by Anni Taylor
I flipped back to thinking Verity was wrong about Evie. Whatever had gone off-track with Evie had happened recently. She wasn’t restless and flighty. She’d always been the patient one, calmly breaking up the bitter death-matches between Willow and Lilly, instructing Lilly on using the potty for the hundredth time and somehow finding a core of strength when Lilly’s night-time waking had her up all night. She’d been patient with me, too. When I’d had a shit day at the office with Lyle and his cronies, I’d sometimes download my frustration onto Evie, snapping at her. She’d tell me that she was going to walk away until I remembered that she was my wife.
Verity was trying to tip me off my feet. That was what she did best. She disoriented people, tied their psychological shoelaces and tripped them. It was what she’d done to Evie and her brother. It was why Evie’d had such a strange idea of herself when I’d met her. Evie had zero faith in her own ideas and decisions. She was always second-guessing herself. I’d ask her for her opinion on something, and she’d give me an answer, but then two seconds later, she’d pull back and tell me she wasn’t sure. For a long time, I used to insist that she just make the damned decision. But I came to understand that when I made the decisions, she relaxed.
But I had to admit there was another side to Evie, one that didn’t match up with the girl who wanted other people to be in control. When we played Warcraft together, she was ruthless, making calculated moves and annihilating our opponents. She was razor sharp and clever at those times.
No wonder I hadn’t seen the day coming where she’d do what she’d just done. How far ahead had she planned this? And what was her end game? Did she plan on finding some rich guy and running off with him and never having to worry about money again? And what was the catalyst that made her decide that this was what she wanted and needed?
Anger started to burn in the pit of my stomach.
A loud knocking at the front door downstairs came thumping through the air.
Whoever it was, it wasn’t Evie.
Verity answered the door, and I could hear two people, a man and a woman. From what I’d known of her, she normally gave door-to-door salespeople their marching orders, but she let them in.
Hauling myself up from the bed, I walked out to the stair landing.
Two police officers stood in my living room quietly talking with a shocked Verity.
The three of them looked upwards at me, stopping their conversation.
The female officer wore a concerned expression. “Mr Harlow, we need to talk with you.”
“Sure.” Willow and Lilly watched me from the sofa as I walked down the stairs, their eyes round and unblinking.
“Your grandmother and I are going to have a little talk with the police, okay?” I told the girls. “We’ll just be out on the back verandah.”
I showed the police through. Whatever they had to say, I already knew I didn’t want the girls to hear it. I closed the door behind us as a further precaution.
“Okay, what’s going on?” I said finally.
Verity jumped in first. “Gray, this is Sergeant Moss and Sergeant Gallinger.” She indicated from the female cop to the male. “They’ve found Eveline’s car.”
“What?” My brain refused to compute that. Why had the police been looking for her car? Had Marla made a report that Evie was missing?
“Mr Harlow?” Sergeant Moss gave me a brief nod. “Your wife’s car was found in bushland about an hour away from here.”
“Bushland? Hell, don’t tell me she crashed the car? She wasn’t still in the car, right?” What weren’t they telling me? Why were they hesitating and half glancing towards each other?
“It wasn’t a crash,” the sergeant told me. “She wasn’t in the car. The car was deliberately driven into the forest then set on fire.”
I blew out a slow breath of relief. “So, the car was stolen? You don’t have any bad news about Evie?”
“No,” confirmed Sergeant Gallinger. “But we’d like to get a few details straight. We estimate that the car was dumped and burned yesterday. But we’ve had no report that the vehicle was stolen. And Eveline’s mother tells us that you’re not sure where she is.”
“Yeah, that’s right. She . . . went away for a few days.”
“And you’ve had no contact with her?”
“No.”
“Mr Harlow, is that usual behaviour from your wife? Not to be in contact?”
“No, it’s not the usual at all. Evie’s never done this before. She organised to leave our daughters with a friend, and she left a note to say she was going away—for a week or so.”
“Does the friend know where she is?”
“Nope, not according to her.”
“Just in case we don’t hear from Eveline, could I have the friend’s details?”
“Sure. Her name’s Marla Atkinson. Number 4 Brightfield Avenue. Just down the road near the 7/11.”
“Okay, got it.” Sergeant Gallinger cleared his throat, handing me a business card. “I understand. Well, we just wanted you to know about your wife’s car. Do inform us right away if Eveline—Evie—contacts you.”
I nodded, trying to process the fact that Evie’s car was found burned in a forest.
28. EVIE
POPPY AND I DIDN’T HEAR ANY more of the whispers behind the walls. Brother Sage came to investigate the sick room. But like us, he found nothing. I knew exactly what he was thinking. We were just two girls who were feeling spooked.
“There were voices,” Poppy insisted, obviously catching the paternalistic smile on Brother Sage’s face.
“I’ll sit with Kara, if you like,” he offered, bending to check her breathing.
“No, that’s okay,” said Poppy. “I’m sure you’ve got more important things to do. We’ll stay here.” She turned to me for affirmation.
I nodded.
“Very well,” he said. “But let us know the moment she wakes. We don’t anticipate any lasting effects from her mishap, but we’d still like to make certain.”
“She seemed to be having bad dreams before,” I said.
“Did she?” Brother Sage tugged the blanket up over Kara’s shoulders. “Hopefully they won’t continue. It must have been an unsettling experience.”
“Brother Sage?” Poppy widened her eyes.
“Yes?” he said.
“We’re all feeling a bit raw after what happened to Kara,” Poppy told him. “Could we have a little hint about what challenge three will be? Just to get a little better prepared mentally?”
I stifled a gasp. It was a bold thing to ask.
He chuckled under his breath. “I’m sure you don’t want to gain an unfair advantage.”
With that he exited the room.
Poppy gave me an innocent shrug. “Worth a shot.”
“Hey,” I whispered. “I thought I saw something when I was in the tank. Like, someone lighting a candle in the middle room of the monastery.”
“The middle room?”
“Yeah. The one that has to be in the dead centre. There are six hexagonal challenge rooms—so they have to surround a centre hexagon, right?”
“I guess?”
“Didn’t Brother Vito show you the map of this place?”
“No. Seems like he only does special things with you.” A hint of jealousy hung in her voice.
“It was on the first morning. I was lost.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, the walls of the tank are glass, right? And the tank I was in faced the centre room. I thought I saw a girl. But her hair was all over her face. And then . . . someone else quickly came and snuffed out the candle. She seemed scared.”
She eyed me quizzically. “You weren’t having raptures of the deep or something?”
“Only people who dive really deep in the ocean get that, don’t they?”
She wrinkled her brow. “You’re making me worry. You should have told Brother Sage. But you’d better be sure you saw something. I mean, we did just tell him we heard whispers in the wa
lls.”
I bit down on my lip, starting to question myself. I had been at the start of oxygen deprivation at the time. And the image of the girl had been murky through the water.
“How are you going?” she asked me in a concerned tone. “You seemed pretty bent out of shape yesterday.”
“I’m fine. Talking to Brother Vito just brought up memories of Ben. He was my big brother. He died when he was nineteen. I was seventeen then.” I eased myself into the chair beside Poppy’s.
“Oh, rough.” She frowned sympathetically.
“Yeah. It was really rough. Still is.” I drew in a breath weighed with a sadness too deep to explain to Poppy. “Hey, how about you? How are you going? I should have checked. You know, especially after the way Greta left the island.”
“You don’t need to worry about me. The detox that the mentors sent me away on worked. But in some ways, that’s bad. Because I can’t shut things out the way I used to. I have to face everything.”
“I remember you told me your boyfriend died of an overdose recently. That must be so hard.”
She nodded, her eyes suddenly glistening. “Doug was a beautiful soul. A musician. He used to sing me songs he wrote. I was working at an art museum then. He’d pick me up from work at night, and we’d go to all the pub theatres around London. Sometimes, he acted in the plays the pubs put on. He was so talented.”
“How sad. Such a waste of a life . . .”
“Yes. Such a waste. God, Evie, I’m a curse. When I was sixteen, I had a boyfriend a lot like Doug. His name was Evan, and he went to the same school as me. I thought we’d get married one day. We snuck out one night to go to a rave party. He took some pills someone sold him. And that was it. He died in hospital three days later.”
I shook my head, unable to find words. Leaning over, I hugged her tight. A shudder ran through her body. and I knew she was trying not to cry.
Her sleeve moved upward along her arm as she hugged me back. Horizontal scars crisscrossed her pale skin, some more faded than others.
Moving back, I touched her arm gently. “Poppy, what’s this?”
She hung her head. “Oh. I’ve been cutting myself for years. Helps to let out a little of the pain. I know it’s dumb of me, but I can’t stop . . .”
I sat back on my chair, stunned. I wondered, then, about the stories of all of the challenge participants.
How did we all get to the point of signing onto a treatment program for addicts? Where were we all going from here?
29. I, INSIDE THE WALLS
HUMAN MINDS ARE LIKE DANDELIONS GROWING in dark rooms. Thoughts lose their colour. Minds go to seed. But there is no wind in the dark rooms to shake their deepest, darkest thoughts free. Only when they shake their withered thoughts free can they seed the new. That is what I have been taught.
All of them who came here, they don’t understand. I don’t know if I am sad for them that they don’t understand or envious that they live in such ignorance.
30. CONSTANCE
ROSEMARY LEIGHTON SPOKE FAST, LIKE AN American from NYC, except her accent was definitely British. Clipped and precise. I’d only spoken to her briefly a couple of nights ago, but she’d agreed to take on the task of finding Kara. First, she’d requested that I pay a visit to the casino that Kara had been seen at. Rosemary wanted me to show Kara’s photo around to the staff there in the hope of gleaning a little additional information.
I relayed to Rosemary what I’d learned after I’d visited the casino and then returned to my hotel room.
I’d found the casino a little intimidating. I didn’t gamble, myself. Never had. I’d spent my life in a small town as a child and a college town after I met James. Not even during my wild years with Otto did I gamble.
Three of the casino staff had recognized my daughter from her photograph. The man she’d been seen with was Wilson Carlisle, an Australian man who’d been frequenting the casino for years. He was in his sixties, an orthodontist with a Sydney practice. I shivered to think of Kara being around this person.
One of the staff members—a gawky young man who served behind a bar—told me that he and Kara had taken cocaine together one night after work.
Cocaine.
One more shocking, terrifying piece of the puzzle.
The young man had been blasé about it. As if it were no big deal. I’d had to struggle to control myself, because I’d wanted to scream at him that it was a very big deal and that he’d had no right to head off somewhere with my daughter and use that vile stuff. But then he’d told me that the cocaine was Kara’s. I’d walked away on legs that’d threatened to crumple underneath me.
“Constance,” Rosemary said—tapping at her keyboard—“this Wilson Carlisle character has an interesting lifestyle. For a Sydney orthodontist. Yachting off the coast of France and Greece in the European summer. Contacts with some powerful people in the business and political arena. Actually, extremely powerful people.” Tap-tap-tap-tap. “And . . . some activities I don’t quite understand.”
“What kind of activities?” I asked, concerned by her sudden change in tone.
“Let me do some research on it before I say too much. For now, I’ll just tell you that he seems to be a member of some sort of historical society, and the society appears to have some unusual aspects that aren’t adding up. I’m accessing a database used by law enforcement at the moment, often used to investigate people trafficking.”
“Do you think he might have been trying to traffic my daughter?” I gasped, my throat suddenly feeling tight. “The detective I spoke to didn’t think so.”
“Well, at this point, I’d tend to agree. This case isn’t showing any usual patterns. Perhaps his interest in her—as awful as this sounds—was just her young age. It would tie in with the theory that he was giving her money for the drugs she was taking. He possibly wanted to make her reliant on him.”
“I can’t even think about that. And I just can’t figure out why she’d fly to the UK.”
“She might have wanted an adventure. Young people are very mobile these days. They’re jetsetters. Or—and this is another difficult thing to say—but she might have thought she’d find some wealthier sugar daddies abroad.”
“Dear God.”
“But we don’t know that. We don’t know anything at this point. But we will find out for certain. It will just take a little time.”
“Of course. Is there anything else I can do at this end? I’ll do anything. Go anywhere.” There was a desperate, ragged edge to my words. I couldn’t keep the terrible possibilities from my mind despite having claimed a moment ago I didn’t want to do just that.
“I don’t think so,” said Rosemary. “Something might come up later, but I can’t foresee anything at this point. If you’d feel better coming over to London, perhaps you’d better take the flight now.”
I nodded as though she could see me.
James wouldn’t be impressed that I was doing this. He was conservative, doing everything by the right paths. I’d thought I was conservative, too. But the things Kara had been involved with had sent me into a world of growing panic. When I’d told Rosemary I’d do anything she needed in order to find out more information, I meant it.
After finishing the conversation, I called the airport to book my flight.
31. GRAY
WILLOW SKIPPED FROM HER DAYCARE ROOM. I’d left Lilly behind with Verity. I could tell that Willow was excited about something but trying to contain it. I watched her gaze sweeping the sea of mothers who’d come to collect their kids. Her expression fell when she saw me. I guessed she’d been hoping to see her mother. Each day, it was getting harder to explain to the girls why their mummy hadn’t come back.
I bent down to hug her. “Have a good day?”
She nodded against my shoulder, her hair smelling of crayons and ripe bananas and the sandbox. “I drew a picture and got a gold star! And the teachers put it on the wall!” Grabbing my hand, she took me into the room and pointed at her painting.
“A gold star, eh?” I studied the picture, turning my head from side to side. “Nice mountain, honey.”
“Dad, it’s a whale.”
“Just kidding,” I teased, winking at her.
Marla moved near us, gathering up her daughter’s cardigan and a gold shoe that looked way too fancy for day care. She startled as she noticed me. “Oh, Gray . . .”
“Hi.”
“I—” Looking down at Willow, she motioned towards the wide door that led to the playground. “Willow, would you mind helping Maribelle find her other shoe? She left it outside somewhere.”
“Can I, Dad?” asked Willow.
“Uh, sure. Go play,” I answered then turned back to Marla. Had she heard something, and why did she look so nervous?
“How’s Lilly?” she began. “I heard she was in hospital for a few days.”
“Yeah. She was pretty sick.” I wasn’t ready yet to start telling people what Lilly was diagnosed with. It was too new. A specialist had just made a definite diagnosis of cystic fibrosis.
“I hope she’s okay. If you need anything, I mean if you want me to mind Willow at any time, just call.”
“Evie’s mother’s staying with us. We’re okay, thanks.”
“Evie’s mum? God help you.”
“Not much choice,” I muttered.
She toyed with the glittery strap on her daughter’s shoe. “The police came around to have a chat with me. About Evie.”
“I know. I gave them your address.”
“I was frantic when I heard about her car.”
“Yeah, I have no idea what’s going on.”
“I’m scared for her.”
I bit down on my lip as a picture of Evie in that red dress flashed through my head.
Marla waited for a woman and her son to step past us then said in an almost whisper, “Aren’t you scared?”
“Of course I am.” My words came out louder than I meant them to.
