I looked through the tangle of trees until I found the secluded spot where the blonde girl sat, dipping her bare toes into the stream. She glanced up suddenly, startled to see me standing there.
I knew her.
Her face was bare of the heavy makeup that had been packed on it last time I’d seen her, and she looked so much younger now—like the fresh-faced teen that she was, small constellations of pink moles on her cheeks.
She was the girl who’d introduced me to escort work.
Kara Lundquist.
8. I, Inside The Walls
IN THE DARKNESS LIES THE TRUTH. And in truth lies the darkness.
Happy stories are the things we tell to make ourselves feel better. But they are never true.
9. Gray
I HEADED OUT TO THE KITCHEN for a beer, but there wasn’t any. I’d drunk it all during the week.
Instead, I mixed some cordial and water and parked myself on a stool.
I’d lost my job and family all on the same day. A hollow pit sat low in my stomach.
Evie hadn’t given any clue that she was that unhappy with me that she was getting to the point of leaving. There’d been no Gray, we need to talk. I hadn’t had a dread feeling looping at the back of my mind. I’d thought it was everything else that was wrong for Evie, not me.
Erase that thought. It was me.
I put my drink down too forcefully on the kitchen bench, making a small crack appear in the glass.
I tried calling Evie several more times, then gave up.
Mentally, I went through a list of places she could have gone. Not her mother’s. She wouldn’t go there. She and Verity had a strained relationship. Verity was one of those people who enjoyed cutting people down at the knees—even her own daughter. Evie could have gone to a motel, but she’d burn through a lot of money. And it wasn’t like her to waste money like that—she was always so careful with the budgeting. So, that left Evie’s friends. But how many of them would or could take in Evie and the kids for that long?
I drummed my fingers on the cracked glass, realizing I was past the dread of telling Evie I’d lost my job. I just wanted her here, no matter how she took the news.
My mind reeled back to yesterday, when weedy-faced Lyle told me I was no longer needed. He could barely hide his satisfaction when delivering his news. He was one of those types whose ego rested on his office desk, along with his name plate and stupid potted plant.
I’d taught myself coding—a scrawny kid sitting in his bedroom behind his computer, while his parents were in their bedroom asleep after injecting their daily heroin.
In later years, I’d been astonished to learn that even self-taught coders were in demand. There were gaps in my knowledge base though. I needed to go and study coding. But with a family to look after, I couldn’t take time off. I needed to keep working. But I’d never once regretted having Evie and the girls in my life. They gave me a family—something I’d never really had.
I’d only been twenty when Willow was born. Evie had been twenty-two. Twenty-two had seemed so much older to me back then. She’d seemed like a woman who knew everything. Now that I was twenty-four, I knew that twenty-two was still a kid.
Were Willow and Lilly asking for me right now? They were used to me coming home each week night around six— each of them fighting to get closest to me. And they were used to me being there all weekend. I rarely went out with mates. I was happy at home. A dumb kind of happy, as it turned out.
The kitchen went dark around me as night fell.
I remained sitting there, like a lone drunk after the bar had closed, nursing a cracked glass of raspberry cordial.
Finally getting up, I headed out to the sunroom, opened the windows and let the cold air rush in.
And smoked the entire bag of weed by myself.
10. Constance
“MRS LUNDQUIST, THERE’S A GOOD POSSIBILITY she found herself a boyfriend, and that’s why you haven’t heard from her.” The detective flicked his gaze my way before returning to my carefully laminated photographs of Kara.
“It’s possible, but Kara’s always been so conscientious about her studies,” I insisted. “And she didn’t mention any boyfriend to me.”
The police station smelled vaguely of paint and sawdust. I guessed it had recently been renovated. Papers and folders were lying about in high, messy piles. Even the detective—Trent Gilroy—looked slightly messy, with his hair grown thick past his ears and the uneven frown line in his forehead. It all made me uneasy. I wanted the police station and the police to look sleek and efficient, like a well-oiled machine that could process the information I’d given about Kara and then locate her with laser-sharp precision. Detective Gilroy didn’t look well oiled. He even looked slightly bored.