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THIRTY

RUTH

Elissa, her lovely, wonderful daughter. She began to choke up. If the messenger was toying with her, it was cruel. Something told her that it was real, though; that this person was risking everything to tell her the truth about what happened. She wouldn’t go to the police or Eric. She couldn’t trust that man anymore. The only person she wanted to share this with was Gary, but he wasn’t in.

Shivering, she glanced through Gary’s kitchen window again. Telling her that someone had left a chess piece outside her door had been a weird thing to do and it was creeping her out. He was creeping her out.

She read through the messages again and nervous palpitations hammered in her chest. Was she ready to know what happened to her daughter? Yes, she was. She’d been kept in the dark all this time, looked at sympathetically by all the neighbours. She was the woman whose daughter vanished in 1994. Her beautiful Elissa.

She stared at her phone in the dark, hoping for another message soon.

After giving up on Gary being home, she tried his number, but the call went straight to voicemail.

She hurried back onto the road just as Eric called. She was tempted not to answer, but she did.

‘Ruth. Can we talk?’

‘Yes. Let’s start with this. I don’t want that damn camera, so it’s gone.’

‘I thought I was helping so you could see when Gary was lurking around. I was going to put the app on your phone when I saw you next. But we need to talk about something else, don’t we, Ruth?’ He paused as she held her phone to her ear. ‘You were at my sister’s house earlier.’

She arched her brows and headed back towards her house. ‘Sister? Just go away, Eric. You’re a liar.’

‘You saw me with my sister. I said I was helping her with her telly.’

She opened her front door and turned the hall light on. ‘I saw you kissing her.’

‘Ruth, how can you say that?’

She shook her head in despair. ‘Eric, I know my own mind and I know what I saw. She’s your wife, isn’t she?’

He sighed down the phone. A few silent seconds passed between them before Eric answered. ‘I’m going to leave her, I love you .’

‘You lied to me. You made me think we had a future. You proposed to me.’ She went to pull the ring from her finger, but it was still stuck. ‘I want you out of my life. I’ll mail the ring to your wife.’ She went into her house and slammed the door.

‘Ruth, I love you , not her. I love you. Please.’

‘I can’t deal with this right now.’ She ended the call. All she could think about was the messenger. Eric could wait.

Leaning against the door, she let her tears fall before heading into the kitchen. She tried Gary again, but there was no answer.

He had some explaining to do.

She picked up the chess piece and held it tightly. It was obviously the piece that Gary had taken from his own chess set.

She checked her messages again. Nothing.

When was the mystery messenger going to make contact again?

She pressed on the local news app and saw a breaking news video. The news blared out and she watched as a DCI began delivering a press release.

A photo flashed up. She gasped as she saw the cupcake print scarf being shown in relation to a missing person; how it could help police with a current case they were working on.

Then they flashed up a sketch of the man who was found dead in the field.

‘If you recognise this scarf and can help us with our enquiries, please call the number on the screen.’

The news reporter took over then, and began talking about how the locals had raised enough money to plant fifty trees by the nature park.

Elissa had an identical scarf.

Ruth knew because it used to be her scarf. She hadn’t given it a second thought until now and she hadn’t seen that scarf since Elissa had disappeared.

She ran upstairs and fell to her knees beside her bed. She pulled the box from underneath and began leafing through the photos of her beloved daughter – and there it was, the photo of Elissa wearing that very scarf.

The more Ruth thought about it, the more she knew that Elissa had been wearing it the day she vanished. Ruth ran into Elissa’s bedroom and began opening and closing drawers. All her daughter’s clothes and personal items were still there, just as they were on the day Elissa vanished.

Panic filled her chest and she shrieked out a sob. How could she not have noticed that the scarf was missing, especially as she’d bought it from a craft fayre and it had been so expensive?

She grabbed her phone and began to search for the hotline number online, and she hit the call button. ‘I know whose scarf that is,’ she said with a quiver in her voice. ‘It’s Elissa Pritchard’s. She’s my daughter and she’s been missing since 1994.’

Her phone beeped with another message.

‘Can I have your address, please?’ the officer on the line asked. ‘We’ll get an officer to come to your house right away. Please hold the line for a moment.’

‘Five Hollyhock Crescent.’ She pulled her phone away from her ear and swiped down to check the message.

You have to come now. He’s gone. Your daughter needs you. Remember her favourite place, the place where you were the day before she went missing? Go there. We don’t have long. No police or he will kill her – and me.