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  SHE’S MINE

  CLAIRE SIMONE LEWIS studied philosophy, French literature and international relations at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge before starting her career in aviation law with a City law firm and later as an in-house lawyer at Virgin Atlantic Airways. More recently, she turned to writing psychological suspense, taking courses at the Faber Academy. She’s Mine is her first novel. Born in Paris, she’s bilingual and lives in Surrey with her family.

  SHE’S MINE

  Claire S Lewis

  www.ariafiction.com

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Claire S Lewis, 2019

  The moral right of Claire S Lewis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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

  ISBN 9781789541939

  Aria

  an imprint of Head of Zeus

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  www.ariafiction.com

  www.headofzeus.com

  For Clara and Louisa

  Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love’s tragedies.

  Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

  *

  And the king said, Bring me a sword. And they brought a sword before the king.

  And the king said, Divide the living child in two, and give half to the one, and half to the other. Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, and she said, O my lord, give her the living child, and in no wise slay it. But the other said, let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it.

  The Old Testament Bible, I Kings 3 verses 24 to 26

  Contents

  Welcome Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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

  After

  Acknowledgements

  Hello from Aria

  1

  Scarlett

  I kick off my sandals and step from the boardwalk onto the beach. The sand scorches the soles of my feet and my head throbs in the glare of the midday sun. It’s the hotel’s private beach: just a long strip of coarse sand, crowded with sunbeds, between two rocky spurs jutting out into the wide bay.

  In the heat haze above the sand everything is a shimmering frieze of colour – parasols, towels, and sunburnt tourists. I forgot my shades in the room and feel a little dizzy in the dazzling brightness, and detached, a spectator, watching myself on a movie set.

  I’m loaded with towels and beach bags stuffed with Katie’s gear – picnic box, sunhat, lotions and goggles. I stride out, ignoring the shifting eyes of middle-aged men, and flick back my hair, flaming in the burning rays.

  Katie trails after me, humming softly, swinging a red bucket and spade in one hand and dragging a yellow lilo along the sand in the other.

  Smells of barbecued fish and sounds of calypso drift across from the beach club restaurant where my employer, Katie’s mother Christina, is enjoying a leisurely lunch (washed down with red wine no doubt) with her gold-digging fuck-boy-lover Damien – the latest in her string of unsuitable younger men.

  I smile briefly at the hotel beach boys who wave and call out to Katie as she meanders by. They’re sheltering from the midday sun, languishing on hammocks strung between palm trees, splitting coconuts or playing dominoes in the shade. More fool us, risking sunstroke on the beach.

  ‘Come here Katie, under the parasol. Let’s put on your cream.’ She grabs my arm. For a child so fragile and slim, she’s surprisingly strong.

  ‘Where’s Mummy?’ she cries, fixing me with pretty blue eyes. ‘I want Mummy, where’s Mummy?’ Her anxious refrain begins to grate but I can’t resist for long and scoop her in for a hug.

  ‘Shush, honey, stop whining, she’ll be here soon,’ I say, loosening her grip.

  Smoothing a thick layer of cream over the little girl’s pale skin, I gaze out to sea, squinting through searing vertical sunlight. The sky’s a hard, metallic blue over glinting water. Arrows of light shoot in all directions. I’m hot and sticky from the cream.

  ‘Mad dogs and English men…’ I mutter crossly as I wriggle out of my linen sundress and squat on the damp, glistening sand, watching Katie who darts in and out of the foamy ripples at the water’s edge. Christina’s so distracted that she hasn’t noticed that her blonde-haired baby will get sunburnt out in the midday sun. She wants to keep us both out of the way so she can get her kicks with Damien.

  Katie’s absorbed in her own watery world, now down on her hands and knees, rocking gently and sifting through the sand, searching for seashells to add to the treasure trove of golden olives, pale blue periwinkles, banded tulips and rose petal tellins she’s collecting in her bucket. It’s her latest obsession. Yesterday, I took childish pleasure in teaching Katie to recite the names of the smooth, shiny gem-like shells as we rinsed the sand off them in the bucket. Today, I feel too drowsy and queasy to join in.

  The heat’s oppressive and overwhelming, pulsing down. My head reels. Maybe it’s the lingering jet lag? Perhaps I’ve caught a bug? Or could it be that Caribbean rum cocktail Damien forced on me at the poolside bar this morning?

  ‘You may be a working girl, but you deserve a bit of fun too!’ He had winked rakishly, handing me the glass. He kept insisting that one drink wouldn’t hurt. Now I’m beating myself up for giving into him and taking the cocktail. It’s the first thing I learnt at college – never touch alcohol when in charge of a young child. But just one drink, surely, shouldn’t have left me feeling such a wreck?

  Damien Covera – handsome, sexy and doesn’t he know it! An Anglo-Italian city boy with classic Mediterranean panache. Clever too. He works in ‘Derivatives,’ whatever that means. Seconded from London to an investment bank in New York a short time before I came over from England to start working as Katie’s nanny. Apparently, he met Christina at some glitzy investors’ art event hosted by one of the Wall Street banks just after he came to Manhattan.

  He thinks he’s such a charmer, God’s gift to wom
en – he’s way too flash for me!

  Katie adores him, of course but I’m not so easily taken in. I never trusted him. Even before ‘that’ morning in Christina’s bedroom. It may be something to do with the fact that his eyes are just a shade too close together – though that doesn’t seem to stop people thinking he’s drop dead gorgeous. Our first encounter took place when he sneaked in one morning in April, just after I’d got back from dropping Katie at her new kindergarten. I spun round from stacking the dishwasher to find him standing right behind me, his crotch inches from my butt. He was peeling an orange with the long blade of the bread knife, and fixing me with his steady green eyes.

  ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump’ he said, though he didn’t look sorry. ‘Christina gave me the key. Scarlett, isn’t it? The new nanny.’ He waved the blade towards my auburn hair. ‘Scarlett Reyes. Nice. Like the setting sun. Suits you.’ Not sure if he meant my name, or my hair. He sat down on a barstool. ‘How are you settling into life in the ‘Big Apple’? Just say the word if you’d like me to show you around. We Brits should stick together.’

  He caught me off-guard that day, not least because that morning I’d ‘borrowed’ Christina’s soft brown leather jacket to wear on the school run and for a brunch date later that morning.

  ‘You’d better take good care of that jacket,’ said Damien with a sardonic smile, when he saw it tossed on the sofa. ‘Apparently her first love bought it for her in Venice!’

  Then one sunny Saturday in June, when Christina was summoned to deal with some crisis at her Wall Street hedge fund, he insisted on giving us a ride to Central Park in his borrowed open-top Chevy Corvette, and treating us all to ice creams.

  ‘Don’t mention this to the boss,’ he had said, with a conspiratorial grin. ‘I told her I was playing golf all day. You know how jealous she can be. Our little secret!’

  I had watched as he had wiped a smudge of chocolate ice cream off the end of Katie’s nose with a tweak of his thumb, twirled her high above his head until she squealed with laughter, then leapt into the Chevy, and driven off with a casual wave.

  I’ve noticed, of course, that Christina, otherwise so cool, professional and glamorous, is smitten with Damien’s boyish charm and though only five years his senior, feels uncomfortable in the role of ‘older woman.’ And I take secret pleasure in seeing how paranoid and jealous she becomes whenever he pays any attention to me, barely out of my teens.

  Now, I rummage in the picnic bag for the snack I smuggled out from the breakfast lounge, and smile to myself. He certainly knows how to rattle her cage!

  I find I’ve lost my appetite. I toss the sweaty cheese sandwich aside, retreat to the shade of the parasol, and struggle to focus on Katie, luminous and gleaming in her candy floss pink stripy swimsuit, a glimmering silhouette against the opaque backdrop of the sea. I listen to the splash of waves, rising and falling on the beach, the gentle fizzing sound of foam running through sand.

  My eyes are stinging from chlorine and sun cream. I can’t fight the urge to rest and lie back on the beach towel. What’s happening to me? Maybe I have sunstroke, I feel so weird.

  Now Katie is playing in the shallows, jumping on and off the yellow lilo bouncing in the waves.

  She’s going in too far, says a voice in my head. I will myself to get up and call Katie out of the water but remain motionless and mute. My legs are leaden. I’m a molten lump in the heat, struck dumb, unable to move or utter a sound.

  My eyelids narrow and Katie’s figure blurs into a muddle of light and shade.

  I’ll just close my eyes for five minutes. I lie here soothed by the sweet smell of coconut oil and roasted almonds wafting over from the hotel beach club. The rough towel beneath my sandy shoulder blades is coarse and comforting. I hear the muffled rumble of a speedboat crossing the bay and a light aircraft purrs overhead.

  Then nothing.

  *

  I wake as the crimson sun sinks into the clouds at the horizon, roused by a splash of spray from the rising tide. I come to my senses with a start. Oh God – I must have fallen asleep! How long has it been? My head is turned to one side and I open my eyes to see Katie’s red bucket tipped over on the sand right next to me. Empty.

  ‘Katie, it’s time to go,’ I say as I sit up and look around. The beach is almost deserted, just a man at the far end walking his dog and a sun-scorched family, squabbling as they pack up their belongings.

  It takes a few seconds before the panic begins to set in.

  Katie, where are you?

  I stand up.

  She must have wandered down the beach. She can’t be far.

  My throat is tight as I shield my eyes from the sun and scan the beach to right and left.

  Where is she?

  I start to walk, then jog to the far end of the beach calling out Katie’s name. I scramble on to the rocks, and strain my eyes to see as far as I can along the shore.

  ‘KATIE! KATIE…!’

  I race to the other end of the beach, frantically shouting her name again and again, and calling out to the family and the man with the dog, ‘Have you seen a little girl with blonde curly hair, four years old, pink swimsuit?’

  You’ve lost her.

  I steel myself.

  Get a grip!

  Maybe Christina came and took her to the hotel play area or back to the room for tea? I grab my phone from the beach bag and punch out Christina’s number. My heart thumps and my temples pulse…

  Slow down, breathe.

  As the ring tone kicks in, I lift my head and scan the shadowy water. A patch of fluorescence is rising and falling in the inky swell on the far side of the craggy rocks, reflecting the light of the scarlet rays – the little yellow lilo swept out to sea!

  Oh God… this is not happening. Answer, for God’s sake!

  Christina’s phone rings and rings until it diverts to voicemail. The rough timber splinters my bare feet as I sprint up the boardwalk screaming for help.

  She’s gone!

  2

  Scarlett

  It must be only minutes but feels like an eternity until the rescue operation gets underway. At last the lifeboat is launched, and powers across the bay towards the yellow lilo that’s barely visible as dusk gathers. A helicopter circles overhead, and paramedics and coastguards stride to the water’s edge, setting up their gear. Now there are flashing blue lights and sirens blaring from emergency vehicles parked on the access road to the beach. Alerted by the commotion, hotel guests and staff stream out to see what’s happening. Some stand there gawping. Others want to join the hunt and swarm along the shore, clambering onto rocks and pointing out to sea.

  Not daring to look away, I stand by the water, rigid with fear, trembling and hyperventilating, clenching my fists, while I pray into the wind, praying for a miracle, hoping against hope that the lifeguards will find Katie clinging to the lilo.

  *

  As darkness falls, we’re still here on the wet sand keeping silent vigil over the black water. Someone’s thrown a beach towel across my shoulders. Christina’s face is ashen and drawn in the shadows. Her cheeks are streaked with mascara and her red lipstick is smudged below her mouth.

  Like a fancy-dress vampire, I think fleetingly.

  Her arms hang limply at her sides. In one hand, she holds a pair of immaculate gold stilettos, in the other, the red bucket. Our eyes meet. Her eyes are vacant and glazed.

  She shudders and turns away from me.

  The coastguards haul the boat onto the sand, their faces grim. Katie’s not aboard…

  Now the accusations start, pounding round and round in my head. I am ashamed of myself. It’s shocking, a nanny falling asleep when in charge of a child.

  It’s your fault, you idiot. You fell asleep. You let her drown. Katie, I’m so, so sorry. This can’t be real.

  I see the lilo, hanging over the gunwale, punctured and torn, the tattered strips of shiny yellow plastic illuminated by the searchlights set up on the beach.

 
Where is she?

  A police officer touches my arm and asks us to accompany him to the hotel. ‘There are certain formalities,’ he says sombrely. ‘Come, please.’

  He leads the way, angrily brushing off a reporter who approaches, thrusting a microphone in his face. ‘Any news, officer? What happened to the child?’

  A team from the island’s local news network has already set up camp on the beach and is broadcasting live. I catch snatches of the report as we trudge by,

  ‘… four-year-old girl missing… lilo swept out to sea… feared drowned… inflatable recovered… no sign of the victim… no body has been found… shark attack not ruled out …all avenues of enquiry remain open… will update as soon as we have news.’

  I can’t connect the words with Katie, my sweet little girl and constant companion since I came to New York. The bizarre sensation of watching myself in a movie comes over me again. Any second now, someone will shout ‘cut’ and I’ll click back to reality.

  I run to catch up with the police officer while Christina hangs back, fixated by the broadcast. Those words, all avenues of enquiry remain open, have broken through the virtual screen in my head that separates me from reality.

  ‘Officer, please, there’s something I need to tell you. Wait, please wait.’

  My voice is shrill. It doesn’t belong to me.

  He keeps walking.

  ‘I passed out. I was drugged. You’ve got to believe me. Someone spiked my drink at the pool.’

  He pushes away my arm.

  ‘Please, young lady. There is a protocol for these matters. We’ll take your statement at the appropriate time.’

  Now I’m shouting at his back.

  ‘You’ve got to believe me. It looks like foul play. It could be relevant to your search.’

  He turns and grabs me roughly by the arm. His voice is hard.

  ‘Control yourself – or I’ll arrest you for impeding the rescue operation. A little girl is lost at sea. That’s all I care about right now. Do something useful. Look after the mother.’