The Silent Daughter

Kirsty Ferguson

Description

Secrets can kill and Danni Brooks knows that better than anyone.

When her husband and two of her three children perish in a devastating house fire, Danni is sure it is arson. She’s even more sure that her and her eldest daughter Mia were meant to die in the fire too. But they are just a normal family. Who would want them dead?

Mia doesn’t talk. She can’t. She is locked in her own world where no one, not even her mother can reach her.

Desperate for answers, and convinced the truth might help her to reach her daughter, Danni tries to piece together the events leading up to that murderous night and uncover the arsonist. But with so many lies to untangle, what isthe truth?

Prepare to have your breath taken away by an unforgettable twist that will leave you reeling...

Kirsty Ferguson is back with a heart-stopping, page-turning and utterly gripping novel, perfect for all fans of B. A. Paris and Adele Parks.

What readers are saying about The Silent Daughter:

'An extraordinarily exciting though chilling psychological thriller'

'The story is well-written with an intriguing plot that has drama, suspense and twists and turns, but the biggest twist and the most shocking is in the final chapter! This thriller is well worth reading and I can thoroughly recommend it.'

'A really fast paced read'

Sujets

• Policier & Thriller
• Thriller
• Policier
• Vie de famille
• Parentalité et Éducation des Enfants
• Relations familiales
• Soutien psychologique et conseils familiaux
• Mashups
• Psychological
• Siblings
• Thrillers
• Bereavement
• Women
• Motherhood
• Suspenso
• Karen Rose
• Friendship
• Psychological thriller
• Domestic
• Sibling
• General officer
• Parenting
• Woman
• Psychology
• The Women
• General
• Grief
• Crime
• Family Life
• Abuse
• Suspense
• Death
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 10 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• EAN13: 9781838898922
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Silent Daughter


Kirsty Ferguson
For Tarni, my partner in crime
Contents



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

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46


Acknowledgments

More from Kirsty Ferguson

About the Author

About Boldwood Books
1

Danielle Brooks awoke with a start, the dankness seeping into her cold bones. She rolled over, pulling the blanket up around her chin, her shoulders chilly in the frigid room. While she loved it most of the time, sometimes she hated the old house, the creaking of the settling wood and pipes, the third stair that squeaked sharply every time you stood on it just right, the broken bathroom doorknob that her husband Joe had meant to fix but had never got around to.
Danni sighed. Joe, snoring loudly beside her, had woken her up again, just like he had every night for the better part of two decades. She untangled herself from the blanket and swung her legs out, wincing at the cold of the floorboards as she placed her bare feet on them while she felt around for her slippers. Danni fumbled for her dressing gown, eventually finding it at the foot of the bed. Shrugging herself into the voluminous gown, she knotted the tie to fit around her waist, pulling it tight. Wondering why it was so large on her, hanging from her delicate frame, she realised she had put on Joe’s by mistake. Too tired to find her own and open herself up to the cold again, she pulled the collar higher around her neck. Danni looked at the alarm clock resting on the bedside table, reminding her the dawn was still hours away.
Wearily pushing herself up from the old, sprung mattress, she slid her feet into her worn slippers, scrunching up her toes in the end, trying to magic warmth into them, the fluffy innersole long since gone.
Need another blanket. Too bloody cold in here.
Danni stumbled from the bed tiredly, yet walked without hesitation, knowing her way to the door having made her way over the floorboards hundreds of times in the darkness. She quietly went through the doorway, turning the knob and closing the door as she left. Her bladder was calling to her as she walked across the landing to the bathroom, leaving the door with the broken handle open a bit. If you closed it all the way, you became trapped in the bathroom until someone came to let you out. It happened to their son Noah more often than you’d think. Many a time Danni had found him, eyes filled with fresh tears, spent ones wetting his face, snot running down to his lip.
Danni would sit on the floor beside him and, as he crawled into her lap, she would wipe the tears from his five-year-old face. He would look up at her, love for her burning in his hazel eyes. He looked so much like his dad, with the same colour eyes and tanned skin. She would kiss the top of his head and mumble how much she loved him into his sweet-smelling hair. Her middle child Alexandra, big sister to Noah at nine and a half, would also rescue him. She never laughed at him, never made fun of him for forgetting and locking himself in again, or for crying.
Her oldest daughter, Mia, was almost a woman at seventeen years of age, as she was so fond of telling her father when he refused to let her do what she wanted. Dress how she wanted, go out with her best friend, stay up past her bedtime. Joe and Mia didn’t always get along and Danni found herself playing referee more than she’d like to. They seemed to constantly be at odds with each other these days. They used to be close, Joe and Mia, but in the last couple of months they had drifted from having a loving relationship to sometimes outright hostility from Mia and anger from Joe. Danni didn’t understand why, and when she broached it with Joe, he just gave her the old she’s a teenager line. It felt wrong, but Mia refused to talk to her about it too, so Danni had no choice but to watch them grow apart, saddened by the growing divide. Danni hadn’t thought about her for a long time but now, in the darkness of the home she shared with her family, the memories came rushing back. Beth, her tormentor, her abuser, her sister, flashed through her mind.



When Danni was young, she thought all families were the same and that all families lived like hers did. It was only after she went to a friend’s house for a play date that she began to realise that what happened in her house was not normal. Love, laughter and no violence. That was normal. Danni couldn’t get over the difference. There was love in these homes, and they were homes, not just houses full of pain and resentment. Danni had become used to her combative family life so much so that it was second nature to her to feel scared and alone.
In her family, there were clumps of hair missing, hidden by a well-placed ponytail, purple and black finger mark bruises on her upper arm, disguised by her school uniform sleeves, sprained wrists that went unwrapped, and slaps so hard she always had a headache. Danni thought this was normal behaviour but, even though she knew better now, she also knew that she couldn’t tell anyone. Beth, her older sister, would just hurt her more. She’d even threatened to kill her on more than one occasion and Danni suspected she was capable of doing it. They went to the same school which made it hard for Danni to escape her. Her only saving grace was that she was in the year below her sister and didn’t have to share any classes with her.
Danni couldn’t remember when the abuse started, so she guessed it had always been there. She did know from overhearing her parents when she was older that they hadn’t wanted her, that they only wanted Beth. She guessed that’s why they didn’t really care how Beth treated her, how she hurt her. They didn’t want her anyway. She was disposable.
Her life was a real shit show. When Danni was a young girl, she used to have long dark hair that she would wash, dry and plait herself. Actually, it was the only thing she liked about herself, her sister having worn down her self-esteem long ago. She had hopped out of the shower, gone to her room and had just finished plaiting her hair in two when Beth barged in, one arm behind her back. She had that look on her face, the one of maliciousness and glee, and Danni knew she was in for something bad. That look meant pain and suffering for her. Her muscles automatically tensed, getting ready to fight the blow she knew was coming. She bit her lip to stop it from trembling. Danni made a dash for the bedroom door and the relative safety beyond, but Beth grabbed her by one of her plaits, halting her getaway, pulling at her scalp so hard she cried out.
‘Where are you going, you little bitch?’
Danni fought back, she always fought back when she couldn’t flee, not that it did her any good. Beth seemed to get off on watching her squirm. She was so much stronger than Danni and she loved proving it.
‘Think Mummy and Daddy are going to save you? They don’t care about you. You’re just their unwanted baby. Their little accident,’ she taunted, pulling on her hair painfully.
Danni had heard it so many times before that it no longer bothered her, although many times she had buried her head in her pillow and cried stinging tears that tore at her soul. She was brought back to the present by another tug on her hair. Finally, Beth removed her hand from behind her back. In it she held a pair of scissors. Danni felt the breath leave her lungs, then she dragged a shaky breath in, eyes round with fear. She knew exactly what Beth was going to do, of course Beth would ruin the only thing she loved.
‘No,’ whispered Danni, putting her hand up to grab her plait, trying to tug it from Beth’s hand.
Beth lined up a plait between the scissors and was slowly pushing down when Danni kicked her in the shin and ran. Danni knew she’d pay for it, but she had to try for the front door at least. Beth never chased her beyond the front door. Never terrorised her where other people could see. Danni could always sleep in the drain behind their house in the vacant block if she had to. She’d done it before, no doubt she’d have to do it again.
She almost had her hand on the front doorknob, reaching out to grasp it, when she was wrenched from behind, Beth pulling her so hard that she fell to the floor. She scrambled to her feet and tried to dodge her sister again, but Beth anticipated it and grabbed her, spinning her around and quickly hacking through one of her plaits before Danni could even scream. Then Danni found her voice, shrieking as Beth held aloft her glossy hair above her head like some kind of sick trophy. Danni’s hand immediately went to grab it, but she was too short, and what would she do with it anyway? Beth swung her hand down hard, slapping Danni across the face with her own plait, leaving trailing red marks of fire across her cheek and chin. It was what Danni imagined a whip felt like. She cried out, plait forgotten for now, and grabbed at her face, eyes shimmering with tears that she would not let fall.
‘Whoops,’ said Beth, ‘that’s another day off school.’ She was grinning at her younger sister.
Danni had a lot of sick days because of Beth. If anyone ever cared to ask, which was rare, Danni used the standard excuses: I ran into a door, I fell out of bed, I opened a cupboard door into my eye.
She was not entirely sure the teachers that did ask believed her, but they never said anything, nor did th