Page 178 of Wife After Wife

“I need to know!” shrieked the woman.

“Thank God,” Eliza said as she saw Clare coming the other way. “Mum! Come quickly. Dad’s been shot!”

Clare broke into a run, her face panicked. “How? Where?”

Eliza pointed, then ran back toward the crowd now gathered around Harry.

She was level with the woman again.

“She’snot your mum.Anawas your mum.”

Eliza stopped in her tracks. “What?”

Clare ran past, glancing at the woman, Eddie following.

“Ana was your mum.” She looked Eliza in the eye, and Eliza saw madness and sorrow. “And she was my sister. Harry killed her. Harry ruined my life and he killed my darling sister. He deserves to die.”

“Aunt Merry?” Her mother’s sister sent birthday cards, but she was rarely mentioned when Eliza visited her grandparents in Kent.

“Yes, I’m your aunt Merry.” She burst into hysterical sobs.

Eliza was about to set off again, when she saw Charles hurrying toward her.

“Eliza! Are you OK?”

“Uncle Charles! Is Dad...? He’s not...?”

Charles drew level.

Aunt Merry was now sitting with her arms around her knees, her head buried in them, crying quietly.

“He’s alive, Eliza,” Charles panted. “A rescue helicopter’s on its way.”

CHAPTER 54

Harry

Harry was on the operating table. His heart had stopped beating. He wasn’t dead, and he wasn’t alive. He was somewhere in between.

He could see them, below him. Surgeons, nurses. The ghosts behind them, deciding whether he should live or die.

“Karma, or redemption?” said one of the ghosts.

•••

Harry opened his eyes and saw Eliza and Clare. “My guardian angels,” he said woozily. “Where would I be without my girls?”

“Six feet under,” said Charles, from the other side of the hospital bed.

The bullet had hit Harry in the shoulder. Eliza had reached Merry just in time to send her shot slightly off course. He’d lost a lot of blood, but Clare had known what to do.

“Eliza, Eddie, let’s go and buy your dad some chocolate,” said Megan. “If Mrs. RoseHealth Dot-com will allow that?”

“Definitely,” said Clare.

“I’ll come and grab a coffee,” said Charles diplomatically.

Alone, Harry and Clare chatted for a while about how he was feeling. And then there was an awkward pause.