The Stolen Sisters: from the bestselling author of The Date and The Sister comes one of the most thrilling, terrifying and shocking psychological thrillers of 2020

by Louise Jensen

  There’s no one around the side of the base. The site is so vast it could be days, weeks even before the machines trek where tanks had once trundled. I link my fingers through the chain fence as I stare at the decontamination chamber, not caring who might have touched the metal before me, the germs I might be picking up. My stomach twists as I remember Carly bundling Marie and I inside those lockers I had thought were for rucksacks but later found out were for bodies. I remember her sending us down the chute, through the tunnel. Marie weak and sick, me with my swollen, twisted ankle. So many times Carly could have left us, but she didn’t.

  She wouldn’t.

  Even now.

  The air chills around me as I wait. The rain lashes against my face.

  I don’t hear footsteps. There is no sun to cast a shadow, but I feel her all the same.

  My back instantly warmer as she shields me from the wind.

  ‘I knew you’d come,’ I say as her arms slip around my waist.

  ‘I’m—’

  ‘Shh.’ Now I’m the one taking charge. ‘It doesn’t matter. None of it. I’ve lost one sister, I won’t lose another.’ It’s my turn to look after my big sister. To find her the help she needs. She can heal. We both can.

  I lean back against her and her chin rests on my shoulder.

  Simultaneously I see it. Carly draws in a sharp breath. I know she has seen it too.

  A small figure through the sheeting rain, twirling with her hands above her head.

  I imagine it’s the ghost of Marie, singing and dancing and dreaming of her big future in Hollywood.

  And for the longest moment I imagine we’re all together again.

  If you enjoyed The Stolen Sisters, then don’t miss the latest tense and gripping psychological thriller from Louise Jensen, The Family! Available to buy now.

  The following letter contains spoilers

  Hello,

  Thank you so much for reading my sixth psychological thriller, The Stolen Sisters. If you enjoyed it and have a spare few moments to pop a review online I’d hugely appreciate it. It really does make such a difference to an author.

  I remember, with clarity, the moment the seeds of this story were planted.

  It was a Saturday. The Date was newly published, and I was engrossed in writing The Family when my youngest son came hurtling into my study.

  ‘Mum!’ he clutched his laptop to his chest. ‘Do you know what Fregoli Syndrome is?’

  I didn’t.

  ‘Watch this,’ he said.

  We settled down on the sofa and he showed me what he’d found online. I was both intrigued and saddened by this unusual condition that I hadn’t heard of, instantly knowing it was a fabulous basis for a novel.

  Too excited to wait until Monday, I called my agent and explained the concept to him.

  ‘You must write a book about it,’ he said.

  I spent much time thinking about how frightening it would be to suffer from Fregoli, to be convinced you are seeing the face of your tormentor everywhere you turn. How terrifying it would be if you really were seeing them but, because of a medical diagnosis, nobody would believe you.

  Leah, Carly and Marie Sinclair came to me time and time again and I pushed them away. As a mother of three children, I didn’t want to read about missing children, and I certainly didn’t want to write about them.

  Blocking them out was fruitless. Those small girls became permanent residents in my head. Whispering their heart-wrenching story.

  By the time I was ready to begin a new book, I knew Leah, Carly and Marie weren’t going to leave me alone. I also knew that the only way I could write about missing children was if we discover at the beginning they are adults, alive, physically unharmed, but mentally, emotionally damaged – that’s what I wanted to explore. To the outside word they had survived a horrific ordeal but Leah with her OCD, Carly with her inability to trust, and Marie with her drinking weren’t okay at all.

  Since I’ve finished writing this book, I’ve written two more, but the Sinclair sisters are still very much in my head. In my heart.

  They will stay with me. Always.

  I’d love to hear what you thought. You can find me at www.louisejensen.co.uk and https://twitter.com/Fab_fiction and https://www.facebook.com/fabricatingfiction/

  Do join me next autumn for the publication of my next thriller.

  Louise x

  Acknowledgements

  My sixth thriller and it never gets any less exciting. As usual, there have been masses of people involved in bringing my story to life. As ever, thanks to my agent, Rory Scarfe, for his continued support. My fabulous editor, Manpreet Grewal, who loved the Sinclair sisters right from the first draft and helped me develop it to its fullest potential. Lisa Milton and the entire HQ family, in particular Melanie Hayes, Janet Aspey in marketing and Lucy Richardson in PR and the production team. Thanks to Jon Appleton for the copy-edit.

  Big thanks to all the book bloggers whose cheerleading immensely brightens up my day and to everyone who speaks to me on social media. Writing can be a lonely process. It’s great to have a friend who is also in the business so, even though I drink too much coffee and eat too much hummus with Darren O’Sullivan, it’s great to be able to chat about our writing lives. My non-writing friends: in particular, Hilary, Sarah, Natalie, Sue and Kuldip. Emma Mitchell – thanks for your friendship and support.

  To my family: Mum, Karen, Bekkii and Pete, thanks for supporting me through another book. And to Glynn, who we miss dearly.

  My husband, Tim, the Sinclair sisters’ heartbreaking tale affected me emotionally at times so thanks for the end-of-the-day hugs.

  My children, Callum, Kai and Finley who remain my entire world.

  And Ian Hawley. With so much love.

  Book Club Questions

  The story features an unusual medical condition. Had you ever heard of this? What did you make of it?

  ‘A comma not a full stop. This isn’t the end,’ Carly says. There was a time she could have escaped and fetched help, leaving her sisters behind. Do you think she was wrong to stay?

  Part One of the story closes with a dramatic twist. Discuss.

  In the Sinclair family, secrets are kept. Is it ever okay to keep things from those closest to you?

  ‘I would do anything to protect my child. Anything,’ Leah says. Do her actions shock you?

  What theories did you form throughout this book?

  Did any of your theories turn out to be correct?

  Who is your favourite Sinclair Sister and why?

  ‘I can choose to be happy. I can choose to forgive,’ Leah says. Are our emotions, to a point, a choice?

  What do you think the future holds for the girls?

  Turn the page for a sneak peek

  from the next nail-biting thriller

  from Louise Jensen.

  Coming October 2021

  Prologue

  I’m not sure how I know something is wrong, but I do.

  A sixth sense perhaps.

  Some deep, primal instinct screaming that I need to get home to Connor. It isn’t just because of the row we had. The horrible, hurtful things he had said, it’s something else.

  A knowing that, despite being seventeen, I should never have left my son alone.

  Hurry.

  The flash of neon orange cones blur through the window as I gather speed until the roadworks force me to a stop. The candle-shaped air freshener swings from the rear-view mirror – its strawberry scent cloying.

  My fingertips drum the steering wheel while I wait for the temporary traffic lights to change to green, the rain hammering against the roof of the car, windscreen wipers lurching from side to side. It isn’t the crack of lightning that causes my stomach to painfully clench, or the rumble of thunder – even though storms always take me back to the time I’d rather forget – but a mother’s instinct.

  I’ve felt it before. That bowling ball of dread hurtling towards me.

  Remembering what happened l
ast time, I draw in a juddering breath. Tell myself everything is fine. It’s only natural that worry gnaws at me with sharpened teeth. Teenage boys are disappearing from our small town with alarming regularity and every mother is on high alert.

  But I have more reason to worry than most.

  Next to me, Kieron sleeps. His head lolling against the window, breath misting the glass. The dark sweep of his lashes spider across his pale skin. The hospital visit has exhausted him. The red tartan blanket I always keep in the car has slipped from his knees and I reach across and pull it over his legs. The passenger seat is swallowing his thin body. At thirteen he should be growing but his illness is shrinking him. It’s shrinking me. Sometimes I feel as though my entire family is disappearing. Aidan barely talks to me, never touches me. In bed there’s a cold space between us. Both of us teetering on our respective edges of the mattress, a strip of cold sheet an invisible barrier between us. My head no longer resting on his chest, his leg slung over mine, his fingers stroking my hair.

  Connor is monosyllabic and moody in the way that seventeen-year-olds often are but he never was, before …

  But it isn’t just that, it’s also this sickness that isn’t just Kieron’s. It’s everybody’s.

  The lights change to green.

  Hurry.

  Before I can pull away there’s a streak of yellow and through the rain I see a digger trundling towards me, blocking my path.

  Kieron sighs in his sleep the way his brother sighs when he’s awake. Sometimes I feel the boys only communicate through a series of noises and shrugs. But that’s unfair. It’s hardly surprising Connor’s mouth is a permanent thin line as though he’s forgotten how to smile. It’s not his concern about his brother, on top of everything he went through before the summer, that has turned my sweet-natured son into a mass of guilt and unhappiness but the sharp truth that out of his friendship group of three, two of them have disappeared.

  The Taken, the local paper called them, and although they didn’t directly point out that out of the three who were there that tragic day, Connor is the only one left; they didn’t have to.

  He knows this as he hides in his room, too scared to go to school.

  We all know this.

  Tyler and Ryan have vanished without a trace and the police have no idea why. It’s up to me to keep Connor safe.

  I glance at Kieron.

  I’ll do anything to keep both of my boys safe.

  The driver of the digger raises his hand in appreciation as he passes by me. Before I can pull away, the lights change to red once more.

  My stomach churns with a sense of foreboding. I reach for my mobile and call Connor. My favourite picture of him lights the screen. We took it five years ago during an unseasonably hot Easter. Before Kieron was diagnosed, before everything changed. We’re on the beach, the wind whipping his dark curls around his face. Traces of strawberry ice cream linger around his mouth, which is stretched into a wide grin.

  We were all so happy once. I don’t know how but I have to believe that we can be again. The alternative is too painful to bear.

  The phone rings and rings. Connor doesn’t pick up. Fear brushes the back of my neck. Rationally I know he hasn’t been taken. I’ve told him not to go out. He’s at home. The door is locked. He’s okay. His answer service kicks in and I end the call before pressing redial. In my mind I can picture him, headphones clamped onto his ears, thumbs furiously working his X-box controller. Firing shots. Directing his rage at the soldiers on his screen the way he had directed his rage at me earlier.

  He can’t hear the phone or he’s ignoring my call. That has to be it.

  But still …

  Hurry.

  Despite the lights still being red I pull away. There is no approaching traffic. The dashboard clock tells me it’s almost four and I snap on the radio, punching the dials until I find the local station. The newsreader relays in cool, clipped tones that the missing boys haven’t yet been found but police are following several lines of enquiry. Nobody else has been taken. The unsaid yet lingers in the air and, although I know Connor is safe, my foot squeezes the accelerator. Home is the only place my anxiety abates. When we’re all under one roof and I can almost pretend everything is exactly how it was.

  Before.

  Visibility is poor. Frustrated, I slow, peering out through the teeming rain. If I have an accident I’m no use to Kieron, to anyone. My heart is racing, as there’s another crack of lightning. I count the seconds the way I used to with the boys when they were small.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  A grumble of thunder. The storm is closing in. Everything is closing in, crashing down. Sweat forms a layer between my skin and my shirt as a sense of danger gallops towards me.

  Hurry.

  The urgency I feel to be at home overrides the voice of caution urging me to slow down. I race past the old hospital, which has fallen into disrepair, the white-and-blue NHS sign crawling with ivy, and then the secondary school. I barely register the figure clocked in black stepping onto the zebra crossing, but on some level I must have noticed him as my palm slams against the horn until he jumps back onto the path. He shakes his fist but I don’t care.

  Hurry.

  My chest is tight as I pull into my street, my driveway. A whimper of fear bursts from my lips as I see the front door swinging open.

  Without waking Kieron, I half fall, half step out of the car, my shoes slipping on wet tarmac as I rush towards my house.

  ‘Connor?’ I am calling his name although there is a part of me instinctively knowing that he won’t answer.

  Can’t answer.

  ‘Connor?’

  The table in the hallway is lying on its side. My favourite green vase lies in shattered pieces over the oak floor. The lilies that had been left anonymously on the doorstep that I thought were from a well-meaning neighbour are strewn down the hallway.

  Funeral flowers.

  ‘Hello?’ My voice is thin and shaky.

  The cream wall by the front door is smeared in blood. Connor’s phone is on the floor, lying in a puddle of water from the vase. His screen is smashed. My feet race up the stairs towards his bedroom. A man’s voice drifts towards me. Without thinking of the danger I am potentially putting myself in, putting Kieron in, I push open Connor’s door just as shots are fired.

  Instinctively I cover my head before I realize the sound is coming from the war game blaring out of Connor’s TV. Whoever he was playing with online is still continuing the game, unaware Connor has disappeared. His X-box controller is tangled on the floor along with his headphones.

  His bedroom is empty.

  My knees turn to rubber. I fall back against the wall.

  The Taken.

  It’s impossible.

  I don’t know who has snatched my son, or why.

  But somebody has.

  About the Publisher

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

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  HarperCollins Canada

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  United Kingdom

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ers Inc.

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