by Louise Stone
‘Wh-wh-what do you mean?’ Keira drew her jacket around her, the cellophane wrapping of the cigarette packets crunching against her T-shirt, her heart quickening.
‘Cathy received a text from Zoe last night saying she was staying with us, that she had grabbed some clothes and that she’d come here.’ She put a hand on Keira’s shoulder. ‘Do you know anything about this?’
‘I was here all night. You know that.’
Her mother nodded. ‘That’s what I told her. I told her that we hadn’t seen Zoe.’ She clutched her throat with her hand. ‘Obviously, I wanted to check with you first … Seeing as she might have been here and …’
Keira wanted to finish the sentence off for her mother: She might have been here and we wouldn’t have noticed, because we wouldn’t notice if you came back with a nose-piercing. Ever since …
Her mother shot Keira a look of regret and Keira wished her mother would stop; she didn’t want her mother’s pity. She fixed her eyes on Keira as if she could see the fag packets under the denim of her jacket.
‘Do you have any idea where Zoe might be?’
Keira looked at the floor and thought about rule four: destroy the evidence. The videos … Her mind flitted to Jerry Wyre. He had appeared, suddenly at her side, and there had been something about him that had creeped her out. Keira shook her head.
‘I don’t know where she is,’ she said, her eyes not meeting her mother’s, and she went upstairs.
Zoe couldn’t be missing. She had texted her:
DOUBLE-DARE COMPLETE. Z xx
She had asked Keira to come to the farm …
Keira was hit by the sudden realisation that Zoe might not have sent the texts. That Zoe might never have completed the double-dare. That Zoe wasn’t on the other end of her phone.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am enormously grateful to the following people:
Charlotte Mursell, my fantastic editor, for believing in this story and helping make it what it is today.
The rest of the brilliant team at Carina UK.
My incredibly loving and patient family. My brother, Edward, for his brilliant sense of humour and my parents, for believing in me.
Also, my gorgeous son, Finn, who provides me with laughter and love on even the most challenging days.
Last and – as the saying goes – certainly not least, to my partner in crime, Jon, whose unwavering support from the get go has been amazing and who is, quite simply, my rock.
Carina UK
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First published in Great Britain by Carina UK in 2016
Copyright © Louise Stone 2016
Louise Stone asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental
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Ebook Edition © June 2016 ISBN: 9780008189914
