by Elle Croft
I can feel the blood rushing from my head. I lean on the back of the sofa for support.
‘What?’
‘I know. Dylan Anderson. But still. Apparently he dyed his hair, grew a beard. His ID was fake, but it was so good it wasn’t picked up. He said he was a journalist, that he was writing about Satan’s Ranch, he had a press pass and everything. No one batted an eyelid. They think there were letters, too. They should have more information soon.’
‘OK,’ I say slowly, trying to focus, ‘so why did they want to speak to you?’
‘They want to do another press conference tomorrow,’ he says. ‘With more information on Brad. They want to reveal his real identity, share all the aliases he was using, in case someone’s seen him.’
I have to sit down.
‘But,’ I whisper, ‘once they reveal his real identity, everyone will work out the truth about Imogen, about who she is.’
‘Honey,’ he says gently, sitting beside me and taking my hand. ‘What is there to hide any more? Who are we hiding from?’
I slump back on the sofa. For so long, for so many years, we’ve been concealing this huge, life-changing truth, careful not to let slip, careful to keep the paperwork behind locked, steel doors, careful to never let on that Imogen isn’t a Braidwood. To simply let that go now feels so wrong, feels impossible somehow. And yet holding on is impossible, too.
‘I’m scared for her,’ I admit. ‘I’m scared of what people will say about her, about what she’ll go through if people know. It could ruin her life.’
‘I’m scared too,’ he says. ‘But not telling the truth could put her in even more danger. Immy’s a fighter. You know she is. She’ll be OK.’
Brad’s message swirls in my mind. Why don’t we let Amy choose? I just need to convince her to choose us. If I can get her back tonight, there will be no need for anyone to know who she is. I can save her. I can save her life, and I can protect her reputation. Her future. I have to, or all of our hard work will have been for nothing. She’ll be hunted down by the press, she’ll be known not for who she is but for what her parents did. I’m not going to let that happen, not after everything we did to keep her real identity hidden. I just have to find a way to get away from Dylan, to go and meet Brad, to put an end to all of this tonight.
‘OK,’ I say, nodding. ‘If it’s going to get Imogen back, then they should do it.’
‘They want us to come down to the headquarters again to go through the messaging.’
‘Now?’
‘Yeah, the press conference is first thing. They said the media specialist is still there and is willing to walk us through what we’ll be asked to say tonight.’
The opportunity to slip away and meet Brad is narrowing.
‘Jemima’s fast asleep,’ I say quickly, trying to work out how to do this and also see Brad. ‘I’ll call Linda and see if she can come over.’
‘She’s out tonight,’ Dylan tells me. I look at him questioningly. ‘She told me earlier. She and the kids went to her parents’.’
‘Well, I don’t want to wake Jemima,’ I argue. ‘She’s exhausted. She doesn’t need any more disruption. Or any more trips to the police station.’
Dylan sits back, frowning.
‘You’re right. How about I go to the station now, and you stay and look after Jems? It’s not ideal, but I can pass on anything they tell me, and Jemima can stay sleeping.’
And just like that, I have my window.
Chapter 50
KAT
The house is eerily quiet. I can’t keep still. Since Dylan left, I’ve been pacing the living room, my phone in my hand, willing it to buzz with the address Brad said he’d send. My up-and-down route has taken me to the kitchen more than once, where I’ve opened the fridge and stared longingly at the bottle of wine that’s taunting me from the shelf in the door. I could do with something to calm me down. But I need to be alert. I need to be ready.
I close the fridge firmly and resume my pacing in the living room.
‘Come on, come on, come on,’ I mutter under my breath.
What if he doesn’t text me? Or what if it’s too late, and Dylan’s already home by the time I get the address and I have to come up with another plan to get out and meet with Brad? My stomach has worked itself into a knot so tight that every so often I have to stop pacing and fold my body over, clutching my abdomen until the cramps subside.
It’s during one of these fits of pain that my phone buzzes in my hand, forcing a yelp from my lungs. I stare at it, the message wobbling before my eyes as my hands shake with anticipation and fear. There’s just an address, which I recognise to be somewhere up in the hills; nothing else.
‘Jemima,’ I whisper as I shake her awake. ‘Jemima, come on, we have to go.’
She groans and rolls over. I wince with the shame of what I’m dragging her into. I shouldn’t be taking her with me, but I don’t have a choice. If I’d told Dylan to take her, there would have been no reason for me to stay behind. Linda’s not around to look after her. And there’s no way I’m leaving her at home alone. For all I know, this is a decoy and Brad plans to take my other daughter from her bed while I’m off trying to find him. No way. I know it’s dangerous to take her, but right now it’s the safest option.
I shake her gently again.
‘Jems, my love, we need to go, OK? Grab your blanket and you can sleep in the car.’
‘Where are we going?’ she murmurs.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say, ignoring her question and lifting her from her bed.
She protests and wriggles, but I hold her tightly and carry her down the hallway, out the front door and onto the back seat of the car. I buckle her in and put a blanket over her. It’s far too hot, but once the air conditioning is on, she’ll be OK. Besides, she’s asleep again already, dead to the world, completely trusting.
I start the car and tap the address from Brad’s text into my maps app, then I rest my phone in its cradle on the dashboard. The app tells me the journey will take half an hour. I grit my teeth. At this time of night, with no traffic, I think I can make it in twenty minutes.
I peel out of our street and along familiar roads, lit by the yellow glow of the street lights. I don’t notice that I’m holding my breath until my lungs are burning and my head feels light. I breathe out and gasp for more air as I turn off the main road, where the street lights become sparser, the road narrower and the houses fewer and further apart. Before long, there are no lights at all, and I can see only by the white glare of my headlights, the old, twisted gum trees on either side of the road flashing like gnarled ghosts, taunting me, daring me further in. I press my foot on the accelerator and speed up, past a caravan park and further into the bush.
Here, the road is a single lane. If anyone was coming towards me, I’d have to stop and reverse, but there’s no one around. Few people live this far out, and fewer still would be driving around at this time of night. There’s nothing in this isolated part of the hills. Only a smattering of homes, and hardly any mobile phone signal. No signs of life. No one to see a young woman who doesn’t belong, who shouldn’t be here, who the whole city is searching for. No one to hear a scream.
Dread swells inside me as the road narrows even further and all signs of civilisation are swallowed by the darkness I’m leaving in my wake. Rocks jut out towards the car menacingly, while on the other side of the road, dry branches scrape and squeal against the paintwork. I flinch at the noise, but press the pedal down even further, hurtling towards the unknown. Towards Imogen. Or towards a trap. I don’t know which it is, but I’m willing to take the risk.
Without warning, I’m at the end of the road. Following my phone’s directions, I take a tiny dirt track to the right, past a quaint homestead and into the trees and the bushes and the pressing darkness. I slow down, in part because the road is so treacherous, but also because I don’t want to draw any more attention to myself than I need to. It’ll be dead silent out here; the car’s engine will sound l
ike thunder. I creep along the track and consider turning my lights out, but I don’t want to risk crashing into a tree. I settle for keeping them on, but on the lowest setting. I reach over to turn my phone screen off, noticing as I do that the coverage out here is weak, flitting between no signal at all and a single bar. I press the button and the device goes black, the ghost of its blue glare leaving a rectangle of blinding white in my vision. Bright yellow eyes shine from up ahead, and I jump, until they disappear and I realise it was just a possum.
Looming ahead I can vaguely make out a ramshackle structure that looks more like a shed than someone’s home. I switch the headlights off and roll the car to a gentle stop. Then, slowly, I reverse for a hundred metres or so. I open the passenger side window and turn the engine off, its soft pops sounding like fireworks in the inky silence. I slowly step out into the stiflingly hot night, trying to make as little noise as possible. Closing my door gently, I open the back door and shake Jemima awake again.
‘Mum,’ she mumbles, her eyes still closed. ‘Where are we?’
‘I’m just going to speak to someone, but you have to stay here, OK, love?’
She mutters something in her drowsy half-sleep.
‘Jems? Listen to me, OK? Even if you wake up, I need you to stay here.’
I emphasise the last two words, but she’s out already. Her sleep is a deep and marvellous thing. I will her to stay unconscious like this until I return with Imogen, and I pray that nothing goes wrong. My instinct tells me I should lock the doors, close the windows tightly, keep her safe. But I don’t know how long I’ll be, and in this heat, she’d suffocate in minutes without a window open. And if she needs to run, for whatever reason, I want her to have the best chance of a quick escape. I can’t put her in any more danger than I already have by bringing her here. I close her door very slowly, very gently, and step towards the house that I can no longer see, but which I know is there.
Each step makes a crack like gunfire as dry twigs and leaves snap beneath my feet. Even as my eyes adjust to the dark, I’m walking blindly, the stars and moon blotted out by a blanket of clouds, a sign that the heat has built and swelled to the point where it has to burst, where a storm will provide a short-lived release. I desperately need the sky to clear, though. I need to see what I’m walking into.
A door creaks. It’s close. Almost close enough to touch.
‘Imogen?’ I call out into the darkness.
And then a light is switched on and I’m blinded. A voice calls out, cutting through the brightness like a laser.
‘Hello, Kathryn. Long time no see.’
‘Brad,’ I say, being careful to keep my voice calm and steady. I hold my hands out, a gesture of surrender. I still can’t see anything; the spotlight is pointed directly at my face. I’m like the possum that was just in my headlights: utterly stunned and frozen to the spot. ‘I’m here to talk. I know I’ve hurt you, and I’m sorry. Can we talk about it? Please?’
I step forward, tentatively, hoping to bridge the gap, hoping he’ll let me try.
There’s a rustling sound, and a whoosh. A flash of a shadow across the light, the blinding glare again and then a hollow crack.
The world jolts for a moment before descending into nothing.
Chapter 51
IMOGEN
‘Amy,’ Brad called from somewhere else in the house. His voice sounded urgent, but she couldn’t muster the energy, or the interest, to get up. She kept her eyes closed.
She had barely moved for hours. The sickness was back, just like Brad had feared. Had she pushed herself too much, too quickly? Was it her own fault that she felt so bad again? Her head was spinning, her eyes were heavy, and she knew that if she dared to roll over, or sit up, the nausea would hit.
She lifted an eyelid carefully, cautiously. It was dark. She couldn’t have said what time it was, she had no concept of how long she’d been lying there.
‘Amy!’ Brad called, this time more urgently.
With a cry of pain she heaved herself up, her head pounding and her mouth dry. She staggered to the bathroom, threw up and then gulped rusty brown water straight from the tap.
Brad was still calling her, so she stumbled out to the living room. He wasn’t there. The front door was wide open, and he was shouting from outside.
She stepped around the sofa, and that was when she saw it.
A shape on the ground, just beyond the door, lit by a bright light attached to the front of the house. It looked like a sensor light, the kind Dylan had installed to scare away intruders. She had no idea who would bother intruding all the way out where they were – wherever that was. What would anyone be after? There was nothing worth stealing, she was certain of it. But someone had turned up. Someone had intruded.
Only they weren’t intruding any more. They were lying on the ground, not moving.
She stepped outside into the bright light and walked towards the shape on the ground, her heart stammering in her chest.
‘Are they …?’ She didn’t dare say the word.
‘She’s not dead,’ Brad said, and Imogen’s shoulders dropped in relief. Then as his words settled, she turned to face him sharply.
‘She?’
Her heart pounded more furiously, her headache intensifying.
‘It’s Kat, Amy. She turned up while you were asleep and started threatening me, saying that she’d changed her mind and was going to take you back. I was trying to reason with her, I just wanted to talk, and then she came at me. It was all so fast, I couldn’t see if she had a weapon or something. I just reacted. I don’t know what to do, she’s been out cold for a couple of minutes.’
Imogen’s eyes focused for a second, taking in the shape of Kat crumpled on the ground in a floral dress. She wasn’t moving. Without thinking, she rushed to Kat’s side, tugging her shoulder so she rolled onto her back. She heard a slight groan and felt a rush of relief, followed quickly by confusion and that same anger that had been simmering away for days. Why would Kat change her mind? Why would she want her back now, after saying that she didn’t? What was happening?
Imogen didn’t want to go back to Kat and Dylan’s, didn’t want to leave Brad to return to a family that wasn’t really hers, where she wasn’t wanted. Where she didn’t belong.
‘We need to do something,’ Brad said, his voice right in her ear. His breath was hot against her skin, and she recoiled from the noise. The sharp pain behind her eyeballs was getting worse. She needed to lie down, or be sick again, but she couldn’t, not when Kat was lying helpless in the dust.
‘I don’t know how to help,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
Silence descended on them and time seemed suspended as she waited for Brad to take control, to fix everything.
‘It’s going to be OK, little one,’ Brad said eventually, and she let her breath out with a hiss. ‘You go get some water for her, I’ll take her to the shed out the back.’
She stared at him. ‘But—’
‘You’re sick,’ he interrupted. ‘You need the bed more than she does. And I need to stay close to you, to monitor you. There’s no room in the house. Besides, she’ll be out of here in no time.’
Imogen hesitated, trying to make sense of what was happening, unsure whether what Brad was saying made sense. It didn’t feel right, but then again, nothing felt right. Her head was spinning, and she swayed.
‘OK,’ she said, knowing she was incapable of arguing, even if she wanted to.
She fumbled her way inside, feeling like her throat was being squeezed by an invisible, unrelenting fist, its grip tightening millimetre by millimetre. She stopped to force air into her lungs, to tell herself that it was going to be OK, although she wasn’t sure if she believed it. Her mother, who wasn’t really her mother, had come here and attacked her brother.
Her hatred towards Kat, fierce and unyielding and gathering intensity, lodged in Imogen’s stomach. She was so angry with her, so hurt, that she thought she’d be fine never to see her agai
n. Which would suit Kat just fine, since she’d rejected her, said she shouldn’t bother coming home. But then Brad said she’d turned up wanting Imogen back. She let out a moan, her already muddled head swirling with too many emotions, too many questions.
She hated Kat. She knew that with certainty. And yet, seeing her like that, crumpled on the ground, weak and in pain – that wasn’t what she wanted, either. What she wanted was for Kat to understand, for her to acknowledge the destruction she had caused, the damage she’d done to Brad, to admit that she’d been wrong. And she wanted Kat to let her stay there, with Brad, where she belonged. She wanted to be wanted, but she also wanted to be left alone, to not have to face her adoptive family, to start afresh without having to confront the pain and betrayal.
But Kat was there now, out the back, in the woodshed, and Imogen was left with no choice but to confront her past.
A giggle rose up in her chest, a bubble of mirth that came from nowhere, that made no sense. She stared at the pram against the wall, wondering what Brad wanted with it, after all. She shook her head. She needed to concentrate, she just didn’t know how to.
Kat. She needed to work out what was happening with Kat. She drummed her fingers against her thigh. She wondered if maybe Kat did want her to go back to that house where the truth was hidden in the shadows and darkness ran rampant. She couldn’t go back. She knew – the knowledge echoing deep in her marrow – that she wouldn’t go willingly.
The room spun perilously as she tried to sort her jumbled thoughts into some kind of order.
Water. That was what she’d come inside for. She held a glass under the tap and filled it with the tepid, brown liquid that sputtered out. The house wasn’t plumbed, so the water came from the tank outside, and that was slowly emptying thanks to the relentlessly dry summer. A few wrigglers struggled against the side of the glass. Imogen tried to fish them out with her finger, but her co-ordination was off, and her arm was too heavy, so she gave up and walked outside towards the shed, light filtering through the gap under the door.