The Lost and the Found (27 page)

W
e're ready in five minutes. While she was writing the note to Mom, I briefly wondered whether I should take a knife from the kitchen. Just in case, you know. But the thought of actually using it—actually stabbing it into someone's flesh, even if that someone was trying to hurt me—was so absurd that I dismissed it immediately.

Sadie pauses before closing the front door. She looks at the hallway and stairs with such intensity that I wouldn't be surprised to see the wallpaper start to melt. There's nothing much to see: shoes in a neat little row against the wall, a shopping bag and a couple of coats hanging from pegs by the door, a pile of envelopes on the bottom step. I watch as she gulps hard and clenches her jaw. I know what it's like, trying to swallow your feelings so they won't overwhelm you.

We turn right at the end of the road and wait at the bus stop. “So this is where you've been disappearing to?”

She looks like she's about to disagree, to tell another lie, but I think we both realize the time for lying has passed. “Just once.”

“Are you going to tell me where we're going?”

“It's better if I show you.”

The bus pulls up and we get on, and Sadie hurries to the back with her head down, clearly worried that someone will recognize her. Unlikely, though—she's got her hair hidden under a black beanie and she's not wearing any makeup. She looks like a normal girl today. One you wouldn't even notice unless she did something to attract your attention. The only person to look up at us as we walk down the aisle is a boy around our age, but it's the uninterested, unfocused gaze of someone whose mind is elsewhere. He's busy talking on the phone. “Dude, awwww, dude! You would not believe what happened last night with Fat Jim! Duuuuude…for real, man, I'm not even joking!”

Sadie breathes a sigh of relief when we reach the second-to-last row. She sits next to the window and puts the backpack on her lap; I'm tempted to sit across the aisle, but that would risk someone else getting on and sitting next to Sadie.

It feels wrong sitting so close to her, our thighs touching. I've sat this close to her loads of times over the past couple of months, but we were sisters then.

I can't even begin to imagine where we're going, but that doesn't stop me from trying. A high-rise apartment in one of those rundown housing projects? One of those buildings where there is an elevator but it stinks of piss and is always broken. I've never been to a place like that before, but I've seen them on TV. I can picture the two of us walking down a corridor and standing in front of a door and the door opening and a woman standing there. I look from this woman to the girl standing next to me and back again, and I can't believe I ever thought the girl was my sister.

The woman—the mother, the real mother—was probably in on it. Maybe it was even her idea. She was flicking through the newspaper one day and noticed that Sadie looked a bit like the age-progressed photos of that missing girl—the one there was all that fuss about. Money—that was the motive, surely. But you'd have to be mad to think you could get away with something like this. It would only be a matter of time before someone from Sadie's real life recognized her and phoned the police. It suddenly dawns on me that
this
is why Sadie kicked up such a fuss about the DNA test. The game would have been well and truly up as soon as the results came in. Looking back, it seems ridiculous that none of us were suspicious about that. We were so desperate to believe that Laurel had come home to us that logic and common sense were forgotten.

I stare out of the window. My sister is still out there somewhere. She needs me and I am off on some wild-goose chase with this unstable girl. For all I know, Laurel's time could be running out and I am wasting it. All this time, the police haven't been looking for her, thinking the case was all tied up neatly with a ribbon. So maybe an extra couple of hours won't make a difference, but I've read enough about these cases to know that they can be—and often are—crucial.

I won't give up on you. I will find you. I will.
I say the words over and over in my head.

It's strange. It's never occurred to me before that the search for my sister was something I could be involved in. It was always something for other people to do, and if I was lucky, I might overhear something about it. I must have heard the phrase
The police are doing everything they can
a thousand times during the course of my childhood. I was a kid; there was nothing I could do to help. But I'm not a kid anymore. There
must
be something I can do now. I'm not stupid enough to think that anything I could do would be a match for the teams of detectives who have worked on Laurel's case over the years. But maybe I could give some interviews, go on TV and do an appeal. Something. I could visit the countries that have had the strongest leads in the past.
Talk
to people.

Someone, somewhere, knows where Laurel is. It's just a matter of finding that someone—and getting through to them. It's time I stopped being so passive.

“You should text your dad.”

She remembered this time that he's my father, not hers. I text him. Movies with Martha is my cover story. He texts back right away, asking me to pick up some of those Cookie Dough Bites at the concession stand. He's addicted to those things.

“Are we almost there?” I don't turn to look at her when I speak, so I feel rather than see the shrug of her shoulders.

“Where are we going?” I know she's not going to answer. There's a stillness to her now. I can't seem to stop fidgeting and looking around, but she is a statue next to me. If there were even the remotest chance she would tell me, I would ask what she's thinking.

The journey is interminable. One of those bus routes that stops at every little back-end-of-beyond place you can think of. The bus is almost empty by the time Sadie reaches across to press the stop button. I look out the window for clues, still half expecting to see the imaginary high-rise building where Sadie's imaginary mother is waiting for us. But all I can see are trees. I have no idea where we are. I probably should have paid more attention.

We stand on the road and wait until the bus has turned the corner. There's a short row of houses on the other side of the street. They look like they don't belong here, because here seems to be the middle of nowhere.

Sadie starts walking away from the houses, in the direction the bus came from. I have no choice but to follow. I stay a step or two behind so I can keep an eye on her. It will be getting dark before too long.

A couple of cars pass as we walk. Sadie keeps her head down, but I look at the drivers, half hoping that one of them will stop and ask if everything's okay. But why would they? We are just two girls out for a late-afternoon stroll in the sunshine. They have no reason to notice us in the first place, let alone stop and talk to us.

After about half an hour, we come to a patch of woods. At first glance, it looks exactly the same as every other patch of woods we've passed. It's the countryside—it all looks the same to me. Then I notice that there's a track running into this particular stretch of woods. There's a gate, with a sign that reads
KEEP OUT
. It's hidden; you wouldn't even notice it if you were driving past.

“What is this place?” My voice sounds too loud out here, without people and sirens and traffic. The only sounds I can hear are our feet on the road and the occasional tweeting of birds.

Sadie turns to look at me, as if she's expecting some kind of reaction to the sight in front of us. There's something not right here. Something not right with her.

“We're here.”

I
nstead of opening the gate, Sadie walks around it. It's not attached to a fence or a wall or anything. It can stop vehicles, but not us. She walks off down the track, but I hesitate. We are literally in the middle of nowhere. Anything could happen; I could scream for help and no one would hear. My parents could be about to lose another daughter.

I've come this far, though. I might as well see this through. Plus I'm not exactly wild about the idea of being left out here on my own. I edge my way around the side of the gate, trying to avoid stepping in the muddy ditch.

The track curves gently through the woods. It's gloomy in here, the treetops tightly knit overhead. I think of Little Red Riding Hood, and suddenly I can't remember the end of that story. Did she escape? Did she kill the wolf with her bare hands? Or did she curl up in a corner and wait for him to eat her up?

Finally there's a house in front of us. I'm not sure what kind of place I was expecting to find, but it definitely wasn't this. The house is ugly and gray and squat, with a flat roof and peeling paint around the windows. It's best for everyone that it's hidden in the woods, a house this ugly. That's when I realize I was half expecting something from a fairy tale. A little white cottage with a thatched roof with smoke puffing out of the chimney. This place looks more like a military installation than a home.

The weirdest thing is the yard, which
does
look like something out of a fairy tale. There's even a white picket fence around it. There's an ornamental rock garden and ceramic pots of herbs, and ivy climbing up the wall next to the front door. It's as if this ugly building has landed here in a tornado, crushing the little old lady's house that belongs here to smithereens. If I look closely, I might see a pair of old-lady shoes peeking out where the wall meets the ground.

On closer inspection, the yard looks a bit neglected. Weeds are starting to take over. The little square patch of grass is overgrown; it clearly hasn't seen a lawn mower in a long time.

Sadie watches me as I take it all in. “What is this place?” I ask for the second time.

“Home.” She laughs, but it sounds all wrong.

She doesn't knock on the door or ring the doorbell (not that I can see a doorbell). She doesn't take out a key, either. She just puts her hand on the doorknob and turns. She walks in, leaving the door open behind her.

The first thing that hits me is the smell. It seems to coat the inside of my nose and throat. It's thick and cloying and deeply unpleasant. I stop worrying about someone else being here, because this house is empty. You can just feel it. I leave the door open in the vague hope that some air will start to circulate.

The inside of the house doesn't match the outside, just like the outside doesn't match the yard. A dusky-pink carpet runs through all the rooms, with various hideous rugs placed on it at regular intervals. Green patterned wallpaper. There is a lot of furniture, some of it antique, some of it from the seventies by the looks of it. Every surface has ornaments on it—little crystal animals or jugs in the shape of squat little men or dainty little teacups and saucers. I spy an ancient-looking TV in a corner.

There's a hulking bookcase opposite the front door. The books are an odd mixture of true crime and romance, black spines stark among the pinks and peaches and purples. The bottom shelves are filled with textbooks and reference books.

None of the rooms have doors, not even the bedroom or the bathroom. It doesn't even look like the doors have been removed—the house must have been built this way to someone's (a
weird
someone's) specifications. I peek into the bathroom—more dusky-pink carpet. Pink toilet, sink, and bath, too. Lots of bottles and jars lining the windowsill. Old-lady beauty products to match the old-lady decor.

The bedroom has an enormous bed with a flowery bedspread and too many pillows and cushions. In the corner there's a much smaller bed—almost small enough to be a child's. Next to this bed, there are three bottles of pills and a leather-bound Bible. Instead of decent bed linens, there's a pancake-flat pillow and a filthy sleeping bag—a discarded cocoon. On the floor next to the bed lies a laptop, its once shiny casing smeared with fingerprints.

The bigger bed has been made neatly, all the corners tucked in. On the bedside table there is a cup. The cup has something dark green and mottled and foul in it. There's a framed photograph of an old woman and a younger man. She's sitting ramrod straight in a comfy chair. She is smiling (or grimacing—it's hard to tell) and her cheeks are rosy with too much blush. A bright blue handbag sits on the floor to her left. The man kneels on her right. He is small and pale, with big, round eyes. There's something nocturnal about him. His face is bland, almost but not quite good-looking. He isn't smiling.

“What are you doing?” Sadie has crept up behind me, scaring the life out of me. Her voice is dull, toneless, her facial expression hard to read.

“I was just…looking around.” I indicate the photo on the bedside table. “Do they…? This place is so…”

“Weird?”

I nod. “And what is that smell? It smells like…” I have no idea what it smells like. Nothing good, that's all I know.

She turns around, and at first I think she's ignoring my questions, but then it's clear that I'm expected to follow her. She heads into the living room and stands in front of the overstuffed sofa.

My view is obscured at first; the smell is stronger than ever. I cough, trying to clear it from my throat. Sadie steps aside, and that's when I see it.

The stain is big. The size of a pillow or a medium-sized dog or a sweater. It's remarkably even around the edges, as if someone has carefully poured a pot of paint onto the carpet.

The stain is dark. Black? It could be oil or treacle or balsamic vinegar.

But it's none of those things. It's blood.

Some things you just
know,
without having to be told. It doesn't stop me asking, though. “What…? Whose…? That's blood. Isn't it? What happened here?”

Sadie is staring at the stain with a strange, almost dreamy look on her face. “Smith.”