Weyward: A Novel

CHAPTER ONE

KATE

2019

Kate is staring into the mirror when she hears it.

The key, scraping in the lock.

Her fingers shake as she hurries to fix her makeup, dark threads of mascara spidering onto her lower lids.

In the yellow light, she watches her pulse jump at her throat, beneath the necklace he gave her for their last anniversary. The chain is silver and thick, cold against her skin. She doesn’t wear it during the day, when he’s at work.

The front door clicks shut. The slap of his shoes on the floorboards. Wine, gurgling into a glass.

Panic flutters in her, like a bird. She takes a deep breath, touches the ribbon of scar on her left arm. Smiles one last time into the bathroom mirror. She can’t let him see that anything is different. That anything is wrong.

Simon leans against the kitchen counter, wine glass in hand. Her blood pounds at the sight. The long, dark lines of him in his suit, the cut of his cheekbones. His golden hair.

He watches her walk towards him in the dress she knows he likes. Stiff fabric, taut across her hips. Red. The same color as her underwear. Lace with little bows. As if Kate herself is something to be unwrapped, to be torn open.

She looks for clues. His tie is gone, three buttons of his shirt open to reveal fine curls. The whites of his eyes glow pink. He hands her a glass of wine and she catches the alcohol on his breath, sweet and pungent. Perspiration beads her back, under her arms.

The wine is chardonnay, usually her favorite. But now the smell turns her stomach, makes her think of rot. She presses the glass to her lips without taking a sip.

“Hi, babe,” she says in a bright voice, polished just for him. “How was work?”

But the words catch in her throat.

His eyes narrow. He moves quickly, despite the alcohol: his fingers digging into the soft flesh of her bicep.

“Where did you go today?”

She knows better than to twist out of his grasp, though every cell of her wants to. Instead, she places her hand on his chest.

“Nowhere,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. “I’ve been home all day.” She’d been careful to leave her iPhone at the apartment when she walked to the pharmacy, to take only cash with her. She smiles, leans in to kiss him.

His cheek is rough with stubble. Another smell mingles with the alcohol, something heady and floral. Perfume, maybe. It wouldn’t be the first time. A tiny flare of hope in her gut. It could work to her advantage, if there’s someone else.

But she’s miscalculated. He shifts away from her and then— “Liar.”

Kate barely hears the word as Simon’s hand connects with her cheek, the pain dizzying like a bright light. At the edges of her vision, the colors of the room slide together: the gold-lit floorboards, the white leather couch, the kaleidoscope of the London skyline through the window.

A distant crashing sound: she has dropped her glass of wine.

She grips the counter, her breath coming out of her in ragged bursts, blood pulsing in her cheek. Simon is putting on his coat, picking up his keys from the dining table.

“Stay here,” he says. “I’ll know if you don’t.”

His shoes ring out across the floorboards. The door slams. She doesn’t move until she hears the creak of the elevator down the shaft.

He’s gone.

The floor glitters with broken glass. Wine hangs sour in the air.

A copper taste in her mouth brings her back to herself. Her lip is bleeding, caught against her teeth by the force of his hand.

Something switches in her brain. I’ll know if you don’t.

It hadn’t been enough, leaving her phone at home. He’s found another way. Another way to track her. She remembers how the doorman eyed her in the lobby: had Simon slipped him a wad of crisp notes to spy on her? Her blood freezes at the thought.

If he finds out where she went—what she did—earlier today, who knows what else he might do. Install cameras, take away her keys.

And all her plans will come to nothing. She’ll never get out.

But no. She’s ready enough, isn’t she?

If she leaves now, she could get there by morning. The drive will take seven hours. She’s plotted it carefully on her second phone, the one he doesn’t know about. Tracing the blue line on the screen, curling up the country like a ribbon. She’s practically memorized it.

Yes, she’ll go now. She has to go now. Before he returns, before she loses her nerve.

She retrieves the Motorola from its hiding place, an envelope taped to the back of her bedside table. Takes a duffel bag from the top shelf of the wardrobe, fills it with clothes. From the en suite, she grabs her toiletries, the box she hid in the cupboard earlier that day.