Stranger in the Woods: A tense psychological thriller

by Anni Taylor

  Public opinion on the whole thing was divided. Many were on my side—I was the young university student who’d been used by a calculating woman, my baby stolen while I was left to die in a filthy old church in freezing weather.

  But Jessica had gained a lot of sympathy from others—as the married woman who just wanted to complete her family with a second child, who was then pushed to desperate measures by a cruel surrogate. In the minds of Jessica’s supporters, she was the woman who’d lost two daughters. I was painted as a wishy-washy student who’d played mind games with Jessica and flirted with her husband. My memory loss was largely disbelieved by those members of the public.

  It was hurtful but there was nothing I could do about all the speculation. People only saw the snippets that were printed and posted in the media. They didn’t know me and they didn’t know Alban and they didn’t know Jessica.

  Breathing in the sultry air, I stepped out from the trees.

  At the edge of the River Ness, a tot in a polka dot dress and wispy blonde hair in plaits tumbled on the grass. A man in dark glasses and a cap pulled down over his forehead was lying on a picnic rug, keeping a close eye on the little girl, grinning at her antics.

  A girl of about fifteen walked up, her ear glued to her phone in typical teenage fashion. She slid the phone into her pocket, picked the toddler up and playfully swung her around. The toddler shrieked with laughter.

  I snapped a few photographs, entranced by the scene. It was a happy moment, and there hadn’t been many of those for many months.

  Packing my camera away, I went and joined the man on the rug.

  Alban turned to me, wordlessly—his smile for me, now.

  He caught my fingers in his. My skin immediately heated. I felt like I was Stella’s age again, holding hands with the first boy I’d ever had a crush on.

  So far, we’d kept our feelings for each other secret. We simmered and waited and held back, never showing anything in public. Holding hands right now was the first public contact.

  Stella, standing a short distance away with Rhiannon, noticed us holding hands and grinned. Her long blonde hair fluttered in the breeze—it had grown slightly darker over the past months. And she’d grown even taller. She’d been spending a lot of time with Rhiannon and me, as well as getting on with leading a normal life for a girl her age. She’d become like a big sister to Rhiannon, and I hoped that would continue. Her recovery was an ongoing process—she carried a lot of deep scars inside of her. She was doing well with Rory and was even catching up with her schoolwork. She was soon back on her phone, chatting away animatedly.

  Rhiannon returned to rolling on the grass.

  Alban laughed.

  I loved hearing him laugh. Did I love him? Maybe. Maybe more than I’m willing to admit to myself yet.

  My thoughts were confused by everything that had happened. Alban and I had been holding back because we both needed time. We’d also been careful not to show our feelings for each other in public so that we didn’t give the media any additional fodder. And it was far, far too early to have Rhiannon dealing with seeing her father in a relationship with someone new.

  Neither of us knew where we’d be in another six months, or a year.

  For now, the focus was Rhiannon and what her future was going to look like.

  I’d made the decision to stay in Scotland and make it my home. To raise a child I hadn’t realised existed—my child. To become a mother.

  I noticed Rhiannon staring off somewhere into the distance, back towards the stand of trees I’d just walked from. Turning, I glanced back over my shoulder. A woman stood there, facing in Rhiannon’s direction, her long summer dress falling to her ankles, hat and sunglasses obscuring her face. I felt a chill creep under my skin. She reminded me of Jessica with her angular hipbones and height. There was also something familiar in the way she held herself, with her stiff posture and her hands clasped over her stomach.

  As I watched, the woman seemed to notice my eyes on her. She retreated.

  But it couldn’t be Jessica. She was with her mother somewhere at the seaside in Brighton, England. Alban had spoken with her just yesterday.

  The woman was perhaps a tourist who was travelling on her own, who’d stopped to watch the families having their picnics on the grass.

  Rhiannon ran to me, rotating herself to sit on my lap. I put my arms around her. It felt natural. I was starting the journey of getting to know the child I’d only known as an unborn baby wrapped up tight and secure inside my belly.

  EPILOGUE

  Elodie McGregor

  Greenmire, Scottish Highlands, December 2015

  Rushing and clattering noises swirled around her.

  And voices. So many voices.

  Shouting and crying out.

  Elodie was in the middle of it all somewhere but it didn’t seem that she was part of it. She was just listening in the dark.

  Then it all stopped.

  A man spoke. “I’m so sorry Alban…Jessica. There’s nothing more we can do.”

  Elodie didn’t know why the man was sorry. She thought he was a doctor, but there’d been so many doctors and nurses and so many different voices that she couldn’t be sure.

  Everyone sounded so far away today. Dad began saying her name over and over again, like he was trying to call her back from somewhere. Like that day he thought he’d lost her at the Ness Islands, when she was five. But he hadn’t lost her. She’d just been on the other side of the trees.

  Mum was crying almost too much for Elodie to understand her words. But she understood one word, and that word was Rhiannon.

  And then she heard her—the baby. A wail, soft but clear as a bell.

  Mum had the baby with her for the first time today. Rhiannon sounded so tiny.

  Her sister.

  Inside, somewhere deep, Elodie began crying, in tandem with her sister’s cry.

  It seemed that Rhiannon had made everyone start crying, because she heard Dad now, too. She didn’t think that she’d ever heard him cry before. Not like this. She heard a choke in his voice and he couldn’t finish his sentence. And now he was sobbing like he’d broken in two and everything inside of him was spilling out.

  She wished she could walk out of the fog and tell him that she was okay. But she couldn’t walk out of it.

  It was too thick and she was too tired. So tired.

  Dad sounded further and further away.

  Rhiannon’s cry was the last sound she heard.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I hope you enjoyed STRANGER IN THE WOODS.

  I’ve long wanted to write a story on these issues, including the difficulty for many children (like Stella) in being able to tell people what’s happening to them.

  This book was a bittersweet one for me to write. My lovely father passed away in the middle of me writing it, and I didn’t return to it for months. He may not have understood the whole digital book phenomenon, but he was always a strong supporter of my writing.

  If you would like a list of reading group questions for this book, you’ll find them on my website: Anni Taylor

  CREDITS

  Thank you to the many who helped with the research for this story. Thank you to my first readers (who either grew up in Scotland or travelled there extensively) for their suggestions - Carolyn Scott, Declan from Writerful Books, and Graham from FadingStreet. I’d also like to express my appreciation to the barrister and the professor teaching UK law who provided me with their insights. I’d also like to thank the group of people on Facebook who assisted with my questions, including Stephen McKenna, Cas Donnelly, Emma Bigwood, Nicole Salinas and Judith Bow.

  Thank you also, and always, to my family. It has been a very sad and difficult twelve months of losing people dear to us. It has reminded me of what a close, wonderful and supportive family I have.

  ALSO BY ANNI TAYLOR

  THE GAME YOU PLAYED

  Cruel notes taunt Phoebe about her missing two-year-old son, Tommy. The game has just be
gun.

  THE SIX

  Young mother, Evie, is desperate to find a way to repay her secret gambling debt. But travelling to an island that runs a mysterious program for addicts is the worst mistake of her life.

  EXCERPT: THE GAME YOU PLAYED

  PHOEBE BASKO

  Sydney, Australia

  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.

  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?”

  “He’s two,” I told her, shrugging helplessly.

  He’d only just turned two last month, and I still couldn’t get used to my baby becoming a toddler. Luke and I still referred to him as the baby.

  “Tommy, buddy, please stop charging about,” Luke offered with a yawn in his voice. He sat there, too long and lanky for Nan’s sofa, tired as he always was after a week of wheeling and dealing at his real estate agency.

  Tommy stopped and pumped up his cheeks with air. He waited until Nan busied herself with pouring out the tea again, and then in Tommy-sized increments (which weren’t nearly as subtle as he thought they were), he tiptoed over to her collection of ornaments that sat on a low table. He poked at her prize ornament, the one that Luke maintained looked like a bunny humping a lamb. I could only just hear Tommy whispering to himself, no, no Tommy as he poked it. I understood that this was one of Tommy’s little daily science experiments. Were the funny little animals going to hurt him or bite him? Poke, poke, poke. Were they hard or soft? Were they going to move or jump? Poke, poke, poke.

  “You know to stay away from that, Tommy.” I hated myself as I said it. I sounded so much harsher than Luke, so authoritarian.

  Nan swivelled her head around, her mouth dropping open at Tommy’s disobedience.

  Tommy fired a glare of indignation in my direction, giving the bunny-humping statue one last rebellious poke. Why did Mummy and Daddy bring me here if I can’t play with the bright, shiny toys? Stomping away, he climbed on the tricycle Nan had graciously allowed him to have in the hallway. The tricycle used to be mine. He was too small to actually ride it, and Nan knew that. I doubt she’d have let him have it if his feet could touch the pedals.

  I’d had enough. “Nan, we won’t have that cup of tea. We’ll take Tommy to the playground.”

  From the tricycle seat, Tommy’s eyes widened hopefully.

  “But I’ve already poured it,” Nan objected.

  To make my words definite, I stood. “I think Tommy’s reached his limit. I’d hate to see your things get broken.”

  She’d had those ornaments ever since I could remember. I’d grown up in this house. My mother had grown up here, too. I could bet we were both told the same thing. Don’t touch the nice things. Learn to be good.

  I tensed as I waited for Nan’s reply. I already knew what it was going to be.

  “You need to make more of an effort with him.” She twisted to her feet, exaggerating every stiff movement. Somehow, we being here had made her joints lock up. She was old and arthritic and exhausted. Yet, she’d made us tea! And Luke and I couldn’t even control one small child!

  “He’s barely two,” I repeated, but my voice disintegrated under her glare.

  We made a quick exit, stage right, while Nan muttered something I couldn’t quite catch.

  The sun seemed impossibly bright as we stepped from the dim, enclosed space of Nan’s terrace house. December heat enveloped us. It was mid-summer—January only a few days away.

  “Might be too hot for the playground.” I glanced at Luke, sweat prickling the back of my neck.

  “Shouldn’t have said the P word, then.” Luke indicated down at Tommy, who was tugging Luke along by the hand.

  I smiled ruefully. The playground was a long walk from here, but there was no point in trying to drive it. Sydney parking was a nightmare unless you paid by the hour for it.

  Forgetting the P word for a minute, Tommy paused to examine a flower that was poking its head out from between the posts of Nan’s fence. He batted at it, probably with the glee of knowing that his great-grandmother wasn’t here to stop him from doing that.

  Luke bent to lift Tommy onto his shoulders. Tommy gazed at his lost flower with regret before realising his fortune at being taken up to this new, lofty position. He squealed, clutching handfuls of his father’s hair in sheer delight.

  “Well, we’ve got the grandma thing out of the way for this week,” Luke drawled, yawning once more.

  We lived on the same street as my grandmother, so we had no excuse for visiting less. Nan would be even more affronted by us not taking the time to visit her right now, seeing as Luke’s mother was staying with us and spending all that extra time with Tommy.

  Tommy yelled with excitement when he first spotted the playground. He’d been there lots of times, but on each occasion, he was overcome with joy, as if he’d been shown the Promised Land for the first time. The playground was all water and splashy things and climbing things. There were even swings that passed through fine walls of water.

  Near the playground, the harbour gleamed, shaped like a three-sided square, lined with bustling cafés and speciality shops.

  Tommy wriggled and teetered dangerously on Luke’s shoulders. He had no fear of falling. The only thought in his two-year-old head was down.

  Luke put him on the ground and allowed him to run ahead. For a while, Tommy kept stopping and checking that we were still behind him. But when he spotted the first of the water play areas,
he was off like a rocket. He was such a water baby. The water canals were his favourite. They were a series of interconnecting canals, only as wide as my forearm, and with no more than a few inches of water in them, but to Tommy they were as exciting as the ocean—more, because he could manipulate the tiny gates, raising and lowering the canals’ water levels.

  Squatting near a canal, he zoomed his plastic yacht backwards and forwards in the water like it was a race car. He didn’t understand yet that boats were supposed to sail.

  “Where are you headed today, Captain?” I asked him.

  The sun turned his eyes a golden colour. “To Dizzy.”

  Dizzy was his word for Disneyland. He’d seen an ad for it on TV once, and he’d asked to go there. I’d told him it was a long, long way away across the ocean but maybe we’d go there one day.

  “Aye aye, Captain. All aboard for Dizzy.” I sat beside him, slipping off my shoes and letting the cool water run over my toes.

  He gave a toddlerish shout of approval, his small face creasing then as he turned his attention to the complications of managing the ebb and flow of water through the canals.