Lizzie Gleeson has a good life - a job she loves, a great family and a boyfriend she's crazy about. Then one evening coming out of work, she bumps into the one man she can't get away from.
Fourteen years ago, the body of Lizzie's older sister, Megan, was found washed up on a nearby beach. Joe, a local boy was sentenced to life imprisonment for her murder, despite protesting his innocence. Now he is free, released for good behaviour and Lizzie can't let it go . . . but as she worms her way into his life, determined to have her revenge, she finds out more than she'd bargained for...
Prologue
There was silence as the jury filed in. It had taken them two days to reach a verdict. Lizzie scanned their faces for some sort of a sign. Two days, she thought, when the case was cut and dried. Though not everyone seemed to think so. It was as if the town had been split in two. Her family and their ‘supporters’ lined one side of the courtroom whilst Joe Jones and his ‘supporters’ lined the other. Joe’s supporters included his parents, though his dad hadn’t turned out to be the best character witness ever.
Lizzie felt a hand in hers and she squeezed her brother Billy’s hand back in response. Billy was a shell of the guy he’d once been. His dancing brown eyes and quick grin had been altered forever when the battered body of his twin sister had been found washed up on Grange strand. He’d never drive a fast car again or laugh out loud at something ridiculous, Lizzie thought with a pang. Her mother, once so fussy and bustling was a hallowed out shell of a woman and her dad was broken. That was the only way Lizzie could describe him. He was so utterly sad. The sadness peeled off him like a fog and wrapped itself around anyone who stood too close. He’d given up fishing and sold his boat swearing never to go on the sea again. And her, what had happened to her? Besides the devastation, Lizzie had discovered how much she could hate someone. She stared once again across the courtroom at Joe and she wanted to tear his face off with her bare hands for what he’d done to her sister. He was twenty, the same age as Megan would have been. He’d come to their house once or twice and eaten meals with them. Lizzie, at fourteen had secretly fancied him, he was gorgeous with his tousled dirty blonde hair and brown outdoor type of face. But Joe had never given her a second glance. She hadn’t blamed him, Megan had been a bright halogen light to her somewhat dimmer shine. Lizzie’s hair was long, brown and uninteresting, her teeth were encased in steel braces and her pudgy face always had a spot or two on it. Megan’s face had been perfect. Well, before she’d been in the sea for two days. Lizzie swallowed back a lump and Billy sensing it, tightened his grip on her hand.
“Have the jury reached a decision?” the judge asked.
“We have, your honour.”
The foreman crossed to the judge and handed him a slip of paper.
The judge glanced at it before asking the accused to stand.
Joe stood up and stared straight ahead.
Lizzie watched as Joe’s impossibly glamorous mother clutched her husband. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“How do you find the accused on the charge of murder in the first degree?” the judge asked the foreman.
“We find him guilty, your honour.”
Immediately there was commotion in the courtroom with one side cheering and the other shouting out their objections. Joe stood, seemingly shell shocked, staring at the man who had delivered the verdict.
“No!” Joe’s mother cried. “No, no, Joe wouldn’t do that.”
She was pulled back, still crying by her husband.
Lizzie, her mother, father and Billy clung to each other in relief, unable to cheer, as Aileen, Megan’s best friend was doing. Tears at the decision coursed down their cheeks.
“Thank God,” her father said. “Thank God.”
Lizzie watched as Joe, looking devastated, was handcuffed. He was shaking his head in disbelief. All through the trial he’d denied the charge, protesting his innocence every step of the way and making it very difficult for her parents as the murder of her sister was laid out for them in graphic detail.
But, on the last couple of days of the trial, he’d been caught out on two major lies and that had been the nails in his coffin.
Lizzie watched as Joe was led away, refusing to look at either of his parents.
She hoped he rotted in hell.
Though, even if he did, she thought numbly, it wouldn’t bring Megs back.
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