One mistake could change your life forever.
Tara has it all. Married and about to move into her dream home, she can’t explain why she is tempted by one last fling with her ex before she settles down.
David would do anything for Tara. So when he finds her with another man, his world starts to crumble around him.
Ryan isn’t prepared for the punch David throws at him. Stumbling, he slips over the balcony and falls three storeys to the patio below.
In one split second a man will be killed. In one split second David and Tara’s life will change forever.
How far would you go to save everything you have?
A twist-filled thriller for fans of The Couple Next Door, T.M. Logan and Rachel Abbott.
D. Monaghan grew up in Dublin before travelling extensively in Asia, Europe and America. After teaching English in Thailand for two years, he moved back to Ireland and gained an honours degree in psychology. While living in Canada for four years, he studied screenwriting in Toronto. S. D. Monaghan completed the Masters in Creative Writing at Trinity College, Dublin with the editorial guidance of the Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford and Orange Prize nominee, Deirdre Madden. On the strength of his work there, he was chosen to represent both the university and the Oscar Wilde Writers’ Centre to read excerpts at the Dublin Publishers Festival and on Dublin Culture Night. He lives in Dublin with his wife, where he is currently working on his new novel. He is represented by Zoe Ross at United Agents.
Excerpt
Chapter One
Lawrence Court was a cul-de-sac lined with sturdy detached nineteenth-century red-brick Georgian houses, nearly all of which had been gloriously renovated and massively extended in the last decade. Inside were people accustomed to being ushered to their tables and to having their children accepted by the best universities; who avoided the Christmas rush by employing personal shoppers, and who never queued at banks but instead met with their wealth manager. Most of the driveways parked two SUVs and a slick coupé or fat saloon.
Several homes had small yachts resting on their carriages across the lawns. One back garden was illuminated with the blue rectangle of a lit pool. The indicator ticked its second-by-second pulse as David’s BMW slowly cruised down Lawrence Court. It was nearly 10 p.m., and all seemed peaceful in this world. He turned off the headlights and pulled up onto the curve. In the circle of the cul-de-sac, a tall hoarding stamped with the logo Maximum Building Services shielded one of the houses. He was greatly pleased at having pulled off the classic coup of buying the worst house on the best street and turning it into the best house on the best street. David – who taught history at Trinity College – naturally considered ancient ruins to be glorious. But hundred-year-old ruins were just sad.
In the morning, David and his pregnant wife would finally be moving in. That was why he was there: for a private moment to walk through the finished project and then to have a cigarette out the back – a very special treat, as he hadn’t smoked in two years.
Then he saw it – Tara’s blue Ford coupé, parked across the road. It was so unlike her to go out alone at night. And why was she here? Had she been planning the same thing? Were they that psychologically attuned to each other? David smiled.
Perhaps.
But just as he was about to step out of his car to surprise her, he noticed another vehicle next to Tara’s – Ryan’s white SUV. Footsteps began to echo, breaking the kind of silence that
existed only in the neighbourhoods of the very rich. They came from behind the ten-foot-high timber enclosure. The hoarding door opened, and in the shadows a couple kissed.
It might not be her. It might be someone else.
David knew it wasn’t someone else.
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