The Woman At The Door, Daniel Hurst [world best books to read TXT] 📗

don’t answer her. Instead, I keep on scrolling down through the messages, becoming more concerned and confused as I do.

‘Rebecca?’

That’s when Ally touches my arm, and I’m so on edge that it causes me to jump, sending my phone flying from my hand down onto the pavement below.

My mobile clatters across the concrete, but that’s the least of my worries as I turn and look at the woman standing beside me.

‘It was you?’ I ask her as I look into her eyes.

‘What?’

‘You sent that woman to my house? You tried to break up my marriage?’

Ally holds onto her look of confusion for a few more seconds.

‘Rebecca, I’m not sure what you think has happened but-’

‘The private investigator has the evidence,’ I reply, and that shuts Ally up just as a car pulls up to the kerb in front of us.

I’m guessing it’s the taxi she booked because I didn’t get a chance to book mine. I was too busy reading all the messages from Sam about how Ally’s name had been discovered in that woman’s apartment.

‘I have to go,’ Ally tells me as she makes a move towards the taxi, but she’s not getting away from me that easily.

Grabbing her by the hair, I pull her back towards me and demand that she tells me the truth. The poor taxi driver looks terrified and quickly drives away, but if he’s afraid then it’s nothing compared to how worried Ally should be as I wrestle her to the pavement.

If it wasn’t for the security guard coming out of the wine bar and pulling me off my former best friend then there’s no saying what I might have done to her. But I do get pulled off Ally, and that’s how she manages to run away from me before I can get any answers out of her.

I let the security guard know that I’m not going to cause any more trouble before picking up my phone from where it lies on the pavement and checking the device for damage. There is a huge crack running across the screen, but it’s still usable, so I’m able to call my husband and hear his voice.

I’m crying. I’m out of breath. I’m not making any sense.

But Sam doesn’t care.

He just tells me that he wants me to come home.

45

SAM

When I hired a private investigator to prove my innocence to my wife, I had envisioned all sorts of scenarios. But not a single one of them consisted of me finding out that my wife’s best friend was the person behind all of this.

I thought that Alexandra was the biggest villain.

But it turned out to be Ally instead.

I’m standing outside my house waiting for my wife to get back home so that I can present her with all of the evidence that I have on her best friend and the woman who came to our door. The evidence is substantial, and my private investigator was worth every penny in the end. Erica has saved my marriage, and I will be eternally grateful to her for that. But something even bigger might come out of all this. It might not just be my marriage that is saved.

It might be dozens of other marriages too.

It’s clear that my pursuit of the truth has uncovered a much bigger scandal than I could have ever anticipated. That’s because I’m not the first person that Alexandra has played this game with before. She has done it to numerous couples all over the country, and I dread to think how many divorces and broken hearts can be attributed to her and her despicable business. But time will tell because my investigator and her assistant are currently combing through all the evidence and piecing together the full story of just how much of a homewrecker Alexandra has really been.

The lid was blown off this whole sorry affair when the PI’s assistant was able to gain access to Alexandra’s flat by setting off a fire alarm and causing an evacuation of the building. With Alexandra and all her neighbours outside, the assistant had snuck into the flat using a key that had been cut specifically to fit the lock of the target’s home. It was in the flat where they were able to discover paperwork in a wardrobe that would lead to the unravelling of the business Alexandra had clearly worked so hard to build for herself.

The assistant had sent images of the paperwork to Erica, who had begun the process of trying to figure out what it all referred to. It wasn’t immediately clear in the wording of the documents, but there were two names on each piece of paper, and they seemed to refer to couples.

Mine and Rebecca’s names were on one of those pieces of paper.

It was through Erica’s use of the internet that she was able to figure out what all these couples might have in common. By scouring social media, the PI was able to ascertain that every single one of these pair of names had been in a relationship before.

But not anymore.

That was when Erica had realised that Alexandra had not just come to my house and told a lie. She had gone to several houses and told several lies. But while there was a clear pattern indicating a troubling connection, it still didn’t explain why Alexandra had targeted my marriage. Fortunately, Erica’s assistant had one more trick up his sleeve.

The original plan had been to plant a series of recording devices around Alexandra’s flat in the hope that they would pick up her voice during private conversations, and that might lead to figuring out exactly what she was up to. But a better opportunity had presented itself when the assistant had entered the flat because that was when he noticed Alexandra had left her mobile phone behind when the alarm had gone off.

Using technology that is far beyond my realm of understanding, the assistant was able to gain access to Alexandra’s messages and contacts as well as