‘Have you seen Cassie?’ he repeated.
‘I don’t know anyone called Cassie,’ I said.
‘Oh, OK.’ He smiled again. ‘Sorry to bother you.’ He sauntered off.
I blinked, then remembered Madison and turned back to the ice cream stall. I couldn’t see her. She should have been on her way back across the beach towards me by now. Maybe she’d got confused and wandered off in the wrong direction. I scanned the horizon. The beach was fairly crowded, but there was still plenty of space between the groupings on the sand and I had a clear view for at least two hundred metres in both directions.
‘Mo!’ I called.
Several nearby families looked around. Ignoring them, I yelled again. ‘MO!’ Where was she? It wasn’t like her to muck about.
My shout echoed away into silence. My guts squeezed into a knot. Don’t panic, I said to myself. It’s only been a few seconds. She’s got to be here somewhere.
Still scanning the beach, I grabbed my phone and called her number. But Madison’s mobile was switched off. I groaned out loud. Why hadn’t I checked it was on when she’d walked away? I picked up my straw bag and headed towards the stall. I kept glancing over my shoulder, but there was nothing behind me except our towels on the ground. If Madison came back she’d see them and wait for me. My eyes strained across the sand and along the promenade, skipping over each figure, looking for those chestnut braids. She couldn’t have just vanished.
I reached the ice cream stall. The vendor was chatting to two elderly ladies as he held a cone under his ice cream machine.
‘Excuse me,’ I interrupted. ‘The little girl you served just now, did you see where she went?’
The man frowned. I could feel the elderly ladies looking at me.
‘Little girl?’ the man said slowly.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She’s eight and a half with brown eyes and long brown hair in plaits. She . . . she ordered two Twisters and gave you a twenty-pound note like about two minutes ago. Less.’
The man nodded. ‘I remember.’
I glanced round again. A soft breeze was playing across the beach. The sky was a clear blue. Children’s laughter filled the air. Madison must be here somewhere, maybe just around the corner.
‘So did you see where she went?’ I turned back to the man.
He shrugged.
One of the two elderly women he was serving cleared her throat. ‘Perhaps she’s in the ladies,’ she said, pointing round the side of the stall.
Nodding, I rushed past them. The ladies’ loo was clearly marked just along the promenade wall. I darted inside, but all the cubicles were empty, their doors hanging open. A woman was putting on lipstick at the mirror.
‘Did a little girl just come in here?’ I asked.
The woman shook her head. I rushed outside and glanced back across the beach. Our towels were still lying where I’d left them. No sign of Madison.
Fighting back my rising panic, I stopped and took a deep breath. Think. Where could she have gone? I turned right around, looking in every direction, trying to spot the familiar silhouette of my little sister. But there was no sign of her.
Heart pounding, I grabbed the arm of a mother walking by, her baby in a sling.
‘My sister’s missing,’ I said. ‘She’s eight and a half.’
‘Oh.’ The woman’s eyes widened. She raised her hand protectively over her baby’s head, as if to shield her from the news. ‘I’m . . . er . . . that’s terrible. What happened?’
‘She went to buy an ice cream and she hasn’t come back.’ As I spoke, my eyes scanned the beach again, desperately hoping I’d catch a glimpse of Madison in her denim shorts and blue T-shirt.
‘When?’ the woman asked.
‘Not long. A few minutes ago,’ I said.
The woman’s face relaxed. ‘She’s probably just gone in the wrong direction. Got lost, not paying attention to where she was—’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘Madison isn’t like that.’
The woman with the baby took a step away from me. Her expression registered sympathy but distance. She didn’t want to get involved. ‘I’m sure your sister will turn up,’ she said. ‘Have you tried the ladies?’
‘Yes.’ The word snapped out of me. I spun around, searching the beach again. ‘D’you know if there’s a lifeguard here?’
The woman shook her head. ‘Not on this stretch, sorry.’ She walked off. I looked along the path after her and my breath caught in my throat.
Two Twisters, still in their wrappers, were lying on the tarmac, melting. Were those the ice lollies Madison had just bought?
I took a step towards them. I gasped. Just beyond the Twisters lay Madison’s pocket doll, Tammy. She was face down on the ground, her shoes missing and one of her plaits untwisting in the sunshine.
And that’s when I knew.
Madison hadn’t wandered off, or gone in the wrong direction by mistake. Something really, really bad had happened.
I picked up the doll and shoved it in my straw bag. The world spun inside my head. I had to act. I had to do something . . .
I strode off across the sand. It was warm and soft, hard to walk in. Earlier I’d enjoyed the way the grains trickled up between my toes, but now it was awful not being able to move faster.
‘Mo!’ I yelled as I hurried along. ‘Madison!’
Maybe she just dropped the doll. Maybe she got lost. I muttered under my breath, trying – and failing – to reassure myself. Please, Mo.
Surely she would appear any second – plaits streaming out behind her as she raced towards me.
But she didn’t.
I headed for our two towels, still lined up on the sand, just a few metres from the sea. The whole area was busier than it had been even just a few minutes ago and I knew I was never going to spot Madison in the crowds. Hoping against hope, I called her again, but her mobile was still switched off. I held my own phone in my hand – in case she called me – as I stopped to work through my options.
I knew I had to tell Annie. I didn’t want to, but short of contacting the police I couldn’t see what else to do. I glanced around, forcing myself to focus on every detail.
Please be here, Mo. Please.
Up on the promenade a group of teenagers were chatting outside the Boondog Shack. The boy who’d spoken to me earlier was with them. He’d obviously found the girl he’d been looking for.
Families were still swarming onto the beach. Shrieks and yells filled the air. There were plenty of little kids . . . toddlers in sunhats waving toy plastic spades, a pair of skinny redheads in matching Bermuda shorts . . . an overweight girl about Madison’s age wearing a bright pink dress.
I stood, trying to see everything all at once. It was no good. Panic rose inside me, whipping up through my body like a tornado.
And then my phone beeped. A text from Madison’s phone. Relief surged through me. With trembling hands, I opened the text.
Stop looking on the beach. Your sister isn’t there. Do NOT contact the police or I will kill her. Go home and wait.
3
The Wait
I stared at the words, the sun beating down on the back of my head. Madison had been taken. She was missing, just as I had once been. My legs gave way underneath me and I sank to the sand. I read the text again and again. Trying to make the words sink in.
I looked up. The world on the beach was carrying on as normal. But everything had changed. I got to my feet and walked, blindly, across the sand. My heart was beating so fast and so loudly I could barely hear myself think.
Who could have taken her? Where was she?
I looked around. The car park was out of sight behind the row of beach huts. If Madison was no longer on the beach maybe she was there. I broke into a run. Then stopped. If Madison had been bundled into a car she would be well away from the car park by now. I felt numb as I reached the promenade and stopped to slip on my sandals. I’d left the towels, I realised, and turned to go back for them. Then I stopped.
What did it matter if I lost a couple of beach towels? Madison had been in my care and I’d allowed someone to take her.
I looked at the text message again.
Do NOT contact the police.
I needed to tell Annie.
My stomach twisted into a hard ball of knots as I ran hard up the road, back to the holiday home. Annie was hunched over the kitchen sink, her back towards the door. She was dressed now and humming to herself as I walked in.
I stood in the doorway. How on earth could I even begin to explain to her what had happened?
‘Is that you, Madison sweetie? Lauren?’
I said nothing. My legs felt like lead.
Annie turned round. She blinked as she took in the fact that I was alone. ‘Where’s Madison?’
I couldn’t find the words to say it, so I just held out my phone. Annie stared at my face and her mouth fell open. In a second she was across the room. She grabbed my mobile and read the text. Her lips moved as she went over the words. Like me, she read it three times before she looked up. Her face was ghost-white, her eyes filled with horror.
‘No,’ she wailed. ‘No, not again!’ She threw the phone onto the kitchen table where, just a few hours before, Madison had sat grinning at me over her cereal bowl.
I picked up my phone and closed the text.
‘What are we going to do?’ I said.
My voice shook as I spoke and I realised how much I’d been hoping Annie would somehow know what to do.
But Annie collapsed into a chair and started rocking backwards and forwards, moaning softly to herself. Like me, her eyes were tearless. This was too big, too terrifying for tears.
I sat down opposite her, feeling numb. I had a sudden urge to call Jam – or Mum – but that would have involved movement and action. And I didn’t feel capable of either.
I tried to concentrate. We had two options. Call the police – and risk Mo’s life. Or wait for a phone call, as the kidnappers had ordered.
Footsteps sounded upstairs, padding across the landing.
‘That’ll be Shelby,’ Annie said in a dull, flat voice. ‘Will you tell her what’s going on?’
I stood up, resentment swirling through my numb fear for Madison. Shelby was likely to have hysterics when she heard Madison was missing – and Annie knew it. Why did I have to be the one to deal with her?
‘Please, Lauren.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I can’t handle this.’
My shaking legs somehow carried me into the hallway of the holiday house. Shelby was padding down the stairs. She was dressed in sweatpants and a shapeless camisole, her dyed hair all tousled and her eyes sleepy. It was just past 11.30 am which, for Shelby, was an early start to the day. Annie always gave her a hard time for getting up late. Personally I was delighted at any opportunity not to have to deal with her. Shelby was only a year younger than me, but we had never got on. I’d tried to be friendly when we’d first met, but Shelby had thrown all my attempts to be nice back in my face. She reached the bottom of the stairs and scowled at me.
‘What?’ she said.
Behind me I could hear Annie tapping into her phone.
‘Someone’s taken Madison from the beach,’ I said. ‘They’ve sent a text saying not to contact the police. They’ll call us later.’
Shelby’s mouth dropped open, much as Annie’s had done earlier. They looked a lot alike, actually, though Shelby had longer hair and spots.
‘No way,’ she said, running her hand over her forehead. ‘You’re yanking my chain.’
‘I wouldn’t joke about this,’ I snapped, turning and stalking back into the kitchen.
Shelby followed me in. Annie was bent over her phone, talking in a low voice, but Shelby paid no attention.
‘What’s going on, Mom?’ she said.
Annie put down her phone with a sigh and repeated what I’d already said.
Shelby’s mouth trembled as the reality of the news hit home. ‘No!’ she shrieked. ‘No way.’
Annie opened her arms. ‘I know, sweetie, come—’
‘This is your fault.’ Shelby turned on me, her finger jabbing at my face.
‘What?’ I stared at her.
‘It’s a copycat of your kidnapping. Off a freakin’ beach and everything,’ Shelby yelled.
My mouth fell open. I hadn’t made the connection myself but it was true. Fourteen years ago I had gone missing on a beach not that different from the one Madison and I had been on earlier. I’d been playing hide-and-seek with Annie and I’d been taken by Sonia Holtwood. She kept me for a while, then sold me through an agency to my adoptive parents, pretending to be a poverty-stricken single mother.
Holtwood had tried to kill me and Madison two years ago, when I found out what she’d done and tracked Annie and Sam down. She was in jail now, serving a long term for kidnap and attempted murder.
‘Shelby, don’t be silly . . .’ Annie started.
‘Have you called the police?’ Shelby demanded, wild-eyed.
‘We told you, the text said not to,’ I said sharply.
‘And we’re just going to do what we’re told?’ Shelby’s voice rose in another shriek.
‘Calm down,’ I said.
‘Shut up!’ she shouted.
‘Please, girls,’ Annie said, sobbing.
Shelby stormed off and the kitchen fell silent as her footsteps faded up the stairs.
Annie sighed and put her head in her hands. ‘I’ve called Rick,’ she said. ‘He’ll be here soon.’
‘Right.’ Rick was Annie’s new boyfriend – a British guy she’d met on her last visit to see me. They’d become close in the past few months. I knew Rick had flown over from London to visit her in the States at least twice since then.
I’d only met him a few times myself. He’d seemed nice – a charming ex-security guard in his late thirties with beefy arms, a receding hairline and a warm smile. I wasn’t quite sure what he saw in Annie, but he acted as a calming presence around her which helped make her easier to deal with.
Madison seemed to like him too. At the thought of her, panic surged through me, exploding my previous numbness with the force of a bomb. This was stupid, us just waiting for a call. Madison had disappeared at about five past eleven and it was now almost midday. Images of her bundled up in the back of someone’s car being driven away from the beach, terrified, filled my head. She could be miles away by now. She could be hurt. And why had she been taken? What would anyone want with her? Surely a psycho wouldn’t send a text saying she’d been kidnapped if he was planning on murdering her.
Would he?
‘Maybe Shelby’s right,’ I said, pacing across the room. ‘Maybe we should call the police.’
‘No.’ Annie looked up. ‘We can’t take the risk. Not until we know what they want . . . what they’re threatening to do to Madison.’
She was right. Shuddering, I sat down beside her at the kitchen table. I don’t know how long we sat there – it felt like ages.
‘Oh God, oh God,’ Annie kept muttering.
I bit my lip. I couldn’t bear just sitting here. We had to do something.
My phone rang. Madison’s number again.
Annie stared at me as I picked up the mobile.
‘Hello?’ I said.
‘Lauren?’ The voice was female but disguised – filtered through some kind of machine that made it sound robot-like. ‘Are you at home, like I asked?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Where’s Madison? Is she all right?’
Annie was on her feet beside me now, twisting her hands anxiously over each other.
The voice continued: ‘Madison is safe and well. If you do what I say she’ll be returned home shortly.’ The voice paused. ‘So how are you doing, Lauren?’
‘I want to speak to Madison. Hear for myself that she’s all right.’
‘Not yet.’ The voice grew tense. ‘You always were a little princess, weren’t you? Looking down your nose at everyone else.’
I froze. Did this woman know me?
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
The woman laughed. It sounded weird through the robot-like filler. ‘Don’t you remember me, Lauren?’
My mind flashed back to Shelby’s words: This is your fault . . . it’s a copycat of your kidnapping . . .
The connections snapped together in my mind.
Could Madison’s kidnapper be the same person who had abducted me all those years ago?
4
An Old Connection
As soon as I’d thought this, I rejected the idea. It wasn’t possible. The woman who’d kidnapped me – Sonia Holtwood – was in jail.
‘What do you want?’ I stammered.
The woman laughed again. ‘Listen and I’ll explain.’ She told me to go to Sandcove Chine – one of the steep, wooded ravines near the coast – and wait by the Japanese pond.
‘Be there in half an hour. I’ll give you the proof you want that Madison is alive and instructions about what to do next. And make sure you’re alone,’ she said. ‘Just you, Lauren. Just you.’
Before I could reply, she rang off. Annie, who’d been standing right next to me throughout the phone call, drew her breath in sharply.
‘What did they say, Lauren?’
I told her. As I spoke, my mind kept going over how the woman had asked if I remembered her. It just didn’t make sense – unless she was Sonia Holtwood.
‘Sandcove Chine is just a few minutes’ walk from here.’ Annie frowned. ‘I don’t understand. Why didn’t the woman say what she wants on the phone? Why make you go somewhere else to get this “proof”?’
‘Maybe she’s worried we’ll record the call or something.’ I shrugged. ‘Maybe she’s going to follow me . . . make sure we haven’t contacted the police.’ A shiver ran down my spine at the prospect.
‘OK.’ Annie frowned. ‘But why does she only want to deal with you?’
I took a deep breath. I had to tell Annie what I suspected, even though it was going to sound ridiculous. ‘I think she knows me,’ I said. ‘I know it’s crazy, but I think she might be Sonia Holtwood.’