Best Forgotten

By Kathryn White

An intriguing tale of murder, amnesia and the lies we tell ourselves.

A young woman wakes in hospital, unable to recall the past eighteen months. Once an awkward, introverted teenager battling Anorexia Nervosa, Kellie-Sue discovers that she has blossomed into a beautiful woman with a loving husband. But what secrets are lurking beneath the surface? Why is her vain and self-centred sister suddenly being nice to her? Why is Kellie-Sue haunted with memories of the bruised and bloody of her abusive ex-boyfriend lying on the kitchen floor? Is Kellie-Sue capable of murder? Or is the truth best forgotten ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kathryn White
• Release date: May 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310157646

Kathryn White

Kathryn White grew up in the Midlands of England and now lives in Wells with her husband. Inspired by her children and grandchildren, she has written more than thirty children's books, almost all of which feature animals as the main characters.

Book preview

Best Forgotten

By

Kathryn White

For Calvin, from the brilliant Calvin & Hobbs comics. May his imagination never grow old …

Best Forgotten

Second Edition

Copyright © Kathryn White 2012

The moral right of the author has been asserted

This is a work of fiction. All characters portrayed in this work, excluding those already in the public domain are fictitious. Any resemblance to any real person, living or deceased is coincidental.

Part 1

The Killer

April 16 2010

Purse. Car keys. Textbook. Mobile. Okay, I can do this. Act cool. Pretend everything is normal. I slip on my sunglasses and dump my satchel on the front passenger seat of the Hyundai. I take a deep breath. So far, so good. It is amazing really, just how ordinary everything seems today. Here I am going about my morning routine like nothing strange or out of the ordinary has happened.

I wonder if anyone knows that I killed a man last night?

I cast my eyes across the car park, just to see if anyone from the flats is out and about yet. At the edge of the car park is a fence. On the other side of that fence, at the front of an old weatherboard shack, James is trying to persuade his son to get into the car so that he can go to school.

‘I don’t wanna go!’

I know that feeling. I never liked school very much either.

Tyson makes a dash from the driveway to the veranda. ‘Come on Mate …’ James sighs and lifts his arms in the air. In one hand is Tyson’s Spiderman backpack. In his other had, James holds his car keys. I stifle a giggle. Poor James. ‘It’s not that bad.’

‘I’m not going.’

Tyson plonks his tiny bottom down on a rotting old sofa that lives on the Smith’s front veranda. The sofa has been there for two years now. The story is that after James split up with Tyson’s mum, Holly, she wanted the sofa. He left it on the veranda so that she (or anybody else,) could take it whenever she wanted to. Then Holly must have changed her mind about wanting her sofa back, because she never came around to collect it.

‘Come on …’ James looks toward the sky. ‘It’s going to start raining soon.’

And you’ll probably get a horrible disease from that sofa if you’re not careful, Tyson.

Tyson sighs and stares down at his lap. James lets out a sigh of his own. He turns toward the fence and stares at me. ‘Never, ever have kids.’

‘Hi James!’

How’s it going, I nearly add. Did you know I murdered someone last night?

‘Nah, he’s all right …’ James lets out a chuckle. ‘Just moody because he’ll be going back his mum house’s this arvo … he doesn’t like it that she and her partner have a new baby.’

I can understand that. Poor Tyson.

It is never fun, being the unfavoured child.

‘Anyway, how have you been …’ Pausing momentarily, James looks me up and down. Why is he staring at me like that? Maybe he knows. I feel my heart pound a little faster. After all, James does work for the emergency services. Maybe he was the paramedic that attended the scene last night. And then, maybe the police worked out who did it, and they know that he lives in the house next door to the flats and they’ve asked him to keep an eye on me. Maybe he’s even recording this conversation in the hope that I might say something that makes me look guilty and then …

‘… Kellie-Sue?’

James offers me a smile. ‘Kellie-Sue, right?’

Oh. James does not know which twin he is talking to. Wow, that’s really … weird. I turn and look in the mirror. Maybe the fact that as of I am a cold-blooded killer means that I now resemble Cassie even closer than before …

‘Of course it’s Kellie-Sue.’

A sigh echoes through the car park. Cassie runs a hand through her long, blonde hair. ‘I’d never be caught dead in clothes like that.’

I am wearing jeans and a t-shirt that has a picture of Wembly from Fraggle Rock on the front. Cassie wears hotpants with hoop earrings and a white singlet top. No bra underneath. (Cassie is just like, way too cool to bother about things like underwear.)

‘I bet you wouldn’t.’

James keeps his face completely straight.

‘Loser.’

Cassie turns toward the Hyundai. She takes my satchel from the passenger seat and tosses it in the back. ‘You leaving any time soon?’

‘Would you like a ride?’

I roll my eyes and then walk to the other side of the car. I give James a quick good-bye wave and start the engine. ‘He’s probably a poof,’ Cassie says. I try not to smile. In Cassie’s mind the only reason a man would not be completely and utterly in love with her was if he was gay.

‘I think he’s okay.’

Actually, I think that James is very nice, even if his long, dark hair and beard don’t really suit him. And the scar on his face, just on his left jaw, does seem a bit freaky.

‘I can’t get through to Morgan.’

Cassie stares at her Blackberry. ‘I couldn’t get through to him last night, either.’

Maybe there is a reason for that.

‘I looked up the cemetery records online last night,’ I say. I figure that a change of subject is probably in order around about now.

‘What do you want to do that for?’ Cassie rolls her eyes.

‘So we can finally know where Dad is buried.’

Our dad died when we were seven, shortly after he and Mum split up. I do not remember much about Dad, apart from his American accent and the fact that he always wore plaid shirts with jeans, regardless of the weather. He was originally from Atlanta, Georgia and was responsible for giving me a name that caused me to be relentlessly ridiculed at school. God knows it is completely unacceptable to have a name like Kellie-Sue when you attend an Australian public high school.

Oh well. At least it was better than the other names they used to call me. Like Fat-Arse-Sue. Or later on, Anna Rexia.

‘He’s dead.’ Cassie sighs and rolls her eyes at me. ‘Knowing where he is buried isn’t going to change that.’

‘Yeah, but …’

My voice trails off as I realise that Cassie is no longer listening. She has her Blackberry pressed to her ear and is chatting away happily. ‘Nah, can’t find him anywhere … He was supposed to meet me last night at the Stallion and never showed, the lazy prick.’

Oh, Cassie. If only you knew why Morgan never showed at the Stallion last night. Or that the girl who killed him is sitting right here beside you …

* * *

Before you ask, Morgan is not Cassie’s boyfriend. He is mine. Well, ex-boyfriend.

And yes, I killed him.

I’m sure that you think this makes me a horrible person. Maybe I am a horrible person. Be assured that I did call an ambulance. Okay, I might have used a public telephone, and I may have hung up when they asked me my name, but I did still at least call the emergency services, just in case they could do something. So I hope that doesn’t make me totally evil.

Cassie and I have known Morgan ever since we started high school. He was a year and a half older than us, but had been kept down a grade due to a long illness. He and Cassie because good friends straight away. Very good friends. Most of the other kids assumed that they were an item. You could not really blame them for that, seeing as most of the time, Morgan seemed to trot around after Cassie like a puppy in search of his master. He never paid that kind of attention to me. For a little while, I was jealous, but then I got sick with Anorexia Nervosa and had my own problems to deal with. After I got better (or more accurately, after I gained a certain amount of weight,) Mum and my stepfather, Brian thought it was best to send me to a private school where I could have a fresh start. Consequently, I did not have that much to do with Morgan for a few years after that, until I started uni and we started seeing one another on campus.

This time, things were different. I kept thinking about how attractive Morgan is. I have to admit, he is your classic