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Her Perfect Life: A gripping debut psychological thriller with a killer twist
Sam Hepburn
A brilliantly twisty psychological thriller for fans of I Let You Go and Behind Closed Doors.How far would you go to create the perfect Life?Gracie Dwyer has it all: the handsome husband, the adorable child, the beautiful home and the glittering career. The perfect life.Her new friend Juliet doesn’t exactly fit in. She’s a down-on-her-luck single parent with no money and not much hope.So just what is it that draws Gracie and Juliet together? And when the cracks start to appear in Gracie’s perfect life, can both of them survive?
Copyright (#ua0bacc59-8697-554f-b7cc-f3ba88cdcd33)
This is entirely a work of fiction. Any references to real people, living or dead, real events, businesses, organizations and localities are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. All names, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and their resemblance, if any, to real-life counterparts is entirely coincidental.
Harper
HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2017
Copyright © Sam Hepburn 2017
Sam Hepburn asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
Cover design by Dominic Forbes © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2017
Cover photographs © Scott R Barbour/Getty Images (townhouses);
Shutterstock.com (https://www.shutterstock.com) (broken glass)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2017 ISBN: 9780008209599
Source ISBN: 9780008209582
Version 2017-01-09
Dedication (#ua0bacc59-8697-554f-b7cc-f3ba88cdcd33)
To James, Charlotte, Murdo and Lily
Table of Contents
Cover (#uf205559e-0df6-5350-acce-133d06e2013d)
Title Page (#udb26d26c-c110-506e-8566-81fdf2690d6d)
Copyright (#u0960bbf0-0686-5319-8793-7dd979c0d283)
Dedication (#u0567d9b2-d091-508b-9b11-298370981004)
Chapter 1 (#u786af66c-db3e-5fe7-a6c6-f0ac89f12225)
Chapter 2 (#u62f38884-e74a-5378-8376-6a243f793ef0)
Chapter 3 (#uda9e6e65-d978-5502-a411-d924cf9b3ae8)
Chapter 4 (#ua44fe477-763f-5271-a361-a6057df25bbb)
Chapter 5 (#ua5367422-610d-5f6c-b7ef-ac24200f4e85)
Chapter 6 (#ua51ea8c1-7ba8-5b96-ade5-6a67d79146a2)
Chapter 7 (#u3cd990a7-d02f-554a-9536-d615ccf526f6)
Chapter 8 (#u7d34a49a-7b9a-5ea9-b77b-02a51cd9a624)
Chapter 9 (#u269d4103-cf04-51b1-addc-ac62b0813c4d)
Chapter 10 (#u83f7534f-280d-58b2-bdbf-bfbff2ba8c56)
Chapter 11 (#u6e55670a-2480-5ede-a801-a8cb853639bb)
Chapter 12 (#u5fd648e6-bde8-5501-8b49-dbae5a2f3e94)
Chapter 13 (#u344920cd-ec81-5f84-b87b-d7bcab556c08)
Chapter 14 (#u747f3258-66c6-536a-a6bf-79c6dbe7ce03)
Chapter 15 (#ufd429f16-6001-590e-b542-68e2c22de884)
Chapter 16 (#uac597d24-8255-5f56-95a6-50793fb180e5)
Chapter 17 (#u0a3c2428-481f-579c-9b5f-b3d6a25e4fad)
Chapter 18 (#u8067f03d-d2a1-5f2d-87f5-3890be0ef042)
Chapter 19 (#u24eebefd-427f-59ec-ab38-cb0d68fe73bf)
Chapter 20 (#uc03d8568-5151-5b11-b1d5-4c80213c37d3)
Chapter 21 (#ue084e21b-f713-524f-801f-ba6ba0071aa3)
Chapter 22 (#uf39dd639-b1cd-55db-b2e3-1887f7ad6f1d)
Chapter 23 (#u492d87f7-018b-561a-936e-51f8580ab915)
Chapter 24 (#u06ee8cda-afb4-588d-8a75-ce9c2dbcb5fb)
Chapter 25 (#u8e43cd2a-76ce-58fa-a8a7-43deb32fee0d)
Chapter 26 (#u52688ace-5a9a-5ea5-bd32-a0e30e47d222)
Chapter 27 (#u15f1c93d-dbc7-5d01-b52b-e5ded9ed890b)
Chapter 28 (#u25e58380-0670-5fee-9bd5-01e57eea8bbb)
Chapter 29 (#u427ba925-cf17-50c7-aefa-229e12f0459c)
Chapter 30 (#ub54af175-5c52-5715-8674-30a0ab0b5dce)
Chapter 31 (#uacd1a953-b054-575f-8bca-d9c75caae2c4)
Chapter 32 (#uc09f1fb5-4eb1-5a9c-b3cd-48c4e5e6fb4e)
Chapter 33 (#u664f523e-0788-5249-bf65-285ad98b2a64)
Chapter 34 (#u977f4d30-6011-5e2c-886d-c6a89341a480)
Chapter 35 (#u41b67431-8a87-5b08-a3ac-1665841d610b)
Chapter 36 (#u4270982a-ab4b-58a9-b501-3ad22429d669)
Chapter 37 (#u77503e7b-4fd6-579d-924c-7e0f4c11b914)
Chapter 38 (#udcf064fa-074e-5c85-951e-608be6555b21)
Chapter 39 (#u6b10cf0c-3690-50ba-903c-89cd1ccdd6ff)
Chapter 40 (#uc9d1efd7-6372-5d2b-92ed-a39369b484c8)
Chapter 41 (#ue9f7f4e1-4c6f-55d8-b85a-952d4d2505fc)
Chapter 42 (#uc40178de-3add-57b5-81ff-9c28d1012861)
Chapter 43 (#u8d864ccc-b54a-5653-9d3e-be5c80fb3ad0)
Chapter 44 (#ufbabccd9-f8f7-5369-ab88-c6a4bdd107f0)
Chapter 45 (#udb09e539-cdf8-5222-b274-bef77878db3c)
Chapter 46 (#u4ee318bc-8967-5de3-884f-9b94c8d7545f)
Chapter 47 (#u7f0dd45d-d8b1-594e-a3b9-55927145ebca)
Chapter 48 (#u6838bed3-b652-5949-bdb1-be626425baa7)
Chapter 49 (#udb432a18-3819-5edd-8403-c3636f4eb8be)
Chapter 50 (#u5415089a-e445-504c-8bb6-51511b2c14a7)
Chapter 51 (#u9ac5903d-ef91-5741-9950-227d7667be66)
Chapter 52 (#u1bfa03fc-2853-51e8-b3e5-6784cb56f8ab)
Chapter 53 (#ud359d0bd-036b-59c3-8856-145abb4837c4)
Chapter 54 (#udcb33a23-f49c-5b01-9aad-0b24f57780a5)
Chapter 55 (#u943a8fec-8ab1-5474-ae38-35b2aecc49d2)
Chapter 56 (#u9c08b297-4562-581d-9750-bef6f112390e)
Chapter 57 (#u14032037-6ea0-58b7-8703-5cd4e05b690c)
Chapter 58 (#u39d57fee-5752-5908-b180-f4f474fbdf26)
Chapter 59 (#u069d630b-a119-5fe2-8c6b-a744faec22cc)
Chapter 60 (#uc6ddfbb4-462c-519c-a113-b9f18a4db611)
Chapter 61 (#u8cfff264-2afd-5cfc-9e11-20ff13af82db)
Chapter 62 (#ufd47aad9-c453-5f8d-81de-2675488b4621)
Chapter 63 (#u12b7bcea-422a-5109-8f7a-4fc1cf8fe4c1)
Acknowledgements (#u74515376-db37-5ffa-adbd-9660f9316d13)
About the Author (#uff12ba77-9783-5c11-acdd-ed9548aa9e72)
Loved Her Perfect Life? Enjoy Another Psychological Thriller… (#u3b8a8e87-3d1f-5dfc-8bab-0147eab55cf1)
About the Publisher (#uc522b956-c52a-5e1a-9dc6-e8ded0520753)
1 (#ua0bacc59-8697-554f-b7cc-f3ba88cdcd33)
Hard heels clack across the floor above Juliet’s head. One way across the sitting room to the window. Then back the other – clackety bloody clack – to the door. Juliet slides her legs off the sofa, blinking groggily into the gloom as she gazes from the pale flicker of the television to the timer on the cooker – 02.13.
She stretches to ease the crick in her neck and feels the first throb of a hangover behind her eyes. She checks the bottle on the floor beside her. It’s empty. She searches the fridge and the cupboards, wincing at every stab of sound from upstairs – the judder of water into a kettle, the yank of a drawer and the endless clack of those bloody heels. She grabs hold of the broom, about to thump the handle on the ceiling. Then she laughs – not much of a laugh – and lets the broom drop. It’s been a bad day but not bad enough to turn her into the mad old woman in the downstairs flat. At the back of the cupboard under the sink she finds a half-bottle of whisky. She doesn’t usually drink spirits, just on nights like tonight, when it all gets too much. She pours half a glassful, fills it up with orange squash and takes it back to the sofa, lighting a cigarette as she goes. She reaches for the remote and flicks through the channels. An impossibly shaped blonde in silver lamé spins a roulette wheel – ‘be lucky, lucky, luckeee …’ – a cheese-ball preacher begs her to find a place in her heart for Jesus, a lizard darts its tongue to catch a fly and – fuck – there she is. Our perfect pocket-sized Gracie Dwyer. Clean, clean, clean in her perfect kitchen. She’s leaning ever so slightly towards the camera, a come-on-we-can-do-this together smile on her lips while her nimble little fingers beat flour into a pan of yellow gloop on a spotless stone worktop. ‘The trick to perfect choux pastry,’ she is saying, ‘is to keep beating until every fleck of white has gone from the mixture.’
Juliet tries for the off button but her clumsy fingers hit the pause. Gracie freezes on screen. She stares at the face. Always if you look long enough at a frozen frame you can find something – some imperfection: a spot, a patch of caked makeup at the hairline, a drag in the skin at the throat. If not that, then something gormless and off-guard in the eyes or in the halted movement of the mouth. Something.
But there’s nothing. Nothing at all. Gracie Dwyer is perpetually perfect. Even frozen.
This time Juliet finds the off button. She stubs out her cigarette, lurching a little as she totters to her bedroom.
