“Nor me,” said Dave solemnly. “And I’m his besht mate.” He took another drink of rum.
Russia lay back and rested her head in her cupped hands. “I miss old Sam.”
Kayla smiled sadly. “Me too.”
The group sat and drank, mostly in silence, as the sun dropped lower and lower in the sky. It smelled of earth and hibiscus, and the rum warmed them from the inside as the outside temperature was cooling. Most of the lake had already dipped into the shadows of the mountains, but it could still be heard tinkling and slushing in the background.
Just as the sun was about to duck below the farthest mountain peak, Dave took Russia’s hand and spoke in the most hushed voice Kayla had ever heard him use. He spoke slowly. “I can’t feel either of my feet. Or the tips of my fingers.”
Russia drank deeply, then pressed her lips together. “At all?”
“At all.”
There were a few moments of silence. Kayla drank next. “What does that mean?”
Dave plucked a wad of grass in his hand and threw it in front of him. It landed on his feet. Kayla wondered if he’d be able to kick it off if he tried. “It means this is all happening quicker than I thought it would.”
More silence. Russia was too overwhelmed with sadness to speak. Her pretty face was frowning—something that didn’t happen too often—and her full cheeks were wet with tears. Kayla filled the silence. “I’m really sorry, Dave. I don’t know what else to say. It’s . . . horrible. Totally bloody horrible.”
Dave swallowed. He’d become much more sober in the last few minutes, and took a drink of rum to rectify the situation. “What’s it like? To know you have your whole life ahead of you? My body . . . it’s a ticking time bomb. Except instead of exploding like a heart attack, it’s just going to slowly fail. But my mind won’t. Inside, I’ll be like you. I’ll still want to dive into a lake in Thailand and swim with sharks and stroke tigers and drink rum with my best friends watching the sun go down, but I won’t be able to. I’ll be trapped in my own body, staring at the same patch of hospital ceiling every minute of every fucking day until my organs have the courtesy to fail on me.
“But you guys . . . you can do anything. Anything. How does that feel? I used to have that too—not that long ago, actually. But it’s something you take for granted, isn’t it? That you’re going to grow old? I didn’t have the presence of mind to really think about how that felt until it was gone. Then it was too late. So tell me. How does it feel?”
The three girls weren’t sure whether it was a rhetorical question. Instead, they all rose at the same time and went to sit around Dave—Russia behind him with her arms wrapped around his waist, delicately kissing his neck and head, with Bling and Kayla on each side, resting their heads on his shoulders.
And that’s how they sat for ten minutes, until Dave broke the silence. “You know that in Hindi, Daivat means strong and powerful? Pretty ironic, isn’t it.” He laughed bitterly. “My body couldn’t be further away from strength.”
Russia nodded sincerely. “I know how you feel. In Russian, Minya means ‘God reincarnated.’ It can be a lot of pressure.”
Just like that the melancholic spell was broken. The group fell about laughing, and Dave choked out, “Damn it, Rush, why did you have to ruin the whole pimp thing I had going on?”
He kissed her with the passion of a man who knew he only had a few good months left. Kayla felt a pang of jealousy, before quickly chastising herself. Terminal illness was not something to lust after.
But she would kill for Sam to kiss her like that again, even just one more time.
Chapter 33
August 2, England
OLIVER’S WORDS KEPT playing on Kayla’s mind.
Not purely because it raised a lot of questions—How? Why? For how long?—but because it deeply disturbed Kayla that she and her friends could be followed for such a long period of time and never notice. All right, so they were drunk at least eighty-two percent of the time, but it seemed her first instinct was right after all—the human psyche, no matter how powerful, did not have a sixth sense. Nobody could feel eyes burning into the back of their head. It was, as she had always believed, a myth.
Perhaps that was the reason that ever since her run in the woods, cut short by that strangely chilling sensation, she’d felt as though she was being watched. Was her brain overcompensating for missing a trick? Because she’d been followed for weeks without noticing, was her mind sensing danger that wasn’t really there?
She was sitting at the breakfast bar, watching the evening news and eating Nutella straight out of the jar with a spoon. It was sticky and clammy in her mouth, but the sugar hit was like morphine, a painkiller for her psychological turmoil. She could never understand those who lost weight after going through something like this, as though grief was the best diet in the world. It was almost as if they didn’t use food as an emotional crutch. Bizarre.
She would have loved to talk to Sadie about Oliver’s confession. The DI’s mind was much sharper than her own, much more honed in the realms of crime investigation, so Sadie could probably slot the piece of information into the case and make more sense of it than she ever could. But Sadie hadn’t been answering her e-mails, texts, or phone calls. Usually, Sadie was so eager to speak to her. Had she been stupid to think they were actually been becoming friends? She just wished Sadie would give her some kind of reason for her sudden disappearance. If she was busy at work, or if Shepherd had discovered her persistent interest in Sam’s case and put his foot down, it would explain a lot, and she could leave Sadie alone, knowing why the DI was ignoring her.
And then, there was always the possibility that Sadie’s silence was linked to the case itself. Had she stumbled upon something controversial that she didn’t want to share with her? Or worse, was Sadie starting to suspect her When Kayla had been giving her a run-through of what happened, she’d detected a trace of something in Sadie’s voice: at best, niggling uncertainty, at worst, outright suspicion. Snippets of the conversation flashed back into her mind.
“I pushed the door open, and saw . . . well, you know what I saw. Blood.”
“Then you collapsed, right? Into the pool of blood, which is why your clothes were soaked through with it?”
Kayla strained through her mental fog, trying to conjure up a mental image of the detective’s expression at that moment. Her eyes had been narrowed, her attempt at a casual tone of voice a little too sharp. What had Sadie said then? It had been a comment on the timeline, Kayla remembered.
“And how long would you say you blacked out for?”
“I haven’t a clue. No more than a minute or two, I don’t think.”
Sadie’s response to her uncertainty had come a fraction too quickly. The words spilled out of her mouth before Kayla had uttered her final syllable.
“And then?”
Of course, it was Sadie’s job to consider every possibility. It was in her nature, even—she was a born detective, there was no denying that. Kayla tried to put herself in Sadie’s shoes. If she were a detective would her suspect herself? Probably. Still, that didn’t stop her from wishing she’d masked her own uncertainty a little better. “I think . . . I don’t remember . . . I haven’t a clue.” Expressions that didn’t exactly paint a picture of an innocent bystander. Expressions that were rapidly becoming the soundtrack to her inner monologue.
She sighed, put down the jar of Nutella and muted the TV. There was never any mention of Sam now that the case had been essentially closed, but the news reader was talking about the terrorist attacks that had taken place while they were in Thailand. They still hadn’t found the people behind it—or determined whether they were linked to the cyberterrorism of a few weeks ago. The propaganda videos that left her frightened mum stranded in Surrey, too scared to board a train home.
The memory of the first time they’d heard
about the attacks—sitting in that sleek, modern café in Thailand—recurred to Kayla. The link between this life and that one. The memory of Sam next to her. Was it real? Was that ever her reality? She felt winded, couldn’t breathe. Grief over what she’d lost, who she’d lost, choked her. She was suffocating, drowning in the memories, memories that—
Her spine tickled between her shoulder blades. She was being watched. Or was she?
Kayla stood up, trying to steady her erratic breathing, and wrapped her dressing gown tightly around her waist. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t as warm as it should have been in mid-August. She padded toward the French doors. Evening cigarette time.
She lit up, inhaled deeply and blew the smoke slowly out from between her lips. It was cloudy outside and the air was damp. Humidity not unlike that she’d experienced in Thailand, though without the soaring temperatures. What she’d give to be lying by that lake again—
There. She wasn’t imagining it this time. Something, or someone, moved at the bottom of the garden. She couldn’t make out the details—she wasn’t wearing her contact lenses, and if she hurried back inside to get her glasses it’d probably be too late.
She couldn’t quite tell whether it was a man or a woman, or even a child. It could even be Nan, home early from her travels. But through the trees and shrubbery, she could definitely see a human-shaped silhouette where there shouldn’t have been one.
Someone was sitting on her tree swing, rocking back and forth.
KAYLA LOCKED HER bedroom door behind her and dived back into bed, pulling the covers over her head like a terrified child. Her heart was thumping.
Calm down, Kayla. It must just be your nan. How would anyone else have got onto the grounds? Her house was famously the most secure property in the county. Or so she thought.
She dug around underneath her pillow to locate her mobile phone. She punched in her Nan’s mobile number, her fingers never quite finding the right digits, so it took much longer than usual.
Ring, ring. Ring, ring. Rin—
“Hello-o-o?” Her nan’s voice was crackly—she obviously had poor reception. Kayla’s stomach sank. Her house always had a great signal. She obviously wasn’t home.
‘H-Hi, Nan. How are you?”
“Kayla! How lovely to hear from y—”
“Sorry, Nan, I just need to ask you one thing. Where are you right now?”
“I’m in Oban, sweetheart! The hotel we’re staying in is really lovely, you know. You’ll never believe this, Kayla, but there’s a bath in the middle of my bedroom! A big, old-fashioned, roll-top tub. I watched Coronation Street while I was washing my hair last night . . .”
Kayla had stopped listening. She felt sick. If Nan is in Oban, who the hell is at the bottom of the garden?
“Sorry, Nan, gotta go. Have fun.”
She hung up. She was too terrified to feel guilty about her abruptness.
She couldn’t call the police. She was sick of police.
Why did there seem to be something sinister around every corner?
Her heart hammered through her chest.
What am I going to do?
She tried to calm herself down with the idea that if the stranger on the swing was going to attack her, he would have done it by now. Her dad was at work, her mum still down south, and Gabe was . . . well. Gone. She had no choice but to try and stay calm, try and distract herself. She’d tell her dad about it when he got home. Though she had no idea when that would be—he’d been known not to arrive home from work until after midnight.
For a moment she was still too scared to move. Like when you’re young and can’t quite bring yourself to stick one leg out of the covers in case someone, or something, grabs it, she thought. That fear froze her whole body. It took all the willpower in her possession to reach out from her duvet and grab her laptop off the floor. Why did I leave the bloody Nutella downstairs? Oh, calm down, Kayla. It’s probably just one of the kids from the farm down the road. Probably.
There were no cameras in her bedroom. There never had been.
If anything bad happened here. . .
She shuddered. Something bad already had happened in one of these bedrooms. And she, for one, was glad there was no video footage of her brother slashing his own wrists.
What if he didn’t slash his own wrists?
Kayla forced the thought away.
She sat up, propping a wall of cushions up behind her, and opened her computer. In school, she’d wasted hours on this thing when she was meant to be studying for her A levels. She watched funny videos, read magazine columns, conducted Internet searches seeking answers to questions that had bothered her for years. (Why are yawns contagious? Why do placebos sometimes work? When you watch a TV program and they quote statistics from a national survey about cheese consumption, when did this survey take place and why was she not asked?) The procrastinating influence of the Internet was made for days like this, when you had a lot of time to kill. Or a sickening reality you’d rather not face.
But of course, the days when you welcome distraction with open arms are invariably the days when there is no distraction to be found. She couldn’t find any funny videos worth watching, the columnists were bigoted idiots, and the only question she wanted to type into Google was: Who is the stranger sitting on my rope swing and why are they there?
Kayla sighed and opened her e-mail account, expecting to find nothing more than the usual spam e-mails and LinkedIn requests.
She shook her head in disbelief. Right at the top of her in-box was the name of someone she’d asked to stop contacting her. Subject title: URGENT.
With a shaking hand, she clicked open the message.
TO: Kayla Finch
FROM: Aran Peters
SUBJECT: URGENT.
Kayla,
Don’t be mad at me. I know you asked me to stop trying to track down who sent Gabe those messages but . . . well, it had been proving pretty difficult, and I can’t resist a challenge (as you know). Anyway, I did it. I found out the IP address. That means I tracked down the geographical address the fake Facebook account was created at, and where the messages were sent from.
The address is Berry Hill House, Upper Coquetdale, Northumberland.
And yes, I triple checked.
Aran
The words on the screen bore deep into Kayla’s retinas like lasers. Berry Hill.
Impossible. That’s just impossible.
Chapter 34
June 17, Thailand
THE SUN WAS only just beginning to dip behind the mountains when Kayla spotted Sam down by the lake. He sat on the bank, peeling a label off a bottle of spring water and bouncing his right foot up and down as though inflating an air bed with a foot pump. She knew that was Sam’s sign of nervousness.
Instead of going straight over, she watched him for a couple of minutes. His shoulders were hunched together and his muscular back rippled through his pale gray T-shirt. Kayla imagined what it’d be like if they were together. She’d float across to him, kiss the back of his neck and massage the knots out of his tense shoulders. He’d turn around and start kissing her, laying her down on the firm bank and . . .
Quit getting ahead of yourself, Kayla.
She took a deep breath and willed her feet to propel her forward until she was standing next to him. He didn’t even look up.
“Hey, Sam.”
He stopped peeling the label, stopped jiggling his leg, but didn’t respond. He looked frozen in time.
“Can I sit down next to you?” she asked, already in the process of doing so. He shrugged. Kayla frowned. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just . . . you know. Getting some air. Spending some time alone.”
Kayla chose to ignore the thinly veiled implication that she should leave. “Okay.” They sat in silence for a f
ew moments. “It’s really beautiful out here. Especially when the sunset is that gorgeous.”
“Yeah. S’lovely.” The latter two words seemed to cause him great difficulty.
Kayla swallowed. She knew it was a bad time, but there didn’t seem to be such a thing as a good time anymore. Sam was perpetually miserable. All she knew was that if she didn’t get her feelings off her chest soon, it was possible that she’d either implode or explode—she couldn’t decide which. She’d go down in the history books as one of those freaks that spontaneously combusted. Come to think of it, maybe the whole phenomenon wasn’t really such a great mystery. Heartache is a powerful thing, as is desire. Combined, there was every chance that it could be fatal.
“Sam?” Kayla whispered. “You must know how I feel about you. I mean . . . you have to, right?”
The words might as well have been torture devices, given the pain they looked to be causing Sam. “Kayla—”
“No, just let me talk. I have to tell you how much you mean to me. We have to talk about this. We owe it to ourselves.”
His whisper was even quieter than hers. “Please don’t.”
“Why not? I can’t just be imagining this. We have something, Sam. Something that’s not just a straightforward, platonic friendship. I can’t work out what it is, exactly . . . it seems hasty to call it love. Though that’s probably what it is. At least on my part.” She couldn’t look at him. She wished she had a water bottle whose label she could peel too—anything to distract her from the cavernous discomfort sprawling between them. But she powered through.
“Every morning when I wake up the first thing I think about is you. It used to be in a lovesick puppy kind of way. The butterflies were more powerful than a strong morning coffee—I just wanted to get out of bed and rush to see you, to feel your presence. Being with you was—and still is—so much better than not being with you. I mean, it must be serious if I’m willing to sacrifice sleep for you.” She chuckled and chanced a peek across at Sam. His eyes were closed. If he’d been frozen before, he seemed to be thawing out now.
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