Stolen Girl

by Sarah A. Denzil

  She stands facing me with her back pressed against the front door. Her mouth stretches into a smile and her eyes water with tears. She says my name as though it’s a caress on the wind. Aiden.

  My heart sinks. A weight hits the bottom of my stomach. I stumble backwards, following the corridor into a larger foyer, a winding staircase with an old wooden bannister, black and white tiles on the floor. She can’t be. That’s not . . .

  ‘Aiden, it’s so good to meet you at last.’ The more she speaks, the more I realise that she’s speaking in a slightly high-pitched voice, as though trying to make herself sound younger. It sends a chill running down my spine. ‘I didn’t reveal myself to you when we met.’

  As I’m backing away, I frown, no idea what she’s talking about. I haven’t met this woman. This woman cannot be Faith. She can’t be. Part of me had wondered if Dad was right about Amy, but I never pictured this. It’s not possible.

  ‘Where’s Faith?’

  She stands with both hands behind her back, head tilted to the side. Her eyebrows pull together. Every expression is exaggerated, like she’s an old movie star in a black and white film. ‘I am Faith. Don’t you see? Don’t you understand? I’ve waited so long for this moment. It’s finally just us.’

  I turn around and hurry through the house, searching for a back exit. A bead of sweat works its way down my temple. I find the kitchen and follow it through to what appears to be a utility room. The glass panelled door is locked.

  ‘Aiden, where are you going? I thought we were going to talk?’

  There’s the swish-swish of her skirt every time she moves. The bare feet padding along the tiles, slapping slightly. Every sound makes me feel even sicker than the last. I turn around and make my way back into the kitchen, noticing the faded paint, the mis-matched dining chairs around the dirty table, the cracks in the plaster.

  She appears in the doorway and leans against the wood. ‘This isn’t how I wanted this to happen. This is all because of your parents. They’ve been feeding you poison, Aiden. It’s not your fault. You’ve been abused by everyone in your life.’

  When her arms outstretch towards me, all I can do is duck around her and move away.

  ‘Stop this,’ I say.

  Her outstretched hands ball into tight fists.

  ‘You don’t recognise me, do you?’ she says. ‘We met once. We took a photograph together.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘See.’ She holds up her phone, the picture of us both is her background picture.

  ‘You were the woman in the pub,’ I say, barely conscious of my lips moving.

  ‘That’s right,’ she says. ‘It took every bit of willpower not to ruin the surprise and tell you that we’d been chatting for months. But even though I didn’t say anything, I could tell you liked me. You sent me a signal that day, don’t you know that? The way you looked at me made me think you knew who I was, that we had a connection, even if you didn’t say it. Oh, Aiden, I’ve been waiting all this time to show you who I am.’ She frowns. ‘But you don’t like it. Do you?’

  ‘I thought you were my age,’ I say.

  Faith shakes her head violently, agitating her damp curls. She continues to stare at her phone while she replies. ‘Age is just a number. I’m not like them, the mothers, grandmothers. I’m young at heart. You’d understand this if you hadn’t been poisoned by your family.’

  ‘Why do you keep saying that?’

  She directs her attention to me. ‘Because it’s true. Emma doesn’t deserve you. She’s a mean, foul-mouthed, violent little woman who allowed two of her children to be kidnapped.’ She snorts. ‘She scowls in every photograph. She never looks grateful. And then there’s that army idiot of a father you have. He’s even worse. He left your mother as soon as the opportunity arose.’

  I stand there aghast at the vitriol spewing from her mouth. Mum always tried to shield me from the nastiest comments about us online, but I saw many of them. Faith is simply saying the exact same things that people say in the comments section of the MailOnline. It’s as though she’s internalised it all.

  ‘What makes you think you know my family? What makes you think you know me?’

  She moves closer. ‘I do know you, Aiden.’

  My face flushes red, because it’s true.

  She starts to move around the kitchen, picking up a kettle and filling it with water. I notice the black mildew around the spout of the kettle, the thick layer of greasy dust on the lid.

  ‘How long have you lived here alone?’ I ask, watching her every move.

  ‘Since my daddy died,’ she says. ‘Mother died first, a long time ago. I was ten. Daddy died last year. Slipped away in his sleep in the bed upstairs.’ From somewhere in the house there’s a thump, and Faith goes very still, but as she continues, she forces cheer into her voice. ‘Perhaps that’s him.’ She shakes her head. ‘It’ll be something falling over or old pipes. This house is so old.’

  ‘Don’t you get lonely living here alone?’

  She moves closer to me and I back away until I’m pressed up against the table.

  ‘Yes,’ she breathes. ‘All the time.’

  ‘That’s why you talk to strangers on the internet.’

  Faith appears confused by that statement. Her mouth opens and closes twice before she answers. ‘You’re not a stranger.’

  ‘I was once,’ I say. ‘Until you messaged me.’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘I knew you even then. I read everything about you. I knew that sunlight could hurt your skin. That you wear sunglasses to help your eyesight. You were in the bunker for three thousand, five hundred and eighty-nine days. You’re the most talented painter in the world. Your mother gave up on you and wrote you off as another dead child.’ When the kettle boils, she snatches it up and sloshes hot water onto teabags in her grimy mugs. ‘Another dead child.’

  ‘Faith,’ I say carefully. ‘What do you want?’

  With shaking hands, she carries the two mugs over to the table and places them down. ‘I want us to be a family. Me. You. Gina. The three of us.’

  Chapter Forty-One

  EMMA

  Amy drops down hard, hitting her head and jolting her body. The violence of it shocks me. For a moment I can barely move, simply stare at her as a thin trickle of blood runs from the back of her head. Fuck. That was more extreme than I intended it to be. She’s supposed to slip into unconsciousness so that I can try and get to her keys. I examine her body. Her eyes are closed, but it’s hard to figure out if she’s breathing. Then I try to calculate how long her drugs are effective. The last time she injected me, how long did I sleep? The truth is I can’t remember. That means I need to work fast if I’m going to use this moment. To do that, I begin to run through all the things I know about where I am and what Amy is doing to keep me here.

  There’s a door at the top of the stairs that I believe she locks. If that door needs to be unlocked every time she comes to feed me, then she may have all of her keys together, probably in a pocket.

  I reach through the bars to see if I can grab Amy’s extended leg. My fingers grope against the stone flags, but I can’t quite reach her. Ramming my shoulder right against the metal, I try with the other arm.

  Frustrated, I sit back and look at her. What if I killed her? It’s hard to tell whether she’s breathing from this angle. What if the blow to her head killed her? I crawl towards the bars and press my face between them. Is she breathing? She hasn’t moved since the moment she dropped to the stone floor. Her body lies lifeless on the ground.

  If she’s dead, and I can’t reach the keys, then I will starve to death in this chapel.

  The thought makes my chest tighten.

  Telling myself that death by starvation isn’t an option, I manoeuvre my body so that I can get both legs through the bar of the cage. Grunting from the exertion, I twist and hook my legs around Amy’s ankle, trying to drag her towards me. Both of my feet end up in the pool of her warm blood. If she’s still bleeding, perhaps tha
t means she’s still alive. It’s when the blood goes cold I should worry.

  Slowly, slowly, I start to drag her closer to the bars. But my muscles have weakened from lack of food and movement since being trapped. It becomes unbearably hot in the vault and I have to take a break and wipe sweat from my forehead. During my break I assess what I have in the bunker. There’s a small stash of food: chocolate and a packet of beef jerky. Barely enough for two days. I have four and a half litres of water to ration, but in this heat, it would be hard to stretch this to five, maybe six days. I could try if I have to, but the best solution is getting access to the keys.

  After stripping away some of my filthy clothes, I go back to my task of dragging Amy’s body closer to the bars. Now I can grab hold of her leg with my hands and pull her even closer. She doesn’t even register the bumpy movement along the stone. A red smear coats the floor behind her.

  My heart pounds as I slip my fingers into her jeans pocket. The fabric is tight against her hip. Amy is skinny now. She’s more muscular. With her face at rest she’s far prettier than ever before. My fingers reach metal and a sense of relief washes over me. This is it. This is my escape.

  I stand, staring at the keys in the palm of my hand. And then I get to work. The lock is on the outside of the cage, which means I have to move my hands at a strange angle to insert the key. There are four on the ring. One appears to be a car key. I try the longest key first. I turn it both ways. Nothing happens. Then the second key. Again, nothing happens. I pull in a deep breath, say a prayer and try the last key.

  Nothing happens.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  AIDEN

  ‘You took Gina.’

  She simply stares at me with wide eyes. I check my knowledge of emotions. Wide eyes mean surprise. Shock. Confusion.

  ‘I didn’t take her,’ Faith says. ‘I wouldn’t.’

  ‘Then why did you say her name?’

  ‘Because we can all be together. Like a family.’ She reaches across and takes my hand.

  Every part of me wants to wrench it away from her. The feeling of her warm flesh on mine makes my stomach heave with disgust. But I decide that if I want to know the truth, I have to pretend to be interested in her like she’s interested, no, obsessed, with me.

  ‘Does that mean you know where she is?’ I ask.

  Faith squeezes my hand, which makes my abdomen clench.

  ‘Tell me, Faith. We need to be honest with each other.’

  She sighs. ‘This isn’t going how I wanted it to go.’

  ‘How did you want it to go?’

  ‘Well,’ she says, and gives a derisive snort, ‘I thought you’d be more interested in getting to know me, but you clearly care more for that brat of a sister.’

  Above us, there’s a thump. A flush of heat spreads over my skin as adrenaline and anger surge through me. I squeeze her hand right back. But it isn’t a friendly or romantic squeeze. No, it’s a squeeze that makes her gasp. She tries to pull away, but I keep her trapped in my grasp.

  Through gritted teeth, I ask, ‘Is my sister upstairs in your house? Is she here?’

  ‘Stop it!’ she yells.

  I let go, disgusted at the pain on her face, disgusted at myself, but at the same time utterly focused on what I have to do. While Faith rubs her sore hand, I run out of the kitchen, back through the hallway and up the stairs in the foyer. Feet flying, stairs disappearing beneath them, thighs burning, lungs sucking deep. There’s a cry, but it isn’t a child’s cry, it’s the sound of an adult having a tantrum. I’ve heard that sound before, I know it well. It’s like Hugh, calling me ungrateful, telling me I’m worthless. Dark, dangerous people with a spoiled child’s soul.

  ‘Ginny!’ I cry. ‘Ginny where are you!’

  Faith is chasing me, her flat bare feet slapping up the stairs as I reach the next floor. I work quickly, opening and closing all the doors along the corridor, calling for Gina. The lack of mobile phone makes this even harder. Somehow, I’m going to have to get her out of here and explain it all to the police later.

  ‘Aiden!’ Faith shouts, blocking out any chance of me hearing my baby sister. She won’t stop screaming my name at the top of her lungs. I hear the tears in her voice. I hear the manic edge of it all.

  The first two rooms are bedrooms that don’t appear to have been cleaned or redecorated for at least twenty years. Next is obviously Faith’s room. I stand in the doorway, transfixed by what I’m seeing. There are stacks of newspapers all over the floor. Scissors lie on the bedside table. I’m about to snatch them up when I see the cuttings spread out over the bed. Aiden’s sister goes missing. Bunker Mum loses second child to abductor. Boy from the bunker looks innocent, but is he? Lost girl. Bunker sister. The dark secrets of the Price family. What is Emma Price hiding from the police? On and on they go, blaming us.

  The extent of Faith’s obsession hits me full on. I feel like such an idiot. Why did I send all that personal information to her? To a stranger? Dad was right about her all along. What if she’s the kidnapper? I remember the video footage of Gina being carried out by a woman. Could it have been Faith? Wearing a wig, perhaps?

  ‘They don’t know you like I do.’

  The sound of her voice makes me start. As I turn around, I grab the scissors and hold them out between us.

  She glances at them. ‘You wouldn’t hurt me. You love me.’ She makes it sound like a fact. The Earth is round. You love me. There is oxygen in the air. We belong together.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ I say. ‘Tell me everything. Who are you?’

  ‘You know who I am. I’m Faith. I’m your best friend. You told me that once.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t have any friends so that isn’t saying much.’

  She takes a step forward and I lurch towards her with the scissors, just far enough to be a warning.

  ‘You won’t hurt me because I know where Gina is.’

  ‘And my mother?’ I ask.

  Faith merely shrugs. Could she have taken Mum as well as Gina? In Mum’s text, she specifically mentioned Amy, but did Faith trick her? Are they working together?

  I can’t bear it: the not knowing; not understanding. ‘Please, tell me. What did you do? Where is my family?’

  ‘Your mother never deserved you or Gina. Everyone thinks the same. You only have to read those articles to know what the world thinks of her. I swear, every decision I made was because of how much I care for you. Once we started talking on Instagram, I knew what I had to do.’

  ‘Kidnap my sister? Why?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I didn’t take her.’

  ‘Then who did?’ Hot tears of frustration build in my eyes. I just want this to be over. I want them back. ‘Tell me, Faith. I want to know everything.’ I pause, trying to find the words she wants to hear. ‘Look, I can’t promise anything, but perhaps if you tell me the truth now, we can figure things out together. If you tell me the truth, I might be able to forgive you.’

  She sniffs heavily. ‘I didn’t kidnap her. I’m taking care of her for you.’

  My heart leaps. ‘Where is she?’

  Faith turns around and walks out of the room. I start to follow her.

  ‘This house is over one hundred years old,’ she says. ‘It’s been one of my family’s properties ever since it was built. The Clements family estate.’ She snorts. ‘Over the years we’ve had to sell many of the other properties across the country, but we kept hold of this one. You know how it is, one rogue brother or uncle gambles away half the family fortune and the rest goes on inheritance tax.’ As we walk back towards the stairs, she gestures to the old paintings on the walls. Stony-faced men and women glare down at us in the gloomy space. ‘They were a sociable bunch, not that you can tell from these. My grandfather and my father made a great many friends over the years. Friends in high places, friends in low places.’ She turns to me. ‘When you were found, and I saw what happened to you in the newspaper, there was one name that stood out to me. Hugh Barratt.’

/>   The sound of his name in her mouth makes my blood run cold. But I don’t interrupt her. We begin to ascend the stairs to the next level, and she continues.

  ‘The man who abducted you was a friend of my father’s. Daddy liked to invest in construction projects from time to time. I believe they worked together on several different things.’

  ‘Faith,’ I say quietly, trying not to spook her. ‘Did Hugh hurt you too?’

  At the top of the stairs she pauses to get her breath back, and also to compose herself. ‘No.’

  I decide not to probe further, but now I understand her obsession with my life.

  ‘You know that I killed Hugh, don’t you?’ I add.

  ‘Yes. You did what you had to do. Like I did what I had to do.’

  As I follow her towards a dark, mahogany door, I realise what she means. She murdered her father.

  ‘How did you do it?’

  ‘He was old and ill. No one suspected that I’d hurried the process along. I held a pillow over his face.’

  ‘I understand why you did it.’

  Before she unlocks the door, she turns back to me and I see the tears dripping down her cheeks. ‘I know you do. That’s why we’re meant to be a family together.’

  ‘Please, Faith. I need to see Gina. Open the door.’

  She wipes the tears away. ‘Only if you make me a promise. That we’ll all live here together. You must understand now, this is our destiny. We’re linked. Forget about your mother, she’s a shrew. Your dad cheated on her. None of them –’

  ‘What did you say?’

  Faith shrugs, turns back to the door and slots the key into the keyhole.

  ‘Wait.’ I grab her shoulder. ‘What did you mean when you said my dad cheated on my mum? How would you even know that?’

  ‘It’s true.’ She pulls away and opens the door. ‘Just ask Amy Perry.’

  The door swings open and Faith steps back. There’s a king-sized bed opposite a large bay window. On the pink bedding a little girl plays innocently with Barbies. I almost drop the scissors. The air catches in my throat.