We all leaned in close, against each other and against the bracing cold. The sunset turned bronze and somehow even more beautiful, because it was on the edge of vanishing.
Challenges lay ahead for us, as they did before. But what we had right now—this, being together—was everything. We had a new challenge in Lilly’s illness. I was terrified and scared for her, but we just had to find the best way forward from this point. Gray and I were going to find somewhere new to live, somewhere near the ocean where the weather was warmer. For Lilly’s sake.
We stepped inside the house, the girls racing ahead to jostle for position on the scruffy rug in front of the fireplace—the same rug that Ben and I used to sit on and play board games during the long summer evenings here.
About the Author
ANNI TAYLOR lives on The Central Coast, north of Sydney, Australia, with her partner and four boys.
THE GAME YOU PLAYED is her debut thriller novel. Previously, she was a Features' Writer and Community Manager for Fairfax Media, Australia.
She also writes young adult fiction under the name, Anya Allyn.
Find out more about my books here:
annitaylor.me
Books by Anni Taylor
Other thriller books by Anni Taylor THE GAME YOU PLAYED
Little Boy Blue, where did you go? Who led you away? Only I know…
Two-year-old Tommy Basko goes missing from a popular inner-city playground. Six months later, his parents begin receiving cryptic messages in rhyme about Tommy.
The police don’t believe the messages are from the abductor, but Tommy’s mother Phoebe is certain they’re a game meant for her.
Against the advice of the police, Phoebe decides to play the game.
She begins a frantic search for the writer of the rhymes, at the cost of causing her marriage to shatter.
When the shocking identity of the message-writer is discovered, Phoebe’s desperate race for the truth has only just begun.
Who took Tommy? And why?
Excerpt - The Game You Played
PHOEBE
THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE in this world. People who steal other people and people who don’t.
There are lots of ways of stealing a person.
Grabbing a small child and running away with them is one of the worst ways of all.
Six months ago, you did that.
In the last days of December, the city of Sydney is shot with the blistering heat of summer, buzzing with festivals and exhibitions. The voices of Chinese, Japanese, British, American and other international tourists mingle with those of Australian couples and families.
At Darling Harbour, people dart in and out of the zoo, museums, and the IMAX, while diners people-watch from the open-air upmarket cafés and restaurants that hug the square-shaped harbour. In the middle of all this, a playground captures the children’s attention. The children grow shouty as they race from the water park to the giant slide to the climbing frames, their hands and faces sticky with ice-cream.
Luke and I were there then with our two-year-old son, Tommy.
You were there, too. Watching.
Waiting for your chance to snatch him.
Already, you had the letters prepared—the letters about Tommy you’d start sending us six months later.
The game was about to start. Only I didn’t know it.
PHOEBE
SIX MONTHS AGO
Late December
LUKE AND TOMMY LOOKED MORE LIKE each other than Tommy looked like me. But Tommy had my eyes: a glossy, church-pew brown with a solemn stare. On my face, those eyes often appeared annoyingly pious, even if my thoughts were dark （which they quite often were）。
But on Tommy’s cherubic two-year-old face, those eyes held people in the palm of his hand. If a film producer ever wanted a kid that looked like he could stare into your immortal soul, Tommy was that kid. His hair, like Luke’s, was a thick, tufty dark blond. We let it grow past his collar because it looked endlessly cute sticking out at the angles that it did. He still had a bit of his baby chubbiness in his legs, with dimples in his knees that looked like winking eyes when he ran.
Tommy’s knees were winking like a 1950s sailor’s eye right now. Luke, Tommy, and I had been at my grandmother’s house for twenty minutes, and Tommy was beginning to run everywhere.
Run, wink, run, wink.
He’d had as much sitting and playing quietly as his little body could handle. Now he needed to feel his body move.
All the while, he kept his plastic yacht tucked firmly under his right arm. He loved that boat the way some kids loved their teddy or comfort blanket.
Nan puckered her lips until they grew white—not because she wanted a kiss from anyone. “Can’t he read a book or something?”