‘Slash his tyres?’
‘I wish. Trust me, I’ve thought of all that stuff. But he’d know it’s us. We’ve talked to him a bunch of times. He just tells us to eff off. Who knows what he’d do.’
I shook my head. ‘What a tosser.’ One of Dad’s favourite insults. Thought for another moment. ‘You should put superglue in the locks.’
Elias snorted. ‘That’d be sweet.’ He opened the door to a walk-in pantry and disappeared inside. He reappeared a moment later with a bag of chips. ‘These okay?’
I don’t normally joke. I guess because it never seems appropriate. Neither Mum or Dad has much of a sense of humour, and the kids’ jokes are mostly making farting noises with their armpits. But I found myself saying, deadpan, ‘I’m actually on a strict vegan-paleo diet.’
Elias tossed the chips at me without missing a beat. ‘Yeah, funny.’ Looked back in the pantry. ‘You like chocolate?’
‘I’m pretty sure they ate Dairy Milk back in the paleo era.’
We left his dad and he led the way upstairs. His bedroom was a mess. In our house, the rooms are packed floor to ceiling with wardrobes, shelves and chests of drawers, but Mum is pedantic about keeping things off the floor. This was the opposite. The furniture was minimal like the rest of the house, but every piece was buried under a mound of clothes and who knows what else. He had stuff everywhere.
‘Sorry. Didn’t know I’d be having company.’
I followed him as he picked out a path across the floor. ‘I didn’t picture you as a slob.’
‘In my defence, most of these clothes are clean. So I don’t know if you can actually call me a slob. More lazy, because I can’t be bothered putting them away.’
Good luck trying that on in our house.
‘Your dad doesn’t mind you looking for Sephora?’
‘They were always really open with me about the fact I was adopted. Couldn’t have kids of their own and they say they were really lucky to get me. It’s different nowadays, with surrogacy and all that stuff. Back then they were on a list for nearly ten years.’
I thought about how easily my mother kept adding to our family. ‘Huh.’
Elias offered me a desk chair and then dropped down on his bed, stretching out on his back.
I gave him a look. ‘I’m doing all the work, am I?’
‘I’m still here! This is me thinking.’
‘It looks like you having a nap.’
‘No,’ he protested. ‘This is how I think.’ Gestured to the ceiling. ‘I like staring up at the ceiling. The big wide space helps me think.’
‘Uh huh.’
He sat up. ‘What do you want to do?’
I opened the bag of chips and took one. Junk food is so ridiculously scarce at our house that I had to stop myself grabbing a massive handful. ‘I guess we go over what we know now.’
‘Sure.’ He peeled open the block of chocolate. ‘Can I start?’
Funny, the way he asked that, like I was in charge somehow. An expert, his dad had said. It might not be true but it was how Elias was treating me. I still couldn’t get my head around that.
‘Go for it.’
I gave in and grabbed the handful of chips, leaning back in the desk chair to eat them one by one as he started. ‘We still need to ask Aurora about her friends. Or maybe see if we can track down a copy of her high school yearbook, or something like that. Their house is packed full of stuff; I bet Aurora has kept all that sort of thing.’
‘Fair enough,’ I agreed. ‘What else?’
‘We should ask about her hobbies, too. Like maybe she was involved in a sport or was a crazy gamer or something. If she’s still doing that, it could be a way of tracking her down, through clubs or forums or whatever.’
‘Good point,’ I acknowledged. ‘You need me why?’
He grinned. ‘I’m learning.’ He snapped off another piece of chocolate and tossed it in his mouth. ‘Surely if we just keep on trying different avenues,’ he said around the chocolate, ‘we’ve got to find her eventually, right?’
I half-shrugged. ‘Unless she doesn’t want to be found.’
‘You mean because of Aurora?’
‘I mean maybe just in general. Maybe she’s…I don’t know. Hiding.’
He sat up and looked at me, taken aback, like I’d just suggested something completely ridiculous. ‘Why?’
I did that half-shrug again, internally questioning whether I should have brought it up or not.
‘Maybe something happened. Like, maybe she was… involved…in a crime, or drugs, or something.’
‘She wasn’t.’ His answer came quickly, emphatically.
‘You don’t know that,’ I pointed out. ‘You don’t know her at all.’
‘I’ve talked to Aurora. I know enough about her to know she wouldn’t do stuff like that.’
I was getting frustrated with him. ‘You’re not being objective about this.’
‘I’m not going to just write her off as a criminal.’
‘That’s not what I said.’
‘It’s close enough.’ He held my gaze, challenging. I didn’t want to hurt him, but I wasn’t going to back down, either.
‘I’m just trying to be realistic.’
He blew out a sigh. ‘Sorry. I just can’t imagine that she might be like that. I have this picture of her in my mind… Wanting to do the right thing but being too scared. Giving me up to keep me safe.’
An image flashed in my mind. Me and Frankie, fighting over something. Who got the last lolly or the pink dress rather than the blue dress. We’d fought constantly, but I didn’t remind myself of those things when I wished her back. Wasn’t that the exact same thing Elias was doing—romanticising the idea of his lost mother like I romanticised the idea of my lost sister? Refusing to entertain any negative thoughts about her?
I realised he’d started to wipe at his eyes with the back of his hand. Oh boy.
There was no tissue box in sight but there was a stack of clean washing piled on his desk, on top of a closed laptop. I picked up the top bundle of socks and tossed it to him. ‘C’mon, you know I don’t do tears.’
He laughed and sniffed simultaneously, blotting the tears dry with one of the socks. ‘Sorry. I’m always like that. I guess I know why a bit, after meeting Aurora. It’s the Mediterranean blood.’
‘Maybe you’re better off not finding out the truth,’ I pointed out to him. I added a disclaimer, ‘Much as it pains me to say it, seeing as you’re my sole income source at the moment…Maybe you should stop looking for her. Just in case you don’t like what you find.’
He shook his head, teary-eyed again but resolute. ‘No. I want to know the truth. I’ll deal with it.’ A shrug and an attempted smile. ‘After all, how bad can it be? It’s not like she’s going to turn out to be a serial killer or something.’
I tilted my head to the side, pondering. ‘You don’t know that, either.’
He laughed. Tossed the socks at me, one at a time. Picked up the chocolate and took another piece, then reached out to offer it to me. I handed him the bag of chips in exchange. And as that was all happening, I had a weird sensation. A this is starting to feel normal sensation. Like we’d crossed some threshold and—what? Become friends? Nope. Can’t be. I don’t have friends.
He rearranged himself on the bed, wriggling backward so his back was right against the wall and stretching his legs out straight in front of him. ‘You’re nothing like Jaz said you were.’
‘What did she say about me?’
‘She said you were a bit of a bitch.’
‘Oh.’ I knew people thought that about me. I hadn’t expected to hear it to my face.
‘I mean, I can see how you come across that way. But you’re more…prickly.’
‘Prickly,’ I repeated, staring at him. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to be angry or amused. It was fascinating, in a perverse sort of way, to hear exactly how people saw me.
‘Yeah. You’re like the classic action heroine. Tough and independent, yo
u don’t take crap from anybody, you don’t say stuff just for the sake of it.’
I blinked. I’d heard all those things from various teachers at school, but it was always as a negative. I didn’t listen. I didn’t follow instructions. I was rude and uncooperative. I ‘demonstrated a disappointing lack of common courtesy’, according to my English report.
‘Most people don’t think those are good things,’ I pointed out.
‘Do you care what most people think?’
‘No.’
‘And that’s another thing that makes you awesome.’
I stared at him. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I wondered if he was messing with me, if this was some sort of nasty trick. ‘I’ve been rude to you.’
‘When?’
‘I don’t know. A couple of times. I told you to toughen up.’
‘What’s rude about that?’
I felt like he was turning me around in circles. ‘I don’t know. It just is.’ Mum says it is.
He shrugged. Wiggled his toes at me. ‘Most people are so full of it. You just call it as it is. It’s refreshing.’
I stared at him, still trying to get my head around the conversation. Looking at him more closely, like someone who was more than just another try-hard guy dressed like a tool. He wasn’t as dressed up today, or maybe I was just getting used to his look. Black skinny jeans and a plain pale blue T-shirt. His hair was styled as normal, but I’d kind of stopped noticing that it looked like Elvis. I didn’t mind his glasses. The dark frames worked on his face. He was nice looking, all in all, and the campy affectations seemed to have vanished now it was just the two of us. He seemed almost normal. All of a sudden I was confused. From the outset I’d assumed he was gay, which had made everything a lot easier. I hadn’t been thinking twice about what sort of impression I was making on him, or what he thought of me, a guy hanging out with a girl.
I shook my head suddenly, trying to shake the thoughts away.
‘We should do something,’ I said abruptly.
He smirked at me. ‘You don’t want to keep talking about feelings?’
‘Hell, no.’
The smile widened. ‘I like you.’
‘You should get your head checked.’
I shook my head again, and gestured to the laptop on his desk, under the pile of washing. ‘Can we use this? I want to make a list of stuff we need to talk to Aurora about.’
‘Sure. I’ll even put my undies away.’
I let him take the pile of folded washing and then I lifted the lid. Unlike our mediaeval computer, I didn’t have to wait five minutes. It blinked on instantly. His browser was open to a page about New York Fashion Week.
I shot him a look. ‘Really?’
He waved a pair of socks at me. ‘Um, yeah.’ As if I was silly for even asking. ‘But that’s not why I had it open. Look—’ He pointed to the screen. ‘It’s your doppelganger.’
‘My what?’
I followed his finger. On the left of the screen was a photo showing a blonde girl—tall and ridiculously skinny, dressed in some weird fur bikini—on the catwalk, pausing with hands on her hips. Her eyes—heavily outlined—were blazing, her shoulders back. Intellectually I knew it was all just a pose, entirely fake, but it was hard not to read it as attitude. What are YOU looking at?
‘She doesn’t look anything like me,’ I pointed out.
‘Yeah, she does. I mean, she’s totally anorexic and all that, but she’s got this awesome attitude, like, screw you.’
‘You think that’s my attitude?’
‘Isn’t it?’
I wasn’t sure. I have to admit, I did wonder a little whether with enough makeup caked on and a starvation diet, I might just end up looking like that girl. Chin up, defiant, even if I was—literally or metaphorically—standing in front of a crowd of people in my underwear.
I shrugged the thought away. Left the browser window open for him and opened a new Word document to start our list. By the time Elias had finished shoving things into various drawers I’d put down a few points, and run out of ideas. Or, technically, become distracted thinking about the photo Elias had shown me. Was that the image I wanted to project, really? I had no idea. At the end of the day, it’s not like it was doing me any favours.
I leaned back in the desk chair and watched as Elias leaned in to scan my list, nodding.
‘What else?’
I held my hands out to signify that I had nothing else. My phone dinged and I knew without looking that it was Mum, wondering where I was.
‘I should head home,’ I said slowly. ‘It’s getting late.’
It seemed like such a clichéd, cop-out thing to say, but I was tired all of a sudden. My brain had reached capacity for the day.
Elias nodded, reaching to close the laptop lid. ‘I’ll drop you home.’
We were both pretty quiet on the way home. I ended up thinking about the photo he’d shown me, and what he’d said about Jaz. I’d always told myself that it didn’t matter what people thought. It was helpful, even, when people avoided me. It kept them back at a safe distance. But at the same time, it kind of sucked. It’s hard to find the positives in knowing people think you’re a bitch. Not to mention the fact that any confidence I was managing to project was completely false.
‘I’ll try to come up with some avenues for us to check out,’ I said quietly, as Elias pulled up beside the driveway. ‘I’ll let you know if I find anything good.’
He nodded. ‘We’ll get there. I have faith.’ He flashed me a grin.
Heartened by his words in spite of myself, I rolled my eyes. ‘That makes one of us.’ I opened my door and climbed out. Ready to close the door again, I paused and looked at Elias, feeling like I was supposed to say something, only I didn’t know what. ‘See you later,’ I said finally, lamely.
He nodded. ‘Later, Linds.’
I closed the door and watched him drive off. It was only when I turned to head down the driveway that I felt a shadow suddenly darkening my mind, and I realised I hadn’t thought of Frankie at all since Elias had picked me up at school. Things had been a lot simpler without her spectre permanently hovering in the periphery of my mind.
Mum raised an eyebrow when I walked in but didn’t say anything. Everything was exactly the same as usual: kids running, yelling, arguing over gaming consoles and whingeing about homework. I just sat back and let it happen all around me, too much else going on in my head to take in anything new.
After everyone had finally gone to sleep I slipped downstairs to the computer.
I started by searching for a list of people who had gone to Sephora’s high school and finished at the same time, figuring we could narrow it down once we got a list of her friends’ names from Aurora. I tracked a few down through LinkedIn and then started looking at who had friended who on Facebook. It was all very tentative, and hard to know if I was even on the right track, but it was better than nothing.
I was running out of things to search for when I heard movement upstairs.
Stupidly—well, not stupidly, it was the only way to get actual airflow—I’d left the study door open. I grabbed the handle and pulled it shut as quietly as I could. I was already working in the dark, but I reached and switched off the glowing screen. The room fell into total darkness. I was, after all, in a closet.
I sat silently as I listened. The floorboards in the hallway creaked under the carpet, and from tracking the sound I knew it was Dad doing the rounds. During the day you wouldn’t think he cares much either way about the kids, but I often hear him at night. Last thing before he goes to bed, and then sometimes again if he wakes up during the night. Check all the kids, check the windows and doors are all latched, check the family is safe at least until morning. It settles him.
I figured I was safe enough where I was—he wouldn’t know I was missing upstairs, with my curtain-draped lower bunk, and he wouldn’t think to open the study door—so I let out a slow breath. A few minutes till he was done, then I could get back to
things. But only a few seconds had passed when upstairs there was the thud, thud, thud of his steps in the hallway. Then voices: the confused sounds of people waking up, and more of Dad’s running footsteps. I pushed back from the desk and opened the door to see him thumping down the stairs, three at a time, in his pyjamas. Forgetting that I wasn’t supposed to be downstairs, I asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Evie’s gone.’
‘Where?’
‘Someone took her. Call the police.’
18
He went running towards the front door and I followed him. It had been left ajar and it flew open for him. Who left the door open? I knew Dad had locked it, I heard him hours ago. I hadn’t heard anyone come through since.
I went back to the study to grab my phone, then followed after him. It was colder outside than I expected. Dad was in an old T-shirt and shorts and barefoot, but that didn’t slow him. He sprinted up the driveway. I didn’t know where he was going, but I followed.
I was in my pyjamas, barefoot too. I scrambled after him, sharp things—gravel, twigs, who knows—biting into the soles of my feet. He disappeared over the rise at the top of the driveway and when I reached the top I found him stopped in the middle of the street, just standing there with the wind blowing his thin T-shirt flat against his broad, hairy chest.
I knew from where he was standing and the way he was gazing what he must be looking at, even though I couldn’t see it myself around the bend. The bus stop. What was at the bus stop?
‘Dad?’
He stepped forward, hesitant. What was he doing? I slowed to a jog, wanting to catch up to him. The ground was cold and hard and rough. As I reached the spot where he had stopped, I understood why.
A little girl standing at the bus stop in a pool of silver moonlight, white blonde hair blowing in the breeze.
Evie? Frankie?
I know it makes no sense. But in my mind I honestly didn’t know who to expect.
Dad started to run towards her, calling out as he ran. I don’t know if he realised what he was saying, whose name he was calling out. Frankie’s. But it wasn’t Frankie he found.
He reached her, stopped and knelt down to brush the hair from Evie’s face. ‘What are you doing out here?’
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