I run and run. Where am I going? Back to my casita? No, to the car park. I’ve got my bag with me, with the hire car’s keys inside it, my passport and wallet, my scan photo of the baby. That’s all I need.
I have to get right away from Swallowtail if Patrick won’t leave. I have to win.
‘Cara.’
The voice – not my husband’s – is quiet and comes from behind me. I turn to see who it is. A hand shoots out in front of my face, startling me. Something yellow moves fast, presses hard against my nose and mouth. I try to call out, but I can’t make a sound.
I heard something on the radio the other day: a guest on a talk show was asked for her favorite word. She said ‘holidays’. I thought that was cheating. I couldn’t believe she liked the word for its own sake, for the sound of the vowels and consonants and the way they harmonize together. ‘Holidays’ is a nice-sounding word, but if it meant ‘incredibly hard work’, would she still have chosen it?
I don’t have a favorite word, only two least favorites: ‘parents’ and ‘family’. I can write them easily enough, but I hate saying them, and most of all I hate hearing them when I’m not prepared. But if ‘holidays’ meant ‘parents’ and ‘parents’ meant ‘ice-cream’ and ‘ice-cream’ meant ‘family’, I think I’d feel differently about all these words. So it turns out I had no right to think the woman on the radio was doing it wrong. It’s too hard to separate the word from its meaning.
When I first made up the name ‘Kind Smiles’ for the only people who ever smiled at me, I was six years old. I’m fourteen now, but I can’t stop thinking of them that way.
I must have been pretty naïve when I was a little kid. I thought I could protect myself from my mother by not looking at her. It worked sometimes, but not always. One time I was sitting on the carpet surrounded by the toys and dolls I liked to play with. At the other end of the room, my parents were watching TV. On this particular day, one of my teddy bears, Rosa, had a secret she wouldn’t tell anyone. The others were crowding around her begging to know, saying true friends don’t keep secrets from one another. I was explaining, in Rosa’s voice, that this was such an important secret that she couldn’t possibly share it – not yet. I hadn’t decided what the secret would turn out to be. I was looking forward to deciding later.
My mother turned the TV off suddenly. Having never shown any interest in my games before, she got up out of her chair, walked over to where I was sitting and picked up Poggy. Moving him around as she spoke for him, she said, ‘You’re not being fair, Rosa. Keeping secrets is wrong. You know that. We don’t keep secrets in our family.’
I couldn’t bear to see my mother’s pale pink fingernails digging into Poggy’s sides. The voice was all wrong too – nothing like the one I’d invented for him. I wanted to scream, ‘Let him go!’ but I couldn’t. I was also worried about what would happen to Rosa, but Poggy was my main concern. If anything happened to him, I’d die.
My father did and said nothing, just watched.
‘Tell Poggy your secret, Rosa,’ said my mother.
‘I don’t know what it is,’ I told her in my own voice. ‘I haven’t made up my mind.’
‘Is that so?’ she said. She dropped Poggy, snatched Rosa from my hand and took her out of the room, into the kitchen. I heard a drawer open. My father stared at the switched-off TV. A minute or so later my mother came back in, having cut Rosa into shiny brown pieces. She dropped them in my lap. ‘That’s better,’ she said. ‘No more secrets.’
2
October 11, 2017
Tarin Fry drummed her bare feet against the floor, listening to the buzzing silence at the other end of the line.
Come on, pick up. Today, ideally. Lazy assholes.
Zellie would be back from her after-lunch nap-on-a-massage-table soon, to fill their hotel room with the smell of Alpine Arnica oil – her favorite scent of all the ones on offer in the spa, despite the vastly superior Ginger Root also being available – and this phone call was one Tarin didn’t want her to overhear.
Though, come to think of it, maybe that was only delaying the problem, because there was no way Tarin could do what she planned to do without Zellie finding out eventually. No way at all.
‘Ma’am?’ A woman again, but a different one. Hopefully she’d be more helpful than the last one. ‘Can I clarify: was it Detective Sanders or Detective Priddey you wanted to speak to?’
Tarin made a puzzled face at the phone. She’d never heard either name before.
‘Tall and blond: Detective Bryce Sanders. Short and dark: Detective Orwin Priddey.’ The woman chuckled. ‘We call ’em Starsky and Hutch.’
‘How thrilling,’ said Tarin flatly. ‘Look, I don’t know either of these two guys. Why are you asking me about them?’
‘They’re the two detectives who were at Swallowtail. I was told you wanted to speak to one of them.’
‘Either of them. I don’t care what color hair, just put one of them on the phone. Can you do that?’
‘Oh, I see. Right. I’m with you. Putting you back on hold while I go track ’em down.’
‘Great,’ Tarin muttered, to nobody.
The hotel room door opened, then banged shut a few seconds later.
‘I’m back,’ Zellie called out. She appeared a few seconds later, in a waft of Alpine Arnica. ‘That was the least-effort massage I’ve ever had. It was a man. He applied no pressure at all – basically just dripped oil over my back and smeared it around a bit.’
Tarin put the phone down. She wanted to tell Zellie about her plan if she was telling her, not have her overhear without knowing the score.
‘Who were you calling?’
Tarin deflected her with a question. ‘Did you see Cara Burrows on your way to or from the spa?’
‘No. Why?’
‘She’s not by the pool or in her casita, or anywhere, far as I can tell.’
Zellie rolled her eyes. ‘Right. So because you don’t know her exact whereabouts, you’ve decided she’s disappeared. Please tell me you weren’t just on the phone to the police. Seriously? Mom!’
‘You could be right. Maybe she’ll turn up.’ Tarin decided to leave it until tomorrow to ring the police again. What were those detectives’ names? She’d forgotten them already. Dark and blond, Starsky and Hutch.
They were more likely to listen after a whole night had passed. It was harder to claim someone was missing when you’d seen them that same morning. And if reporting Cara’s absence from Swallowtail could wait until tomorrow, so could … her plan. The other thing.
Was Tarin really going to do it? Yes, she was. Why not? What harm could it do?
I open my eyes and I know: something’s lost. Something important.
Did I lose it? Is it my fault?
The baby?
Please not the baby.
No, that’s not what’s gone. It’s time. A whole chunk of it is missing. I don’t know how much.
My hair has fallen in front of my eyes. I can’t see properly – only flashes of yellow and green checked fabric and cheap dark wood. This isn’t my casita. And I can’t push my hair out of the way because …
My hands won’t move.
I gasp, convulsed by a wave of shock that turns the blood in my veins to ice. Someone’s tied my wrists together. My ankles too.
A man’s voice said my name. Just my first name, just ‘Cara’.
Dread rises inside me until it’s a lead weight on my tongue, stopping me from calling for help.
What do I know? What can I work out?
I’ve been unconscious. My head feels heavy and sore at the bottom, as if someone poured liquid metal into it that’s now turning solid. I’m bathed in sweat, my clothes damp and twisted, my throat scratchy and dry. I need water. The thirst isn’t full-on pain yet, but it soon will be.
The yellow cloth … that must be how he knocked me out, with chlorophyll. No, chloroform. Chlorophyll is something to do with trees.
Didn’t anyone see anything? Patrick �
� but no, he couldn’t have seen. I’d already run too far when it happened. I’d left him behind. If only I’d stayed with him, carried on talking …
Is anybody looking for me yet? Did the man carry me, unconscious, to his car, in his arms? Somehow he must have got me here without …
The thought dead-ends in my mind. Here. What does that mean? Where is here?
It’s nowhere I recognise. I shake my head to shift my hair out of the way so I can see properly. I’m in a room, about fifteen by ten feet at a rough guess. There are dark wood kitchen cabinets of various sizes, some with windows showing glasses, mugs and plates. Others are solid with fake-wood veneered fronts, stained and chipped. No one has paid this place any decorative attention for a long time. It has an abandoned feel to it.
No. Don’t think that. You haven’t been abandoned.
Panicking is the worst, most stupid thing I could do. I’ll get out of here. Soon someone – the man who brought me here – will come in, untie me and explain what’s going on.
I need to keep thinking, keep trying to work things out. Arm myself with as much information as I can, so that when he comes back I’ll be ready for him.
Whoever the hell he is.
His voice … was it one I recognised? The detective I saw at the spa? The man from the wrong hotel room Riyonna sent me to? Was it Mason, who gave me the iPad, or Dane Williamson, the resort manager?
Maybe it was someone I’ve never met but only read about: Jeff Reville, Victor Soutar … I try to remember other men from the Melody Chapa story, and can’t think of any. Can’t be Naldo Chapa – he’s in prison.
It’s got to be about her: Melody. Nothing in my life would cause this to happen to me – not even running away from home, abandoning my family without warning.
Why didn’t I mind my own business, keep my mouth shut about what I saw in that hotel room?
Cara Burrows – is she safe?
She might have been, if only she’d said nothing.
If I’m not safe, my baby isn’t either. Without a mother, Olly and Jess aren’t safe. Patrick’s not enough. My kids need me. They need me home. I have to get back to them, whatever it takes.
Think, Cara. Find a way out.
How far from Swallowtail am I? From the fullness of my bladder, I’m guessing I was unconscious at least an hour or two, maybe three or four. It’s still light outside. Wait, the windows … They’re wrong. Yellow and green checked curtains, but that’s not the problem. It’s the corners of the windows – they’re curved, not sharp. Not right angles. They remind me of train windows.
This whole room is wrong. What is it? A kitchen? Then why is there a bed at the far end? A yellow bedspread with a pattern of small pink flowers, matching pillowcases. I’m lying on a caramel-coloured leather sofa that’s more of a bench. It’s hard as stone, its leather back embedded in the wall next to one of the two doors.
Kitchen, lounge and bedroom … everything’s all stuffed in together. There’s one chair, a dirty orange and brown monstrosity, and far too many cupboards, but the cooking area – hob, oven, work surface – is laughably small, like a miniature. Not quite doll’s house size, but almost.
Wedged between the chair and the wall, there’s a coffee table with books on it. The one on top of the pile, the only one I can see, is called The Devil Dragon Pilot, by someone called Lawrence A. Colby. The only thing on the walls is a television attached to a bracket and a calendar that’s still on August’s page. Above the grid for the days of the month, there’s a cartoon drawing of a white kitten sitting in a pink and blue striped teacup, winking and waving.
I shuffle my body to the left so that I can see over the edge of the bench. The floor’s linoleum – more grey than brown, and even more obviously fake than the kitchen cupboard doors. To cover it up – an understandable urge – someone’s put down a bobbly navy blue rug that looks like an oversized bathmat.
All I can see through the windows is bright blue sky, wires, an electricity pylon. No trees or tall buildings. If I could stand up and see out of the windows … But with my hands and feet tied, that’s impossible. Someone wanted to make absolutely certain I’d stay where they left me.
‘Fuck,’ I say out loud. ‘Fuck!’
A tidal wave of fear seizes me, then sends me crashing down. All I want is my family. Please.
How could I have done this? I wanted so badly to get away from home, and now I might never get back there. All the problems I thought I had before, they were nothing – minor irritations. I was too blind to see it. Too lucky.
I have to try to get up on my feet. Swinging my legs, I propel my top half forward. I land badly – clumsy and unbalanced, with a twist of my right ankle – and fall to the floor.
Wincing, I rotate my foot to see if I’ve sprained anything. I don’t think I have. It hurts, but not enough.
I can’t see a way to stand up now that I’m lying on the floor. It was easier from the leather bench – I could swing my legs over and downward. From this position, I can’t see how I’d do it.
Unless I can somehow get onto my knees, and then …
The sound of scraping freezes the unfinished thought in my mind. What was that? A key in the door? There’s a loud, clanking thud, like something banging against a metal sheet. The floor shakes beneath me.
Metal …
I know what this is.
I’m in a caravan, a trailer, whatever they’re called. A mobile home. That’s why all the different rooms are stuffed in together.
I hear the sound of a key again, and the door nearest to me opens. A man walks in wearing a checked shirt and denim shorts. Dusty brown lace-up boots.
‘Cara Burrows,’ he says. He looks terrible: grey-faced, tense, exhausted.
Of course it’s him. I should have known.
‘Please let me go,’ I say in a firm, clear voice. ‘Let me go and I promise I won’t say anything. I won’t tell anyone.’
‘Cara, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry.’ And he starts to cry.
October 12, 2017
‘Hey – isn’t it your birthday next week?’ said Detective Bryce Sanders as he pulled the car out of Paradise Valley police station’s parking lot. ‘Tuesday, isn’t it?’
‘Wednesday,’ said Detective Orwin Priddey.
‘Althea buying you dinner someplace special?’
‘I don’t know. We’ll do something, I guess, but no plans yet.’
‘You should celebrate your birthday, OP. Make plans, bud. You only live once.’
Three teenage boys were standing on the sidewalk up ahead. One was right on the edge with his back to the road. He looked as if he might fall into the moving traffic at any moment. Priddey thought about reaching over to beep the horn. On the other hand, he wasn’t driving, so not his problem.
‘Unless you’re Melody Chapa,’ Sanders added as an afterthought.
‘What?’
‘You only live once – unless you’re Melody Chapa. If you’re Melody Chapa you get murdered and then suddenly, seven years later, you’re alive again and hanging out at a spa resort.’ Sanders laughed. ‘How much do you think a night in a place like that costs? More than I could afford, that’s for sure. You’d be okay, married to a woman of means.’
‘Waste of money.’
‘We’re lucky – we get to go there for free. Maybe today we can fit in a swim. I’m sure our resort manager friend Mr Dane Williamson wouldn’t say no.’
‘Today? We’re going back there?’
Sanders nodded.
‘Did that woman call again – Riyonna?’
‘Nope.’
‘Then why? I don’t know why we bothered going the first time. That old lady’s one blade shy of a sharp edge.’
‘You sure about that, bud? Because I gotta tell you … there’s been two more sightings.’
Priddey didn’t react. It was all bullshit. He knew it and Sanders knew it. Still, he didn’t care. Might as well spend the day at Swallowtail as anywhere else.
&
nbsp; ‘And guess what?’ Sanders tried again to arouse his interest. ‘One of the women who saw Melody alive has disappeared. A Mrs Cara Burrows, from England. Then, after she vanished into thin air, there was a third sighting of Melody – this time by a Mrs Tarin Fry. She’s the one who called me. Oh, and Riyonna Briggs? According to Tarin Fry, there’s no sign of her either. I’m telling you, OP, some shit’s going down at that resort. I don’t know what, but … some weird shit, that’s for sure.’
‘Some kind of group hysteria, most likely.’ Priddey yawned. He didn’t want to talk about Melody Chapa. If she was alive, great. If she was dead … well, that was hardly news. Either way, it didn’t affect him.
He’d read everything there was to read about the case between 2010 and 2014, when the media coverage had finally started to dry up. He still remembered the names of everyone involved, even those with only a minor role – Shannon Pidd, Nate Appleyard, Victor Soutar – just like he remembered the car Kristie Reville had owned in 2010: a red Toyota Camry. He just didn’t care about any of that stuff today, and he hadn’t cared two days ago either, when Riyonna Briggs had first summoned Sanders and him to Swallowtail. If it was work, then he didn’t care about it – that was the rule.
‘How about if we find Melody alive?’ said Sanders. ‘Imagine that.’
‘We won’t find her. She’s not there.’
‘Yeah, you could be right. Still. She might not be there, but someone will be. You’re in for a big surprise, bud.’
Priddey used to like surprises. He didn’t any more. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Wait and see, OP. Wait and see.’
I wake with a gasp of shock. I try to open my eyes but it doesn’t work.
Why not?
Crying. Endless crying, until the dark outside started to lift. Which means I’m looking at the new day through swollen narrow slits.
Bright light streams in through the trailer windows. Sunny prison.
I screamed myself hoarse last night. No one came, and I heard nothing. Either this trailer’s in a secluded spot or else he knew no one who heard me would care. The first seems more likely. He’d have taped my mouth shut otherwise.
Did You See Melody? Page 16