The Game You Played by Anni Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

was pregnant with Tommy. We returned to Sydney for her father’s funeral, and we never went back to London. I got stuck back into the real estate agency that I’d created with my old school friend and fellow shyster, Rob Lynch. It happened just at the right time. In the months before a real estate boom, Rob and I rode the crazy wave.
    When Tommy was nineteen months old, I paid a bomb for one of the new townhouses that had been built near the upper end of Southern Sails Street.
    I thought Phoebe would love that. So many people she knew were there. Her grandmother and my parents still lived there. Pria still lived in her childhood home with her nine-year-old daughter, Jessie. Kate lived with her husband and twin boy and girl (in the newly renovated upper level of her parents’ house). Saskia was on the next block, in a swish apartment that overlooked her old street. So we were all still there—the Southern Sails gang.
    Stepping over to my desk, I tapped a few keys on my keyboard and had a florist send Phoebe some flowers. I needed to give her some kind of reward for coming out to dinner last night.
    I knew Phoebe wouldn’t really appreciate the flowers, but I didn’t know what else to give her. Nothing impressed her. Before, I’d given her the world. But there was nothing I could give her to fix her life now. I couldn’t give her Tommy back, no matter how much I wished I could.
     
     

9.    PHOEBE
     
    Wednesday morning
     
    YELLOW LIGHT PEERED IN THROUGH THE blinds, investigating me, querying why I still occupied my bed. The grey fog had been replaced by sunshine.
    Two hours had passed while I dozed. I’d barely had any sleep last night. That wasn’t unusual. On most days, I didn’t have more than five hours’ sleep, in scattered patches.
    My outfit from the restaurant dinner last night was lying in a tangle on the floor. I’d made an effort to get through the dinner for Luke, but it’d been a strain. Those people all existed in such a different world to me. I didn’t care about the things they and Luke cared about.
    Dragging myself from the bed, I dressed in my usual—jeans, T-shirt, and a hoodie. My daily clothing selection consisted of two pairs of jeans, five T-shirts, three jackets, and the hoodie. That was all I’d worn in months and months. I hadn’t bought a single piece of clothing since Tommy went missing. I’d dropped three dress sizes, and I’d had to dig into the boxes of clothing I’d worn before I’d been pregnant.
    Heading downstairs, I made myself a lemon juice. I never used to like lemons all that much. Now, I liked the sharpness of them.
    Taking the drink, I went out to the living room. Before I realised what I was doing, I was pacing. Up and down the hallway.
    Stopping before the hallstand, I gripped it, putting the drink down.
    Crazy people paced.
    I couldn’t say it was the first time, either. Some days, I paced endlessly, trying to shake the darkness inside my mind.
    Picking up one of the hair elastics I kept in the keys bowl, I tied my lank hair up into a ponytail. I stared at my face in the hallstand mirror, as I found myself doing every day. I’d come to hate the face I saw reflected there.
    The envelope I’d taken from the mailbox was still lying there where I’d left it. Normally Luke opened all the mail, but he’d missed seeing this. Which was a good thing, because if he had, he’d have wondered how it got there between last night and this morning.
    I picked up the envelope. The paper was of a thicker quality than that normally used for mass mail outs. Maybe it was a letter from a neighbour. An invitation to a housewarming party or something. Only, no one new had moved to the lower end of the street in a long time. The rich people buying up the new properties on the street were mostly investors.
    Hooking my finger inside the envelope, I tore it along the top. There was a piece of paper that looked a little yellowed but was a similar blue to the envelope.
    I unfolded