“I want to sleep at Daddy’s!”
“See!” he says.
“You’re the one being unreasonable. If you really don’t trust me, we could stay at my mum’s.”
“I don’t want to stay there,” says Ella and I attempt not to laugh.
Craig frowns at his backfired attempt at manipulating Ella, and then arches his neck to look behind me. “Uncle Liam not here today?” he asks snidely.
“No.”
“Are you still together?”
“None of your business, Craig.”
“Oh, you know it is, Cerys.”
I glance back at Ella who’s now hopping up and down the steps. “I put some snacks in for her in case she gets hungry on the way to Barry and her coat is in there, too.”
“Coat? It’s twenty-five degrees.”
“It might cool down later.”
Craig shakes his head and turns to his daughter. “Okay, say goodbye to Mummy.”
I bend down and Ella wraps her arms around my neck, kissing my cheek. “Bye, bye, Mummy.”
“Enjoy the beach,” I say and pull my fingers through her ponytail as she walks away.
Craig leads Ella down the path and fastens her into his red Ford sedan. He opens the driver door, and then pauses. “You do know I’m better for Ella than he is, right?”
“You’re her dad.” I reply and he can take that however he likes. “Keep her safe.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll look after her.” He pauses and taps the car window as if he has something else to say.
The guy I fell in love with years ago looks back at me. I will always be reminded of him when I look at Ella as they share the thick-lashed brown eyes that captivate. She’s a beautiful little girl and he is part of the reason why. Craig struggled with parenthood more than me as he refused to grow up, but we made the decision to raise Ella together when I got pregnant. He deserves to spend time with his daughter, but Craig needs to bring logic into the situation and demonstrate to me he’s committed to her. Christmas still plays on my mind, and even though that was to punish me, he kicked her out, too.
Has our split and Liam’s arrival in our life made him realise how special Ella is to him? Is this the wake-up call he needed? There’s room for all three of us if he drops the hostility, and I’ll do what’s best for Ella even if I have to give more of her than I’d like to Craig. But if he fights ugly, as he is now, so will I. Christmas still haunts me, and Liam suggests I use that against him if we go to court.
“See you later, Cerys,” he says and climbs into the car.
I watch the car disappear down the road, half-relieved Ella is away today so I can have a day to myself.
****
I spend a self-indulgent afternoon lying in the sun reading on my Kindle. It’s not quite the same as lounging by Liam’s pool in LA, but better than running around the house after a five year old. Liam’s been away in London for a few days again and Ella has been full on, boredom from school holidays aggravating her behaviour. For the first time ever, I’m relieved Craig has taken her for a few hours.
Losing track of time in the long summer days, I’m surprised to see it’s 7 p.m. Will Ella need anything to eat when she gets back? Probably not, she’ll be full of junk food. I wander into the house and pick up my phone to call Craig.
“Craig, what time will you be back with Ella?” I ask.
“Not sure, I’m driving now.” He’s on speaker phone and Ella calls ‘hello’ in the background.
“An hour? Two hours? It’s getting late.”
“It’s school holidays, late bedtimes don’t matter!”
Yeah, you don’t have the moody child tomorrow. “Are you on your way?”
“Yes. We might stop off to eat. How about I say we’ll be back by nine?”
I clench my teeth, but what can I do? “Fine.” Ella calls something from the back but it’s hard to hear what she’s saying. “See you soon, Ella. Be a good girl for Daddy!”
Looks like my peaceful day is longer than I expected. I curl up on the sofa with a plate of lasagne balanced on my knee as I text Liam.
There’s a pause in texts for a minute.
The bottle of white wine in the fridge empties as I watch old movies and wait for Ella. Halfway through Marley and Me, I drift to sleep, Liam creeping into my dreams. I wake to my phone ringing again.
“Craig?”
“No, Liam.” He sounds put out. “Why did you think I was Craig?”
“He’s not here yet.”
“Oh. Okay. I’ve been waiting for you to call me. If she’s not home I’ll call back later.” The tone of his voice suggests he doesn’t want me to hang up.
I squint at the numbers on the DVD player display. “Shit, it’s ten o’clock. Where is he?”
“Being an awkward bastard probably.”
A shiver trips across my neck and down my spine. He’s never late, not this late. “I’ll call him. Speak to you soon.”
There’s no reply from Craig.
On the tenth voicemail in an hour, the uncomfortable prickling morphs into a stabbing anxiety. I call Marcella. “Is Craig there?”
“Craig? No, why would he be here?”
“I thought he might’ve dropped by with Ella to see you. He took her out today.”
“I haven’t seen him this week, sorry.”
Our conversations were never anything outside of polite, once me and Craig split. Since the custody issue arose, the cool in my exchanges with Marcella have descended into full-blown frozen so it’s impossible to tell if she’s hiding anything from me.
“He’s not answering his phone. Can you try? He might answer if it’s not me,” I ask as calmly as I can manage.
“I’ll call you back.”
An hour later, she hasn’t.
CHAPTER 32
LIAM
1 a.m. and I arrive in Cardiff in record time; fuck the speeding tickets if I get one. If Cerys thinks something has happened to Ella, I need to be with her. I don’t care that she’s told me to stay away and stop worrying; it’s my fucking job to be there and help.
Cerys’s friend answers the door, the woman with long brown hair whose kid Ella plays with sometimes, but my mind blanks when I attempt to remember her name.
“Is Ella back?” I ask the woman, although her drawn face answers for me. “How’s Cerys?”
“Freaking out, as you’d expect.”
She steps back to let me into the house and I rush inside. Cerys is on the phone, hands gripping her hair as she waits for a response from whoever she’s speaking to. Her face crumples to tears when she sees me. I go over and pull Cerys into my arms and hugging her so fiercely, she gasps.
“I said don’t come until tomorrow, Liam,” she says as she pulls away, face streaked where her tears have rubbed into my jacket.
“I’m not leaving you alone to cope with this!”
“He’ll probably be here soon, he’s just doing this to punish me,” she says weakly.
“1 a.m.? So where is he?”
“I don’t know, Liam!” she shouts then drops to the sofa, shaking.
When I attempt to pull her toward me, her stiffened shoulders prevent me comforting her. I feel fucking useless.
Cerys’s friend hovers in the kitchen doorway and I go to her instead. “Have you called hospitals?” I say quietly.
“Yes. Nothing.”
“Police?”
“Liam, she’s with her dad;
we can’t call abduction. Yet.” The woman worries on her lip, pale face matching Cerys’s. Do women have a sixth sense about this?
Abduction. The intense feeling that grips my soul, when I think about someone harming either Cerys or Ella, crawls into my veins. Is the man capable of doing something like that?
“You think he’s taken her somewhere?” I ask quietly, glancing at Cerys who sits and stares ahead, not speaking.
“It’s a possibility, isn’t it?”
“What does Cerys think?”
“I don’t think Cerys has reached that as an idea yet, but she will.” The woman rubs her face and sighs.
“It’s late, you should go home. I’ll stay with her,” I say.
“I don’t know.” She eyes me dubiously.
What does she know about me and Cerys? “Cerys, you’re okay if I stay, aren’t you?” I ask.
Cerys looks over as if we’re part of a hallucination. “What? Yes. Whatever. Thanks Phoebe.”
Phoebe leaves and my panic over what to do remains. I should get Cerys a drink. What should I get her? Shit. What do I do? Hug her? Because that’s all I feel capable of.
Instead, I make Cerys a coffee but the mug remains on the table untouched. She sits on the sofa gripping her phone, her breath coming in short bursts. Every time I attempt to speak to her, she closes me down.
“It’s late, you should get some sleep,” I say gently, touching her shoulder.
“I can’t sleep! I need to wait until I hear something!” she shouts and I move away again.
“Okay, I’ll sit up with you. We can’t do anything now, but in the morning, I’ll do everything I can to help you find Ella.”
At the mention of her name, Cerys rests her head in her hands and cries. The uselessness of seeing her pain and unable to fix it panics me. Carefully, I peel her hands from her head and pull her close. Cerys buries her face into my chest and I hold her shaking body as she sobs. With my sense of uselessness is an engulfing anger; somebody has hurt the woman I love, and possibly Ella. When I get my hands on that bastard, he’ll be fucking sorry.
****
I wake on the sofa, with a sore neck and the sound of Cerys rummaging through drawers in a nearby dresser. She looks like crap; the dark eyes and tired face age her. I squint at the clock. 7 a.m.
No Ella.
“I can’t find it!” she says, dropping papers to the floor as she continues her search.
“What are you looking for?”
“Ella’s passport.” Her voice cracks.
Fuck. “Is this where you keep it? Let me look.” I place a hand on Cerys’s in an attempt to soothe. She jumps at my touch and steps back.
I carefully sort through all the papers on the floor and in the drawer but the only passport is Cerys’s. “You keep them together?”
She nods, chewing on her nails. “He’s taken her, hasn’t he?” she asks hoarsely.
“Maybe.”
“He took her passport! Of course he fucking did!”
Her rationality hasn’t improved since last night, but how could it? “How would he know where to look?”
“I don’t know! Maybe Ella gave him it!”
I guess I need to accept today is going to be one where I’ll constantly say the wrong thing. “Right. Where would he go? We’ll go there. Today.”
“I don’t know... he has family in Italy. Would he go there?” she’s talking to herself. “Fuck, Marcella must know! She lied to me!”
Spinning around she snatches the phone from the table and proceeds to scream down the phone at someone. I retreat into the kitchen to make some phone calls of my own. When I return, Cerys is staring out of the window, breathing rapidly.
“She’s lying. She has to be. He would tell her.” Cerys tucks her shaking hands under her arms. “Do I tell the police? What do I do, Liam?”
My brain cycles options. “Tell me his name and date of birth; tell me everything you know about his family. Do you have a rough idea where his family in Italy is? We’ll track him down.”
“How? What if he’s not in Italy?”
I hold her shoulders. “Look at me, Cerys. If I have to spend every minute of my time looking for Ella, I will. I am not stopping until she’s home. I’ll spend every penny I have on finding her and I’m starting now.” A pen lies in the open drawer and I pull out a notepad, handing both items to her. “Cerys, I know you’re freaked out and upset, but do this. Write down what you can think of. I promise you we’ll be in Italy as soon as we can.”
I leave her alone and walk outside into the new day, not wanting Cerys to see how I feel. The bubbling panic inside threatens to consume me too, my love for Ella as strong as the one I have for her mother. This has hit me as hard as if she were my own child. I slam a fist against the wall, unable to feel the pain through my own numb shock, and imagine Craig’s face in its place. Get a grip. I need to be strong for Cerys because she’s in there, disintegrating.
Phone calls made to lawyers and details given to Tina, who promises to have someone onto this quickly; I convince Cerys to eat something. The frightened look she held when I woke is replaced by an angry determination, but she refuses to eat.
“Thank you, Liam,” she says eventually, turning her dull eyes to me.
“Why thank me? I told you I’d always protect you and Ella; and I failed, so I have to fix this.”
“We couldn’t have known he’d do this.”
She touches my face with her soft fingers as she leans in to kiss my cheek. Her hair sweeps my face and I fight tears of my own.
I can’t remember the last time I came close to tears.
CHAPTER 33
CERYS
I wake in the night sweating, confused at where I am; and when I catch up to the reality, the nausea grips me. Hotel room. Italy. Every night since Ella was taken, this happens. Liam always wakes and holds me, stroking my hair in an attempt to soothe but I can’t stay in bed.
I let Ella down.
The painful hole in my heart gets bigger every day she isn’t in my life. Does Ella think I don’t care? What has Craig said? Has he told her I don’t want her?
I dreamt of coming to Rome years ago, fascinated by Italy when I saw pictures in encyclopaedias and holiday brochures. When I was young and stupid, or stupider than I am now, I wanted to bring Ella to show her the Italian roots that gave her glossy brown hair and olive skin. Craig stuck with holidays to Greece, saying Italy was too expensive. His connections to his roots were non-existent, although now it seems they’re there when he needs them.
How do people cope without the money and resources I have through Liam? Within hours, we discovered he recently applied for an Italian passport for himself, and is travelling on that. A breadcrumb trail leads to Italy then ends. We discovered his grandparents’ address but he isn’t there. Liam has organised private investigators to search the country for any sign of him. If Craig came to Italy, I don’t believe he’ll leave again, or will be able to without being detected.
Craig didn’t plan this properly; otherwise, he’d have covered the tracks leading us to Italy. Somebody Craig knows must be helping him because he’s not using his credit cards or bank accounts. I’m unsure whether the methods Liam’s using to find Craig are entirely legal, but then what Craig is doing isn’t either. I don’t care as long as I get Ella back.
The only positive thing I hold in the middle of this living hell is that he’s fucked up any custody chances now.
Based in a hotel in the centre of Rome, Liam attempts get me to visit the local sites to stop me sitting in the room all day waiting for news. I won’t leave. Everything around is occurring on the periphery of reality; I may as well be in a dream. After no news about Ella or the investigation for two weeks, Liam’s going stir crazy with my refusal to leave the hotel. His calm nature can only stretch so far; and when I get growly and he gets grumpy, we head out.
We return after less than an hour. Within minutes, a couple with a little girl around Ella’s age wanders by
happy, on holiday. The fragile walls I’ve built against the outside world are smashed to the ground. Holding in the hurt means holding in the tears because once I let go, I can’t stop. The pain in Liam’s eyes grows when I do, so I barricade as much inside as I can. The only way to keep strong is to keep away from anything that reminds me of Ella.
How is that possible? I’ve lived and breathed for her for over five years. She is my world. What angers me is Craig’s action demonstrates he doesn’t care for her; he’s neglecting her emotional needs and treating her like a possession.
Liam spent this afternoon on the phone to his lawyers again. I also heard a hushed conversation with somebody, possibly his manager, about how he can’t return to the UK or the States yet. Liam has paused his life for us and the depth of the love this man has for me and Ella is insurmountable.
As each day passes, I imagine Craig another step away and further hidden. He’s smarter than I gave him credit for. But what can he do? His life isn’t in Italy; his spoken Italian is average at best. Why do this? I didn’t once prevent him from seeing Ella; I was prepared to be reasonable. I hate myself for refusing to let him take Ella overnight; is this the reason why? Or would that have made it easier for Craig to take her and sooner?
Managing to stop myself vomiting for the first time in days, I creep out of bed so I don’t wake Liam. In the other end of the suite, I fire up my laptop then scroll through the latest messages on a chat board I’ve joined. This group for people with abducted children has members whose situations are worse than mine.
“Cerys.” Liam places a hand on my shoulder and I startle. “I told you not to go on that site; it upsets you.”
He stands next to me in his black briefs, hair mussed from sleep. His tired face demonstrates the effect this is having on him too. I close the lid.
“It helps,” I say.
“No, it doesn’t. You feed your mind with horror stories.”
The sun pushes through gaps in the heavy curtains of the hotel suite, the sound of birds welcoming another day where I have no idea where my daughter is. I flinch as Liam holds me because every time he does, I think how I should hold Ella. When he kisses me good night, it’s the same because I want to scream ‘why can’t I kiss my daughter good night’?
Unplugged: A Blue Phoenix Book Page 22
