The Guardians Not the Booker 2018. The Gift has been optioned for TV and film.

Louise lives with her husband, children, madcap dog and a rather naughty cat in Northamptonshire. She loves to hear from readers and writers and can be found at www.louisejensen.co.uk, where she regularly blogs flash fiction and writing tips.

The Sister

The Gift

The Surrogate

The Date

Louise Jensen

ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2019

Copyright Louise Jensen 2019

Louise Jensen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the authors imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Ebook Edition September 2019 ISBN: 9780008330118

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For Tim,

This one had to be for you!

With love x

For I know the plans I have for you

JEREMIAH 29:11-14

NOW

LAURA

I t all unfolds with cinematic clarity; the gunshot, the scream. Every detail sharp and clear. Time slows as her eyes plead with me to help her. In my mind I bundle her behind me, shielding her body with mine, but she is too far away and I know I cannot reach her in time.

But still I try.

My legs are weighted with dread as I run towards her; the fist around my heart tightening.

A second shot.

Her knees buckle. She crumples like a paper doll.

The ground falls away beneath my feet and I crawl towards her like the animal I have become. My palms are sticky in the arc of blood that is staining the floor red. Blood is thicker than water they say, but hers is thin and beacon-bright. Adrenaline pulses through me leaving numbness in its wake, as I press against her wrist, desperately seeking a pulse. With my other hand I link my fingers through hers the way we used to, before I brought us to this place that has been our ruin. A lifetime of memories strobe through my mind; cradling her close in the maternity wing; Easter eggs spilling out of the wicker basket looped over her pudgy arm; her first day of school, ribboned pigtails swinging as she ran across the playground.

She cant be gone.

Can she?

Fingers of panic press hard against my skull. The colour leaches from the room. A black and white hue descending upon me. I tighten my fingers around hers, afraid Im going to faint. Afraid Im going to let her go.

But then.

A flicker of eyelids. A murmur from her lips.

I lay next to her, gently rolling her towards me, holding her in my arms. I cant, I wont leave her. Family should stick together. Protect each other. Instead, I chose to come here.

This is all my fault.

The drumming in my head grows louder the sound of footfall. I dont have to look up to feel their anger, solid and immovable.

The acrid smell of gunpowder hangs in the air along with my fear.

Looking up, my eyes meet the shooters; they are still holding the gun and sensations return, hard and fast. The pain in my stomach is cutting and deep and I am no longer sure if the blood I am covered in has come from her.

Or is coming from me.

Her top is soaked crimson, as is mine.

The pain increases.

Terrified, I tug at her clothes, my clothes. Praying. Let her be okay. Seventeen is no age. Let it be me.

At last I find the wound but before I can apply pressure to stem the flow of blood there are hands on my shoulders. My elbows. Pulling.

Darkness flickers at the edge of my vision but still I fight against it. I fight against them.

My hands are restrained, feet kick out, teeth sinking into flesh, but its fruitless. I am growing weaker.

Her fingers twitch. Once. Twice.

Nothing.

Tilly! My scream rips through me as I am yanked to my feet. Tilly! I scramble for traction, every fibre of my being straining to reach my daughter.

I cant.

I am still wrestling to be free as I am dragged, my feet scraping the ground.

I know theyll never let us leave here now.

Not alive anyway.

Before

LAURA

F ears. We all have them. That creeping unease. An aversion to something. For me its spiders. It stemmed from a nature documentary years before about the black weaver, a matriphagous breed that switches on her babies cannibalistic instinct by encouraging her spiderlings to devour her. Unable to tear myself away, I had watched through splayed fingers as the mother circled her lair, tapping and vibrating the web, stimulating her youngs primal instinct until they attacked her in a frenzied swarm. Hundreds of scuttling legs. Sinking fangs. The sound of the adult being consumed after venom had dissolved her from the inside out had stayed with me. What possessed a mother to sacrifice herself like that? How could her children turn on her? Of course that was long before I was a parent.

The instant I saw Tilly, tiny hands fisted, eyes squinting in the unaccustomed light, I plunged headfirst into a love that was absolute. A fierce desire as her mother to shield her from the world however I could. And she needed shielding. I knew how damaging it could be out there.

I had been damaged.

That morning though I had no idea how I was going to shelter her from the contents of the letter. As I drove towards school, I tightened my grip on the steering wheel as if it might somehow stop the sense of everything spinning out of my control. It didnt.