Keep Her Safe

by Sophie Hannah

  That name again.

  I’m going to have to walk past the two men in order to look natural. I slow my pace, hoping to hear some of their conversation, but it’s no use. The detective spotted me straightaway and is saying things he’s decided it’s okay for me to hear: “Thanks for your help” and “Worth a try, however poor the odds.”

  I smile as innocently as I can as I pass them. They stand shoulder to shoulder, smiling back.

  Poor odds of what? Who the hell is this Melody person? A while ago I decided she must be someone Mrs. McNair had lost, but if there’s a detective involved . . .

  That’s what he is. I no longer doubt it.

  I don’t know how I got here, but I’m at the entrance to the crystal grotto again. There’s no one in there, so I walk in, sit down and try to think.

  Was there something criminal about Melody’s death? Was she murdered?

  Either she’s dead or she’s not. Riyonna said with total certainty that she was—so why would the police follow up on a possible sighting, especially when the woman claiming to have seen her has made the same claim every year, about a different child each time?

  Maybe if I write my questions on a piece of paper and put them in the silver pot, some answers will pop out.

  Yeah, right.

  I stand up, walk over to the pot and stick my hand in to see if there’s anything inside. The neck is only just wide enough.

  It’s almost empty but not quite. My fingers touch a few folded papers.

  No, Cara. Bad and wrong. Plus, someone could turn up at any moment and catch you.

  I start arguing with my conscience—about the practicalities, not the ethics. It’ll only take a few seconds to pull them out. Once they’re in my hand and I’m sitting back on the bench, no one who came in would know I got them from the pot. They’d assume they were mine.

  I’m going to risk it.

  For a few minutes, I forget all about the detectives, Mrs. McNair and Melody as I read what Swallowtail guests have chosen to write and put in the silver pot. There are six folded bits of paper in total. One says simply, “Loan/debt.” Another says, “I have to give a speech to more than a hundred people next week and I’m terrified. Hate public speaking.” The third says, “Be a better husband, be a better dad.” I shake my head and tut. Sujata said nothing about putting resolutions in the silver pot; it’s supposed to be anxiety, grudges, trauma and pain. Whoever he is, the inadequate husband and father has bent the grotto rules.

  The fourth one is more interesting, and in a child’s writing: “Do Mom and Dad love me? Do they love Emory more?”

  Oh, dear. My family isn’t the only one with problems, clearly.

  I blink at the endless, dull detail of the next paper I unfold. It says, “Vanessa told me I would NOT be needed on 23rd. She said there would be no role for me and so she was sorry but I would have to find another opportunity. So I arranged to do something that day, and now I have commitments, and suddenly she decides she DOES want me involved after all because she’s realized it won’t work without my input, but she’s too chickenshit to tell me face to face, so she had Paul do her dirty work and ask me on her behalf. And now I have to either say yes and she gets away with treating me that way, and I have to let other people down, or I say no and miss out on an opportunity I wanted that’d be really beneficial.”

  How tedious. Whatever’s happening on the twenty-third, I’m sure it’s something I’d hate to have to take part in.

  I unfold the sixth and last piece of paper, hoping for something more entertaining, and see my own name.

  I make an undignified noise and drop the paper. It falls to the floor.

  No. Must be a mistake.

  My heart has started to pound hard.

  That can’t be what I saw. I must have imagined it. People imagine all kinds of things—like the time I had the most vivid memory of putting Olly’s lunch box in his schoolbag, and the secretary phoned and said Olly had no lunch and could I bring it in, and when I looked it was still in the fridge.

  I slide off the bench and sink down to my knees on the red powder floor. Hardly daring to look, I force myself to reach for the paper again.

  It was no hallucination. The words I read are still there. In forward-slanting handwriting, someone has written, “Cara Burrows—is she safe?”

  “Okay. Okay,” I say to myself out loud, in my regular voice and at a normal volume. “Just because some freak has written about me in the crystal grotto, that doesn’t mean I need to panic.”

  I feel an urgent need to take control of the situation. Grabbing a pencil from the table, I write, beneath the slanty handwriting, “I don’t feel particularly safe after reading this. Who are you and what the hell do you mean? Yours, Cara Burrows.”

  I refold all six papers and put them back in the pot before leaving. Once outside the grotto, I inhale deeply as if I’ve been underground, deprived of air.

  I’m never going back in there. Not even walking past the entrance. Never again.

  I’m going back every hour on the hour, to see what else people have written about me.

  One of those statements will probably turn out to be true. I just don’t know which one yet.

  I start marching toward reception, then stop when I figure out that there’s no way I can report what I’ve seen. I had no business snooping in the pot. It would be too humiliating to admit that I did. I could say I found the piece of paper on the floor, I suppose, but what good would it do? The spa staff would have no way of knowing who wrote it. Even if they did, there’s not much they could do. People are allowed to write what they want in the grotto, and there’s nothing menacing or unpleasant about “Cara Burrows—is she safe?” On the contrary, it sounds as if someone’s concerned for my welfare.

  Who? Why?

  Stay calm. Think for a second. Who at Swallowtail knows your name?

  Diggy. Riyonna. Maybe some other staff members, but no one else. Or . . .

  Yes, someone else. Two other people.

  The man and girl from the room I barged into the night I arrived. I told them my name. And the man seemed concerned about me. He asked me if I was in trouble and needed help. Of course—that must be it. It must be him. He’s been in the crystal grotto sometime today, and he wanted to put something in the silver pot, just for the sake of doing what you’re supposed to do in there. He couldn’t think of any big anxiety in his life at the moment. Then he remembered the semihysterical woman who’d invaded his hotel room the night before, how close to the edge she’d seemed . . .

  In his place, I wouldn’t have said “safe,” but that’s a minor quibble. I’d have written, “Cara Burrows—is she okay?” Perhaps he thought no one could work themselves up into such a state unless they were being pursued by a psychopath.

  Having thought it through, I feel better. I walk around inside the spa for a while, hoping to catch another glimpse of the detective or the man he was talking to. There’s no sign of either of them, so I go back out to the pool. My first swim at Swallowtail is long overdue.

  I love swimming. At home I go three times a week without fail, while the kids are at school, to a health club that used to be lovely and is now a little shabby around the edges.

  The spa pool at Swallowtail is a very different proposition. Every aspect of it is perfect, from the temperature and texture of the water to the beautiful blue tiles to the stunning views. Whichever direction you’re swimming in, there’s something amazing to look at. Above the white walls of the courtyard you can see beautiful trees, Camelback Mountain, other hills with cacti climbing their sides, purple and gray mountains in the distance.

  As I swim, I have an idea. I’m going to take some photos on the iPad Mason lent me and post them on Instagram, like I might if I were on a normal holiday, so that Jess and Olly can see I’m having a good time and there’s nothing to worry about. Obviously I can’t take a picture of Camelback Mountain or anything that would identify where I am. I don’t trust Patrick not to come out here
and try to make me feel guilty, and that would ruin everything. And I can’t take pictures of the pool—that would send Jess wild with envy—but there are plenty of other things to photograph.

  The sun’s so strong, I’m dry almost as soon as I get out of the water. I take the iPad and walk around the pool terrace looking for Instagram fodder. A tree in a pot—that’ll do nicely. Two drinks on a table, one green with a grainy texture and little black bits in it, and one pink—perfect. Both glasses are full. The couple the drinks belong to are both asleep; obviously the effort of ordering proved too much for them.

  I return to my lounge chair, sit down with the iPad and log into Instagram. I wish I’d thought of a better name for myself. I chose “Discendo79,” which is half of my old school motto, Discendo Discimus, plus my birth year.

  Jess and Olly laughed when they saw I’d called myself that. They accused me of being “such a nerd.” I told them that’s exactly what I was at school, and proud of it. “Nerd” in their language means “clever person who works hard and cares more about books than about nail varnish or computer games.” I was always top of my class at school, got a first at university, was offered the job of my dreams a week after I graduated, did it quite happily until Jess came along and I decided I wanted to be as wholehearted and focused about starting a family as I’d always been about work.

  I was happy as a nonworking mother and wife. I never looked back, never once regretted my decision. Not until I got pregnant a third time and everything changed . . .

  You’re not supposed to be thinking about that now. You’re supposed to be posting photos.

  Neither Olly nor Jess has left me any kind of message, but . . . come to think of it, I don’t know if it’s possible to send private messages on Instagram. I’ve never done anything on it apart from look at my children’s posts. Maybe all you can do is leave comments underneath photos.

  That makes it even more urgent for me to get my photos up. Once I have, Jess and Olly can write whatever they want to say to me as comments attached to my pictures. I write stupid captions to go with the images: “pretty tree!” and “exotic smoothies!” How long will I have to wait before one of my children replies?

  Neither of them has posted anything since I last looked, but I didn’t expect them to. It’s nighttime in England; they’ll be asleep.

  I log out of Instagram and into Hotmail. Patrick hasn’t opened the email I sent him. It’s still showing as an unread message in the inbox of the account we share. He’s probably asleep now, too. He and I have always had body clocks in opposition to one another. He bounces out of bed every morning at five thirty or six, eager to start the day, but can’t keep his eyes open later than ten in the evening. I feel as if something terrible has happened to me if I have to wake up before 8 A.M., but I can easily stay up till one or two in the morning if I need to. It worked really well when the kids were little and barely slept: I did the night shifts and Patrick took over at 4 A.M., having gone to bed at eight thirty or nine the night before, allowing me to sleep till nine when he had to set off for work. Each of us was convinced we had the better deal.

  Why isn’t Patrick willing to go to bed at eight thirty and wake up at four for this baby? He’s done it twice before—would it truly be so unbearable for him to have to do it a third time?

  I sigh, log out of the email account and close my eyes. I wish, wish, wish I had my phone with me. It makes me sick to think of it lying somewhere in Rock the Hole’s office or apartment, with messages from my family on it that I’m desperate to read. How could I have been so reckless and stupid?

  That’s what Patrick said, word for word, when I told him I was pregnant. He’d wanted to go out and buy condoms. I was the one who said, “I can’t believe it’ll matter, just this once. It’s not even close to the middle of my cycle.”

  Stop.

  I can’t let myself think about any of this now. I’ll wait till I’m back at my casita in the blue and silver bedroom, my thinking room.

  When I open my eyes, Badass Mom is staring at me. Shit. I must have sighed too loud. I look down at my iPad and press buttons randomly to avoid meeting her eye. The Google home page appears on the screen. What can I search for? There must be something I want or need to know.

  There’s only one thing I’m curious about at the moment. I type “Melody dead police McNair” into the search box. This is going to be a colossal waste of time, but it’ll keep me busy until Badass Mom has lost interest in me.

  I press Return.

  Wait a second . . .

  I stare at the first page of results, unable to believe what’s in front of me. Words and names blur as I blink repeatedly, trying to focus. There’s a surname: Chapa. Melody Chapa. And the word “murder.” It’s everywhere. Murder, murder, murder . . .

  No. This can’t be the same Melody. This Melody is famous.

  Scrolling through, I see, in the first line of text under one of the search result headings, another familiar name . . .

  The world tilts, then freezes.

  Oh, fuck. Oh, God. What is this? What have I found?

  The churning in the pit of my stomach tells me I’m better off not knowing, that it’s safer to run away. Except I’ve already done that, and this is what I seem to have run into.

  I don’t have to look. I could switch off the iPad and forget about it.

  Taking a deep breath, I scroll up to the top of the search results and open a blog called Melody Chapa: The Full Story.

  There’s too much here to read quickly. It’s divided into sections with headings like “Trial Evidence,” “Attorneys and Jury,” “Opening Statements and Witness Testimony,” “Verdict and Sentence,” “Media Coverage.” The first section, longer on its own than any blog I’ve ever read, is called “The Murder of Melody Chapa: An Overview.” That’s just the first part of twelve, and . . . bloody hell, even the overview is divided into three parts. The whole thing goes on forever. Breathing too fast, I start at the top, then give up halfway through the first paragraph.

  I can’t concentrate. I can’t read this now, not properly. A quick scroll through the whole entry gives me a few of the basics—enough to know that now is not the time to sit and read quietly for hours. I have to do something. Urgently.

  I try to stand up and fall back down on my lounge chair. Badass Mom and Highbrow Daughter both look up at me. Can they tell I’m in a state? It’ll give them something to bitch about later.

  Before I go anywhere, I need to work out what I’m going to say. What do I know? What are the basic facts? I try to make a list:

  1. Melody Chapa is dead, according to the internet. She was murdered when she was seven years old.

  2. Her parents are in prison for her murder.

  3. Melody Chapa can’t be dead, because I saw her.

  I saw her.

  She was the girl with Hairy Chest Man, in the hotel room I should never have walked into. I know this because of the toy, Poggy. That was the other familiar name I saw in the search results. Now, after skimming this blog for only a few minutes, I know that Melody Chapa had owned a beloved cuddly toy called Poggy. It looked a bit like a pig and a bit like a dog, and so Melody’s parents, while she was still a baby, had given it the name Poggy.

  The same parents who’d murdered their only child seven years later.

  Wait—didn’t I see something about them having another daughter?

  I scroll up and down frantically, not certain I saw it at all. My eyes land on random sequences of words that blur when I try to focus on them. The sun isn’t helping; I should go back to my casita.

  Wait, here it is. Annette and Naldo Chapa had another baby that . . .

  I cover my mouth with my hand. Oh, Jesus. Oh, my God.

  Melody Chapa’s parents had another daughter, before Melody. Her name was Emory.

  Do Mom and Dad love me? Why do they love Emory more?

  The piece of paper I pulled out of the silver pot in the crystal grotto. Did Melody Chapa write those words—th
e same Melody Chapa who’s been dead since 2010?

  How common a name is Emory in America?

  No. This is crazy. It was her. If it was Poggy, it was Melody. I heard Mrs. McNair say to Riyonna, “She had that creature with her.” Did she mean Poggy? I assumed she meant a person because she said something about a boyfriend just after.

  And the girl I met was rubbing her head. I’m sure I saw . . .

  I scroll through the blog again. The text flies up and down. Yes. Her head—there it is. Mrs. McNair mentioned that, too: “It was dark, and I couldn’t see the top of her head, but it was her.”

  Either I’m as insane as she is, or Melody Chapa is still alive.

  I gather my things together and force myself to walk at a normal pace to the spa reception, breathing slowly and deeply. Too much adrenaline’s bound to be bad for the baby. The man in white who was talking to the detective is behind the desk. He smiles at me. “I hope you’re having a superlative day, ma’am,” he says. “Is there something I can do for you?”

  “Yes. The detective—the one you were talking to before. Is he still here?”

  “Oh!” He’s surprised that I know. “I, uh . . . No. He set off back to the hotel in a club car around five minutes ago. If you like I can reach out to them and—”

  “Can you call me a club car, as soon as possible, please? Same destination. I need to speak to him urgently.”

  “Coming right up, ma’am.” I can’t see his hands beneath the counter, but I imagine the relevant button is being pressed. Less than a minute later, my driver and car arrive.

  All the way back to the hotel, I stare hard at every building, tree, bench and balcony I pass, hoping to catch a glimpse of Melody with Poggy in her hand. When I don’t see her, I wonder—for no reason, apart from a fear that I’m too late—if she’s dead now, even if she wasn’t last night.

  For God’s sake, Cara. If she’s lasted a whole seven years since she was supposed to have been murdered, why would she suddenly die now?