Keep Her Safe

by Sophie Hannah

  The more I think about it, the more likely it seems.

  Hayley the cancer sufferer . . . it makes perfect sense. Mrs. McNair saw her around the resort and recognized her from the picture she’d seen online of Melody as she would look at fourteen. She knew Hayley was Melody, but no one would listen to her because she’d previously said the same about lots of other children who weren’t.

  When she saw Melody running at night, holding Poggy, she became even more convinced she was right. The words I overheard—“How come she can run all of a sudden? Can my cousin Isaac run? Let me tell ya, he can’t even walk!”—were both confused and, at the same time, entirely logical. Mrs. McNair recognized not only Melody but also the girl with cancer that she’d seen around the resort. And she knew enough from her cousin Isaac’s lymphoma to know that terminally ill people generally aren’t too good at running fast. She was trying to tell Riyonna she finally had proof that the girl she thought was Melody couldn’t be who she claimed to be—because true terminal cancer sufferers don’t sprint like healthy people.

  Long dark hair flying out behind her, Mrs. McNair told Riyonna. Why would she mention that unless she saw it as further proof: that the girl calling herself Hayley hadn’t lost her hair, that it was all an act?

  The only problem with my theory is Tarin. I was with her in the club car when she went to pick up Zellie after art class. She was annoyed because she’d wanted a painting of Zellie’s and Zellie had insisted on giving it to Sick Hayley instead. If Hayley—Melody—escaped from Swallowtail in the small hours of my first night there, how can she still have been in the art class afterward to argue with Tarin over a painting? No way she’d have gone back. Too risky.

  Unless . . .

  “Cara, what the fuck is going on with you?”

  I’ve made him angry by keeping my thoughts to myself.

  This is like Cousin Isaac all over again. Cousin Isaac only needed to be sick, but I assumed he was dead. Same with Hayley and art class. Tarin never said Hayley was there that day. She said, on the contrary, that Hayley had taken a turn for the worse. That’s why Zellie had been so intent on giving her the painting as a gift: because she was sicker than usual. That means she might have been absent from the class, and the fight I assumed was between her and Tarin was actually between Zellie and Tarin.

  There’s no reason to assume Hayley was there that day. None at all.

  I look up at my jailer and smile. “Your plan is doomed,” I say, nowhere near as confident as I sound. It could work, though. I’ve been silent and visibly preoccupied for only a few minutes and he’s looking more panicky with every second that passes.

  His Adam’s apple is going wild in his throat. The gun waves up and down. “What do you mean? Tell me what you mean.”

  He’s consumed by his need to know what’s in my mind, in case it could harm him. I can use this.

  Don’t look at the gun. Don’t let it scare you off course.

  “Put the gun’s safety catch on and put it down by your feet. Then I’ll tell you.”

  “No. No way.”

  “My ankles are tied. You’re not at risk if you put it down. It’d take you five seconds to pick it up and release the safety thing—and I can hardly run over to you, can I?”

  He shakes his head. A droplet of sweat runs down his forehead.

  “Put it down or I’m telling you nothing,” I say.

  His mouth sets: a hard line. I start to count. Eight seconds later, he does it: lays the gun down on the floor.

  “Thank you.”

  Can I do what I need to do next: control him using nothing but a mixture of withholding and suggestion?

  “The rules have changed, as of now,” I tell him. “I’ve worked it all out—everything. You want to keep Melody safe. I get that. But you’re going to fail unless I help you. First thing: I want to know who you are. What’s your name?”

  This is never going to work. It’s impossible. I’m not that lucky.

  “Leon,” he says. “I’m Leon.”

  “What in the Lord’s sacred name are you doing over there?”

  Bonnie Juno’s voice—Tarin would have known it anywhere. She didn’t rush to answer. She wouldn’t have thought it needed saying: she was swimming with her daughter. Anyone familiar with breaststroke and water wouldn’t need to ask. “Oh, God, it’s Non-Bon-Jovi,” Zellie murmured.

  “Ugh. Doesn’t she make you wanna not wave but drown?” Tarin whispered. Fun’s over, time to get out, she told herself, but her body disobeyed the order. She inhaled slowly, wishing she could store the cool, wet, green smell inside her to draw upon whenever her reserves of inner peace were running low. She loved this pool so much, and would have liked to figure out a way to prevent everyone but her and Zellie from using it. She wanted it to be theirs alone.

  Not much chance of that—it was part of the resort, the only part that club cars couldn’t reach on account of there being no paths. Thankfully, most of Swallowtail’s clientele saw no reason to venture out to this farthest outpost.

  A person shouldn’t need to get away from it all when “it all” was a five-star spa resort, but Tarin did at least once a day, and this was where she came. Between thirty and forty lengths, and the urge to strangle all those who had displeased her usually subsided. But now here was reality in the shape of Bonnie Fucking Juno, lumbering over in her electric blue dress and leopard-skin stilettos to spoil everything, and thoughts of strangulation once again filled Tarin’s mind.

  She dipped her head under the water and held her breath until Zellie prodded her. Emerging, she said breathlessly, “Why Non-Bon-Jovi? It sounds funny, but it isn’t when you think about it. Makes no sense.”

  Zellie flipped over to float on her back. “As in Jon Bon Jovi, Mother—star of your appalling CD collection.”

  “Yeah, I got that part. But apart from the ‘Bon’—”

  “Non-Bon because unattractive—like, so unattractive. Non-Jovi because far from jovial. Put it all together and you get Non-Bon-Jovi.”

  “Huh.” Tarin frowned. “I can’t decide if that’s brilliant or terrible.”

  Undeterred by receiving no answer to her question, Bonnie Juno was moving closer, teetering on her high heels. She stopped when she reached the edge of the reeds and said, “What even is that? Is it a pond?”

  “Hello, Bonnie.” Tarin hauled herself out of the water and pulled on her robe. “No. Though, confusingly, it’s called The Pond. It’s a natural swimming pool, designed to look like a pond. No chemicals.”

  “Natural?” Bonnie wrinkled her nose. “Is it full of frogs and slimy creatures?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never met a frog in here, but maybe.”

  “I don’t get it. This resort’s full of beautiful swimming pools with waiter service at your seat, and you choose to swim here? It must be filthy.”

  “Nope,” said Tarin. “See the water garden on the other side of the little wall? That’s the regeneration zone. Somehow—don’t ask me how—that part cleans the part you swim in. All those aquatic plants over there are . . . doing something. Eating invasive algae, or something like that.”

  “It looks horrific to me.” Bonnie leaned over to peer in.

  “From your appearance, I’d guess you’re not a fan of natural,” said Zellie, who was still in the water.

  “Hah.” Bonnie seemed to appreciate that. “No, I am not. That’s for sure.” She turned to Tarin. “Have you seen Detective Priddey in the last hour?”

  “No. He missing, too?”

  Bonnie pursed her lips. “I had my people look into room 324, the Robert and Hope Katz angle. You talked about tracing the credit card they used to reserve the room?”

  “Yeah. And?”

  “Turns out you were right. The card used to secure the booking didn’t belong to any Robert or Hope Katz.”

  “So those are fake names. I knew it.”

  “Yeah, but that’s only one side of the story. The other side is who the card used did belong to.”
<
br />   “Who?” asked Zellie.

  “Your daughter’s eager to find out, Mrs. Fry. Are you? Or do you know already, and is that why you’re not asking? I wonder, are the two of you in cahoots?”

  “Who? Me and Zellie?” asked Tarin.

  “No, not you and Zellie. Tell me, did you deliberately point us in the direction of your coconspirator because you’ve decided it’s all getting too risky for you now, so it’s time to cut her loose? Is that why you told us to find out whose card was used?”

  “My coconspirator?” Tarin laughed. “I promise you, the last time I met anyone I wanted to be in a cahoot with was more than a decade ago. I had fewer wrinkles, fewer chins . . . shit, those were the days.”

  Bonnie half smiled. “I guess the state of Non-Bon comes to us all in the fullness of time.”

  “There is no way you could have heard that,” Zellie protested.

  “And yet I did. So go figure.”

  “I apologize for my daughter’s rudeness,” said Tarin. “She gets it from her father. What name was on the credit card?”

  “Riyonna Briggs.”

  “I thought you were going to say Detective Priddey.” Zellie sounded disappointed.

  “Riyonna?” said Tarin. “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” said Bonnie. “She wasn’t taken by force, nor did she leave in floods of tears because the boss man yelled at her.”

  “She ran before the cops could find out she was part of it.” Did this mean what Tarin thought it meant? She needed to get away from Bonnie so that she could think; away from Zellie, too.

  “So now we leave no stone unturned in our hunt for that lying, good-for-nothing schemer,” said Bonnie, in the righteous tone that Tarin knew so well from her TV show. “Because wherever she is, that’s where we’ll find Cara Burrows—hopefully not too late to save her.”

  Tarin and Zellie exchanged a look. “You think Riyonna took Cara?” Tarin asked.

  “Yes. I do,” said Bonnie Juno.

  “Leon?”

  He nods.

  “Surname?”

  “Why do you need to know that? If I tell you that . . .” He breaks off with a grimace. “Look, how about if I tell you my nickname instead of my last name? Since childhood. It’s Dandy. The people I’m close to call me Dandy.”

  I hear the girl’s voice in my head. I spilled Coke on Poggy. And Doodle Dandy. Melody’s voice.

  “Dandy?”

  “Yeah, ’cause of Leon being like lion. When I was little my mom used to say I was her dandy lion, dandelion . . . you know.” He looks embarrassed. “It got shortened to Dandy and it stuck.”

  “And your surname, please?”

  “Cara, come on. I’m trying to cooperate with you, but—”

  “No. You’re trying to compromise with me—different thing. I don’t want to compromise. I want you to answer my questions. All of them. And you’re not thinking straight. You’ve decided I’ll be able to trace you by your surname but not by Dandy. That’s silly. You think if there’s an appeal for information about a man called Leon, known as Dandy, people won’t phone in and name you? Of course they will: surname and all. So you might as well tell me.”

  “Cara, I can’t.”

  “Then I won’t tell you what I’ve realized, and how it’s going to trip you up and land you in prison for a long time.”

  His eyes dart to and fro. “I’d like to tell you, but I can’t.” He looks incredulous suddenly, as if something impossible to believe has been suggested by a voice only he can hear. “You think I want to keep a pregnant woman locked up here? Away from her family? Jesus, Cara! I like you. You seem like a great person.”

  “‘Cara Burrows—is she safe?’ Did you write that?”

  “What?”

  “Did you write it on a piece of paper and put it in the pot in the crystal grotto?”

  “No.”

  For some reason, I believe him. But if he didn’t write it, who did? Who else could have done it?

  “Something I don’t understand,” I say. “You got Melody out of Swallowtail double quick once you knew I’d heard her mention Poggy. But why take the risk of having her there in the first place? It’s a holiday resort, full of people. She’s supposed to be dead. Why not hide her somewhere where she can scream ‘Poggy’ at the top of her voice from now till Christmas? Why not keep her here, for instance?”

  “We did.” Leon slides down the wall into a seated position. “Right here, in this trailer. And others. For years.”

  I inhale sharply. I knew, but it’s still a shock to hear him confirm it. “So the girl I saw was Melody Chapa. She’s alive.”

  “Yes.”

  “Her parents didn’t murder her.”

  “No, they didn’t. But they would have if we hadn’t gotten her out.”

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  He shakes his head. “Sorry. You’ll get no names from me. Believe it or not, all the people involved in the rescue plan are good people. We did what we did to save Melody’s life. It was necessary.”

  “You didn’t answer my question: Why take her to a spa resort and risk exposure?”

  “How would you feel if you’d been shut up in trailers for seven years, never allowed outside, never going on vacation?”

  “Ask me in seven years. By then I’m bound to know the answer. Unless I’m dead.”

  Saying these things aloud makes me feel as if they can’t happen in real life.

  “We didn’t think it was a risk.” Leon sighs. “Melody’s face has changed so much—she wasn’t a pudgy little kid anymore, she was a willowy, beautiful teenage girl. I didn’t think there was a snowball-in-hell chance of anyone recognizing her.”

  And you made her call herself Hayley and wear a fake scalp that covered her one distinguishing mark, just to be sure. You made her pretend to have terminal cancer. Some holiday that must have been for her.

  “She knew not to take Poggy out of our room, or to mention him. She only did because you walking into the room woke her from a deep sleep.”

  “And spoiled everything. I know. But I’m interested: What was the plan you all made after I was inconsiderate enough to cross your path? Kidnap me, get me locked up quick—that was the first step. That makes sense. But what then? The way I see it, there aren’t many options. Either you kill me . . . but no, that won’t work. Tarin Fry knows everything I saw and heard, and I doubt she’ll let it drop—especially not with me missing. Unless you’re going to kill her, too.”

  “I don’t want to kill anyone. I never have, and I hope I never will.”

  Then what? They must have thought beyond the very first stage of getting me safely locked away. What would I be thinking, in Dandy Leon’s position? What plan would I make?

  “If Melody’s not dead, that means her parents shouldn’t be in jail. But if they get out, then she has to go and live with them again. She’s still a minor. I’m not sure how a judge would deal with a minor who said, ‘I loathe my parents. Please can I live in a shabby trailer with gun-toting Leon instead?’ He might say, ‘Sorry—off you go with Mum and Dad.’ You can’t let that happen,” I say slowly. “Not when you’ve gone to such lengths to fake her murder in order to get her away from them.”

  Oh, God. I can think of only one possibility.

  “Is the plan to keep me here until Melody’s an adult?”

  Leon says nothing. Stares down at the floor.

  “Then you let me go and I go home to my family, who are just starting to get over my death—they’ve assumed I’m dead by this point—and move on with their lives. And you and your fellow plotters are safe: I know Melody’s alive but how can I prove it, any of it, when I don’t know who you are? Was that the idea?”

  Leon shakes his head. He looks tired—as if he can’t be bothered with our battle of wills anymore.

  “The idea was—is—to get plastic surgery for Melody,” he says. “It’s going to happen soon. A month or so, we think. Six at the most. It’s taken this long to find someone whose discretion we
can rely on.”

  “To get rid of the telltale brown patch of skin,” I say.

  He nods. “Also make a few other changes to her face, so it’s further from the one online that all the obsessive freaks have learned by heart. Once the surgery was done, we could have let you go. You wouldn’t have recognized Melody if you’d seen her again, and you wouldn’t have known who I was—no way in hell you could have found out.”

  “But now, because I’ve made you tell me that you’re Leon the Dandy Lion, you’re going to have to kill me? And I’ve brought it all on myself. Correct?”

  No response. I want him to deny it, even if I wouldn’t believe him.

  I swallow down the fear that burns my throat and say, “Kill me if you want—but then you don’t get my help with avoiding that long spell behind bars. Your choice.”

  He lunges for the gun, grabs it and points it at me. I lurch backward, banging my shoulder against something.

  “Tell me what you know, or think you know! Right now, or I shoot!”

  You can do this, Cara. Don’t let him distract you.

  “No. I told you: we’re following my rules now. Not yours.”

  He moves to touch the side of his head and knocks the gun against it. As if he forgot it was in his hand. “Jesus Christ!” he bellows.

  He has no idea what he’s doing anymore.

  “Let’s start again,” I say. “What’s your name? Leon what?”

  “Reville. Leon Reville, okay? Are you satisfied now?”

  Detective Orwin Priddey was hearing, in great detail, about a dog. It was interesting, but not in the way the speaker intended.

  The dog’s name was Stoppit—“Because he was so boisterous as a puppy, and I kept having to yell, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ and after a while he started to react as if that was his name, so I thought, might as well change it!”—and its owner was Janelle Davis, Riyonna Briggs’s best friend. She looked around fifty: tall, white, athletic, with laughter lines around her eyes, chin-length dark-brown hair and a fringe that was dyed orangey-red, as if someone had set fire to it at the front. Her clothes were stylish but dirty, with muddy paw prints visible on her white linen trousers.