"Hurry up!" Clara called from the road as I crouched in the weeds.
In the distance, I could hear the sound of an engine rumbling toward us once more. It sounded suspiciously familiar but I blocked it out as something scuttled over my foot.
"Jesus Christ," I yelped.
"That creep is coming back again," Clara said.
"Who is?" The van was too close and the noise from the engine drowned out my question. The headlights swept over the trees, momentarily blinding me as I pulled up my knickers and tights.
"I said we're fine," Clara said to the driver, her voice carrying shrilly through the trees and I picked up my pace struggling to flatten my dress back into place as I stumbled back toward the road.
"Where's the other one?" The male voice was rough.
"What are you doing?"
"Get in the fucking van!"
“Alice!” Clara’s terror slammed into me, causing my chest to constrict painfully as I fell face first into the hollow of the embankment. Muddy rainwater rushed up my nose as I splashed to my feet, digging my fingers into the mud as I scrambled back up onto the road. Clara’s frightened screams echoed in my head. The red brake lights gave everything an eerie glow and the back of my neck tingled with terror.
A work-roughened hand tangled in my hair, the nails scraping my scalp with enough force to bring tears to my eyes. He snapped my head back with a jerk that sent stars dancing in my vision.
"Got ya.” He was closer, so much closer than I’d expected, his sour moist breath fanning over my cheek. My stomach twisted into a knot. His grip tightened as he dragged me backward toward the van, his breath quickening with the effort as I writhed and kicked. I fought to twist in his grip. If I could just get a look at him, I could kick him in the balls like they did in the movies. But his grip never wavered.
Clara was suddenly there, in front of me, the terror in her blue eyes unmistakable.
"Get off her!” I watched her mouth form the words but I couldn’t be sure I heard them leave her mouth. There was a blur of movement and the hold on me disappeared. Our attacker doubled over with a grunt of pain.
I paused, sucking in a deep breath as I met Clara’s frightened gaze.
"Run," she urged, her panic lending me a strength I hadn't known I was capable of. Wrapping my hand through hers I started toward the trees once more, dragging her after me.
My lungs screamed as we ran. My legs were pumping up and down but it was like running through molasses.
Clara’s hand slipped from mine and I glanced back, watching as she slid down the embankment after me. Terror boiled in my veins as I sucked air in through my nose rapidly, too fast, and the world started to tilt dangerously.
“Go, go,” she said, scrambling after me.
I ran.
I fled until my legs gave out and the ground rushed up to meet me, my head smacking off the soft dirt. Even then I continued to move, crawling on my hands and knees, Clara’s voice echoing in my head, urging me to keep moving. If I stopped he would get me. Get us…
The ground gave way and I tumbled forward, my scream choked off as I hit the icy water of the river with a dull splash. The darkness claimed me, sucking me under, my arms and legs kicking uselessly. Opening my mouth, I tried to scream but instead swallowed a mouthful of foul tasting river water.
The cold seeped into my bones, making me feel heavy.
I wouldn’t drown. I couldn’t. Clara would get help.
She wouldn’t let me down…
2
Present Day
I awoke with a start, the taste of muddy water coating my tongue as I fought upwards through a river of blankets and pillows. The shrilling of the alarm on my phone grew muffled as I buried it in a cocoon of duvet and sheets.
Pain crushed the inside of my skull, feeling like fingernails scratching against my scalp.
Panic held me in its grip making me fight for every breath. I ran my hands over my tangled hair. It was a gesture of reassurance, one I’d been doing ever since that night. I huffed out a sigh and flopped back against the pillow.
Nothing.
The empty room was ominous in the gloom of the autumnal morning light that filtered flatly through the gaps in the curtains. Ominous or not, I was alone here. There was no one waiting for me, no one crouched in a darkened corner.
Alone.
My breathing slowed but the frantic beat of my heart still hammered in my ears.
Clara…
How long had it been since I’d dreamed of her? Guilt gnawed at me. I hadn’t forgotten her. Wouldn’t forget her, no matter what. Yet there was no denying the fact that years had passed since I’d last dreamed of her like that.
The sound of the alarm on the phone changed, the shrill tone morphing into a Take-That song.
“Shit—” I dug through the covers, emerging victorious a moment later, phone clutched in my hands.
“Yeah— Hello?” I pressed the phone to my ear but silence greeted me instead of a human voice.
Pulling the phone away from my face, I stared at the screen.
1 Missed Call.
The message blinked brightly on the screen. The colourful display glowed, hurting my eyes. The phone buzzed violently, enough to make me jump.
“Take a chill pill, Alice,” I chided myself as a small envelope flashed on the screen.
1 New Message
Opening the message, I scanned it quickly, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach as I read Gerald’s name.
Need you in the office. Now.
I stared at the time on the phone. 05:33am. If he was calling me in at this hour, then something had happened. In my line of work, that wasn’t good.
After everything that had happened with Clara that night, I’d studied to be a social worker, my desperation to make a difference, to help those who couldn’t help themselves, the driving force that got me through school.
The reality of my job wasn’t at all what I’d hoped it would be.
You did your best and usually, that wasn’t good enough. The system was broken; a sinking ship of epic proportions. Lack of funds, training, and staff left us grasping at straws, fighting desperately to keep the ones we could reach afloat. It was never enough. No matter how hard you tried, no matter how hard you fought, someone always slipped through the cracks. And when they did…
I stuffed my fist into my mouth and screamed around it before dropping my phone back onto the covers.
All I wanted was to climb back beneath the duvet. It was a pathetic and cowardly reaction to the text but I still felt it. The childish part of me, hidden beneath the scars of my past, promised that if I stayed in bed everything would be fine. Whatever terrible reason Gerald had for calling me would just go away if I closed my eyes and hid.
Sucking in a breath, I let the roiling in my stomach settle before I swung my legs from the bed.
Icy air swirled around my calves, the fine hairs on the backs of my arms standing to attention as my skin broke out in goose flesh.
Grabbing a black hair elastic from the bedside locker, I proceeded to scrape my hair back from my face and secured it in a high ponytail. Getting dressed took a little more work as it involved sorting through the heaps of clothes that were spread haphazardly around the room.
One of these days I was going to clean up. I wouldn’t just dump my newly laundered clothes on the chair in the corner, allowing them to mingle with the pile of not yet washed items; a pile which seemed to grow by the minute as if the clothes themselves were somehow managing to procreate. Perhaps they were. I’d read of stranger things happening in the tabloids.
Grabbing my black faux leather handbag from the top of my chest of drawers, I narrowly avoided looking at my own reflection. It wasn’t going to be a pretty picture and depressing myself further just didn’t feel like a proper use of my time.
Barely ten minutes passed and I was already out the door, locking it carefully behind me before I dropped my keychain in to the black hole I called my bag. The ph
one buzzed once more, the noise registering only briefly from somewhere in the depths of the tote. I already knew it would be Gerald. Reading his increasingly agitated texts was pointless and would only waste more time.
Ignoring the buzz of the phone, I set off down the ice-slicked path. Trying desperately to stay on my feet, I half shuffled, half slid down the pavement that ran alongside the road.
It was quiet at this time of the morning, the city only just beginning to come alive. It was hard to believe that an hour from now, the roads would be congested bumper to bumper with cars and trucks. A van rumbled toward me, the yellow lights momentarily blinding me as it grew closer and the fear I’d pushed aside after my nightmare resurfaced once more.
“Don’t do this to yourself, Alice.” My breath fogged, forming tiny clouds in front of my face as I spoke the words aloud. It was stupid always having to talk myself down off the ledge. Usually I wasn’t this bad but the anniversary was coming up and with it came the dreams about that night crashing down around my ears.
The phone’s ringtone blared through my thoughts and I fished in my bag, pulling the device out before it had a chance to stop. Even talking to Gerald right now, listening to whatever crisis he had for me would be better than what I was currently doing to myself.
“I’m almost at the station,” I said answering the phone without bothering with a greeting.
“Alice, it’s Mam.” Her voice caused my heart to stall out in my chest.
“Oh, right, sorry…” I cleared my throat awkwardly. “I’m just on my way into work and I—”
“I was just ringing to ask if you were coming home for the Mass?”
Ice slid down my spine. She knew I hated it, hated standing there in the church while a priest who’d never even met Clara spoke about her as though they’d been personally acquainted. To make matters worse, it wasn’t an anniversary mass like the one we had for Gran on the anniversary of her death every year. No, Clara’s Mass was all about praying for her safe return, as though after all these years saying a few prayers in a church would somehow allow to walk back in the door in her torn jeans and denim shirt as though nothing had happened.
If that were true, she’d have come home years ago.
“You know it’s important to present a united front and—”
“Mam, you know I can’t,” I said. “I’ve got work. There’s a big case at the minute and…”
“Alice McCarthy, you listen to me.” My mother’s tone was fierce. “Clara is your sister and she needs you right now. She…”
“Mam, I’ve got to go,” I said, cutting her off mid-sentence. “I’ll think about it all right?”
I wanted to get off the phone. Listening to her talk about Clara as though she were still alive hurt too much. I knew it was part of her coping mechanism, that she needed to do it, but I couldn’t handle it. Never could. I’d grieved Clara on my own and everyone else behaved as though she was still out there, living her best life somehow.
“Alice,” she said, her voice softening. “I just…”
“I know, Mam,” I said, cutting her off. It was always the same thing. She loved Clara, she loved me, and she just wanted us to be a family again. In her mind, this was the best way to do it. “I’ve got to go.” I ended the call before she could say another word. I attempted to let the tension hunching my shoulders go.
The phone buzzed again and I answered the call without looking at the screen.
“I said I’d think about it, Mam,” I said automatically.
“Alice, I’ve been trying to call but your phone keeps going to voicemail.” Gerald’s voice was tense.
“Shit, I’m sorry, Gerald.” I spoke rapidly. “I’m on my way into the office now.”
“Alice, I—” He was hesitant and the breath I’d been about to exhale caught in the back of my throat.
“What is it?”
“It’s the Stockwell case,” he said and the blood in my veins turned to ice.
“Zoe…” Simply saying her name aloud was enough to conjure an image in my mind of a bright, blue-eyed girl of seven.
“They think her father’s taken her.” Gerald was still talking but I barely heard him over the rushing in my ears.
“What do you mean they think he has? For Christ’s sake, Gerald, she’s seven and it’s practically the middle of the night. Either they know he’s taken her or—” Bile rushed up my throat, cutting my words off as acid burned the back of my tongue and my eyes watered.
This isn’t the same as Clara.
“The police have some questions. Do you think you could swing by the mother’s place and check in with them there?”
“How did he know where to look for them?” It was an accusation rather than a question.
“They’re still unsure of the details…” There was an edge to Gerald’s voice that hadn’t been there a moment before.
“Bullshit.”
He sighed, the sound whistling down the phone and into my ear.
“Look, you haven’t been working with Rachel and Zoe,” I said. “You haven’t listened to her talk about Dan. She’s scared of him.”
“If you can’t handle this,” he said. “I can send someone else down there, maybe Jennifer could take it over for you.”
“Don’t you dare,” I spluttered.
“Alice, contrary to popular opinion round here, I actually want this all to work out. But if your head isn’t in the game then—”
I hung up and stared down at the black screen. I didn’t really think he would replace me. At least I was fairly certain he wouldn’t. But I didn’t appreciate the threat either. He didn’t get it. He was too long out of the field, sitting in his ivory tower of an office, passing down judgments over the rest of us from on high.
The mobile phone buzzed in my hand once more and Gerald’s name blinked on the screen. Shoving it back into my handbag, I squinted against the oncoming headlights of the approaching taxi, the illuminated golden sign on top declaring to the world that it was available. It was a luxury I really couldn’t afford but what choice did I have? Every second that ticked by with Zoe missing was a moment too long.
Raising my hand, I flagged the cab down and slid into the backseat quickly, giving the driver the address I needed to get to before I sank back against the worn leather seats.
“Going to be a miserable one,” the driver said amicably as I pulled a notepad from inside my bag.
“Yeah.” I nodded absently, flicking through the pages, scanning the notes I’d made on my last visit to Rachel and Zoe.
“Where you from then?” he asked, catching my eye in the rearview mirror.
“What?”
“Your accent. It’s not Mancunian, not even English,” he said with a chuckle.
“Ireland,” I said and dropped my attention back to the notepad.
“Lovely over there, I bet,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to go to Dublin.”
I smiled awkwardly.
“I’ll let you get back to your work,” he said, turning his attention back to the road and the traffic that was slowly beginning to appear.
I stared down at the page of notes blankly, my mind refusing to read the words as my brain churned over the recent events.
Everything had been so normal. They’d been settling into a routine and Zoe was finally catching up at school.
“Dan keeps apologising.” The words jumped out at me from the page. I hadn’t added anything else to the note but I could remember Rachel’s face as she’d told me. The way her fingers had knotted into the hem of her blue sweater.
At the time I’d dismissed it as just another of his ploys, nothing more than a tactic to make her believe his sob story all over again.
Had I missed something important?
Dan was a manipulator, a narcissist, and a liar but he wasn’t the type to harm Zoe. Or himself, for that matter. Was he?
“Dan keeps apologising.” I read the words again, this time hearing Rachel’s voice in my head as she said it. There
had been something in her eyes. Was it fear?
Had I misread him? Misread the situation?
Shit. My fingers drummed nervously against the papers as I stared out the window. Should I have told Gerald about Rachel’s concerns?
3
The yellow tape flutters in the breeze, the noise bringing with it memories of other things.
What is it about the discovery of a body that creates such a solemn atmosphere? With the flick of a switch, bang. Somebody’s day is in tatters.
Not that it wasn’t before.
But people have a peculiar way of pretending everything’s just dandy.
They fight tooth and nail to hold onto that pretense.
I’ve never been much for pretending. The real deal is much more enticing; a kind of drug that draws me back time and again.
Standing along the edge of the police tape, I watch them move back and forth in their white coveralls, searching for the tiniest of clues.
Something.
Anything.
Hoping that when they find what they’re scouring the ground for, it’ll scream to the high heavens and point them straight to the wrongdoer.
Desperate if you ask me.
Not that anyone does.
They bring the body out in a white plastic sheet. Smaller than I remember it going in, not that it was very big then either.
They don’t know the game’s begun and it gives me a little thrill to know I’m standing on the edge of a precipice. Only a matter of time before they find the other one.
But it’s this little white rabbit that will send Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole. And then, finally, she’ll be home.
4
Two police cars sat on the driveway of Zoe’s house as I made my way up the path toward the front door. As the sound of the taxi’s engine rumbled off into the distance, my gaze snagged on the familiar pink bicycle that lay on its side under the living room window.
All the Lost Girls Page 2