The Secret: The brand new thriller from the bestselling author of The Teacher. Katerina Diamond

place again – I know where those sluts have been.

       We drive all the way across the city to a part of town I haven’t been in before. We’re parked under a tree and my dad is watching the street. It’s very quiet, not that there’s silence, but there’s an eerie lull in the air. I can hear children playing and car stereos, but still it feels quiet. It’s a warm day and there’s a man washing his car further down the road. I wonder what we could possibly be here for. Then I see her. I feel like I have been punched in the gut when I look at her properly. It’s like looking at my sister, except it can’t be her because she’s dead. But there she is, playing with a bucket of mud in her front yard. My dad tells me to go and speak to her, to ask her for help to find my lost dog and to get her to come to the car. This is the present for my mum, the little girl. A replacement girl.