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PROLOGUE

VALENTINE’S NIGHT

If she could turn back time, she’d never have got into the car. Never accept lifts from strangers : the words had been imbedded into her brain as a child, but she was not a child now. She had accepted the lift. She hadn’t realised she’d been in any danger. Who would, when a woman was driving? And there was a child seat in the back.

It had been after a date for drinks, but she’d felt uncomfortable in her date’s presence. Following just two gins, she’d scooted out the rear exit after excusing herself to go to the toilet. Why did he make her feel uncomfortable? she wondered. Probably because he was more interested in commenting on the other girls in the pub, and had thrown a few less-than-desirable comments her way.

Outside, the temperature had dropped. Icy air swirled about her. Of course she’d run out leaving her coat on the back of the chair and her phone, which had died, in the pocket, such was her haste to leave unnoticed. But she had her handbag containing her apartment keys and wallet. She’d slung the strap up over her shoulder, cross-body, and wrapped her arms around her waist, trying to ward off the rawness of the night.

The car had pulled up alongside her just when she’d been thinking of ducking in somewhere warm to restore the feeling in her limbs. The street lamps threw a dour hue downwards and she’d walked in that dim light without fear of threat. Gratefully, she’d accepted the kind offer from the woman, hardly registering the familiarity. What followed was so unexpected that she still could not get her mind to make sense of it. She’d ended up here, wherever here was.

She eyed the woman walking around her in an ever-decreasing circle. Lying on the wooden floor, face up, she had a view of the blue denim jeans, the bare feet with nails painted crimson.

What was that noise? She closed her swollen eyelids, trying to figure it out. Nothing was forthcoming. On opening her eyes, she saw the woman clutching a knife as she moved. She wanted to cry out. It was impossible. Her mouth was bound with sticky tape wound around her head.

Water dripped from a tap somewhere. A door opened.

She was no longer alone with the woman and her knife. She could not see who entered, but she heard the woman gasp in annoyance. And then she heard a sound so alien to her circumstances and surroundings that her body went rigid.

A child. Laughing. Close by. In another room? Was the child captive like her? Or were they part of this terrifying ordeal?

Her thoughts were cut short as the woman leaned down on her haunches and tipped her chin upwards with the point of the knife. She looked into eyes so dark they shimmered. And she heard no more.