WHAT BIG LIES YOU HAVE

An Addictive Suspenseful Thriller about Love & Loss with a Shocking Twist

A.G. Mock

Epoch Thrillers

What Big Lies You Have
Copyright ©2025 by A.G. Mock

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact [include publisher/author contact info].

The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places, buildings, and products is intended or should be inferred.

ISBN: 979-8-9939016-2-6 | eBook

ISBN: 979-8-9939016-3-3 | paperback

ISBN: 979-8-9939016-4-0 | hardcover

Published by Epoch Thrillers in the United States

Contents

British Grammatical Conventions

Dedication

Intro

EMILY BRIGGS

ROSIE TANNER

THE BIG BAD WOLFE

EMILY BRIGGS

MARC AND MARGARET

EMILY BRIGGS

ROSIE TANNER

Thank You from A.G. Mock

Please Leave a Review

Acknowledgments

Also By A.G. Mock

Join my Inner Sanctum

About the Author

British Grammatical Conventions

This novel is predominantly set in England. For authenticity, the author employs British syntax and spelling rules throughout. This is intentional and not typographical errors.

Dedication

For all of my champions,

upon whose shoulders I stand

in order to see the stars.

“But Grandmother,

WHAT BIG EYES YOU HAVE."

“THE BETTER TO SEE YOU WITH,

my dear.”

EMILY BRIGGS

1 EMILY

PRESENT DAY | SCARBOROUGH, ENGLAND

What did you just say?” A flush of heat rises to my cheeks as if I already sense the bombshell this guy’s about to drop on my life.

Clamping the handset of my old rotary phone between shoulder and chin, I twirl its long spiral cord around the fingers of one hand while rustling through my handbag with my other.

What I’m looking for, I couldn’t tell you.

“Once again, Ms. Briggs, this is Martin Culbreth. BBC News. I was wondering if you might care to comment on reports coming out of American telly earlier today.”

BBC? Reports? American telly?

This has to be a joke, and not a very clever one.

Definitely not one I have time for.

It’s gotta be someone from the newspaper where I work. For a start, the accent is laughable. More a caricature of a posh, marble-mouthed royal than a hard-hitting BBC News reporter. Think Alan Rickman as Severus Snape in Harry Potter, throw in some absurdly drawn-out vowels, and you’ll be getting close.

Whoever it is—really is—I’m sure they’ve been recruited by Gabriella, my girlfriend of three years and a notorious celebrator. There’s little Gabby enjoys more than marking even the most mundane of occasions in spectacularly elaborate fashion. From silly pranks to bucket list trips, she’s done it all, and in the most sublime manner.

So, why then do I take the bait?

I wish I knew.

“—Ms. Briggs?” the marble-mouthed voice repeats across the static-filled line, apparently for the third time, though it’s the first I’ve actually heard. “Do you have a comment?”

I do not.

At least, not until I’ve scrutinised my old-school wall calendar to see what this latest ‘event’ of Gabby’s might be.

November’s thirty boxes are a spiderweb of scribbles covered in a mélange of sticky notes in a garish array of colours:

Grocery lists…

Errands I’ve been putting off…

Bills yet to be paid…

And lest we forget, the obligatory doctors’ appointments no one tells you will be just another of life’s routines after forty.

There’s something noted in every single day; several things in most. Every day, that is, except one.

Guy Fawkes Day.

Today—November fifth—is a blindingly empty box and the floor of my stomach drops, my late lunch and half a glass of Chardonnay becoming a sludge of wriggling worms.

While the rest of the UK gathers to watch fireworks around bonfires, I’ll be doing my best to pretend this day means absolutely nothing to me. All the while having to act like I actually give a shite about having dinner with Liam and Lindi.

Good luck with that, Emily.

“Okay,” I surrender, trying to keep it light despite the quiver creeping into my voice. If I don’t play along, I’ll be the one to blame for ruining whatever ridiculous ‘milestone’ Gabby is commemorating this time. “I’ll bite. Let me guess. The BBC wants my take on the new American President’s foreign affairs policies.”

Silence. A slight crackle. A deep breath before Marble Mouth clears his throat. “Pardon?”

I shake my head, quickly losing patience for whatever kind of tired joke this is meant to be.

“Sorry, love. I went off script and threw you off your spiel. Go on then, get to the punchline. What’s Gabby trying to set me up with this time?”

Another moment’s silence.

Then, as matter-of-factly as if he were reporting a traffic jam on the A1 motorway, Marble Mouth says:

“A woman has surfaced who’s claiming to be Rosalie Tanner.”

Before the name has even finished rolling off his velvety smooth tongue, the air is sucked from my lungs.

Rosie Tanner…

…My childhood best friend who went missing on Guy Fawkes Day, twenty-eight years ago.

Rosie Tanner…

…Whose favourite hoodie was the billowing red shawl her grandmother had sewn for her thirteenth birthday from yards of deep crimson fabric.

Rosie Tanner…

…Famous worldwide within days of her disappearance, though no longer referred to by name but known forevermore as—

“—Little Red Riding Hood, Ms. Briggs. A woman in the town of, pardon me, allow me to confirm it. Yes, right-oh, here it is. A woman from Savannah, in the American state of Georgia, is claiming that she is, in fact, your long-lost friend.”

Marble Mouth inserts an overly pregnant pause to gauge my reaction, and I don’t disappoint. I’m sure this very moment will be quoted in tonight’s broadcasts across Britain: ‘When asked, Ms. Briggs failed to comment. But this reporter can say there was an audible gasp upon hearing the news.’

My handbag tumbles to the floor, its contents scattering.

“Ms. Briggs?”

“Who is this!”

A sigh of growing impatience.

“As I’ve said several times now Ms. Briggs, this is Martin Culbreth. BBC News. I know this must be a shock for you. However, if you can gather your thoughts, I would very much like to hear them on this ma—”

I hang up the phone.

Slam it, more like.

The handset ricochets off the cradle in the most satisfying manner, the mechanical bell in the phone’s housing confirming this with a jarring clang. Skating from my view, I do nothing to retrieve it as my breaths come fast and shallow, the room beginning to swim.

Steadying myself, I latch onto the threadbare arm of the sofa in case I pass out.

Breathe, Emily. Just… breathe.

Collapsing onto the sofa’s equally threadbare seat, I stare at the clock on the opposite wall only to find that its edges have become oddly wavy, like I’m viewing it under water.

I squeeze my eyes shut, then reopen them to focus on its swinging pendulum. Marking each second with the same certain cadence by which a heart beats, I try my best to make my breathing match.

In…

…And out.

In…

…And out.

I don’t know how much time passes until I’m no longer hyperventilating. Although my breaths are far from mirroring the steady, certain rhythm of the ticking clock, at least they’ve settled to the point where it no longer appears to be melting before my eyes like something in a Dalí painting. In my left ear, my pulse has become a furious, deafening whoosh.

From somewhere in this near-hypnotic haze an ultrahigh-pitched bipp-bipp-bipp has begun to wheedle its way through the brown noise. Like the buzzing of a mosquito you can’t quite locate, I find myself plucked from the pendulum’s mesmerising beat and tilting my head from one side to the other as though I’m trying to fend off swimmer’s ear.

Then I remember the phone.

British Telecom is alerting me that I haven’t replaced the handset, and the bipp-bipp-bipp grows louder until I’m forced to get on all fours.

Tugging on the phone’s spiral cord, it comes springing out from under the sofa so fast it nearly clouts me in the face, and I curse this day that started bad and only went downhill from there.

Little do I know just how bad it’s about to get…

No sooner have I returned the handset to its cradle than the phone jars back to life with a clang and my chest clenches with such intensity it’s painful.

“Get stuffed!” I scream as I snatch the handset back up to my face, holding it upside-down like it’s a microphone and shouting into the mouthpiece. “Just leave me the fuck alone!”

Silence.

More crackles.

A sound like watery static.

Then a faraway, faint but unmistakable voice:

“Emily?”

And my racing heart all but stops dead.

“Em,” the disembodied voice repeats. “It’s me.”

Rising in chicken bumps, my skin goes cold.

I know that voice. But it can’t be.

“It’s me, Emily. Rose… Rosie Tanner.”

Electric panic spears my chest, driving through my shoulder blades. I feel its pronged spikes as surely as if I’ve been struck by a cattle prod.

“It’s Rosie, Em,” the voice insists. “I’m here. I’m alive.”

I haven’t heard that voice for a quarter-century, but I recognise it as easily as if it’s been no more than a quarter-hour. As uncommonly raspy as it is melodic, it sounds just the same as it did when we were thirteen years old and bounding our way through the woods to Scarborough Fair.

But that’s impossible, Rosie Tanner is dead and gone.

And I should know.

Because I’m the one who took her life…

ROSIE TANNER

2 ROSIE

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS EARLIER | NOVEMBER 1998

Rosalie Marie Tanner, are you ready?” My mum’s calling me from the bottom of the stairs. Although I can barely hear her above the wicked good music on my ghetto blaster—right now it’s ‘Supersonic’ by Oasis—I can tell she’s cross. She’s tried to make it sound like a question, but it isn’t.

Plus, she’s using my full name.

She only does that when she’s not happy with me. Any other time she calls me Rosie, or just plain Rose, like everyone else. When she gets like this, I always think I should call her Elizabeth. Or Liz. I mean, turnabout is fair play, right? Only, I’m smart enough to know that her hand would be slapping that name right out of my mouth before I even finished saying it.

“I’m ready!” I shout down as I flick off the CD player and start for the stairs.

Before I shut the door, I stop and blow a kiss to Liam Gallagher, the lead singer of Oasis. His picture hangs beside my bed, one of those big posters from HMV music on the high street. I taped it on the wall right next to my bed so Liam’s face will be the last thing I see when I go to sleep at night and the first thing I see every morning. I’ve put a bunch of smaller pics of him all around it. I didn’t have to pay for those as I got them from Mr. Patel down at the newsagents at the end of our street. Sometimes he gives me teen magazines when they go out of date. Or I’ll cut the pics from the Sunday newspapers my dad likes to read, but those never look as good ‘cause the paper is cheap and goes yellow really quick-like. Still, I don’t have the heart to take them off my wall. One is so faded I can barely see Liam’s gorgeous face anymore. But I just can’t bring myself to take it down. It would feel like I was turning my back on him.

“Your future wife has to go now, love,” I assure Mr. Gallagher as I pull the door closed. “But I’ll be back. Soon. I promise.”

The thought that I really could become the future Mrs. Gallagher when I grow up one day makes me giggle. I mean, I know it’s not very likely.

But it could happen.

I’m still giddy about it as I bound down the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

This does not please my mother.

“Rose Marie Tanner! You walk down the stairs properly!” She’s shaking her head like one of those bobbleheads you put on your dashboard. “Rosalie! I said stop it, before you trip and break your bloody neck.”

Too late—for me to obey, that is, not the melodramatic broken neck—as I’ve already hopped the last three steps in a single go and stuck the landing with my best dismount yet. I punch my fists high into the air, imagining the applause.

…The Russian judge holds up a 4.9 and the crowd goes wild…

But my mum’s pursed lips only get thinner.

“See, Mum,” I assure with a confident smile bordering on cocky. “I’m fine. No broken neck. And I’m totally ready!”

“You quite sure ‘bout that, lass?”

She’s looking at me with that look. You know the one. Arms crossed. Eyebrows knitted. A stare as icy as the Arctic. Or is it the Antarctic? Which one has the penguins? I never can remember. I hate geography class. Anyway, I haven’t a bloody clue what she’s going on about.

“The pie, Rose. Have you got Gran’s bloody pie?”

“Ohhhhh,” I answer. What I really want to say is ‘Umm, no. I don’t keep baked goods in my bedroom, you silly cow. And I’m clearly stood here with nothing in my hands. So, it’s pretty damn obvious I don’t have the pie.’

But of course, I don’t say any of that. I may only be thirteen, but I’m not a friggin’ idiot—I actually like being alive. That, and I want to go to Emily’s for a sleepover tonight. So, I just smile and skip off to the kitchen.

The pie is apple-rhubarb, my favourite, and has been taunting me from the fridge since mum baked it after tea Wednesday evening. It’s deep-dish, and the biggest pie I’ve ever seen. So big that it takes up most of the shelf, pushing everything else in the fridge aside. Very American. Which makes sense, since Mum got the recipe from some cousin of my dad’s: A Yankee Doodle I never met from a back-assward little town in a place called Missoura, or something. Sounds perfectly dreadful if you ask me.

But I sure am glad that Yank can cook… and that she shared the recipe with my dad. ‘Cause it’s wicked good and looks every bit the kind of pie you’d see on American telly. Something from The Golden Girls, or the type Monica would make for American Thanksgiving on Friends. Although, now that I’m thinking about it, don’t they use pumpkins or something weird like that to make their Thanksgiving pies?

Whatever.

All I know for sure is that it’s nothing like the pies we have here in England. Not the ones in Scarborough, anyway. I hafta admit, I nearly tucked into it a dozen times since Mum baked it. But just like the way I’ve managed to hold my tongue right now, I actually listened to my better judgement and didn’t touch it.

“Now I’m ready,” I announce with a smile as I carry the pie down the corridor. Even though it weighs a tonne, I’m balancing it in one hand like I’m some kind of circus performer. But then it slips and I nearly drop it.

Mum sees this, and her gaze hardens even more, if that’s possible. “Rose Marie, I swear, if you drop that bloody pie—”

I blush and cradle it tightly to me, gripping it with both hands this time. She means business now, I can tell.

“Sorry, Mummy.”

I never call her mummy anymore. Haven’t done since before I started calling myself Rose instead of Rosie. I mean, I’m thirteen. But she loves it, so I pull that one out of my little bag of tricks whenever the ice I’m skating on gets too thin and I know I’m gonna need her approval for something later.

Her look softens.

(Works every time.)

“Let’s just get a move on, yeah?” She presses me toward the door. “Marie will be throwing a fit if I don’t get there quick-like to help set up.”

Marie—Mrs. Ludlow—is in charge of the fête our church puts on for Guy Fawkes Day every year. I prefer to call it a fair, because it’s a lot bigger than those old-fashioned village fêtes from my gran’s era, but not quite as big as those American carnivals you see in the movies. Ours does have a few small rides that the carnies bring and set up. But mostly it’s games like Hoopla, where you throw the ring right over the prize you want. A couple years ago I won a big purple teddy bear playing that. It was my very last pound coin, and I won with the first throw. Can you believe that? But he smelled kinda funky, so I gave him to my bestie Emily. She called him Rupert and still has him sitting in the corner of her bedroom today.

Anyway, all the money the church makes from the fair goes towards a Christmas outing for the residents of Sea View Cottages. That’s what the church calls their Extra Care Housing Community. And I kinda hate that term, by the way: ‘extra care housing.’ It sounds fancy, but really it’s just another of those adult terms to make things sound less awful than they really are. Because basically, Sea View is just a place to hide away the old people in your life so you don’t have to bother with them. People like my gran, who’s been living there since Pap died a few years ago.

What really gets me is the fact that the church makes those poor old geezers get involved in the fundraising by manning a booth or running one of the games at the fair. If you ask me, I don’t know why they even bother. I mean, most of those old wrinklies aren’t able to do much, bless their cotton socks. They’re just way too old. Or too slow. Or drop things, ‘cause their bent and twisted hands can’t grip stuff like a normal person’s anymore. And they’re all so soft and saggy. And crouched over, like they’re always looking for money they dropped on the floor or something.

It’s kinda depressing.

My dad thinks so, too. He says that what the place is doing is nothing less than a form of modern-day ‘indentured servitude.’ I don’t know what that means exactly, but I’m guessing it’s some type of slavery? So, mum takes Gran’s place by helping set up the booths instead.

Did I tell you that Guy Fawkes Day is November fifth?

Well, it is. And that’s today.

As well as games and rides, we Brits eat jacket potatoes and toffee apples and candy floss. Then, by the end of the night, we shoot off fireworks and burn a scarecrow of Guy Fawkes, this nasty traitor who tried to kill the King a gazillion years ago. When his plot didn’t work, the royal guards hanged him. They were going to draw-and-quarter him too, but Fawkes, coward that he was, jumped really hard from the gallows to make sure his neck snapped good ‘n proper the first time. I guess he didn’t want to be alive when the horses were tied to his limbs and swatted so they’d run in four different directions.

That’s just so perfectly gruesome, don’t you think!

Even though I don’t much care for Guy Fawkes, I can’t say as I blame him. I mean, who wants to have their arms and legs torn off, the way lads tear the wings off a fly?

They say the guards then threw his dead body into a big bonfire, and that’s why we celebrate November 5th the way we do today and sometimes call it Bonfire Night instead of Guy Fawkes Day. I’ve always been fascinated by it and can’t imagine living somewhere like America where they don’t even know who Guy Fawkes is. I mean, how do you start off your November without a Bonfire Night?

Places like the States are just a haven for thugs with no culture, my mother says. (They don’t know their arses from their bloody elbows, is what she actually says.) She thinks the same thing about Australia, too, but they still recognise the Queen down there, so she’s a bit less hard on them.

Dad doesn’t like it when she talks like that. He’s always telling her not to be so judgemental in front of me. Plus, you have to remember he has family who are Yanks. It’s not that he necessarily disagrees with her, mind you. He tells me stories sometimes about travelling rather a lot before Mum and me came along, and does admit he’s always felt much safer when he’s back home in Britain than in other places like America where they shoot everybody.

It makes me glad I was born in England.

Awful things just don’t happen here the way they do in the rest of the world.

Especially on Bonfire Night…

3

Fingers snap in front of my face and I blink. It takes a sec for my mind to come back to this moment where my mother is standing in front of me sporting a face of thunder as she makes a grab for that apple-rhubarb pie I’m still balancing.

“Rose! For God’s sake, girl—” She snatches away the pie and my arms are suddenly weightless. “We don’t have time for your silly daydreams. Now c’mon, get your wee arse in that car.”

“Don’t forget we have to pick up Emily,” I remind her.

Apparently, this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

My mother tosses back her head with a dramatic harumph followed by a long, slow-release sigh. I don’t know why. It’s like two minutes out of our way and Emily’s mum, Margaret, has been one of my mum’s best friends forever. You’d think she’d enjoy an excuse to stop by.

“Emily’s mum isn’t going to be there, is she?”

I shrug.

Mum lets out another sigh. “Okay, but we’re not gonna be Chatty Cathies and hang about. Marie is waiting for me, Rose. You know I help her set up each year, so Gran doesn’t have to.”

I giggle a little. It always makes me laugh when people call other people who talk too much a ‘Chatty Cathy.’ Only because me and Emily both are… Chatty Cathies, that is.

The giggle was a bad idea.

Before I can dodge it, my mum’s left hand swats my arse—sorry, I mean my backside—and her wedding ring stings my skin. My face instantly sours and I shuffle out of the house in a grump almost as bad as hers.

I don’t know what the whole big deal is. But I decide her thunderstorm mood isn’t going to darken my blue skies, no matter what she says or does.

I’m rubber, you’re glue.

What bounces off me sticks to you.

So there, you miserable old cow, I tell her in my mind. I’m gonna have an awesome day with my bestie and my grandma.

Emily, my bestie, loves Gran almost as much as I do.

And Gran loves her right back.

So there, I repeat, this time the words actually making my lips move a little. You can be a grouch all by yourself.

Again, I don’t say any of this out loud. At least not loud enough for her to hear.

I’m not an idiot.

But still, Mum’s staring me down in that rearview mirror.

4

We stop in front of Emily’s house and don’t even get out of the car. Mum will absolutely not go hunting for parking, she says.

So, she just pulls to the side and pips the horn in a short staccato way that’s meant to sound casual. (I like that word, ‘staccato,’ because it sounds like what it means. We learned it in Mr. Benson’s music class last term.) Mum’s smiling as she does this, nodding toward the large picture window at the front of the Briggs’s first floor terrace where the curtains have drawn momentarily to one side. But as soon as the fabric lilts back into place, her scowl returns.

I really don’t know what the problem is.

She becomes a different person when Em comes bounding into the car.

“Hi, Mrs. Tanner!” Emily beams, sliding into the back seat with me as I shuffle across to make room. She holds up a long thin bottle filled with pee-coloured liquid, proudly displaying it like a trophy. It has one of those neat swing-top porcelain caps like my dad has on his bottles of Grolsch beer. “My mum told me to give this to Rose’s Gran.”

My eyes light up.

Emily’s dad, Mr. Briggs, is a hobbyist home brewer and makes his own alcohol. Pints of stout so dark it’s almost black—basically make-believe Guinness—and bottles of honey wine.

The black Guinnessy stuff I wouldn’t touch if you paid me. It’s way too strong. My dad loves it though, and can’t wait till Christmas each year when the Briggses come to ours for Boxing Day lunch with a dozen of those bottles all neatly nestled in this old wood crate with a hessian bow tied to it. That last bit is no doubt Mrs. Briggs’s contribution.

The honey wine is tasty though. It’s made with fermented honey, water and yeast, and takes almost a full year until it’s ready. I tried some last week when we were at the Briggs’s for their garden party. It wasn’t what I expected it to taste like, but I kinda liked it. I’m only thirteen, so not really supposed to be drinking yet, but Mr. Briggs said he wouldn’t tell if I didn’t. So, we snuck around to the shed in the back garden where he ferments the wine, and he gave me a sip while Emily was still inside being a Chatty Cathy with everyone while her mum prepared a platter of hors d'oeuvres. At first, I felt a little nervous about going out there alone with him. But then I told myself to stop being such a big girl’s blouse about it and to listen to the advice of my fave band, Oasis, and just roll with it.

“Aww, that’s so kind of Marc,” my mum says and smiles big in the rearview mirror. Not sure why she’s praising Emily’s dad when it’s her mum who actually told Em to give the wine to Gran. “He’s a good man, your father.”

Marc and Margaret, that’s Emily’s APs.

(Aged Parents, if you didn’t already know. No one says Mum or Dad anymore.)

Both of them are wicked attractive, charming, and seem to live like nothing bothers them. You’d almost expect people to hate them, they’re just so perfect. But everyone adores them. They’re like the unofficial prince and princess of St. Nicholas Mews, Scarborough’s elite little row of whitewashed homes. Back in the day, they weren’t houses but stables that also had a place for the stable hands to eat and sleep on the floor above. But today, they’ve been converted to posh three-story houses and only Richie Rich families live there now because they look directly over the sea.

“Rose’s gran is gonna love that.” Mum smiles, for real this time, the first sign that maybe—just maybe—she might actually enjoy today. “In fact, she’ll probably like it a little too much. Please do tell your dad I said thank you, Emily.”

Well, I’m gonna like it too, I tell her in my mind.

Like I said earlier, my gran is wicked fun, and she never fusses over silly little rules like a proper drinking age, or what have you. I just know that me, her and Emily will be slicing into that pie and washing it down with Marc’s honey wine before the day is over. Mark my words.

Or should I say, Marc my words!

Emily nods enthusiastically. It’s in response to what my mum just said, not to what I was thinking, but it’s kinda perfect timing. “I will, Mrs. Tanner.”

My bestie glances my way, a kind of side-eye, and a look of mischief lights up her face. We both giggle as my mum is forced to pretend that she doesn’t mind our silliness one little bit.

Her feigned patience doesn’t last long.

“By the way,” she finally asks with a pointed tone, interrupting our secretive tittering. “How’s your mother, Emily? Has she been recovering nicely?”

She’s talking about the stint in hospital Mrs. Briggs had last week. Women’s problems, is what I heard my folks saying. But Emily told me it was more than that. Something about her uterus, and that her mum was way sicker than she was letting on.

“Yes, Mrs. Tanner,” Emily answers. “She’s doing better now and asked me to let you know she’d love for you to knock her up for afternoon tea again sometime soon. She would love to see you.”

My mum doesn’t acknowledge that she’s even heard. Staring straight ahead, she motors past a throng of pedestrians weaving in and out of all the cars that are packed like sardines in front of the Grand Hotel. You can tell by the excitement on most of the people’s faces that they’re here on holiday. A bunch of them are probably even streaming toward the park where the fair will be, just like we’re doing.

Mum’s acting like she’s really concentrating, and she sort of is, but there’s more to it than that.

While Emily is mesmerised by the activity just outside our car windows, my eyes gaze only upon my mother in the driver’s seat. For a moment, I catch her glancing back at me in the rearview mirror, her look somehow nervous and peculiarly timid. Her eyes no sooner meet with mine than she immediately averts them. Now she’s right back to staring out the windscreen, her fingers gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles are turning white. But lost in some faraway place, she doesn’t even realise she’s doing this.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I actually feel a pang of remorse for being such a pain in the arse with her so often. Clearly, something is going on here that’s got her upset, and my initial giddiness and excitement about today are suddenly replaced by an odd unease that doesn’t feel natural for a teenage child to feel about their parent.

“Mum…?” I say softly but she only looks down, her eyes set upon the instrument panel, the dash, the steering wheel and the death grip of her fingers which she now recognises and loosens… anywhere but in that mirror at me.

My lips are suddenly dry. I feel them part as I begin to say her name again, but she finally glances back with an expression of such sorrow that my breath catches in my throat and I have to look away.

The three of us sit this way in awkward silence until Mum snags the secret parking spot she uses for occasions like today. Both the fair and Gran’s house are still a bit of a trek from here, but at least you’re not going round and round, fighting the tourists for a space.

I throw open my door before the car’s barely stopped.

Holding back tears I can’t explain, I bolt fast as I can towards the pedestrian bridge at the edge of a small patch of woods.

Mum’s half out of the car and starting after me when she realises Emily is still unbuckling her seatbelt. Forced to stay put, she can only call my name as I disappear round the corner.

Little do I know, this is the last time we’ll ever see each other…

5

Behind me, Emily is trotting down the woodland path as fast as she can without dropping that gargantuan pie or her dad’s home-brewed honey wine.

Draped over her arms and billowing as she runs is the oxblood red hoodie my Gran sewed for me. It’s so deliciously bold and dramatic, it’s my favourite jumper, if you could call it that. It’s actually kind of a cross between a hoodie and a shawl, and is all big and flowing. It makes me feel like I’m in Wuthering Heights whenever I wear it, which is basically all the time now since our weather is pretty much shite most of the year. The fact that Gran made it for my thirteenth birthday makes it a gazillion times more special. Which is why I can’t believe I ran from Mum’s car so fast that I totally forgot to grab it.

Not that I need it at the minute, mind you. It’s been unusually sunny all morning. But that won’t last long. Remember, this is England. Once you accept the fact that the sun will never shine bright for very long, you’ll never again be disappointed with our crappy weather.

“Rose! Wait up!”

It’s obvious I can hear her, but still, I don’t stop. I don’t know why. It feels like something important has changed in my life, I just have no idea what it is. Either way, it’s not Emily’s fault, so I really shouldn’t be taking it out on her.

Funny how my whole day has changed at the drop of a hat. One minute I’m keen as anything to hang out with Em, the next I’m putting as much distance between us as I can. And for no obvious reason.

Even the weather is changing.

Despite what I’ve just shared, even I’m a little surprised when the sky starts to turn grey. Tupperware Syndrome, my dad calls it, and I like that description because it’s spot on. It doesn’t actually rain here as much as they make out on American TV or the movies. The truth is, it’s simply dull and overcast more often than it isn’t. Like God has placed a giant bowl of Tupperware overtop us, blocking out the sky we know is still up there somewhere but hidden by a translucent dome that’s been placed between England and the sun.

It must be nice to live somewhere like Hollywood or Miami where it’s bright blue skies and warm yellow sunshine all the time, and the lifeguards are all sexy and blonde and get to wear those cute little red swim costumes like Pamela Anderson does on Baywatch. You won’t see any of those here: sexy lifeguards or those little red swim cozzies. Yeah, Scarborough is a seaside town. But I, for one, don’t even enjoy going in the water. Like, at all. The North Sea is just too cold and murky and has stuff bobbin’ around in it that you don’t know what it is… and probably don’t wanna know. Now, I don’t mind hanging out on the beach for a bit. But even that gets old pretty quick-like. Our sand isn’t the same as you see on those TV beaches. Ours is all sharp and stoney, not at all like that soft Malibu sugar sand that must feel amazing between your toes. Here, the only thing you get between your toes is seaweed. That, or tiny little cuts.

Despite my not slowing down, Emily’s managed to catch up. Her huffing and puffing grow louder as she shuffles alongside me, her frantic stride finally slowing until it matches my own.

“What the fudge?” she asks, all breathy. This makes me chuckle, and I find myself climbing out of my funk just a little. As you can probably tell, of the two of us, Emily is the Good Girl. For a start, she doesn’t swear. Like, ever. Remember, her APs are Mr. & Mrs. Perfect. They wouldn’t dare be so crass as to curse in front of their little girl the way mine do.

Well, the way my mum does, if I’m being honest.

I shrug, but don’t even look her in the eyes. “I thought Amy was coming, too. You said she would be waiting with you at your place.”

Amy is Amy Stratton, our third wheel. She’s the same age as me and Emily, and I guess she’s okay enough. But sometimes I just don’t like being around her. She puts off a weird vibe, like she’s so desperate for us to like her—

for me to like her

—and as I’ve said, she’s alright, I guess. But she’s no Emily. Me and Em are besties forever. How could we not be? She was practically raised as my sister.

Emily shakes her head. “She said she might meet us there. Something about finishing chores for her mum first.”

“Bummer. That blows chunks.”

I don’t mean it.

As you can probably imagine, I’m glad she isn’t here. And I’m even more tickled she’s being forced to do chores rather than come with us.

Is that awful of me?

“Yeah, totally. Amy’s mum is minging,” Emily says.

I spin on a dime, awestruck and amazed.

“Emily Briggs! Look at you, being all grown up and wild, swearing like that!” I ball my hand into my hip, my mouth agape like I’m catching flies.

“It’s not swearing!”

“It so is. Don’t you know what a minge is?”

She’s perplexed. Eyes darting, mouth twisting. “It’s some kind of cat! That’s not swearing, Rose. It just means she has a mind of her own. You know, the way cats do.”

I can’t stop laughing. In fact, I’m cracking up so bad I’m doubled over. Well, sort of. I am bent down, but I’m putting on more of a show of it than I have to.

“It is a kind of a cat, I guess. And it definitely has a mind of its own! But it’s not what you think.”

“What is it, then?”

Amidst a cackle of hysterical laughter, I point to my private parts, and the smile dissolves from Emily’s face. Now I’ve made her as uncomfortable as my mum managed to make me feel.

What else are friends for?

“Huh uh,” Emily challenges. “It does not!”

I’m nodding so fast my head might fall off. I look like one of those dashboard dogs. “It does! And minging means it smells. Bad. Like fish, my mum says.”

Emily turns white as a ghost. Maybe whiter. After all, she’s always been so fair skinned that I sometimes tease her if she gets any paler she’ll be see-through. Not like me—I love a good tan… when our English sun is out long enough to get one, that is.

We walk on through this small patch of woods for a couple minutes with neither of us saying a thing. The quiet is kinda nice, in a weird way, and I tilt my head this way and that as I listen to the sounds of the forest.

It’s not very long before I notice Emily rubbing her arms to ward off a bitter chill that’s snuck up on us from nowhere. It’s also suddenly quite dark. It may only be half-nine in the morning, but it looks more like half-nine at night. A few thick raindrops are also starting to fall. They gently spot the path in front of us like dapples on a Dalmatian dog

“So much for the fair.”

Coming to a standstill and jostling in place, it’s Emily who breaks the silence. I realise she’s still struggling with the pie and the wine and my hoodie, while I’m stood here completely empty-handed... and shivering. I think my teeth may actually be chattering, the way they do on those Bugs Bunny cartoons.

“It’ll still happen.”

I rub my hands over my arms to warm myself before sliding the honey wine from Em’s cramping fingers. Wedging the bottle between my knees, I grab the hoodie that’s been slung over her shoulders and bury my face in it.

“Mmmm. It’s all snuggly and warm. Thanks for grabbing it.”

“The wine?”

I shake my head, laughing at her.

“No, you daft cow. My hoodie. Can’t believe I just left it in the car. Gran woulda been upset if I weren’t wearing it. Especially in this weather.”

Either Emily doesn’t notice my derision, or she’s become so used to it that it glides right off her like water over a duck.

“Speaking of Gran,” she says, “your mum made me promise we’d give her the pie and wine, both. She said she’ll meet up with us later.”

“Fine.” Sliding my jumper over my head I can tell instantly it’s just been washed. It’s soft and velvety and still has the smell of that fabric softener mum uses—fresh morning dew, I think it’s called—which actually does smell as good as its name. I wrap my arms around myself… and nearly drop the wine I forgot was still wedged between my knees. With a shriek I pinch my legs together and barely manage to sandwich the bottle between my ankles before it would have become so many sticky glass shards in a sugary puddle.

“Oooh,” Emily exclaims. “Nearly! That was a close one.”

“Fuck yeah it was—” I grab the bottle’s thin neck and sling it upward, then snag it from the air with unwarranted cockiness as it tumbles end-over-end before me. My hand makes a thwaaack sound as my fingers slap around it. “—Close, but no cigar.”

Emily’s eyes are big as saucers. “Your mum woulda killed you if you dropped that.” She scrunches up her nose. “And my dad wouldn’t have been so chuffed, either.”

I swat her words away like irritating little gnats and begin walking again. This time, Emily stays hot on my heels.

“Bollocks to them,” I pronounce. “In fact, bollocks to all the APs. All they ever wanna do is tell us what to do. ‘Come here. Go away. Do this. Don’t do that. Do your homework. Turn down that racket you call music.’ Aren’t you tired of it all, Em?”

But of course, she isn’t.

By the way she’s looking at me, I can tell she has no idea what I’m even talking about.

It’s true we’re similar in so many ways that it’s almost like we were separated at birth.

We even have the same birthday… Did I tell you that?

Sometimes, when we’re feeling cheeky, we’ll do our hair the same and wear the same colour outfits and anyone new we meet will think we’re twins. Not the identical kind, mind you, the other ones that are born together and look different.

But even though we’re so alike, it’s also true that Emily and I come from completely different backgrounds.

For a start, my folks don’t have the glossy life and money that Emily’s parents do. We don’t live in St. Nicholas Mews, on the cliff overlooking the sea. Our home is just a bland terraced house on the west side of town, where all the regular folks live.

Secondly, a lot of stuff comes easy for Em. A lot easier than they do for me, anyway. I don’t think she’s had to lift a finger to earn a quid in her life.

Me, on the other hand?

I have chores from the moment I get back from school till the time my mother gets home, which is usually after a double shift and just before I go to bed. Daddy works nights at the factory, so I barely see him. And Mum hardly sees him at all. So you see, my life isn’t all smooth and shiny the way Emily’s is. Like I said, her APs are basically the Duke and Duchess of St. Nicholas Cliff.

Finally, I can’t imagine for one minute they ever raise their voices, let alone argue the way mine do…

…Or worse.

Emily stops dead on the path. “What’s seriously up with you today, Rosie?”

I keep marching on through the woods. This time, she doesn’t budge and only stands there with that whopper of a pie cradled to her bosom like it’s a baby.

“Rose! I said, what’s going on!”

Now she’s actually shouting, which is something I don’t hear her do very often. It may not be that loud or intimidating, but it’s enough—at least for Emily—to stop me in my tracks. I expect she’ll walk toward me now, but she doesn’t move an inch. In fact, she seems to plant herself more firmly on that path.

I don’t know if I should be irritated or impressed.

Realising I’m kinda both, with my tail between my legs I slink back to where she’s stood like a statue.

“I’m sorry, Em. A’ight?”

She doesn’t reply, merely shrugging. If she didn’t have that massive pie cradled to her, I’m sure her arms would be well and truly crossed.

I’m going to have to throw her a bone this time or we’ll never get to the fair. “It’s just the way Mum was acting in the car.”

Still, she says nothing.

“You didn’t notice how weird she was being about your mum… and your dad?”

“She said nice things about my dad.”

“Yeah. A little too nice. And nothing about your mum.”

Emily scrunches her face, lips pursed together and twisting in a crooked expression as she mulls this over. “She asked how my mum was doing. Doesn’t that count?”

It should, I think to myself. But what I actually say is: “No. It doesn’t. Not the way she said it, at least. Didn’t you think she was acting queer?”

“I thought she was acting the way she always does… normal.”

Sitting in the seat directly behind her, Emily didn’t see Mum’s face in the mirror.

But I did.

“She seemed irritated and sad to me,” I say. “Like our two mums have had a falling out or something.”

Again, Emily shrugs.

She starts walking just as the sun peeks out from behind a cloud, soft golden rays piercing the gloom. Through the canopy of trees, it speckles the path with pinpoints of warm light.

“You’re the one being queer, Rosie. Now come on, we still got a chance to play some games before the rain comes for real.”

Now it’s me who has to trot to catch up. Swinging like a dumbbell at my side, Marc Briggs’s honey wine sloshes in the bottle as I pump my arms like one of those sweatsuit-clad power walkers you see in Central Park on shows like Sex and the City.

(I’m not supposed to watch that, by the way. Too racy for me, Mum says. But every now and then I manage to sneak in an episode on Sky TV after she goes to bed, which is pretty early.)

Thing is, it’s not really as bad as Mum makes out. She only thinks it is because she still sees me as a little girl and not the young woman I actually am.

Because Mum doesn’t know what I’ve experienced already.

She doesn’t know the half of it…

6

ONE WEEK EARLIER | THE BRIGGSES' GARDEN PARTY

Mr. Briggs places a finger to his lips and nods once in the direction of the back garden from where most of the adults have just come. He wants me to follow him. It feels odd to see an adult gesturing at me in such a secretive way, the same way the boys do on the playground at school when they want you to come see something gross or try something with them that they shouldn’t be doing, like smoking.

But Mr. Briggs isn’t a boy.

Far from it.

And it’s his house—he can do whatever he bloody-well pleases.

All the APs are now streaming in from the conservatory, and like a salmon swimming against the current, I’m weaving in and out of them, trying to keep up. Mrs. Briggs and Emily are laying out the buffet in the dining room, and if Mr. Briggs had only told me what he was going to show me, I could’ve waited till everyone cleared out. But all he’s said is that it’s something cool—something secret—so I’m doing my best to follow his bobbing head above the crowd.

At least he’s tall, so like a beacon I’m able to focus on the little spot on his crown where his skin is showing through. Some might say he’s balding, but I think his sandy blonde hair is just a little bit less thick there than it is everywhere else. I don’t mind it. In a funny way, it’s actually kinda cute. And he’s handsome enough to pull it off, even if the truth is that it’s a straight-up bald patch.

I duck beneath the gesticulating arm of some chubby geezer who’s the last of the APs to shuffle into the house, and find myself alone in the conservatory which reeks of cigars and stale beer. Mr. Briggs’s Guinesssy-type stout darkens the bottom inch of a good dozen or more abandoned pint glasses that litter every available surface. One AP even set his glass cockeyed in the soil of a potted plant: a satin white dwarf hibiscus that Mrs. Briggs took great pleasure in telling me all about when she first brought it home. It’s her pride and joy, and I can’t help but wonder what she’ll think when she sees this.

Surprisingly clear and hot today, our late October sun is far from its usual demure self. Not a hint of Tupperware Syndrome to be found. As I stand in the conservatory’s floor-to-ceiling glass, I find myself starting to sweat and wondering how anyone is managing to hang out here for more than a few minutes.

And yet they are.

“Pssst.”

The sound of an air leak catches my attention, and my eyes dart across the immaculately manicured lawn to the small potting shed at the back of the garden. There I spot Mr. Briggs ducking into a side door. He makes sure I see him before disappearing from sight, leaving the door ajar.

Inside the shed is cool and earthy.

It’s a lot less bright than the back garden, and a stark contrast to the conservatory with its endless panes of glaring glass.

It takes a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the lack of light, but my nose instantly recognises the heady scent of dark soil and organic fertilisers. Even if I were blind (which I am for a few moments) I’d know we were in a potting shed. But there’s another smell mingling with the fresh dirt and the chicken poo: something sweet and smoky and a little yeasty. The best way I can describe it is that it reminds me of when my gran baked her homemade bread on a Sunday afternoon. That was back in Robin Hood’s Bay where she and Pap lived for years in this lovely old cottage. Then he died and she had to move into the terraced house at the old geezers’ home.

As my eyes adjust, Mr. Briggs comes into focus. He’s leaning against the bench where Emily’s mum does all her planting and such. He smiles and shakes his head as I come in.

“Phew. So much better in here. Don’t you think?” His palms are planted on the bench’s rough surface, his fingers gripping the edge. He’s pressing up and down in a way that makes his torso rise and fall like he’s balancing on a seesaw. I’ve seen the boys do something similar in PE class, though they do it by pressing themselves up and down on the seats of chairs. I think they call them tricep presses. “Too hot for October. I think the Americans call this an Indian Summer.”

I smile but can find nothing to say to this, my eyes darting everywhere but his.

“Why don’t you go ahead and close the door,” he instructs. “It’ll keep this nice cool air from getting out quite so fast.”

As the wood slat door clicks into place, the shed gets even darker. Specks of light shine through a handful of empty knots in the aged wood to play over Mr. Briggs’s body. They seem to move as his torso shifts up and down, his muscles flexing with those mini presses he’s doing against the bench.

I avert my eyes, acquiring a sudden and inexplicable interest in my shoes.

What seemed perfectly natural at first—following a request from my best friend’s father—now feels like something I have to justify in my own mind, and I can’t help but feel a little uneasy.

But also, a little titillated.

Mr. Briggs must sense the change in my demeanour, because he stops leaning back against the bench and stands fully upright. Clearing his throat, he crosses his arms. He uncrosses them again just as quickly to present his open palms: I mean you no harm.

He starts to speak, his lips parting, but stops himself. He tries again, but can’t seem to bring himself to say what it is he wants to say. Instead, he sighs and shakes his head, becoming as fascinated with his shoes as I have become with mine.

He leans back to perch against Mrs. Briggs’ potting bench once more. But this time, he doesn’t move.

Unable to make eye contact, he actually begins to blush.

I’ve never seen an adult act bashful around me, and it’s surprisingly disarming.

I step forward. “Mr. Briggs…?”

He does not look at me but gives me one of those tight-lipped grins you give someone when you don’t want to smile but feel you’re supposed to.

“I’m sorry,” he begins to answer, shaking his head and still not looking at me. It feels like he’s admonishing himself in his own head. I can almost hear it. “I shouldn’t have brought you out h—”

I don’t let him finish. I don’t want him to finish. So I dart forward, rising on my tippy-toes, and give him a peck on the lips. They’re dry, not at all as soft and supple as they appear.

Eyes wide with surprise, he grabs my left arm and presses me away. And just like that, the kiss is over as quickly as it began. But I see another emotion in those eyes, something that looks like affection.

I’m sure of it.

But his grip on my arm tightens and my wrist is starting to hurt as the shock on his face changes to anger.

Or maybe that look is fear.

“Owww! You’re hurting me!” I cry as I yank my arm from his grip and rub my wrist while backing away. Stumbling over a watering can, I nearly knock my head on a spade that’s hanging from a hook on the wall.

“Rose, I’m so sorry! Look, I—”

This is the first time he’s ever called me Rose. Both he and Mrs. Briggs call me by my full name—Rosalie. They always have. The fact that he’s just called me Rose must mean something, surely? I mean, it sounds so much more adult. On one hand, I feel as if I’m about to burst into tears. On the other, I feel like we’re sharing a special moment. After all, he did kiss me back, didn’t he?

I’m sure he did. After all, his lips closed over mine.

Sort of.

Because he was in the middle of saying something, my head tells my heart. He was forming the next word, not kissing you.

I swipe the back of my hand across my mouth and hold it there, unconsciously trying to reenact the moment of contact before I forget what it even felt like.

No! He definitely kissed you back! my heart retaliates as my eyes start to glisten.

Now Mr. Briggs is digging the heels of his hands into his own eyes and rubbing them hard—

“No… no no no no...!”

—and I taste the salt of a fat tear which has run down my cheek to slide into the corner of my mouth. It’s the trigger that sets off an instant and uncontrollable burst of sobbing.

“Oh, Rosalie. Please don’t.” Mr. Briggs Instinctively reaches for me, then immediately snaps back his hand as if it were tethered to a spring. “Rosalie, love. It’s okay. You just got caught up in the moment.”

Rosalie.

Not Rose.

So that must mean he didn’t kiss me back. It was all in my head. Just me being a daft teenager.

And just like that, my first ever kiss is forever ruined.

“I’m so stupid!” I cry out. “So stupid, so stupid, so STUPID.”

“Rosalie, love, I promise it’s fine. I just wanted to catch up with you, that’s all.” He takes one cautious step forward, his palms out. “You know? Get to learn a little more about you. After all, you are my Emily’s BFF.” He attempts a smile but it doesn’t reach his eyes. Instead of being joyful, it looks creepy. “Isn’t that the new term all the cool cats, lads and lasses are using nowadays? BFF?”

For a moment, I stop crying. Or at least I’m crying a little less. What on earth is he going on about? I feel like I don’t know what’s happening anymore. First, the kiss. Then he denies it—

because he didn’t kiss you, my head insists

—and now he’s spouting some rubbish about cats and B-F-Somethings?

I either need to tell him that he’s full of shite and did not bring me out here just to ‘catch up,’ then kiss him again (for real this time, which would prove that he did kiss me back a moment ago), or just say nothing and do the smart thing, which would be to leg it the hell out of here.

Doing neither, I stand here with my face in my hands, my red and weeping eyes peeking out from between my fingers.

“I don’t know what that is,” I mumble.

“I saw it on Friends. Phoebe said it. It stands for Best Friends Forever. B F Fs.”

He inches closer, raising his eyebrows in a manner of asking if it’s okay for him to do so. I give the slightest nod, so small I’m surprised he can even see it. Either way, his hands are now on my shoulders.

“But I think the Americans say it as BFFs,” he says. “The letters real fast together like that. No pause between. You know how them Yanks talk so fast.”

This makes me chuckle, because he sounds just like my mum, and the tears stop as I consider how many times I’ve wondered if Mr. Briggs would’ve been better for Mum than my dad is.

I know, I know. That sounds awful.

But hear me out.

I love my dad, probably more than my mum. (And I mean that both ways. That I love him more than I love my mum, and that I probably love him more than my mom loves him.) So yeah, I do kind of wish mum would go off with someone else; someone who would make her happy; someone who thinks the same way about things as she does. Someone like Emily’s dad. Then we could all be happy.

Saying none of this, I reply only:

“They do talk funny.” Emerging from my mask of fingers like the heart of the flower that is my namesake emerging from its unfolding petals, I feel like maybe I was right. Maybe he did kiss me, after all. “My mum says that, too.”

“Yes! She does say that, doesn’t she.”

His response smacks of intense familiarity but is spoken so swiftly and with such natural ease that I don’t immediately catch it. But this little slip-up will come to echo in my mind later.

“Hey,” he adds, “we should really get back to the party. But before we go—”

He leans closer.

So close that I can smell the cologne on his neck.

I begin to tremble, closing my eyes, opening them again, closing them tight once more. He’s really doing it. He’s really going to kiss me this time.

“—How ‘bout a wee dram of honey wine? To prove there are no hard feelings, eh, Rose?”

So, we’re back to Rose.

Now my heart has no clue what Mr. Briggs—what Marc—thinks of me. And my head doesn’t either. I’m as dejected as I am delighted as his fingers wrap around the neck of a bottle on a shelf behind me and his wedding band tinks against the glass. He slides that long, slender bottle free of its cubby and presents it to me the way I've seen waiters do in the movies when they’re bringing out a special bottle for a posh customer with lots of bank.

He pops the top and the sweet alcohol tang makes me forget that I was crying just seconds ago.

“Will this do, m’lady?”

I giggle, still hiding behind the fingers of one hand as I look up into his eyes—

those big, gorgeous brown eyes

—and accept a small foam cup with a splash of pee-coloured wine in it.

He fills his own up to the brim.

“Cheers, big ears.” Touching the lip of his cup to mine, he makes a pretend ‘clink’ sound with his voice.

I mimic it, which sounds pathetic and ridiculous coming from a thirteen-year-old. Immediately embarrassed, I suck down the wine in two gulps as though it were apple juice.

It comes right back up.

Regurgitated honey wine sprays over Marc’s chest as I choke and splutter.

He’s too stunned to do or say anything.

“Oh, fuck-a-duck. I’m so sorry Mr. Briggs!” Madly swiping the wine from his shirt, my eyes search for some kind of rag or kitchen roll. Mrs. Briggs must have some in here, surely. How else would she manage to clean the dirt from beneath those beautifully manicured nails?

“Hey—” He puts down his cup so he can restrain my hands frantically dabbing at his chest. “—Rosalie! Hey! It’s okay. Really… Don’t worry…!”

He’s smiling, and it’s genuine this time. A smile that fully lights up his eyes. I, on the other hand, look as though I’ve just been informed that I shall be required to run naked through my class assembly this coming Monday.

Loosening his grip, Marc is no longer restraining my trembling hands but simply holding them in his. I can feel their warmth, their calloused skin. He’s saying nothing, just looking at me. Deeply. Like, if he tries hard enough, he might actually see what’s going on inside this head of mine.

Or maybe my heart.

As he probes me with those beautiful eyes, I’m overcome with a heady mix of anticipation and nerves. My breaths are now fast and shallow, my face flushing as I stare back at him without blinking.

Seeking his soul through those deep brown eyes, I lean in for the kiss I’m determined to have when the shed door flies open…

My breath is sucked from my lungs. I stumble back, rocking the shelf behind me, and the bottle of honey wine Marc just opened topples from it. Crashing to the floor in slow motion, it explodes into a thousand shards of sticky glass. At the same time, brilliant sunlight streams into the shed and my dark-adapted eyes fill with starbursts. But not before the face of Emily’s mum, Mrs. Briggs, fades into them.

All aflutter, she’s barking something about needing help with the canapés or a jar of gherkins. “—Need you to open it… Marc? Marc. Are you in h—”

She does not finish the question.

Her husband has me somewhat pinned against the storage shelves; our fingers laced together. On the floor, a wine bottle is smashed, two disposable cups on the workbench beside us. As if this weren’t enough, thanks to me, Mr. Briggs reeks of alcohol despite not having had a drop.

At least, not with me he hasn’t.

Margaret Briggs is slack-jawed, her eyes wide. She narrows them to all but slits and snaps her jaw closed as swiftly as a Venus flytrap as Marc releases my hands and pulls away.

“What the bloody hell’s going on here?” She doesn’t give him time to respond before demanding an answer a second time. “Marc! What the fuck’s going on!”

Stepping across the threshold, she becomes an intimidating silhouette framed in the open doorway.

My vision finally adjusts to the intense change in light as Mrs. Briggs overcomes her initial shock and fully enters the shed. Pulling the door closed behind her, she squares up to her husband.

And by proximity, me.

Marc’s smile, so genuine just moments ago and oozing with easy confidence, now morphs before my very eyes into something nervous and weak. “This looks bad—”

“Too fucking right it does!” Her stare burrows into him. When he does not reply, she turns her attention to me. “She’s a thirteen-year-old girl, Marc. Thirteen! What are you thinking?”

“I’m not thinking anything, Margaret. What exactly do you take me for?”

Mrs. Briggs’s face has turned beet red. The veins in her neck are standing proud. I’d swear I can actually see the blood pumping through them.

“You promised me, Marc! You bloody well promised! No more! Do you hear me?” Her eyes are boring through me, though speaking only to him. “What if she says something? Have you considered that? What then, Marc! What if she opens her mouth and tells someone? Our life will come tumbling down! All of it!”

“Margaret, I swear. It’s not what you think it is.” His eyes are so wide I can see the whites all around them. He nods in my direction without breaking eye contact with his wife. “I came out here to grab another bottle of wine when Emily said she was curious about my home brew setup and asked to see it.”

Mrs. Briggs begins shaking her head back and forth. Sharp, nervous little ticks. Then she burrows her face in her cupped hands and begins to openly sob.

Now Mr. Briggs’s wide-eyed stare is directed only at me, silently pleading for me to play along.

Which I do.

This time.

7

Emily doesn’t know about any of that. Can you imagine if she did? The mere thought of it makes me sick to my stomach. Especially as there’s more to the story. But I have no one I can talk to about it.

And I really wish I did.

Of course, I could always come clean and just tell her. After all, would she really take it as bad as I think she would, or would it just blow over soon enough? Either way, the thought of it terrifies me, ‘cause I couldn’t handle it if I lost her as a friend.

As my best friend.

My BFF, as Marc said.

“It’s starting to rain again,” is all I can think to say as I catch up to her and we walk side-by-side through the trees.

The path we’re on is naturally sheltered by a canopy of interwoven branches from the trees either side, and the sound of the rain gently tip-tapping the leaves high above us is oddly soothing. Especially as we’re staying pretty dry beneath them. But it’s also becoming a little dark, now that the morning sun that was shining so nicely when we first left the house has left us once more.

Another Tupperware Syndrome Day in Britain.

Shocker.

I’m just about to ask Emily if she thinks the sun’ll come back out a third time when the first eery wisps of fog appear. They look like the fingers of spectral beings lurking in the shadows to steal us away.

I shiver, from the idea of it as much as the growing chill, and raise the hoodie of my jumper, pulling it nice and snug over my head. Now I’m even more grateful Emily isn’t a ditz like I am. If she were, she’d have left it lying in the backseat the way I did.

“Wooooooooooo!” I thank her by cupping my hands around my mouth, angling my head towards the sky… and howling. My best werewolf impression. “Keep to the path, lads. Stay clear the moors!”

“Don’t!” Emily stops in her tracks, consuming dread etching upon her face before my very eyes. “You know I hate that bloody movie, Rose!”

An American Werewolf in London.

An oldie, but a goodie. I wasn’t even born yet when it was at the cinema, but I stumbled onto it scanning our Sky TV guide a couple weeks back. After Mum went to bed of course. It is pretty scary, and I’d be in trouble if my APs knew I watched it. But I go mad for it when the Yank turns into that big hairy wolf. It’s kinda silly and spooky at the same time. So of course, I called up Em and made her watch it along with me from her house.

She’s not forgiven me for that.

But I can’t help disagreeing with her: “I love it!”

“It’s naff,” Em argues, looking around as if there might actually be a werewolf in these woods.

“It’s not naff. It’s brill.” I howl again. Even louder and longer this time.

“Stop it, Rosie. I mean it! I won’t go on if you don’t!”

“Awww, don’t be such a big girl’s blouse. It’s only a film.”

I laugh at her and walk on until she has no choice but to catch up to me. If she doesn’t want to be alone in these woods, that is.

We walk in silence, both of us understanding that unwritten universal rule that the first to speak loses.

It’s not long before Em can’t stand it anymore. Lucky for her, the drizzling rain is coming harder now, so it gives her a reason to be the first to open her mouth.

“They’ll call off the fair,” she reports matter-of-factly as if she’s privy to firsthand information from the fête’s organiser, Mrs. Ludlow. The conviction in her tone is as certain as if she were telling someone her name.

“Maybe,” I say.

“No. Definitely.”

Why she’s being like this, I have no idea. Emily loves the fair as much as I do. In fact, we’ve both been so chuffed about it being this time of year again that we’ve been singing the Simon and Garfunkel song Scarborough Fair all week.

I say nothing for a few more steps as the rain starts to come down even heavier, the drops no longer held in check by the umbrella of leaves high above.

“Oh no!” I shriek and start running. I don’t have to convince Emily. She’s already doing the same.

Racing side by side, we reach the greenspace where all the booths are being set up, only to find volunteers and carnival folk alike running and ducking for cover.

One man taking shelter beneath the awning of his food van sees us appear from the line of trees and gestures for us to come join him. It’s obvious he’s not one of the residents forced to volunteer. He’s about the right age, but he’s dressed in a ragged button-down shirt, faded black trousers and a threadbare grey waistcoat. The church’s extra care housing may not be the best, but I can assure you Mrs. Ludlow would not permit one of her residents to present themselves so poorly. Certainly not in public. And never on the day of the fair.

It's chucking it down good and proper now, so I don’t even question the idea of joining him.

Emily follows, though I know she already hates the idea of taking shelter with a strange old carnie.

We make a beeline for the van and I, for one, am grateful for the chance to hunker down beneath its cheerful red and white striped awning. Or should I say, half of it. The other half has yet to be fastened to its frame and is flapping chaotically in the wind.

“Come righ’ on up ‘n squeeze ya’selfs agains’ van,” the man tells us, his deep Yorkshire accent much more clipped than most. It doesn’t help that his voice is muted from shielding his face as he lights the fag dangling from his lower lip. When its tip pops to bright orange life, he offers the cigarette pack to me and Emily.

Surprised, both of us just shake our heads.

We’re all pressed close to the side of the van when a gust of wind all but renders the awning useless as slanting rain blows in.

“Ha’n’t even time t’fix bloody awning proper-like,” the carnie half apologises.

Glowing hot, the tip of his cigarette brightens as he sucks in the smoke. Effortlessly holding it in his lungs, he blows it out through his nostrils in what looks to be two solid white tendrils.

“Sky open’d up an’ jus’ like tha’, it star’ed bucketing down. Pissin’ it proper now, in’nit?”

Most of the T’s, quite a few S’s, and a myriad of other consonants are missing from every other word he says. In their place is a sound akin to something like a hiccup.

Oh, and there’s not a ‘the’ to be found.

As we stand here, shielding our faces from the rain blowing in, it’s more obvious than ever that our gracious host is a gipsy. I imagine he’s originally from one of those small, remote villages on the edge of the moors, a tucked away place where there’s more character than money and the folks are just more… colourful.

Despite what I said earlier about Emily and me being from two completely different worlds, the carnie makes me realise that my bestie and I aren’t nearly as different as I like to think. I mean, sure, Emily’s posh upbringing has made a lot of things easier for her. Me, on the other hand, my APs are just regular working folk. I know they don’t have a lot of bank left after all the bills and stuff are paid. And no one could ever mistake them for speaking the Queen’s English. Instead of their accents being all rounded and smooth like those upper-class posers who sound like they’ve got marbles in their mouths, it’s unmistakable that my APs are Yorkshire born and bred. Still, compared to this guy, my mum and dad sound like Buckingham Palace royals.

Now, I don’t want you to think I’m being a snob or anything. The way the bloke speaks doesn’t bother me. I just find it funny, is all. I don’t care that he’s a gipsy, either. I mean, he seems nice enough, and he has gotten us out of the rain before we went and got ourselves well and truly drenched.

“Hey, mister,” I say above the wind and rain. “Can I have one of those, after all?”

I nod toward the pack of Players cigs peeking out from the pocket of his waistcoat. The carnie grins, plucks the one he’s smoking from his lips and pokes it between mine before I can protest. He then lights a fresh one for himself.

Emily’s looking at me like I’ve gone mad.

And I start coughing like I’ve got tuberculosis.

The carnie ignores it. “You lasses ‘ere for t’fair?”

Emily’s nose is all scrunched up. I can’t help but wonder if she even understands a word he’s saying.

“The fair?” I sputter between wheezing hacks, the question repeated for Emily’s benefit more than mine.

“Yes, lass. T’fair! Is I speakin’ bloody Greek or sum’it?”

I giggle, choking and gasping even more on the smoke.

“’Oi,” the carnie says, shooting me a look. “You’s old enough for that fag, lassie?”

But I’m unable to answer him.

Emily twists her lips into a grimace, her brow furrowing as she shakes her head with disdain. “She’s thirteen, same as me. Rosie just likes to think she’s older. And no, we’re not old enough to be smoking cigarettes.”

“Yes I am!” I exclaim. But seeing as I can’t utter even these three syllables without hacking, the truth of the matter is clear.

“Rosie, eh?” the carnie repeats after Emily, my name being the thing he first latches onto while utterly ignoring my choking fight for breath. “Lovely name, that. Lovely jubbly. Aye, an’ I bet you’re old enough for a lot o’ other things too, eh, lassie…?”

He nudges me hard with his elbow, a boisterous guffaw along with it, and I start coughing again so hard that I decide to toss the cigarette. I flick it between my finger and thumb, watch it sizzle out in the rain-soaked grass.

“I think we should go, Rose.” Emily is beyond frowning. I can see the worry etched across her face as her eyes dart from one part of the greenspace to another. With the rain coming down, everyone has run for cover. There’s not a living soul within a hundred feet of where we are. Add to this distance the static white noise of the rain, and they might even be out of earshot.

I have to wait till I stop coughing to answer her. When I do, it’s not at all what Em wants to hear.

“Go?” I say. “You’re mad, you are. Truly mad. As a hatter. It’s chucking it down even harder now!”

I’m shaking my head, my fists balled into my sides as Emily stares me down. The barest tilt of her head leads my eyes to the community centre on the opposite edge of the greenspace. Most of the carnies and volunteers have gathered there under the overhang, waiting for word from Mrs. Ludlow as to whether they should expect to carry on or not.

“No need t’ stay on my account, lass.”

The carnie is addressing Emily, but his gaze is focused only on me. There’s something unsettling behind those dark eyes, something that gives me the willies, and I sidle a little closer to Em. The carnie’s eyes follow as he whips a penknife from his waistcoat’s inside pocket and picks at a spot of tobacco caught between his teeth… what few he has.

“Me ‘n Rosie are just fine ‘ere,” he tells Emily. “So, go on wif ya’self. Run along now.”

“Em, please don’t,” I whisper as I reach for Emily’s hand. Thankfully, she takes it, squeezing and pulling me closer.

“Em, eh?” the carnie notes. “Tha’ stand for Emily, per’aps?”

Before she realises, Emily reflexively nods.

Now he knows both our names.

“Bonny name, tha’…” He clears his throat with an odd gurgling sound and squints up at the sky, staring at nothing in particular. At least nothing I can see. “Knew me an Emily from ways back. Aye, bonny girl, tha’ one. Bonny as ‘er name, she were.”

He lowers his gaze and focuses on my best friend, empty black pools for pupils that consume her without blinking. Just as I think he’s going to look away, he doubles-down, narrowing his eyes to intense slits as his top lip slowly curls upwards.

It’s the look of yearning as a hyena begins to circle its prey…

…And Emily takes a single, skittish step backward.

She’s now at the edge of the canopy where rain begins to spit down her back; run down her neck. She doesn’t notice. If she does, she doesn’t show it. Squeezing my hand even harder, she’s holding onto me so tightly that her grip is binding my fingers together. “I wanna go, Rose. Please. Let’s just go—”

I look at the sky and the rain coming from it in sharp vertical streaks. Yet somewhere to the north, probably over my house, a tiny slice of blue has cut through the storm clouds.

We could just wait it out.

But then I look at Emily. Tears have begun to swell in her eyes, electric fear coursing through her so intensely I can feel it. My hand gripped in hers is all but vibrating.

“It’s only a spot of water. Right…?” I sweep the crimson hood from my head and take a decisive step backward. No longer beneath the shelter of the awning, I’m instantly pelted with cold, penetrating rain. It drenches my hair, plastering my fringe to my forehead and streaking my cheeks.

I tug Em’s hand, and she also takes a step backward, joining me in the downpour.

“See ya,” I tell the carnie. “Wouldn’t wanna be ya! Thanks for the smoke.”

A single wave of my free hand emphasises the farewell before Em and I run full-out across the park, hand-in-hand.

I don’t look back until we nearly reach the community centre, giggling with relief.

But when I do, I wish I hadn’t.

Because the carnie is following us…

8

The rain’s even heavier now, but it hardly matters. We’re already soaked to the bone. So, we agree to just run the rest of the way to Gran’s. Shouting over the wind, we vocalise why this makes sense instead of just sheltering at the community centre with everyone else.

Really, we’re both just trying to convince ourselves.

“The fair could still happen!” Em yells, then has to take a couple more breaths between strides. “Right? If the rain stops, I mean? We can wait it out at Gran’s!”

I’m getting a cramp in my side and have to slow down. Em notices me falling behind and slows down too, even though I can tell she just wants to get there.

I don’t blame her, Gran’s house is in view now.

Grinding to a halt and doubling over, I pull cold air into my aching lungs. Em doesn’t seem out of breath as much as me, and she keeps glancing ahead. Still, she waits with me as the rain plasters her hair to her face.

“Even—if it—doesn’t stop,” I finally sputter in broken segments, “the fireworks—will—still be on.” (…Big breath in…) “We can watch—from Gran’s—upstairs—window.”

When Em swipes the hair from her eyes, it’s my chance to sneak a quick look behind us.

Thank God, I don’t see the carnie anywhere.

He was trailing by less than a dozen steps, but now he’s nowhere to be seen. I have no idea where he’s disappeared to, and don’t care. At least he’s not following us anymore.

Relieved, I say nothing and start striding the last short stretch to Gran’s, my steps hitching and my fist balled into my aching side.

At Gran’s doorstep, we both release a pent-up burst of nervous laughter. Em knocks as I scan the pavement behind us, more anxious about the carnie than I realise.

“Gran’s not here,” Em exclaims. “Ughh, Rose! Now what? I’m soaked to the bloody bone!”

“Bloody? Oh my, did you just curse again, Miss Emily?” I wink at her and she becomes shy. “Look at you, all grown up and swearing. How ‘bout that!”

She has no comeback and hides her face in her hands. I pull them away, shaking my head.

“She’s gotta be home, you daft cow.” I knock three times, fast and sharp. “It’s Guy Fawkes Day. Prob’ly just on loo. Or she has telly on too bloody loud to hear those mousey little taps o’ yours.”

Waiting for Gran’s response, I recognise the carnie’s folksy way of speaking has rubbed off on me. Clearly, he’s made quite an impact. Either that, or I’m just crazy impressionable.

I knock on the door again, four big pounds of my fist this time and twice as loud as before.

Still, there’s no reply.

Now I knock so hard it stings my hand.

But Gran doesn’t answer.

“Well, bugger me with a spoon. What the bloody hell, Gran?”

“See? Told you she weren’t home, Sherlock. Now what?”

It’s still pissin’ it down. Not as bad as it was, but enough for everything beyond Gran’s crowded little front step to fade into a shimmering blur. And to be honest, being soaking wet is starting to lose its charm right about now.

Pressing my back as flat to Gran’s house as possible, the little overhang above the front step is barely keeping us dry. It might even be worse than just standing out there in the rain, ‘cause each wispy breeze blows the rain and the overhang’s runoff at us in spritzes.

“Well, Holmes,” I say to Em, rolling with her Sherlock comment, “we can wait it out here, or—”

“—Or we can just go in?

Emily turns the knob and the front door creaks open. “I guess she left it unlocked. Maybe she knew she’d be out for a spell and didn’t want to leave us stranded?”

Maybe.

So, why am I breaking out in goosebumps and a sense of dread like someone’s just trod over my grave?

“Gran?” I call out as I poke my head through the door. “It’s Rosie, Gran. And Emily.”

I wait for an answer, but all I hear is the sound of rushing water cascading from the gutter downspouts beside us.

“Gran…?”

Nothing.

Emily sweeps past me. Sheeting from her saturated clothes, rainwater puddles instantly over the entry hall rug and Em’s feet squelch with each step.

“It’s Emily, Gran! And Rosie! We’re here!”

Still peering in from the doorway, I’m blasted by a cold sheet of rain and scurry inside with a shriek. It’s a squeeze for two of us to fit in this narrow entry hall, and in my hurry, I accidentally bump into my bestie.

I barely touch her, but Em canters to one side, her foot skidding from the rug and scrabbling for purchase on the slick tile floor. She performs an awkward pirouette, loses her balance, and spins to the ground. The back of her head misses the fluted edge of Gran’s antique marble hall table…

…But claps the floor with a dull cracking sound that lurches my stomach.

For a moment, she doesn’t move. How long it lasts I don’t know, because time has come to a standstill.

I reach for her, but the air has become treacle. The motion so slow it’s the stuff of nightmares. I cry out her name, but the sound is sucked into a void.

The world has become stifled by silence.

It’s a year—a second—a day—until Em’s massively wide eyes squeeze shut, her brow lining with pain.

Then she begins to scream.

This I hear, and the slow-motion spell is broken.

“Oh my God, Em!”

I’m on my knees, my fluttering hands trying to decide what they should be doing. Do I immobilise her head? Hold her face? Caress her hands? Do I stop her from reaching for the line in her scalp where the hair has parted and is beginning to ooze deep red?

In the end, all I can think to do is embrace her as Em lies contorted and trembling on the cold wet floor. Already on my knees, I lie prone right beside her, wrapping my arms around her waist and telling her over and over again how sorry I am. That it was an accident. That I didn’t mean to hurt her.

But my apologies are swallowed by the sea of her agonised wails. Wave upon wave of them, crashing down…

9

Iwanna go home!”

Sitting at Gran’s small kitchen table, Em’s screams have finally stopped. It’s taken ten minutes, but they’ve now turned to pitiable sobs. Dabbing the blood from her scalp with one hand, I’m tearing into a brand-new pack of self-adhesive plasters from Gran’s medicine cabinet with the other. But the box is wrapped in the kind of shrink film you can’t rip, no matter how hard you try, so I have to rummage through Gran’s junk drawer for a pair of scissors. All the while, a little bit of me dies inside with each one of Emily’s mewling whimpers.

After three failed attempts, I finally manage to apply (still rather poorly) a plaster to the gash on the back of her head. Thankfully, the bleeding has stopped and the cut itself no longer looks as serious as it first seemed.

Or as bad as Emily made it sound.

“It’s fine now,” I assure her as I gently tease her hair back into place over the flesh-coloured plaster. “Really. Can’t even see it, it’s that small.”

Which is actually true. I don’t tell her it’s because the laceration is deep instead of long. But it really is still quite small—

—ish.

“I-I-I wa-wanna g-go h-h-home.”

I don’t know what to say to this. Here I was worried about her finding out that the creepy carnie was following us. When in fact the real danger turned out to be me and my stupid impatience.

A bull in a china shop, you are, my mum has told me more times than I can count.

Now I see why.

“I really am sorry, Em. Really. I don’t know how many more times I can say it. But the day’s only started, and I don’t want you to go. We haven’t even seen Gran yet. Plus, the rain’s already stopping, so the fair will go on after all. Take a minute and just think about it, ‘kay?” I run my fingers over her cheeks, wipe away her tears. “Please, babe? For me?”

Emily looks at me with those big, doleful blue eyes peeking out from beneath a fringe of dark hair, and my heart beats that little bit faster. She doesn’t respond, but at least she’s not boohooing anymore.

Which is when I hear it.

A startling clap, maybe a slap, followed by what sounds like a man’s laughter.

I wince but shrug it off.

No doubt Mrs. Ludlow is back on the greenspace, making up for lost time. If we were at the community centre right now, I’d bet a penny to a pound we’d see the carnies and Ludlow’s army of decrepit old ‘volunteers’ already out there, resuming their setups despite the lingering drizzle.

“How ‘bout this…” I propose to Em and those glistening blue eyes that are staring at me like a lost puppy. “The rain’ll be done soon. Look—it’s barely coming down at all now. Let’s just wait for Gran to get back. She’ll look at your cut, just to be on the safe side. Then, if you still wanna go home, I promise I’ll go with you.”

My fingertips linger upon her cheek, and I casually allow them to brush ever so lightly over Em’s pouty lips. They’re warm and soft and slightly wet from crying, and the feel of them beneath my fingers makes my stomach flutter.

“Eh, babe? How’s that sound?”

I’ve never touched Emily this way before. All these years of us being friends—best friends—and for the first time ever, I find myself forgetting all about becoming the future Mrs. Liam Gallagher, or dwelling on what happened with Emily’s dad. The only feeling I have is a sudden desire to kiss Em’s lips. Full and round and building from deep inside my tummy, it’s an undeniable urge to know what they taste like.

Closing her eyes, Em becomes silent for the first time since she fell. Slowly parting her lips, she allows my fingertips to play over them once more—longer this time, more deliberate—and my heart races as forks of lightning sizzle down my spine.

I don’t even think about what happens next.

I just do it.

Bending down to be face-level, I gently place my lips to hers.

She doesn’t pull away.

I can taste the salt of her tears; feel the warmth and softness of her mouth as I allow my own lips to part. It’s the most incredible moment of my life…

…Until Emily pushes me away.

Hard.

“Get away from me! What the bloody hell are you doing, Rose!” The legs of her chair scrape across the kitchen’s linoleum floor with a juddering squeal. Creating distance between us, her eyes are so wide that for the second time today I see the whites all around the blue—that pale Caribbean blue—as she stares up at me in horror.

I’m so surprised, I don’t know what to say. I’m not even sure what just happened, if I’m honest.

“I just… just thoug—”

“Just thought what, Rose? What did you bloody-well think?”

My cheeks are hot as I back away. My pulse is racing, but no longer in a good way.

What exactly was I thinking… that my bestie and I were going to become young lovers? That we would forever have each other’s hearts?

My lips are dry and quivering. Tears well up and sting my eyes, growing heavy upon my lower lids. Even as Emily rises from her chair and comes toward me, I can find no words.

“You pushed me on purpose back there!” There’s a fury in her eyes now, and for the first time in my life I’m a little frightened of my best friend. “You wanted me to fall, admit it! You wanted me to get hurt! That way you could play nursemaid and kiss it all better!”

I don’t see her hand until it’s already struck my face.

A moment later, I feel it.

First comes the sting.

Then the shocking realisation as the force of the slap spins me around and now I’m eye-to-eye with Gran’s stupid novelty wall clock, a smiling black cartoon cat whose bulbous eyes flick back and forth with every second.

The distinct taste of blood comes next.

Finally, a sharp, searing pain.

I touch my lips and my finger and thumb both come away red. Somewhere on the left side of my mouth my tongue senses a tooth not quite as firm as it was a moment ago.

And now the tears pour down my face.

Emily doesn’t look a bit remorseful.

“You’re a fucking whore, is what you are, Rose! My mum is right! You’re just a dirty, filthy slut! And a raving lesbo!”

I’m too stunned to protest, though I try.

“I—I—didn’t! I’m not!”

“You are too!” Emily brandishes her hand again and I shrink away, defensively covering my face. “I know what you did with my dad, Rose! Mum told me. She told me, Rosie! She saw you. She knows what you did. She saw everything!”

Em’s eyes darken to the shade of soot, her stunning blue irises all but swallowed up by her dilated pupils.

Just when I think she’s about to clock me across the face again, she backs away.

A steam train with no coal left to burn, my friend collapses onto the kitchen chair clutching the back of her head. The gash has burst open again and is oozing blood so thick and dark it looks like treacle.

She explodes into tears when she realises this. But not before she destroys my already broken heart: “I hate you, Rosie Tanner! I’ve always hated you.”

The venom flowing from her is so lethal, I can barely comprehend it. My heart is sliced open by words sharp as razors. Just when I think I can bear no more, she hits me with the one and only insult she can never take back:

“I wish you were dead!”

I can’t breathe.

My legs are rubber. Falling back against the wall, my head claps Gran’s novelty clock and it comes tumbling down. The plastic case shatters, but still the cat’s eyes tick back and forth, staring up at me from the floor like something undead.

Silent and expressionless, Emily freezes, a wild animal cornered. On the table in front of her are Gran’s shiny metal kitchen shears, the ones I used to open the box of plasters. Only now I’m seeing them in a way I hadn’t before.

Mere minutes ago, they were a mundane tool.

Now, they gleam with menace.

Emily follows my eyes, her narrowing gaze revealing that she sees them now in the same way I do.

I have to get to them first.

Before I can move, she slaps a hand over them. The sound of it echoes through the house like a thunderclap.

My stomach leaps to my throat; my pulse throbbing hot and fast in my neck. If you’d told me even fifteen minutes ago I’d ever be frightened of Emily Briggs, I’d have straight-up laughed at you.

Now, I’m frantically scanning the kitchen for something I can defend myself with as Emily drags the gleaming scissors oh-so-slowly toward her…

THE BIG BAD WOLFE

10 LEVI WOLFE

In a bedroom not a dozen steps away, a carnie reeking of grease and sweat looms over sixty-nine-year-old grandmother, Flora Tanner.

Her hands have been twisted behind her back, her wrists tied together with a satin pillowcase the man has spun into a cord. The binding is so tight it’s on the verge of being a tourniquet, turning her fingertips blue.

Any attempt to protest has been muted by a pair of Flora’s own tights which spill from her mouth, her cheeks glistening from sheets of tears which have streaked the makeup from her face. A product of her wheezing attempts for air as much as her suffocating, all-consuming fear.

13 MINUTES BEFORE

Casual taps at first, the knocking quickly grew frantic.

Expecting her granddaughter keen to get out of the rain, Flora was shocked to find not Rosalie but a burly oil-covered stranger. Before she registered what was happening, the man was across the threshold.

“Don’t make a peep, ol’ girl,” Levi Wolfe instructed in a whisper and slapped his thick, greasy hand over her mouth.

Bundling Flora into the first open room he found, he spun the grandmother onto the bed. With a dexterity that only comes from having done this many times before, he dug his knee into the small of Flora’s back while using her own pillowcase to bind her wrists together.

Flora’s shocked protests only provoked him; her pitiable pleading even more so. Both were silenced when he tore the woman’s sheer tights from her legs, stuffed them into her mouth and stifled the panic that rose in her throat but went no further.

It was mere minutes before another set of knocks came to Flora’s front door, followed by not one but two young voices calling out from the doorstep.

Girls’ voices.

More knocks.

Hushed words sounding like the start of a squabble.

Then the telltale creak as the front door opened.

Just as Levi himself had done, whoever was here now had also let themselves in.

Shoulda locked bloody door, the man silently berated himself, though finding a delicious irony in it. Here he had been trying doors at random just to see if any were unlocked, and he finds the one that has another pair of trespassers hot on his heels. Oh well. Nowt you can do about it now, ol’ boy.

With the care of a mother who’s just put down her newborn for their nap, Levi closed Flora’s bedroom door, turning the lock in nimble silence.

Whoever had come after him need never know he was here.

Besides, they sounded young.

Very young.

And while Levi was the first to admit that he was no longer in the best shape of his life, these interlopers could hardly pose a threat to the man who boasted well over six feet in height and seventeen stone in weight.

“Not a single sound outta ya now, Granny,” Levi whispered to the back of Flora’s head. “An’ everythin’ will be righ’ as rain, yeah?”

He clapped his thigh and let out a barely muted laugh.

“Righ’ as rain,” he repeated with little inflection to his voice as he gazed almost proudly at the downpour which continued to come down in buckets outside Flora’s window. “…I cracks meself up, I does.”

“Well now. It don’t mean I canna still do what I come t’do.” He winked at the woman lying prone beneath him, temporal arteries visibly bulging from her temples. “Isn’t that righ’, ol’ girl…?”

He was ripping Flora’s clothes from her when a clamour from the hallway distracted him.

It began with the squeaking of rubber soles upon wet tile and a flat, hollow crack (the kind that makes your stomach sink).

Then…

…Silence.

The wails of agony that broke it a moment later came wave upon wave, so loud they all but drowned out the second girl’s panicked cry:

“Oh my God, Em!”

How he was meant to bust a nut with all this racket was beyond him. But he was here for a purpose. And by God, that purpose would be fulfilled…come hell or high water.

Straddling the grandmother who dare not move, Levi closed his mind to the hallway-borne shrieks and concentrated only on the physical sensation as each violent thrust buried him deeper within the woman on the bed.

He ignored the blood—

because there was always blood

—and squeezed her neck with hands the size of bear paws until he spasmed one last time.

It took longer than usual to come this time.

Certainly, longer than he’d hoped.

The whole event wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the others had been. Because if Levi Wolfe had learned one thing over the years, there was a direct correlation between time and satisfaction.

Excitement made you finish quick. So, if it took too long, that could only mean it wasn’t terribly exciting.

Still, he had managed to come, regardless.

Dismounting the woman with a grunt, he just couldn’t shake that irritating sand of dissatisfaction. Flipping the woman over, he slapped her face as punishment.

This could’ve been so much better.

It should’ve been better.

“Not me best work,” he told the grandmother, whose muffled weeping continued. “But all’s I got in me. Still, was the best you’s had in donkey’s years, eh, ol’ girl?”

He was zipping his trousers when a third outburst came from somewhere down the hall.

“—Away from me! What the bloody hell are you doing!”

That had been Girl #2, he decided.

It was followed by something weak and pathetic from the first girl, something the man couldn’t make out.

A juddering squeal of metal chair legs over linoleum floor.

“Just thought what? What did you bloody-well think? You pushed me on purpose!”

Yet again, he was unable to hear the other girl’s meek and muttered reply.

Girl 2 definitely has Girl 1 on the ropes, he thought, and found himself grinning.

Then came a sound the man recognised easily, having heard it more times than he could count: The unmistakable tone of skin striking skin.

GIRL 2: “You’re a fucking whore [garbled]. My mum is right! [Incomprehensible]… filthy slut! And a raving lesbo!”

GIRL 1: “I—I—didn’t! I’m not!”

GIRL 2: “You are too! I know what you did with my dad, Rose! [More jumbled outcries]… She saw everything!”

Rose… Levi had heard that name before.

Recently.

“Hmmm.” He ran his tongue over lips dry and blistered with cold sores as he scoured his brain to remember where. Memory no longer came to him as surely as it once had, but this one came surprisingly swift.

Yes… yes! That young lassie what had scampered under the awning of Elijah’s van, just one space over, it were. Yes!

If so, then this was his lucky day indeed. For Rose had caught his attention, alright. So much so, that the young girl had been the reason Levi Wolfe had left his own booth and gone a-rambling in the rain in the first place, testing the neighbourhood for unlocked doors in the hopes of satisfying this sudden and consuming itch.

An uneasy silence lasted for over a minute as Levi now sat on the bed beside Flora Tanner, listening.

Thankfully, the grandmother’s weeping had now fallen silent. Bound and utterly still, she lay patiently as he eavesdropped and strategised, deciding if he’d have another crack at the grandmother. Or, maybe, something perhaps a bit younger…

“I hate you, Rosie Tanner!” Girl 2 (Levi couldn’t recall this lass’s name, for she was more homely than Rose) declared with the kind of venom that even the gentlest of people find when their life has been ripped to shreds. “I’ve always hated you. I wish you were dead!”

12 MINUTES LATER

More than Flora’s fingers have begun to turn blue. The colour now creeps up her arms, over her chest, into her face.

The man either fails to notice or does not care. He prods her, and Flora’s listless body rocks to one side.

“Those your lasses out there, ol’ girl? ‘Cause they’s havin’ it out like a coupla stray dogs, they is.”

Flora does not respond.

“Oi! I’s talkin t’ya—”

But Flora Tanner is unmoving.

Fixed on a spot high above, her empty stare draws Levi’s attention, and he finds his own eyes following it.

He sees nothing there but a tobacco-stained ceiling.

“Don’t know whatcha eyeballin’, ol’ gal. Here,” he opens Flora’s mouth. “Why don’t ya tell me…”

Extracting the balled-up tights from Flora’s mouth, he tugs on them until the last mucous-covered length comes free of her throat. Smiling, he nudges her with his elbow. But his grin slowly relaxes when Flora does not blink; does not move; does not breathe.

“Well, fuck a duck. Least ya went out happy, ol’ girl.”

With a tenderness so contrary to the brutality just perpetrated, the man returns Flora’s tattered knickers to roughly where they belong; closes Flora’s eyes; gingerly frees her wrists from their bindings.

As he unties her hands, he wraps the twisted pillowcase around his forehead as a memento, tying it off in the fashion of a rock singer’s headband. Its tails dangle loosely, brushing against his neck, and he mimes holding a mic stand. This he had done for real ‘in the good ol’ days,’ and in his mind he’s back in them right now, crooning classics like Ferry Cross the Mersey by Gerry and the Pacemakers or Tie a Yellow Ribbon by Tony Orlando and Dawn. Performing at pubs and working-men’s clubs across the country, it was the man’s heyday to sing for drunken patrons as a traveling artiste.

Alas, a stint in the old nick put pay to the life he so loved. All because one silly bint complained he’d done things she hadn’t agreed to.

Even though she had.

Levi is pulled from this reverie when another commotion breaks out. He can’t tell if it’s Girl 1 screaming in pain as Girl 2 shouts, or the other way around.

More juddering of chair legs against linoleum.

Then a crash as something dislodges from a wall and shatters.

A crisp thunderclap.

A scuffle.

Metallic jangling as a knife—no, not the right sound. A pair of metal scissors, perhaps?—clatters to the ground.

More shouting.

An unmistakeable struggle.

Both girls fighting for the scissors?

Then deafening silence.

He turns to Flora Tanner’s lifeless body on the bed. Glances at his crotch. The bulge there is testament that fucking the old bitch wasn’t the least bit satisfying.

Despite the fact that he had come, Levi still feels the itch—that raw, niggling itch—which is especially disappointing given that Flora was his first old gal. Firsts were invariably exciting, and exciting almost always meant a pure, unadulterated release.

Not so, this time.

The itch remains. As pressing as ever.

But the old girl is gone, and he’s no necro. He may be a lot of things, but not that.

Never that.

Yet he’s as randy now as when he first set out to test if any old gals had been daft enough to leave their doors unlocked.

Which puts him in somewhat of a pickle.

He mustn’t be gone much longer lest he raise suspicions from his fellow carnies. And he won’t risk going to the nick again. Not for anyone. Least of all this old gal who was, quite frankly, a terrible lay.

This leaves him little choice but to ignore that tireless itch and return to the setup of his booth. If he doesn’t, he can already hear the accusations and smirks disguised as joviality from those who pretend they are his friends while secretly reviling him.

And revile him they do.

This he knows to be true, and it pains him more deeply than he would ever let on. But he holds fast to the solace that he always has, and always will, have what they won’t. Which is to say anything—and anybody—he ever wants.

Desire something?

Just take it.

Which Levi did, and often.

His so-called friends, on the other hand, were too pathetic and cowardly to take what was rightly theirs.

Full of barroom bravado, they is, but no backbone. Not likes me. They doesn’t know the real way of the world the way I does.

Bolstered by this reminder of his supremacy, Levi Wolfe loosens his belt and slides it from his trousers. His waistcoat may be tattered, his white button-down shirt aged and yellowing. But his belt—

oh, that wonderful belt

—is made of finest Italian leather, its quality second to none. This he knows, for the mouse of a man from whom he acquired it had told him so. Right before he stomped on the mouse until he ended its pathetic life amidst a shower of squeals.

Placing the loose end of the belt in his palm and wrapping it around his fist, Levi unlocks the door to Flora Tanner’s bedroom.

Surprisingly stealthy for his size, he makes his way down the hall in silence.

With his silhouette filling the threshold to the kitchen, Levi smirks as he snaps the belt in his hand, a sharp whipcrack he thoroughly enjoys for the startled animal response it invariably elicits from his unsuspecting victims.

But what transpires next is not what Levi expects, for neither girl screams, nor turns with eyes wide as saucers. Instead, they seem not to hear as one girl looms aggressively over the other, a pair of kitchen shears in her hand glimmering beneath the stark overhead light.

Levi does not know if it is Rosie crouching over Girl #2, or the other way around.

Whichever it is, blood cascades down the blades of the shears. Like red wax over the neck of a whiskey bottle, it envelops the girl’s hand in a sheet before cascading to her feet in thick drops…

11

THE HOME OF EMILY BRIGGS

Oh my God, baby, what’s happened!”

The words screech from the throat of Margaret Briggs like air from the constricted neck of a balloon.

In the middle of a phone call with her sister in London, the sight of the tattered and bloody girl is such a jarring contrast to the mirth of her mildly inebriated holiday call that Margaret’s smile has yet to fade. Any witness to this moment might be forgiven for thinking her response wildly inappropriate.

Frozen in place, this inane grin remains upon the mother’s face as the phone clenches tighter in her hand.

“Margaret—?” Small and tinny, the disembodied voice of her sister chirps from the other end of the cordless handset as it drifts slowly from Margaret’s ear. “—Margaret! What’s happening? Is my niece okay?”

As comprehension catches up to what she’s seeing, a panicked scream erupts from the mother’s lungs. Staccato sharp, it conceals the sound of both the glass tumbler and phone which crash to the floor.

Margaret does not realise she’s released either from fingers which have failed to work. Nor does she feel the fine shrapnel shards that prickle her shins, or the tequila and triple sec splashing her feet and ankles as the Briggs’s expensive new cordless phone skates through the alcohol before spinning beneath the kitchen island.

All else ceases to exist as the mother becomes hyper-aware of the torn and blood-soaked clothing, the matted hair, the petite hand hanging limply. Swollen and bruised, it has already begun to discolour.

“Mummy… He… He…”

The girl’s words are disjointed, forced, barely audible.

“He took her,” she repeats, as emotionless as if she’s asking her mother for a glass of milk.

But then the world begins to swim before the girl’s fluttering eyes. She lists to one side, her legs unsteady and loose beneath her. Now her words gush out in a torrent as reality sets upon her.

“The carnie! He took her, Mummy! He took her!”

12

There’s no question that Guy Fawkes Day is the worst in the calendar year for security guard Graham McEwan. If he had his way, he’d outlaw the whole bloody holiday.

Burn injuries? Up fifty-five percent on the days leading up to November fifth.

Fire rescue calls? Same statistic.

Violent assaults? Also up.

The government doesn’t release stats for this latter category, but Graham knows it to be true. As a former paramedic for more than two decades, Bonfire Night is the one above all others when pub brawls, domestic assaults, and every other foul act you can think of, are accepted as commonplace.

In short, when the booze slings, the fists fling.

He thought it would be different here when he joined the part-time security detail for a small population of elderly women, and quite a few less men, residing at Sea View Cottages extra care home.

An easy gig.

It had to be… surely?

It needed to be.

For Graham’s sanity, if not for the sake of his marriage.

There would be no motorway crashes where the cars and their occupants of all ages were reduced to little more than tins of kippers. No more patching up gangs of lads who went feral the moment the pubs let out at 11pm, a lethal mix of too many beers, too much testosterone, and not enough common-sense morphing normally decent, God-fearing boys into violent lager louts.

No indeed.

At Sea View Cottages, the worst Graham anticipated was the odd lockout if one of the residents forgot their keys. Or perhaps the occasional call where one of the old gals might hear a noise she couldn’t explain and went and spooked herself silly. But that would be the extent of drama at Sea View.

Or so he thought.

Joining the team two Decembers ago, rookie Graham had been assigned every holiday shift. Working his first Christmas in over a decade had been disappointing: Sober as a choir boy as he walked his beat, Graham longed to lounge about in his robe, a tumbler of scotch in hand, as he watched the Queen’s annual speech on telly; or to enjoy a snooze during the James Bond film fest while wife Doreen busied herself over Christmas dinner.

But the fact that he would no longer have to work as a paramedic on Bonfire Night more than made up for such losses.

He was equally happy to not deal with the pandemonium that would take place at home. For every November fifth, the crowded estate on which they lived would erupt with endless blasts of gunpowder-filled bangers or kids daring each other to play "knock–a–door–run" until his poor Border Collie would howl himself hoarse.

Unfortunately, Sea View Cottages was about to prove it was no respite from the Guy Fawkes / Bonfire Night chaos.

The first year was a minor incident: Sprays of graffiti across three of the facility’s terraced homes. The culprits were a group of lads seen running away with spray cans in hand, their mouths running even faster than their feet.

The second year was worse.

One of the homes was broken into while the resident, a gracious and gentle veteran of the Second World War, was manning one of the games at the fair. To make matters worse, the booth the veteran had been tending wasn’t even his own. Generous as he was, the man agreed to watch a younger resident’s booth despite having already fulfilled his own volunteer shift. It was while he had been fulfilling this favour that his own home was burgled.

Now, as Graham commences his third year working the holiday he so loathes, he hopes beyond hope that the third time will be the charm.

His rounds start with a soggy trudge through the rain-soaked greenspace. Volunteers and carnies alike have scattered for the shelter of the community centre, so he walks alone through the sopping wet grass.

Sporting rubber Wellington boots and a wax jacket with a bright yellow security patch sewn to the breast pocket, he takes joy in splashing through the puddles. If only for a few hops and jumps and walloping, whomping stomps, the little boy Graham once was, and who still resides deep within, is permitted to come out to play.

Having gotten this silly bit of fun out of his system, next comes a quick inspection of the block of flats around the corner. When they check out, Graham takes a stroll to the terraced row of homes at the back of the community.

Which is when he sees it.

One of the residents’ doors is not only ajar but has been flung wide open. Something red is smeared halfway up its jamb. On the single rain-soaked step before it, the same seems to be gently swirling in a small puddle.

What he’s seeing could’ve been caused by anything. Eyes can deceive the mind. This Graham understands. Especially when those eyes have been conditioned to expect the worst. Which means, odd as it appears, this could be the product of something absolutely innocuous, and nothing to worry about at all.

But Graham knows that isn’t true.

He knows this is something.

Something bad.

And just like that, Graham’s third, and about to be the worst, Guy Fawkes Day at Sea View Cottages has begun.

Another man might dismiss the scene and move on; leave the drama for someone else to clean up. After all, his wages are an embarrassment for a man in his fifties, barely above that of a cashier at the local grocers.

But Graham isn’t any other man.

Glancing around, he gauges his surroundings, approaching the door with caution. His pulse quickens, the cords in his neck stiffening with that all-too-familiar anxiety which has plagued him for years on this day.

“Halloooo,” he calls out as he leans through the open doorway, careful not to touch anything. “Halloooooo?”

He receives no answer.

A double-check of the house number confirms his concern: it’s the home of Flora Tanner, who never fails to wave to him on his rounds and has many times offered him choccy biscuits and ‘a good hot cuppa’ on the worst of the weather days.

He swallows down the lump which has formed in his throat, barely managing to call out her name before gathering himself.

Still, no answer.

“Flora? it’s Graham McEwan.”

After a discomforting pause, he adds for posterity:

“Sea View Security,” though Flora of course knows Graham and his role better than most. “I’m coming in to check on you. Alright, my love?”

He steps cautiously over the puddle on Flora’s front step to avoid the red-whorled water.

The entry hall is worse.

A vase has fallen from the side table, the table itself askew, and the rug is stained with a clotted red blemish so dark it’s nearly brown.

Graham’s stomach tightens.

“Flora? It’s Graham. Are you here? If so, can you hear me, love?”

But he already knows she’s here. And he also knows she can’t. Call it intuition, call it decades of experience attending the worst medical emergencies you can imagine. Whatever you label it, Graham can feel this knowledge as palpably as he feels the rapid breaths in his chest.

Another guarded step. Another scan of the hallway.

In a room to his left, his expectations are confirmed.

Flora Tanner’s motionless body lies atop her bed, her pale blue knickers turning purple with what appears to be a growing patch of blood.

Oh, Christ on the cross.

Graham freezes in place, ensuring he has not touched anything.

“Flora? I see you’re on your bed. This is Graham, love. Graham McEwan. I’m going to come in and check on you…”

It’s far from the first time he’s seen a dead body.

But this one hits harder.

Not only did he know Flora Tanner, he liked the old bird. She was sassy. Unconventional. Smart.

Many’s the time they set the world to rights, chatting away on the pavement in front of Flora’s home. And at just sixty-nine years of age, she was one of the younger residents. Hell, she was barely a decade older than Graham himself. And in their own way, you could say that Flora and Graham were even friends of a sort.

Goddamnit.

His paramedic skills no longer needed, Graham sets about the task of securing what is clearly a crime scene. While he himself has never been a police constable, his previous life placed him alongside street bobbies and detectives alike at more crime scenes than he cares to count. It’s not hard to pick up on the procedures they immediately initiate. In fact, he’s certain it’s this knowledge, paired with his still-active paramedic registration, that tipped the scales when Sea View Cottages’ Managing Director, Marie Ludlow, was choosing her next security hire.

He palms the two-way radio in his hand and the walkie-talkie crackles to life.

“Martin? I need an ambulance at the Tanner house.” He releases the talk button then presses it again, adding: “And police.”

The voice that answers is tinny, filled with static.

“Oi, Graham ol’ son. Can you repeat? It sounded like you need the Old Bill and a meat-wagon.”

“Affirmative.”

The pause that follows is thick with feeling as Graham’s request sinks in. “Good God, mate. What the serious fuck’s happened out there? And which address, again—?”

Already stationed on the greenspace in case any of the day’s festivities called for medical attention, it’s less than three minutes before the ambulance pulls up outside Flora Tanner’s home.

Rushing in with medical gear in great bulging rucksacks, the paramedics disappear inside as the first constable arrives on foot, having also been assigned to the fair.

Asking for the basic info, he commences a preliminary walk-through of the house with Graham at his side and slightly behind. He will not address Flora Tanner’s body until the paramedics have completed their evaluation and confirmed Graham’s assessment.

In the entry hall is a jostled side table and small patch of blood, but it’s the kitchen that’s a shambles. Smashed on the floor is a black-and-white novelty clock, its plastic case splintered but still operational as the cat’s eyes tick relentlessly back and forth in the creepiest fashion. The kitchen table itself is cockeyed and halfway across the room, deep gouges in the linoleum floor belie its original position against the wall and the force with which it was shifted. Two retro chairs with aluminium legs are toppled; a third is bent and broken beyond repair.

But the worst of it is the blood.

Graham can smell it before he even sees it—that bittersweet metallic tang that saturates your sinuses and tingles your tastebuds like you’re sucking on a dirty penny.

He’d almost forgotten that smell. And by association, the taste.

Almost.

And yet Graham’s evaluation of Flora Tanner, brief though it was, had revealed no injuries to indicate that such a volume of blood had come from the grandmother.

Nonetheless, spreading across the floor around a pair of shiny scissors is a thick pool, still fresh enough to be deep red. Its perimeter slowly, assuredly creeps onward, the way spilt milk balloons to an unfathomable size.

And then there are the footprints. Everywhere. A few are intact. Most are little more than smeared patterns in the blood. Two sets are smaller and of a similar size, one of which has the distinctive sole pattern of traditional Doc Martens boots. This Graham recognises, because he himself has a pair. The third set, however, is not only larger, but substantially so. They appear to have been made by some kind of work boot, clearly a man’s, and a sizeable geezer at that.

“Oh, fuck-a-duck—”

The constable buries his nose in his crisp white sleeve, fighting the urge to be sick. He nearly succeeds but has to run from the scene to keep from contaminating it. Barely managing to escape to the modest front garden, his full English breakfast regurgitates in glorious technicolour over a chequerboard of mould-stained concrete pavers.

Taking no notice as she brushes by, Detective Inspector Jackie Mullins gives the ambulance crew another minute to wrap up their examination of Flora Tanner while she takes command of the scene. This she starts by making a beeline to the kitchen.

“And who the fuck are you, polluting my crime scene?”

D.I. Mullins does not look at Graham when she asks this, having already sized him up and made her assessment, likely doing so before Graham had even seen her approaching.

Her head is cocked to one side as she takes in every aspect of the struggle that took place here, absorbing the myriad details like a sponge as Graham provides his full name, role at Sea View, and where he has moved throughout Flora Tanner’s house.

“Well, Security Officer McEwan”—now she makes eye contact with Graham for the first time—“perhaps you can tell me: Where are these children?”

She doesn’t have to indicate the footprints to which she refers, for Graham already understands.

“The victim’s name is Flora Tanner. I’ve spoken with her many times. I’ve even been in this house on a few rare occasions…”

To this admission D.I. Mullins raises one suspicious eyebrow. It’s so subtle, Graham wonders if she even knows she’s doing it.

“…Tea and biscuits,” he finds himself compelled to explain further, overcome by a sudden impulse to confess—

damn straight she knows she’s doing it

“—and casual conversation with a lonely widow.”

D.I. Mullins does not blink.

She does not move.

Awaiting the balance of his answer, her attention is frozen upon Graham as he takes a single backward step into the small corridor. Reluctantly, Mullins takes one forward step with him.

On the wall are a mishmash of portraits in the type of rudimentary frames you might purchase from the décor aisle at the chemists. Most are faded and yellowed, the subjects of their photographs blanched from years of exposure to light and sun.

But one is recent, its colours bright and vivid. It shows a girl of about thirteen years of age, a vibrant red hooded shawl draped around her as she’s captured mid-twirl. On her face is a smile so bright it could melt an ice cap.

“I don’t know about the second set of footprints—” speaking with concision and confidence, Graham guides the Detective Inspector’s attention to the girl’s footwear in the photo “—But this beautiful lass right ‘ere is Flora’s pride and joy. Rosie Tanner, Flora’s granddaughter.”

D.I. Mullins draws closer to the photo; sees the chunky ankle-high Doc Martens. She turns slowly toward the kitchen. Then back to the photo.

“God, she’s the spitting image of Little Red Riding Hood. From the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Don’t you think? If I were told to imagine her as a real-life person, this would be the little girl I’d see in my mind.” Mullins leans in to examine the image closer. “Security Officer McEwan, do you know if Flora’s granddaughter is local to Scarborough?”

“I’ve seen her in the area fairly often. Visiting and such. Sometimes she’s come on foot. So, I believe so, yes.”

Detective Inspector Mullins sighs, a release of air as heavy as the emotion behind it.

“I fucking hate these cases.”

She allows her demeanour to soften for the briefest moment. It lasts no more than the blink of an eye.

“I suppose the grandmother was already deceased when you arrived?”

Graham answers with a nod.

The reality of it hasn’t yet hit him. That figurative slap to the face will come later, when he’s home with Doreen, trying to pretend (and doing a rather poor job of it) that he’s fine.

Yes. Perfectly fine.

“Fuck it all.” D.I. Mullins shakes her head, wipes at her eye as if clearing a spot of dust. “I knew there’d be some kind of shit today. There always is on Guy Fawkes Day. But I never thought I’d be making a goddamned missing persons call upon the parents of Little Red fucking Riding Hood…”

EMILY BRIGGS

13 EMILY

PRESENT DAY | TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS LATER

Gabby, love, do you know where I’ve put my phone?”

I’m always doing this kind of thing: misplacing shit. It drives Gabby (short for Gabriella) crazy. And being that she’s Italian, she’s not shy about letting me know it.

I, on the other hand, think Gabby’s got a touch of OCD. While I don’t know it in the diagnostic sense, I do know for a fact that she thinks I’m careless, and that I may even mislay stuff just to irritate her. This I know because in the course of our three years together, she’s accused me of both. More than once. Much more. But obviously, neither is true.

For a start, she’s the love of my life, so… why would I?

Secondly, my mind runs at a million miles an hour. Like, all the time. It’s not that I’m irresponsible, I just always seem to be two or three thoughts ahead of whatever I happen to be in the middle of doing at any given moment. The result is a tendency to lose track of where I’ve put things. Once, on my way to work, I called Gabs to ask if she could see my phone anywhere, because I must’ve left it at home. Of course, I was calling her from it.

Duh.

There’s an exaggerated sigh from the kitchen before Gabby appears in the doorway. Silhouetted so beautifully in the morning sun streaming in behind her, I find myself wishing I had the skills to take a proper picture. But that’s just not my thing. So instead, I burn the image to memory.

“This what you’re looking for, Piccola?” She turns over her hand and reveals my smartphone. In her other is a pair of kitchen scissors she’s been using to chop up some spring onions. She’s gesturing the way Italians are prone to do, and the gleaming metal bobs up and down with every word. She has no idea she’s doing this, or how terrible a trigger it is for me—

she can never know

—and my breath catches in my throat. I feel myself grimacing but rein it in fast.

“Oh, you’re a duck. Thank you.”

I peck her on the cheek; she swats my arse.

Feigning surprise, I demurely hold my fingers to my mouth in theatrical mock humility. “And I’m not that small. You’re just Amazonian.”

This I say in response to her pet name for me: Piccola, or ‘little one,’ in Italian. That, and the fact that Gabby is a statuesque six feet tall, tight, and can boast a body to die for.

(Though she never does. Boast, I mean).

Given the easy, unassuming way she carries herself, you’d think Gabby’s never incited a single wolf-whistle from a construction site; never once turned everyday passersby—men and women alike—into rubberneckers as she walks down the high street with everyone’s head attached to her by an invisible string.

The fact that she’s something of a celebrity in Italy may have something to do with her casual nonchalance to all the attention she naturally draws. To be honest, I still don’t know what she’s doing with the likes of plain-Jane ol’ me. But it’s been three years now and she hasn’t dumped me…

…Yet.

She laughs out loud, a bright and happy sound, and tells me to get stuffed. It’s that easy, unabashed joy that is one of the things I love about her most.

“And do not be late tonight.” Turning on a sixpence, her tone has become stern, putting some real heat in those six innocuous words. When I stare at her with an empty expression she adds: “We meet Liam and Lindi at six.”

Shit. I completely forgot.

“Absolutely, love. Like I would ever forget!”

She knows I forgot. I can feel it. Probably because I always do.

“I mean it, Piccola. I’m not the one who invited them in the first place.”

She’s right, of course. Because I always do that kind of thing. I’m actually an introvert. Crowds or lots of activity and noise drain me, emotionally and mentally. People often think I’m being antisocial. But I’m really not. It’s more a case of being anti-chaos.

And loving your own space.

At least that’s how it is for me.

Frankly, I’d rather curl up with a good book.

But yes, I do have a terrible habit of inviting people to things. Partly because I feel that’s just what you’re supposed to do in those moments. You know the ones: you’ve had a great evening and now it’s time to say your goodbyes.

There’s the kiss-hug combo. The awkward silence. Then, invariably, me opening up my stupid mouth.

Of course, I regret it wildly when the day actually arrives. But by then it’s far too late to do anything about it. I once lied and told my invitees I was sick, just hours before they were supposed to arrive. Well, karma’s a crafty bitch, let me tell you. Because the very next morning, I was sick as a dog and bedbound for three days straight. Sure, it got me out of the dinner party so I could chill on the settee in my pyjamas and watch reruns of Monty Python instead. But it also meant that two nights later I was still too sick to see Sting and The Police on their last ever tour.

Thanks, karma. A bunch. Didn’t have to do me quite so dirty.

I still have the unused concert ticket, and every once in a while, I stumble upon it. It serves as a poignant reminder to never curse myself like that again.

“I’ll be there in plenty of time, I promise.”

But of course, I won’t be. Though I’ll finally have a credible excuse this time. I guess when your world’s about to come apart at the seams, at least it comes with that advantage…

14

The day starts like any other Thursday.

On the way to work I stop for my usual oat milk latte at Jumpin’ Jo’s Javahouse. Sufficiently caffeinated, I then sing along to my favourite playlist, loud and proud, as I drive the second half of a picturesque eighteen-minute commute along the coast, the sunshine and surprising blue skies belying the fact that it’s actually early November.

Per my usual M.O., I arrive at the newspaper offices just a tad late, settle at my desk and prepare for another day of soul-crushing sales calls.

Honestly, I don’t know why I keep doing it.

The newspaper all but folded a good decade ago. Once one of the most highly regarded daily broadsheets in the northeast of England, the sixty-page Daily Standard devolved slowly into the forty page… the thirty page… the twenty page… Having no other choice, the owners scaled back the daily editions to just two papers per week—Wednesdays and Sundays—before finally culling it to a weekly publication, producing just a single edition on Saturdays. And there it’s limped along ever since.

The problem is, we barely have the advertising revenue to keep even that meagre enterprise afloat anymore. It costs a whole lot more than you’ve probably ever considered to ship in spools of paper bigger than truck tyres, then print it with filthy, toxic ink that’s purchased by the ten-litre bucket. Add in the fact that it’s no longer considered ecologically sound, and printing your local news just doesn’t have the appeal it once did.

So, I don’t know how much longer things are going to last. Really, I should’ve bailed years ago.

Everything’s online now, and we just don’t have the patience to wait for our news anymore. Hell, almost everyone I know gets theirs delivered by social media these days. It’s free, and virtually immediate.

Now… as for its credibility?

Well, I’ll let you make up your own mind about that. But it’s served up fast in easy bites you can digest in a matter of seconds, and that’s what folk seem to want these days.

I’ve seen research citing that due to increased exposure to digital media and constant multitasking, an adult’s average span of attention has dropped from twelve seconds twenty years ago to less than eight seconds today.

Think about that for a second.

(Or eight, if you’re an average adult.)

We give something, or someone, a mere eight measly beats to get their point across before we lose interest and start shuffling our feet or scrolling on to the next video: invariably some horrific road rage incident caught on a dashcam, a dog who howls as if speaking, a plane crash caught on someone’s doorbell cam, or a parrot swearing at its owner.

Of course, the study to which I’m referring was something I saw in a reel on Facebook, so who knows if it’s even true.

Most of my workmates ditched this newspaper gig years ago, having seen the writing on the wall and making their way to pastures anew. But I somehow felt beholden to this stupid place. Maybe it was because it was my first proper job out of university. Or perhaps, the romantic in me doesn’t want to see print go dead for good. Is it a costly, lumbering, natural-resource-destroying dinosaur? You bet. But it’s my dinosaur, and I happen to adore her. So, if you see me around town, a hulking bundle of the latest issue in one arm, my briefcase in the other, just stop and say hey.

After all, even dinosaurs deserve some love.

I’m halfway through the drudgery of my day, dreading every passing minute which ushers me ever closer to dinner with Liam and Lindi, when the call comes in.

It’s Alan Jenkins, the Scottish transplant to Yorkshire and owner of Scarborough Motors, the largest car dealership in the area. I’ve been working him for months, but he just refuses to bite. Even with my blouse buttons fastened one or two fewer than normal. ‘Too expensive, too old school,’ has been his canned response, or something like it, every time I’ve popped in for a chat.

But now he’s ringing me.

The red light above line three is blinking, his name scrolling across the LCD display.

The light becomes solid as soon as I pick up.

Covering the mouthpiece with my free hand, I clear my voice before preparing to issue a greeting as casual as it is unfazed.

I don’t get the chance.

Before I can speak, he controls the conversation.

“Alan Jenkins here. Emily? Let’s talk.”

My heart is beating fast, the smile on my face impossible to keep in check. I pretend to flick through the pages of my organiser, feigning a schedule as full as a bloated tick when in reality, it’s wide-the-fuck-open.

“I can do next week, maybe Wedn—”

“No,” he interrupts. “This afternoon, Ms. Briggs.”

I feel like I might actually pass out. I can’t even tell you the last time my team hit their advertising goals and made bonus. And when I say team, what I really mean is myself and Irma, the fifty-three-year-old former housewife I manage.

Irma has been selling ads (or trying to) alongside me at the Daily Standard ever since the bulk of my former sales reps were made redundant by the big wigs in Peterborough. It wasn’t long after that that those who remained simply drifted away of their own accord: two the very next week, one a fortnight later, and the final pair the following month. Which left just me, myself and I.

In a pinch I hired Irma, not caring at the time that she had little to no experience. She was willing, keen even, and a living, breathing body who could fill at least one of those abandoned seats. I was unaware at the time that she would be my one and only budgeted replacement.

Ugggh.

I haven’t had the heart to fire her, though she’s next to useless for anything but answering the phone while looking rather attractive as she does. Which, given that it’s a phone, makes that particular benefit rather moot. I will say this, however: when I take her on sales calls with me, Irma has a certain way about her that makes my male clients stop what they’re doing and give us their undivided attention. If those randy old blokes also happen to be the decision-makers at the business, I can usually close a deal on the spot. All it takes is that foot in the door.

And Irma—with her long, silky brunette hair, pale grey eyes and a bust I’d die for—is a pretty damn big foot.

I glance around to see if she’s at her desk. More than ever, I need her to go with me on this call. But then I remember she’s taken off today and tomorrow for a long holiday weekend in the Lake District.

Fuck.

I guess I’m gonna have to be my own foot in the door.

At least I’ve worn my most flattering skirt today, a little tartan number than shows off my legs in the best possible way.

“What time are you thinking we should meet?” I ask Jenkins, looking at my wristwatch and already organising my desk so I can head straight out as soon as he hangs up.

“How about five?”

Second fuck.

It’s already 3pm and my smile, hardly containable mere seconds ago, evaporates. Gabby’s gonna lose her shit if I’m late for dinner with our friends. And 6pm comes pretty quick when you’re halfway across town closing the biggest deal of the year.

Hell, the biggest deal of the bloody decade.

“Sure,” I say, having to fake the smile this time so the timbre of my voice doesn’t lower. “I’d love to, Mr. Jenkins. Your office?”

“Hmmm,” he mutters in a manner that reveals he’s practised this precise exchange. Probably more than once. “You know, it’s Thursday. And they say Thursday’s the new Friday. How about we make it the White Hart for a pint instead?”

Third fuck.

Something tells me it’s more than a marketing chat over a pint of lager Alan Jenkins is interested in. I wonder if he knows I’m gay? Maybe he thinks I’m bi. Or maybe he’s one of those guys who thinks he can ‘turn’ me. Trust me when I tell you, he wouldn’t be the first bloke to actually believe that.

Far from it.

I take a deep breath, again covering the receiver with my free hand. It feels like I’ve been silent for a century, but in reality, it isn’t more than a second or two…

Okay. Time for some backstory.

If you’re wondering what the big deal is and why I don’t just tell Jenkins I can’t make the appointment at five, it’s this: Gabby has been dropping not-so-subtle hints that we should move in together. She’s seen my bills stacking up ever since ad revenue at the newspaper went belly-up, my income essentially cut in half overnight. Plus, Gabby lives in a beautiful three-bed cottage right here on the edge of town, whereas I live in a dinky little one-bed flat in Suffield. On more than one occasion she’s mentioned how beneficial it would be for me to live closer to work and have more room, as well as combining our incomes while having only half the bills to pay.

And she’s not wrong. About any of it.

But, as much as I love Gabby, having my own space is important to me right now.

Okay, so I admit it. I’ve got issues.

Commitment for one.

Abandonment for another.

The net result is that I’m at a loss how to tell Gabriella my real feelings about her proposal without ruining our relationship. However, if I don’t bring in some more money soon, I’ll be forced to move in with her, and that would be just as bad.

No… that would definitely be worse.

So, failure at my job is not an option. I have to do what I have to do to make the sales, which in turn will help make my ends meet… and that buys me a little more time to think about her proposal.

I know, I know. I’m a hot mess.

“…Five would be great, Mr. Jenk—”

“—Alan,” he corrects, then immediately hurries me off the call. “And wonderful. I’ll see you at the White Hart.”

The phone goes dead without another word.

And so does my heart.

What the fuck am I doing?

15

I’d expected him to arrive several minutes late, exerting his power over the situation. While it would add pressure to my ridiculously tight time constraint, at least it would give me a chance to settle in and breathe.

But as I walk in, Jenkins is already seated at an intimate little table in the corner. Tucked just far enough away from everyone else in the pub to give it an air of privacy, in front of him is a half-drained pint of bitter. Adjacent to it, not on the opposite side of the table as you’d expect, is an extra-tall glass of white wine.

“I remembered you telling me how much you enjoy a good glass of Chardonnay.” The statement is stiff and emotionless, like he’s relaying where he parked his BMW. “Oakey. Not buttery.”

He cracks a thin smile, and I spot a light tremble in his hand. It’s only noticeable if you’re looking hard enough.

Which I am.

Reminding myself why I’m here and what’s at stake, I muster my biggest, brightest smile.

“That’s so considerate of you, Mr. Jenk—”

“—Alan.”

“Right. That’s kind of you, Alan. Thank you.” I clear my throat and swiftly purvey my seating options. If I move to the left, I can sit across from him, casually sweeping up the glass of wine as I pass by. Doing so would place the table safely between us.

But there are no chairs on that side.

And now I know the reason he’s arrived here before me, even though I left with plenty of time to spare. He’s moved the only available chair so that it’s positioned right beside him. For me to shunt it across the floor and around to the other side of the table would not only be ungainly, but incomparably rude.

Sit next to him, Emily, I chastise myself as I begrudgingly pull out the chair. Or you might as well walk away right here and now. You know that anything other than sitting shoulder-to-shoulder is gonna blow this deal right out of the water before you’ve even started.

He half-rises so he can pull out the chair for me, but I wave him back down with a smile.

When he sits again, I sneak a deliberate peek at my watch.

(4:56.)

Having socked away money for years to afford it, it’s the same watch Meghan Markle, the beautiful Duchess of Surrey, flaunts: A two-tone Cartier Tank Francaise. Not only is it stunning, it’s a truly timeless—I know, the irony!—piece of jewellery. And it’s a straight-up fact that I feel sexier when it’s on my wrist.

Hell, I even feel more powerful.

And apparently, that’s exactly the way I’m supposed to feel.

I recently saw a reel by Vanessa Van Edwards, this badass and totally gorgeous expert in nonverbal communication, in which she revealed that a watch—

a real watch, I take it, not one of those godforsaken smart things

—is an ornament of competence for a woman.

Apparently, it gives off big boss vibes.

So, I tug up my sleeve just enough for the Cartier to be visible, a subliminal little show of prowess, if you will. And having no Irma by my side to do the heavy lifting in the flirtation department, Alluring Emily is definitely the kind of vibe I need to be giving off right now… not Nervous Nelly.

By the way, I haven’t dared call Gabby to reveal what I’m doing, where I am, or who I’m with.

For starters, she’d flip the fuck out the instant she heard that special ring tone she’s assigned to me, because any call from me this late in the day could only mean one thing—that I’m going to be late. On top of which, the idea of me having drinks with a man at a hotel bar wouldn’t exactly sit well with Gabs. She likes to say she’s not the jealous type. But she’s Italian, so, ‘nuff said.

Now, if Gabby getting jealous over a guy seems unexpected and a wee-bit odd, then maybe I should tell you I was actually married once before.

Yep, to a man.

So, there’s that.

But the way I figure it, if I can seal this deal with Jenkins and get out of here in the next forty minutes, I can still make it to the Indian restaurant in time and Gabby will never know a thing. Plus, I’ll have just closed a deal that’ll help secure the status quo of our relationship—our healthy relationship—at least for the foreseeable future. Because maintaining my own personal space is a must. Not only for my wellbeing, but for that of any partner I have. I like to convince myself that it's just how I am. But truth be told, it’s more how I became… after… well… after what happened when we were thirteen.

Jenkins catches me looking at my watch.

His attention lingers just a shade longer than an innocent glance, his eyes following mine to my wrist. Only, his pause on my chest for a good second or two en route.

Inside, I’m grinning like the Cheshire Cat as the Cartier catches the light in shimmering prisms. Then, even though I just saw what time it is, and even though I know I’m not late for this meeting, I pretend that I’m checking once more, just to be sure.

I give my wrist a little shake.

Softly jangling, the watch slides an inch down my wrist to peek from beneath the cuff of my sleeve as I take on the air of the good submissive girl:

“I am so sorry, Alan. I thought I’d make it here in plenty of time. Please, forgive me?”

Jenkins pats the seat of the chair next to him, removing his hand only at the last possible moment before I sit.

Or, at least I think he does, but did I just feel it brush my arse?

“Forgiven, of course,” he reassures me and slides the wine glass closer.

We engage in an inane discussion about a whole lot of nothing for far longer than I care to admit. I allow it to happen, though. Encourage it, even. Because I know building a sense of rapport is going to be crucial to sealing any kind of a deal here.

But, if this mind-numbing conversation and preamble isn’t bad enough, it’s made exponentially worse by the nervousness apparent in us both. It’s not long before I recognise that mine is the product of having an entirely different anticipated outcome to this meeting than Alan clearly has. While I’m stealing every opportunity to keep an eye on the time, Jenkins is stealing every opportunity to get an eyeful of cleavage… while unconsciously fiddling with his wedding ring and spinning it round and round his finger.

Behold, ladies, I present to you the Horny Married Male and his Guilty Subconscious.

After a good thirty minutes, I’ve finally had enough. I’m trying to figure out how I can shift gears and get down to an advertising proposal when Jenkins excuses himself to the loo.

All I can say is thank God for men’s big mouths and tiny bladders, because Alan Jenkins’ urgent need to recycle his pint of lager has given me the perfect opportunity to right this capsized convo upon his return.

He thinks I can’t see him from our table all the way across the pub, and when he steps out of the men’s room, he’s still zipping up his fly. I have to force myself to contain my laughter before he makes it back to our table.

“So, Alan. What goals do you have for Scarborough Motors that you would like me to address in a marketing campaign?”

“Oh,” he replies in a manner belying his surprise that I’ve actually brought up business. “Well, um. So, we’re going straight to that now, then? Okay. Hmmm. Specific goals? I can’t rightly say I’ve thought that far ahead, Emily.”

As he takes his seat, Jenkins slides his chair even closer to mine. In a bold, surreptitious move, our thighs are now actually touching. He pivots in my direction and stares deeply into my eyes without blinking.

“You may be getting ahead of yourself, Emily?”

Under the table, his left hand brushes my thigh, just at the edge of my tartan skirt. I feel the heat of his pudgy little fingers on my bare skin before he withdraws the contact as swiftly as it's made.

It’s the oldest trick in the book.

If I were to respond with indignation, the brevity of the act would allow him to feign that the touch was unintentional. But, if I were to respond with encouragement, well…

Instead of either of these polarised responses, I offer him none whatsoever. The logic behind this is simple: If I react in a way he hasn’t planned for, it could put him off his lecherous game. Left feeling uncertain and confused, the hope is that he’ll give up the ghost without me having to say or do anything to make that happen. Everyone saves face. And we both leave here with our heads held high.

Except, my strategy doesn’t work.

Leaning in even closer, his puffy little hand returns to my leg, this time with clear intent. Four chubby fingers and one crooked thumb dig into my thigh…

One... By one... By one…

“I would like to advertise with the Standard, Emily. By which I mean, I would like to work with you.”

My smile is a combination of genuine excitement and forced subservience. His is a shark’s grin, full of teeth just waiting to bite.

“I might even consider allocating a substantial percentage of my budget to your newspaper,” he tells me while staring at my chest. “I know print media is no longer in vogue, but I like you, Emily. I trust you with my needs. And I think such an investment could make all the difference to you. Aye?”

His hand tightens on my thigh. Fingers inch higher.

I act as if I don’t feel it at all, while inside I’m doing all I can to keep from dry heaving.

“What do you call a substantial percentage, Alan? Fifty?” I clearly joke. “Sixty?”

My face brightened by a cheeky grin, I can’t help but release a flirty little laugh. Because the truth is, even ten percent of Scarborough Motors’ advertising budget would be a total gamechanger and more than I could hope for. Especially given how badly the paper is limping along.

And me, right along with it.

“Seventy,” Jenkins answers back without so much as batting an eye. “I’d be willing to give you seventy percent of my ad budget, Emily. But I’d need to know that you could, in fact… fulfil my needs.”

In a way I’m glad he’s clutching my thigh, because I nearly fall out of my chair.

Seventy.

Fucking.

Percent.

Is this for real?

I suck in a breath, swallow down the lump in my throat. My reaction is unconcealed, but I manage to compose myself before speaking, at least enough for my voice not to crack. Pitch is power, so I breathe out and speak slowly in a low, commanding tone.

“Just seventy?”

Jenkins laughs.

Hard.

Pushing back in his chair, his pudgy little fingers withdraw from my inner thigh as he claps his hands together in a loud staccato crack.

Across the pub, patrons in all directions turn our way.

“Oh, Emily Briggs. You are priceless, lassie!”

So that’s it. It was all a joke.

I am a joke to him.

Jenkins’ overt mirth at my expense is only cut short by an abrupt bout of smoker’s cough. That nasty, phlegmy hack that happens when you’ve puffed a pack a day for years and can no longer even laugh—really laugh—without struggling for breath.

He’s still guffawing and coughing as he downs the remnant warm spittle at the bottom of his pint glass while simultaneously waving down our server for another.

It takes everything I have to not just get up and stroll the fuck out of here. I begin to do exactly that when he gets his coughing fit under control and settles his full attention back upon me.

“You drive a hard bargain. But aye, seventy-five percent it is.”

His hand returns to my inner thigh.

Having overcome his schoolboy nerves, his fat middle finger slides another inch higher, and I have to swallow back the impulse to be physically sick.

I should be repulsed.

And I am.

But I’m also ashamed to admit that in some ways, I don’t even care. In this moment, all I’m focused on is the prospect of closing a deal exponentially greater than I ever imagined I could come away with today.

Okay… okay… I can already feel the searing scorn of my mother as she lords over her pristine domain, all tucked away safe and sound in the sterile confines of her ivory tower.

Perhaps some of you feel the same.

But there are others out here in the rough and ready world of reality who don’t have it that easy. And until you’ve lived someone else’s life, you have no right. Besides, why do we always find it so much easier to blame the victim over the perpetrator? The subservient over the dominant? Why do so many proclaim that a woman must’ve asked for it, that she must’ve secretly wanted it, ‘because surely, she could’ve avoided the whole mess if she’d simply gotten up and walked away?’

Well, time to prepare yourself for a brutal truth: I’m actually considering doing the unimaginable right now because to secure an advertising budget of this magnitude would not only be a watershed for my own finances but would pull the Daily Standard out of its nosedive toward the inevitable… at least for another year. And that benefits a great deal more people than just me.

On top of which, I’m suddenly overcome with the feeling that if I turn this letch down, no matter how politely, he just might go to my newspaper’s Managing Director with some awful, fabricated claim. Maybe turn the tables and accuse me of propositioning him—a respectable, God-fearing family man—because I was so desperate for a sale.

Would he really do such a thing and irreparably damage my reputation… just because he can?

I don’t know.

Would he have the audacity to shove his fat little hand up my skirt for the same reason?

Oh. Wait…

Consumed by this inner debate, I no longer sense his stubby fingers tentatively probing the edge of my panties. All my faculties are immersed in the back-and-forth of what happens next in this new game of Sleep With Him or Walk Away?

CON: Jenkins is abhorrent. Grotesque. Vile. And this blatant abuse of power is not only foul, but a despicable example of the subjugation, coercion and humiliation so many women around the world face on a daily basis in the workplace.

PRO (if there is one): It’s a lifechanging proposition, in more ways than one, and for more people than just me.

I love Gabriella.

But the truth is, I don’t want to move in with her. At least, not yet. And I definitely don’t want to do it because I have no other choice. When it happens, I want it to be because my heart wants it—because my heart needs it—more than it wants or needs anything or anyone else. Not because I require someone to take care of me.

I also want to keep working at the newspaper—

Lord knows why

—and scoring this much of this piece of shit’s total advertising budget would not only secure my job, but the jobs of those who still rely on the Standard to put food on their table, keep a roof over their heads. Now, that food may be beans on toast instead of filet mignon, and that roof may be small and leaking. But at least it’s their beans. And their roof.

So, if just this once, surrendering to this sick, Machiavellian fuck Jenkins means I can make all of that positivity come to fruition, does it really make me just as despicable as he?

Lost in all of these thoughts for longer than I realise, I don’t even notice that our server has come and gone with Alan’s second pint. He downs half of it in seconds while never removing his fat, sweaty fingers from high upon my inner thigh.

Only now, I feel them.

Really feel them.

Still, a thousand frantic thoughts whirr through my mind at the speed of light. Most of all, that of his barefaced audacity and the very real consequences of submitting to his proposition…

…Or not.

I’m considering every possible outcome when Jenkins slides the first of his fingers beneath my panty line and I reflexively bristle and wince away.

So there, I guess I’ve made my decision after all. Mother would be delighted. Principles over Prosperity.

But Jenkins does not accept it.

In one swift, well-practised move, he restrains me by clamping down on my leg.

I know I should scream.

Or throw my wine glass to the floor.

Maybe toss what’s left of his pint in his fat, sweaty face.

Or simply punch his teeth in.

But I’m too stunned to do any of these.

A deer in the headlights, I’m unable to do a thing as he shoves his hand fully beneath my panties and plunges a single finger into my vagina…

16

Ileap from my chair, a scream caught in my throat.

Alan Jenkins tries to yank his hand from my crotch, but it catches in my panties, stretching them until they’re all but torn off. When his hand comes free, my knickers snap back.

And so does Alan’s arm.

His elbow cracks against the side of our table and both drinks careen to the floor, drenching me in cheap wine and stale lager from my midriff to my thighs. Sticky and thick, it runs down my skirt and over my bare legs as I lurch back from the table.

My chair topples over, pulverising what remained of those shattered glasses.

Earlier, when Alan had clapped his hands together and guffawed, everyone’s head turned as if on a network relay. Given this commotion, I’m sure everything in the White Hart Hotel and Public House has ceased to exist, the attention of all patrons fixed only upon me as they render silent, statuesque judgement.

The mere thought of it turns my heart into a wild animal trying to escape the confines of my chest.

And this may be the sickest response of all—that my overriding concern in this moment is that I’ve disturbed the other patrons, not that I’ve just been sexually assaulted in plain sight.

I dart across the room, eyes cast down as I dodge tables and men’s feet littering the aisles until I burst from the pub into the embrace of cool, autumn darkness.

It won’t register until later that no one is looking at me at all.

Deaf to my anguished howl and the crash of glasses and the boom of my heavy chair as it struck the floor, the patrons are glued instead to the various tellies displayed around the pub.

Such rapt attention is normally reserved for the Saturday afternoon Premier League football match.

But it’s not Saturday. And there’s no game on those screens. Only a solemn, middle-aged news anchor. What story he could possibly be reporting that has everyone so fixated, I have no idea.

Not very long from now, I’ll learn that it’s a newsflash about…

…Me.

17

It still hasn’t hit me yet.

I should be devastated. Horrified. Filled with rage. Filled with terror. Filled with a shame I have no right to feel but do anyway. Filled with any emotion at all, because feeling anything would be better than this void in which I feel absolutely nothing.

That’s because you’re tough as old boots, Gabby’s voice whispers in my head, an echo of any time we’re in a stressful situation and she’s about to have a meltdown, leaving me to hold the bag. I wish I could be more like you.

When she says stuff like that, what I want to tell her is, Oh, that’s easy. Just cram all your emotions as deep down as you can, shut the door, lock it, bolt it, then padlock it again. The ol’ British stiff upper lip. It’s not just a cliché.

Instead, all I ever say is: “Yep, tough as old boots, that’s me. Durable, worn and crisscrossed with creases.”

But this very moment is testament to why she says it. Instead of facing what’s just happened, all I can focus on is the fact that I should already be at the Indian restaurant, and how I’m letting down Gabby by being late…

…Again.

Because, instead of being at that curry house right now, I’m back in my flat in Suffield, panicking over what I have on hand that I can change into. I haven’t done the laundry this week and my already modest wardrobe is offering incredibly slim pickings. The truth is that Liam and Lindi wouldn’t give a toss if I showed up in nothing but sweatpants and an old T-shirt. They’re laid-back and the very definition of non-judgemental.

But my Gabby?

Well… that’s another kettle of fish.

I perform a quick smell test before throwing on a pair of jeans I’d already worn three days this week; finish it off with a basic cream top. My hair’s a bird’s nest from unconsciously running my fingers through it the entire way home. The memory of the drive itself is a blur, so it’s no wonder I don’t recall tangling my hair through such feverish twisting and twirling.

With no time to do much about it, I don an American baseball cap embroidered with the letters NY and feed my hair through the rear clasp in a long ponytail.

I brush myself down in the mirror, half-turning one way, then the other… and practise a smile. My teeth (my pride and joy after two torturous years of braces and three oral surgeries) are bright and beautiful, and they gleam as well as any American’s.

But the joy in the smile beaming back at me does not reach the eyes of the woman in the mirror.

Not in the slightest.

Hers are heavy. Dark. Lifeless.

I’ll have to work on that as I drive, I coach myself, dismissing the obvious as I confirm the time on my Cartier watch. And right now, that watch is telling me it’s 5:59.

If I put my foot down, I can be at the restaurant in maybe sixteen minutes. That still makes me a quarter-hour late, but hardly the end of the world. Gabby will just have to deal with it. After all, it’s not like she’s being sexually assaulted or something.

She’ll live. Liam and Lindi will live. They’ll all live.

It's only me I wonder about…

I’m nearly out the door and about to call Gabby when the phone rings. Not my mobile, but the house landline, an old rotary phone replete with twisty cord and everything.

I head to the door anyway, letting it ring.

But somehow, I can sense an urgency in the way those retro bells inside that old phone housing are dinging. I know that’s impossible—they ring the same for every call.

And yet…

It’s Gabby checking up on me. I can tell. She knows if she rang my mobile, I’d see the caller I.D. and ghost her. Then she wouldn’t have the satisfaction of giving me the bollocking I know she’s been mentally building up to all day.

“I’m on my way,” I bleat into the heavy handset before she can speak. Only, it’s not Gabriella who answers me back.

It’s a man.

Fuck. A spam call. Please, not now.

But the vibe of this one feels different, right off the bat. Instead of that trademark overly enthusiastic tone, this guy’s speaking in a matter-of-fact, almost lawyerly manner. Despite my need to get a move-on, I find myself not hanging up.

“Erm, what did you just say?” Preparing to rush out the door any second, I’m pinching the receiver between my shoulder and cheek, twirling its spiral cord in the fingers of one hand as the other rustles through my handbag for my keys, my mobile, the lip balm I’ve been desperately needing all day. You know, the usual list of suspects.

“Once again, Ms. Briggs, this is Martin Culbreth. BBC News. I was wondering if you might care to comment on the reports coming out of American telly earlier today.”

BBC? Reports? American telly?

This has to be a joke. And not a very clever one. Definitely not one I have time for. So… why do I take the bait?

I wish I knew.

Because if I hadn’t, everything would be different.

Everything would be…

…Better.

18

Okay,” I say to the phone-line jokester, “I’ll bite. Let me guess. The BBC wants my take on the new American President’s foreign affairs policies.”

Silence from my caller. A slight crackle. A deep breath before clearing his throat. “Ms. Briggs…?”

I shake my head, quickly losing patience for whatever kind of tired joke this is meant to be. “Sorry, love. I went off script and threw you off your spiel. Go on then, get to the punch line.”

Another moment’s silence.

Then, as impassively as if he were reporting a traffic jam on the A1 motorway, the caller tells me: “A woman has surfaced who’s claiming to be Rose Tanner—”

Before the name has even finished rolling off his velvety smooth Queen’s English tongue, the air is sucked from my lungs.

“—Little Red Riding Hood, Ms. Briggs. A woman in the town of, pardon me, let me make sure I’m recounting it properly. Yes, right-oh, here it is. A woman from Savannah in the American state of Georgia is claiming that she is, in fact, your long-lost friend.”

My handbag tumbles to the floor, my packing list of items scattering. Including the lip balm which, as it turns out, had been buried somewhere within it the entire time.

“Ms. Briggs?”

“Who is this!”

A sigh of growing impatience. “As I’ve said twice now, Ms. Briggs, this is Martin Culbreth. BBC News. I know this must be a shock for you. However, if you can gather your thoughts, I would very much like to hear them on this ma—”

I hang up the phone. Slam it, more like.

It ricochets off the cradle but manages to disconnect the call all the same, the mechanical bell in the phone’s body confirming this with a jarring clang.

I don’t even try to retrieve the handset from the floor.

Coming too fast and shallow, I’m very aware of my laboured breathing as the room starts to swim. I discover nearly too late that I must steady myself upon the threadbare arm of the settee to keep from passing out.

Breathe, Emily. Breathe. It’s nothing but a bad joke, some internet troll putting two-and-two together with today’s date. How fun it would be to punk the surviving girl of that Bonfire Night attack twenty-eight years ago.

I feel sick.

Everything’s blurring at the edges.

Just… breathe.

Collapsing onto the seat of the settee, as threadbare as its arms, I stare at the clock on the wall opposite. I need to try and make my breaths match its steady, certain rhythm, just as my therapist taught me to do.

And one…

…And two.

It’s a good few minutes until somewhere in this near-hypnotic haze an ultrahigh-pitched bipp-bipp-bipp wheedles its way into my meditative focus. Like the buzzing of a mosquito you can’t quite locate, the sound plucks me from the clock’s mesmerising pendulum.

Then I remember.

The phone…

When I dropped it, the handset skidded beneath the settee and is now alerting me that I haven’t hung up properly. Thankfully, the prankster has, so the line remains open only at my end.

The bipp-bipp-bipp grows louder until I’m forced to get down on my hands and knees. Yanking on the phone’s coiled cord, the handset comes springing out from beneath the sofa, so fast that it nearly clouts me in the face.

No sooner do I return the handset to its cradle than it jars to life again, my already speeding heartbeat quickening from allegro to presto in less than a blink of an eye.

“Get stuffed!” I scream into the phone. “Just go the fuck away!”

A momentary silence.

A crackle.

A sound like watery static.

Then a faraway voice, faint but unmistakable: “Em?”

And my racing heart all but stops dead.

“Emily,” the disembodied voice repeats. “It’s me.”

My skin goes cold, breaking out in a rash of chicken bumps. I know that voice. But it can’t be—

“Emily, it’s me. Rose… Rosie Tanner.”

A bolt of electric fear spears through my chest to my shoulder blades. I feel its pronged spikes as certainly as if I’ve been struck by lightning.

“It’s Rosie, Em,” the voice insists. “I’m here… I’m alive.”

If the first prank call was in bad taste, pretending to be my dead best friend is straight-up disgusting. How both trolls sound so convincing is beyond me. Some kind of mimic AI software, maybe? Or there’s at least two of them in on it. Either way, I’ve had enough. So this time, I not only slam the handset back into its cradle but yank the line right out of the phone housing.

Problem solved.

Unlike your web browser, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, router, and Lord knows what other access point a hacker can use to pierce the veil of your privacy, with these analogue phones, no phone line means no access. Period. Which means no more prank calls.

Hack that, you fucktards. Party’s over.

With everything connected to the grid these days—from your mobile to your door cams to your telly… hell, even your car—Gen Z-ers would have a full-on panic attack for any of their devices to be so decidedly disconnected from the outside world as this.

But not me. I’m tough as old boots, remember?

Without knowing it, I’ve been gathering up all the crap that scattered when I dropped my handbag.

Cramming it all back in there, deep, deep down and out of sight, I’m oblivious to the obvious connection to my frayed emotional state as I fold over the bag’s leather top and snap the clasp closed.

There. All better.

In the blink of an eye, I’m in the parking lot of Taj Scarborough Curry House. I can’t recount a single moment of the journey I just made. Like, at all. Not how many other cars were on the road; not if I passed any pedestrians as I raced through town; not even if I stopped at any traffic lights. And that’s so irresponsible—and utterly unlike me—that it’s shocking.

I’m twenty-some minutes late, so of course Liam and Lindi’s BMW is already here, parked far from the other cars so no one dings their doors or scuffs their precious paint. My sweet Gabby’s Fiat is also here, nestled smack dab in the middle of the fray. For someone who most people would consider relatively well-off, she’s never much cared about material things. In this way we are very much the same: more interested in the experience and memory of a thing and less interested in the possession of it. The big difference between Gabby and me is that she can afford about any experience she wants.

I’m just outside the door and about to tuck my mobile into my bag when I see a whopping five missed calls from her. Just like the drive, I don’t remember these either, even though my ringer is on and the volume’s turned all the way up.

Her ringtone is “Brick House” by The Commodores. I chose it the very night we met, mere minutes after I was home from our first date, and haven’t changed it since.

I mean, she’s tall and dark and curvy—voluptuous, you might say, if she were a Hollywood starlet in the ‘50s—and it just fits. After a thousand times, you’d think I’d get sick of hearing the song, my lips no longer silently forming the lyrics. But I haven’t, and they still do. Every single time she calls.

Well, every time but five, apparently.

Inside the dimly lit restaurant I find the three of them settled in our favourite booth near the back. Liam is animated as he recounts some tale of adventure or comic anecdote with Lindi hanging on his every word. Gabby is smiling and gently nodding as she listens, but her eyes aren’t focused and even from all this way across the restaurant I can sense the worry in them.

She leaps to her feet when she sees me, her concern permitted to fully expose itself before being replaced with a wash of immediate and consuming relief.

“Oh, Emily, you’re finally here!” She wraps herself around me. Still smiling that smile which cannot erase the burden in her eyes, she whispers in my ear, the words forced between gritted teeth: “What the actual fuck, I called you a hundred times.”

She kisses my cheek, but not my lips. There’s no mistaking that she’s pissed off.

“So, Emily,” Liam says as he wraps his arm around Lindi and pulls her close. “Gabs here tells us you’re thinking about joining the ranks of us domesticated cats.”

My look of bewilderment must be more evident than I think, because he immediately qualifies the statement with, “You’re thinking about moving in together, yeah? Congratulations! That’s some fabulous news.”

“And not a moment too soon,” Lindi echoes.

I’m too stunned to respond the way I probably should. I mean, what the fuck. I’m out of breath, have barely sat down, and I’m already being ambushed with this? Did Gabs really go and tell them that? She must’ve. After all, he just said so, didn’t he? Still, I can barely believe she went and did that. We haven’t even discussed it at length ourselves, and our friends are already celebrating it.

“We’re definitely thinking about it.”

I don’t know why I just blurted that out when it’s hardly the truth. But for some reason, we all tend to do that, don’t we? We find it easier to just go with the flow of the current rather than swim against it. But you can’t fool your subconscious, and I realise I’m shaking my head no despite the words I’m speaking. It’s the kind of ‘tell’ poker players and detectives alike thrive on.

I can’t say that Liam or Lindi necessarily notice. But Gabby most definitely does. Pulling just that little bit farther away from me, she crosses her arms over her midriff.

“It’s a possibility,” she qualifies.

Liam appears confused. Clearly this is contradictory to the vibe he was picking up in my absence.

“Well, I for one think it’s a wonderful idea,” says Lindi as she lifts her wine glass and proposes a toast. “To Gabby and Emily. May you find peace, joy and comfort in the blessing that is turning a house for one into a home for two.” After a pregnant pause (no pun intended) she adds: “Maybe more.”

Maybe more? Has Gabriella really talked to them about the off-the-wall IVF idea she only just shared with me last week?

As Lindi extends her glass to the centre of the table, my jaw slackens, my mouth falling open in mute astonishment. Inviting us to clink our glasses to consecrate the toast, Lindi waggles her stemware in the air above a plate of garlic naans, and I’ve never before been so glad to not have a glass of wine in front of me.

Except that I do.

From slightly to one side and concealed by a centrepiece of flowers, Gabby gently presses a stemmed glass toward me across the table’s crisp white cloth.

“I ordered you a Chardonnay so you wouldn’t have to wait for one when you got here. I knew you probably had a rough day.”

And just like that, Gabby does what Gabby always does, which is to display how sweet and generous and considerate she is.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. And sure, some people only make these kinds of gestures for show, shining the best light upon themselves only when they’re in the company of others. But this is genuinely how Gabby is.

All the time.

Which makes me feel sick to my stomach that I’m having to think so hard about this whole moving-in-together idea, let alone actively seeking out ways to avoid it.

Ways like secretive meetings with creeps like Alan Jenkins at the White Horse Hotel and Pub.

“I love you, Gabs,” I profess as I accept the wine. But only after allowing my hand to linger, weaving Gabriella’s long, slender fingers between mine and coaxing her close for a kiss.

When I turn and clink my stemmed glass to Lindi’s, I expect her to gush a stream of oohs and awwws and affirmations like, oh my gosh, I just love you two, as she nestles into Liam while basking in the sight of our glowing love.

But she’s doing nothing of the sort.

She’s staring past me. Slack jawed. Her wineglass still hovering above the naan breads.

“Lindi?” I tap her glass a second time, the gentle tinkle of a high C ringing clear as a bell amid the sudden silence.

When she fails to respond, I pivot in my chair to see what she’s staring at behind me. What they’re both staring at, because Liam is now doing the exact same thing.

I don’t know what I expected to see.

Maybe an armed robber commanding the hostess to empty the till. Or an intoxicated housewife unbuttoning her top to prove that her husband’s not the boss of her. Perhaps a rotund man falling dead of a heart attack right there at his table, his final moment in this world memorialised by a face plant in his prawn vindaloo curry.

Any of these would have been better than what I actually see, which is a grainy, bleached out photograph of a thirteen-year-old Rosie Tanner…

…And me.

My past life on display for all to see, the BBC News has captioned the photo with:

…Red Riding Hood Alive…Rosie Tanner Found 28 Years Later…

In bold caps, the headline crawls perpetually across the bottom of the screen as the image switches to a low-def, overused news clip from the late ‘90s. In it, itinerant carnival worker Levi Wolfe is being escorted in handcuffs from the Crown Court.

And now it’s me who face plants… right into a passing waiter who’s ushering a platter of—you guessed it, prawn vindaloo—to the unfortunate table next to us.

19

The owner of Taj Scarborough won’t leave my side.

He and Liam all but carried me to a private room at the back of the restaurant, a cold, empty space where they hold the occasional group function or celebration. Appropriate, given that we’re apparently marking the miraculous Lazarus-like resurrection of my long-dead childhood friend.

My best friend.

BFFs, my dad used to call us. A cringeworthy attempt of an Aged Parent to bond with his teenage daughter by speaking the slang of the era.

“I’m fine. Really. Please…”

I politely block the restaurant owner’s hand from fussing over me. Thankfully, the reflexes of the waiter I fainted into were tantamount to a cat’s, and he was able to right the platter of steaming curry before it spilled to the floor.

Or worse, all over me.

“Oh, my sweet Piccola, I—I—” Gabriella is beside herself, her ice-blue eyes wet and jittering as she cradles me, her flowing brunette locks brushing my cheek. She’s rubbing my arm so vigorously I fear I’ll come away with a friction burn. “I–I can’t believe it. They’re saying she’s alive, Em. That Rosie’s really alive.”

A good ten feet away, Liam and Lindi are hovering near the doorway, engaged in their own little powwow. It doesn’t take a genius to know what they’re talking about. Every once in a while, they glance over at me. And if they see me seeing them, they give me a tight, soulless smile.

“I thought it was a joke.” My words are monotone. Robotic. “Back at my flat. I thought I was being trolled.”

“Back at your flat?” Gabby stops caressing my arm and is now squeezing it instead. “What happened at your flat?”

I give her the Reader’s Digest version, after which, she’s pensive and quiet. I don’t dare reveal what happened at the White Hart immediately before that.

“Was it her? Was it really Rosie Tanner… ringing your home?”

“I don’t know.”

She rises to her feet.

“What do you mean, you don’t know? Did it sound like her? Did she speak the way Rosie spoke?”

“Jesus, Gabs, it happened twenty-eight years ago, how do I know if it sounded like Rosie?”

Now she’s pacing. Tense. Liam and Lindi have paused their little private conference and are watching closely.

“Then what did she sound like, Piccola?”

It’s a good question and makes me think about that call in a way I yet hadn’t.

“She sounded the way I remember, I guess. Even when we were kids, Rosie had this gruff, almost sexy rasp to her voice. And she was always so cocksure about herself, I can’t remember a single time she ever spoke softly, like she didn’t have life by the balls, y’know? The woman who called tonight sounded just like that. Only—”

“Only what?”

“Well, she sounded that way. But… American.”

“Americana? How, Piccola? How can that be?”

How indeed. Why would a teenage lass, born and bred in North Yorkshire, speak like she was—

“—Blanche Devereaux. From The Golden Girls. Remember that show? The woman who called me sounded like that.”

Now, the truth is that my prank caller didn’t sound that way at all. Sure, she had an American southern accent. But hardly the antebellum caricature portrayed by actress Rue McClanahan. But what do I know? I’ve never been outside of Europe. Hell, I’ve barely been outside of merry old England except for the odd sunshine holiday in Greece or weekend Christmas shopping trip to Amsterdam or Bruges via the North Sea Ferry.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How? When?” I rise to my feet so I can look her in the eyes. “Gabs, I came straight here. It all happened so fast, I thought it was a joke. A really bad fucking joke, but a joke all the same. What was I supposed to tell you?”

Gabby crosses herself in the way of the devout Catholic, even though she’s never been to a Sunday Mass in all the time I’ve known her.

“Oh, mio Dio! Emily! The meal, it is not important. Your friend is alive, Em. She’s alive. How wonderful. And how striking, no? The meal, it is nothing. It could have waited.”

“Absolutely,” Liam echoes, crossing the room toward us. “We’re flattered, Emily. Truly. But this…?” He’s gesturing toward the main part of the restaurant and the TV above the bar where the newscaster has moved on to the next story, something about the European Parliament. “This is crazy. This is incredible. I don’t know, it’s… unbelievable. We could have gotten together another night.”

“Or come to yours,” Lindi pipes up, edging in.

Because, of course, she wouldn’t have missed this firsthand drama for all the curry in India.

Lindi is nodding, and I find myself grinning. She’s like one of those bobbleheads you see planted on the dashes of old cars in 1970s films filled with actors who are all dead now.

I adore Lindi.

Really, I do.

But sometimes, she can be a real simp.

20

It’s barely gone 9am and the street in front of my flat is chock-a-block with a mix of unfamiliar cars and Ford Transit vans emblazoned with news logos.

Filling every free spot on the pavement are well-groomed individuals in professional attire preening themselves before cameras. Microphones in hand, they jostle this way and that to find the sweet spot: that perfect shot where the window of my flat is visible over their shoulders as they tape their segments.

It’s different than it was twenty-some years ago. Except for the Transit vans, they’ve always been part of the equation. But in the ‘90s, only the recognisable news crews camped outside my parents’ terraced home on St. Nicholas Cliff. This time, there’s a mix of podcasters, Youtubers and streamers with equipment ranging from iPhones to rather impressive digital cameras on tripods, all jockeying to frame the perfect shot alongside the Big Four: ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 (now branding themselves only as ‘5,’ invoking shades of the rockstar Prince when he informed the world he was to be known only as ‘Symbol’), and of course, Britain’s mother church of Broadcasting… the BBC.

There has to be at least two dozen outlets out there, each one making it appear as if they’re the only reporter on scene.

Two dozen exclusives.

An oxymoron if ever there was one.

And still, people unquestionably believe whatever they see on TV as if it’s the gospel truth. Worse, nowadays you have social media in the mix to further cloud our perceptions of truth. Add in all the garbage videos generated by AI that show things that never happened, and credibility is becoming an antiquated value of the past. Yet here I am, fighting to keep my beloved newspaper afloat—the one place I know that will tell it like it is, whether the facts it’s reporting are popular or not.

Perhaps that’s precisely why it’s struggling so hard: no one wants the truth anymore, just a validation of their own beliefs. No matter how unfounded.

Give me the beautiful lie, people demand. Not the ugly truth.

“Still there, Piccola?”

Shouting from the kitchenette, Gabby’s voice jars me from my thoughts and I flinch, the carefully engineered gap I’ve fashioned in the curtains gaping wide.

In an instant, there’s a burst of camera flashes.

I clench the curtains together again as quickly as I can, but know that at least one of those cameras had to have caught a glimpse of my face.

“Yes, babe,” I answer over my shoulder, feeling oddly numb to this déjà vu morning. “They’re still there. It could be days.”

“Days?” Gabriella’s voice softens as she enters the living room, running a tea towel around one of my beloved Glencairn whisky tumblers that served us rather more than a wee dram of Scotch last night. “Days? Is that really possible?”

Oh, love, if you only knew.

But of course, she doesn’t. Because not only was Gabriella not in Scarborough when Rosie went missing, she wasn’t even born for another three years.

Yep, our age gap is a whopping sixteen years.

Neither of us has ever tried to conceal this fact. Not from one another when we first started dating, and after we became more serious, not from anyone we know. But dredging up events from a time before Gabby even existed is really hammering it home for me right now.

A ‘May to December’ relationship, they call it, and there are worse sleights, I guess. I mean, if we were any younger, they’d probably call me a cradle robber. They’d almost certainly call Gabby jailbait. So, in its way, referring to our relationship as May to December is rather sweet given the alternatives. Except that makes Gabby the May in the idiom—in the springtime of her life and full of promise—while I can only be the December—in the winter of my life with one foot in the grave. But Christ on the cross, I’ve only just turned forty-one.

“Yes, days is possible,” I answer.

Very possible.

I don’t have the heart to tell her that if it’s anything like last time, it could be much, much longer. The foreseeable future, even.

She has no idea just how bad everything got when Rosie went missing. How the town all but resorted to vigilantism when the news broke about my abducted friend, especially given the depraved way in which her grandmother was killed. How the press camped up and down the mews outside our home, not for days, but for weeks. And how the sympathy for our situation soon turned to frustration amongst our affluent neighbours once the media attention lost its novelty and their presence became an inconvenience for more than just my parents.

‘…For more than just your APs,’ Rosie’s thirteen-year-old voice corrects me in my mind, a long-forgotten echo of a time before everything changed. Like so many of our interactions, this was just one more way Rosie would try to bestow some level of street cred upon me. ‘APs, Em. It stands for Aged Parents. No one says Mum or Dad anymore. Not unless they’re lame.’

Is it strange that I can actually feel her with me right now?

As intense as that time of my life was, I find myself having to laugh a little. And for the briefest moment, I wonder if perhaps Rosie never did go away. Like maybe, just maybe, it was all some kind of monumental misunderstanding.

‘It’s Rosie, Em,’ that same voice proclaims in my ear, only now it’s a little older, a little less dynamic, a little more battle worn. And a whole lot more Yankee. ‘I’m here, Em. I’m alive.’

“So, what do we do, Piccola?” Gabby asks as she hands me a warm cuppa. “We can’t go out there. You’ll be swallowed up whole. And we can’t keep hiding up in here. It’s so small, we’ll go stark-raving mad.”

Maybe coming back to my cramped one-bed flat after the restaurant was a mistake. If I’d listened to Gabby, we’d be at her place right now, swaddled in 500-count Egyptian cotton sheets on a California King bed. Nary a soul would disturb us as we’d peer out the floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing upon the dramatic North Sea surf far below.

Instead, we’re here.

In my tiny flat.

Feeling claustrophobic and facing a rampant media ambush.

“There has to be a way out, Gabs. I just need to think.”

After all, things aren’t the same as they were back then. We’ve come a long way from the days when the media went essentially unchecked and could insert themselves into the life of a person so completely that they were able to change the very trajectory of it. Often, on little more than a rumour or a whim.

Don’t believe they ever could?

Just remind yourself about Princess Diana. If she were alive today, the paparazzi would never be permitted to harass her the way they did in the ‘90s. Literally haranguing the poor woman to death. At least, I hope such a travesty would no longer be acceptable.

I’m still wrestling with various elaborate ploys to get us out of here and over to Gabby’s place when the door buzzer rings. My building doesn’t benefit from one of those fancy security camera doorbells, so the only way to know who’s buzzing is to look out the window to the front step, two stories below.

“Let me look and see,” says Gabby as she starts to pull the curtains apart.

But I yank them from her hand.

This does not sit well with her, and she scowls, looking me up and down with that ‘don’t you dare’ look she’s perfected so naturally.

“I’m sorry, Gabby. But right now, you’re not part of this mess. You can come and g—”

“Not part of this? How dare you!”

As if she’s wiping a chalkboard, Gabby waves an open hand through the air in front of me and my heart instantly drops, the expression on my face with it. Considering I talk for a living and actually do manage to convince people to buy things, at least every once in a while, I really can put my foot in my mouth when it comes to the people nearest to me.

Gabby’s arms are crossed as she leans to one side with her foot angled out. She means business.

“Look, love,” I explain, softening my tone despite the door buzzer growing increasingly long with fewer gaps of silence between. “What I mean is that you’re not entrenched in this story the way I am. Right now, you can still come and go as you please. But once they have your photo, it won’t be long before they’ll have your name. And once they have that, they’ll find out who you really are. You’ll be hounded as much as me. Maybe more. Trust me, the whack-jobs crawl out of the woodwork at a time like this.”

What I’m saying, or perhaps how I’m saying it, must be landing, because Gabby’s stance softens. But then the entry buzzer rings so loud and long that Gabby throws open the door to my flat and all but ushers me into the corridor to go answer it.

“Well, Piccola. Then I guess you’d better pray that’s not one of those whack-jobs right now, no?”

21

Reporters aren’t supposed to trespass on your property these days. Like I said, we’ve come a long way, and they have very strict parameters in which they must operate now. Even the newbie bloggers and podcasters know that. But just in case we’ve got ourselves a rogue player—or worse, some kind of zealot—Gabby is watching from the top of the stairs, mobile in hand, 999 already punched into the keypad. If things go south, all she need do is hit send and the police will be on their way.

I breathe a giddy sigh of relief over the irony when I open the door to a uniformed cop flanked by two others in plain clothes.

“Ms. Briggs?”

It’s not the uniformed copper that’s asking, but the trendy-looking one on the right, the one with the cashmere pea jacket in muted charcoal over a tight black T-shirt. He flips open a leather card holder to show me his credentials and his pecs ripple just enough to be noticeable beneath his shirt.

“I’m Detective Inspector Grimm. North Yorkshire Constabulary. I imagine you know why we’re here.”

Of course I do. And I’ve done nothing wrong. So why is my heart beating like the clappers in my chest?

My lips have lost all their moisture, but I manage to croak out a meagre invitation: “Yes. Please come in.”

After the usual set of formalities and trying to find a place for everyone to sit in my little studio flat, Gabriella scrambles to find some clean mugs and spoons after I offer them a cuppa. I don’t really expect them to say yes. Certainly not all three of them. But they have, and now she’s clattering about in my tiny kitchenette searching for tea, cream, sugar…

“Oi, che cavolo—” (what the hell) she mutters as she opens and closes half-empty cupboards, cooing a stream of Italian profanity in such soft, dulcet tones that to the untrained ear it sounds like she’s merely singing contentedly as she busies herself about the task. In reality, she’s unleashing a barrage of obscenities that would make a crew of sea-weary sailors at the Port of Hull blush.

“Porco dio.”

(Goddamnit.)

Then my personal favourite, which she makes a point of saying directly to me as she steps into the doorway, accentuating the question with a glimmering white smile and innocuous little head-tilt. “Ecche cazz?” (Are you fucking serious?)

This one is in response to her discovery that the kettle itself is half-buried by a pile of dirty dishes, its electric heating element coated with a thick buildup of limescale that will sour the tea.

I return her smile and mirror her head tilt. First tapping beneath my eye, I then circle the tip of my finger over my heart and point at her: I love you, in my own bastardised version of sign language I invented during Covid. We’d just recently met, and it was cute at the time to be able to visually express my affection from afar. But in the context of this moment, I know I’m coming across as a real smartass, as they’d say on American telly.

And that’s intended.

Gabby takes a step backward until she is no longer seen by anyone but me… then whips me the finger. She emphasises the gesture by kissing the tip and blowing it towards me.

How sweet.

“I know this isn’t a good time,” the second detective says with little conviction behind the half-apology as he proceeds to give me his name and rank. He does not present his I.D., however. Not that I need it to believe him. But without the visual reinforcement, whatever name he just said is gone the moment he finishes telling me, swept away into the ether.

I’m terrible that way.

Honestly? If I don’t have a secondary stimulus—like seeing a name in print as I’m also hearing it, or having something quirky to associate it with—I can forget a person’s name in the process of them actively sharing it with me.

I don’t mean to be that way, it’s just how I’m wired.

Ever seen a silly movie called House Bunny? I’m like the character Anna Faris plays.

The detective does have a stain on his trouser leg. I wish I’d noticed it a split second ago, it might have helped me retain his name. But alas, that moment has passed and Elvis has left the building. So instead, I simply nod and give a little, “Mmm-hmm.”

Now, in case the uniformed constable standing at attention in front of my door wants to introduce himself as well, I turn to give him the opportunity. And this time, I’m going to really focus.

He offers me nothing but silence. Not even eye contact.

Alrighty then.

“Given the news from America yesterday, a whole shitload of things have changed rather quickly,” says the buff one whose name I find myself pondering.

Grin? Grimes? No. It was Grim, I think. How unfortunate. Had to have been bullied something rotten as a lad. Which explains his appearance: the obvious workouts, the calorie deprivation and form-fitting clothes. A classic case of overcompensation, if ever there was one.

He must see me processing… something… and pauses before adding: “An awful lot hinges on how things unfold over the coming days, as you can imagine.”

I nod, trying to focus.

“For a start,” Detective Overcompensating continues, and I realise that in the blink of an eye I’ve already forgotten his real name and have mentally relabelled him. “We don’t even know if the woman claiming to be Rose is actually Rosie Tanner, the girl the world came to know as Little Red Ri—”

“—Riding Hood. Yeah, I know who Rosie Tanner is, Detective.”

Okay, so he might be easy on the eyes, but I’m catching a vibe that he was a little light on cash when God took him shopping in the brains department.

“She was my best friend, Detective, uhh—”

“Grimm. Jake Grimm.”

“—Detective Grimm. I was there the day Rosie was taken. But you already know that.”

He says nothing in response, giving me but a thin-lipped smile.

His partner however, Detective Trouser Stain, is clearly in no mood to let my remark go uncontested.

“You were more than just there, Ms. Briggs.”

I shoot Trouser Stain a deadeye look, and in the kitchen, the sounds of Gabby preparing five cups of tea fall silent.

Drifting across my sitting room, those eight simple words are as unpalatable as a fart no one will own. Because we all know the real indictment lies in what Trouser Stain isn’t saying.

Things like the fact that a thirteen-year-old me was covered in blood that day; or that the scissors lying on the kitchen floor had both Rosie’s and my prints on them (and no one else’s) but only Rosie’s blood.

The vibe has become so palpable I could cut the tension with those goddamn kitchen shears if I had them right now. Until Detective Overcompensating comes to the rescue, that is.

Shaking his head in a manner that exhibits a modicum of disappointment at ol’ Trouser Stain, he turns back to me with a weak attempt at an apology.

“We know you were a victim that day too, Ms. Briggs. I don’t think Detective Richards—”

Richards Richards RichardsRichardRichards, I silently repeat to myself like a mad woman, hoping his name will stick.

“—meant anything by that. But we would like to know if you have any thoughts about the woman’s claim that she is, in fact, Rosie Tanner.”

“Thoughts? I have plenty of thoughts about it. Where the hell would you like me to start?”

“How about telling us exactly what transpired in Grandmother Tanner’s house that day?” Detective RichardsRichardsRichards casually prompts as if he’s asking me to go over the details of something from last week, not a quarter-century ago. “I know it’s in the file. But tell us again… For posterity’s sake.”

My heart begins palpitating; my breaths quickening. The blood to my brain feels as if it’s being constricted.

I may pass out.

Gripping the threadbare arm of my settee, I seek out my clock on the opposite wall and concentrate on the swinging rhythm of its pendulum while the cops stare only at me.

We remain this way for I don’t know how long: the uniformed one standing at attention near my door, the two detectives perched uncomfortably on table chairs, and me, semi-catatonic on the settee for what might be seconds but could just as easily be minutes.

“Perhaps Emily should have a lawyer?” Gabby asks bluntly over the silence I have created, and my dulled gaze is drawn to the direction of her voice. Somehow, she’s not only managed to find five cups, but also brew a pot of tea as good as any I’ve ever had. She’s truly a miracle worker. And my personal hero. For she’s now placed herself between the two detectives and me, hands on her hips as she blocks me protectively from their view.

“An attorney?” RichardsRichardsRichards asks, the sarcasm in his tone dripping. “If Ms. Briggs is a victim in all of this, as she’s always maintained, then why, exactly, would she need a suit?”

22

She needs one if you’re going to question her like she’s a suspect, not a victim.” Gabby takes one slow, certain step toward RichardsRichardsRichards. “Is that what you’re doing, Detective, treating her like a suspect?”

He appears as unimpressed as he is unfazed.

Yet what he does next belies his attraction as he shifts in his chair to improve his posture, shunting his lumbar against the stiff wooden seatback and pressing himself up. With his shoulders squared and his chest high and out, he occupies just that little bit more space in the room.

It’s nothing short of the male bird puffing up its feathers to be more impressive, and I’ve seen this reaction to Gabby before.

Many times.

At first, I thought it comical. Maybe even a little pathetic. Then I stumbled across a study revealing how both men and women alike improved their posture and form while running on a treadmill if a person they found attractive walked by. Those unwitting guinea pigs even went so far as to limit any signs of exertion, governing their laboured breathing or relaxing strained facial expressions. Apparently, it’s in the genetic makeup of both sexes to pad the odds of procuring a mate. Because that means almost certain reproduction, which in turn gives our DNA the chance to flirt with immortality by passing itself on to another generation.

At least, it’s that way for heteros.

The study offered no explanation as to why I have done that very same thing. So, maybe it’s a lot of BS and nothing at all to do with genes and immortality, but rather a feeble attempt by a horny species to scratch its itch.

I think it’s what kids today would call a thirst trap reaction.

Whatever it is, I sense a fresh alertness in the uniformed cop who I’d entirely forgotten was standing at the door behind me. I can all but feel the tension in his body rising as Gabby has now placed herself in the role of potential threat.

I’m not the only one who senses it.

“I think what my partner meant,” Detective Grimm assures both Gabby and me, though mostly Gabby, “is that we’d simply like your take on this.”

A relaxed smile lights his face, as disarming as it is natural, and he eases one of the cups of tea from Gabby’s tray with a level of care you’d expect to associate with the handling of fine bone China, not one of my old, chipped mugs bearing the logo of my newspaper.

His pecs flex again. Just enough to be noticeable beneath his taut black shirt. It’s not intentional. He’s just that buff.

Grimm adds no sugar to his cuppa, takes no biscuit. Just black English breakfast tea. Full stop.

No cream. No sugar. No shortbread biccy…

…No joy.

My stomach sours at the mere thought of it. Clearly, my earlier assessment about overcompensating was spot on.

“Mmmm,” Grimm purrs. “It’s good. Thank you.”

“We have no reason to treat you like a suspect, Ms. Briggs,” RichardsRichardsRichards interjects. “And if you feel that way, I truly apologise. We would just like to know if you believe this woman’s claim. Could she really be Little Re—” (cuts himself short) “—Rosie Tanner?”

There’s nothing for me to think about and I answer almost before he’s finished his sentence. Because the truth is, I don’t know what to believe. And that’s exactly what I tell him.

“For a start, I’d have to see her. Anyone can imitate a voice. Especially over a static-filled landline across the Atlantic Ocean.”

The room falls to a hush as I realise what I’ve just admitted.

“You’ve heard this woman’s voice?” Grimm nearly spits out his tea as RichardsRichardsRichards simultaneously exclaims over top him—

“—She called you?”

You can hear a pin drop.

I clear my throat. There’s no denying it now. To do so would look very sus’, as the Gen Z-ers at my newspaper say about anything they feel is even a smidge less than credible.

“A reporter called me from the BBC. Yesterday afternoon. I thought I was being punked.”

Richards and Grimm are both waiting for me to elaborate. I imagine the uniformed cop somewhere behind me is all ears, too.

“I now know I wasn’t. Martin-something, he said his name was. But it didn’t sound right. I mean, hearing Rose’s name after all these years, and after what had just happened—”

“—What do you mean, ‘after what just happened’?” Gabby’s voice is monotone, insistent. She’s now pivoted toward me, arms crossed, chin raised. “I thought you came straight here from work, then on to the restaurant. Exactly what could have happened that you haven’t told me about?”

Part of her is furious. I can see it in her stature. But most of her posture is expressing concern: her head tilted to one side, eyes softening and beginning to glisten at the corners.

“It was nothing.”

“Nothing? It was something enough to mention, Piccola. And to the police, no less.”

I shoot her a look, begging her to just leave it. For now, at least.

“It’s been an unbelievable sixteen hours, Gabby. I’ll tell you… later. I promise. It’s certainly nothing I need to waste these detectives’ time on.”

I’m expecting them to side with Gabby and gang up on me, pressing me to reveal what happened; forcing me to tell them how stupid I had been at the White Hart.

But to my surprise, they both leave it alone.

“So, the call from the BBC?” Grimm repeats, and I’ve never been so grateful to be interrogated by a cop.

“Ummm, yeah. Okay. So, I hung up on him. This Martin bloke. I don’t know if I still thought it was someone having a lark or whether I believed what he was saying and it was just too much, too soon. It knocked me for a loop, though. I can tell you that. So, I just sat for a spell, trying to catch my breath.”

At this, I spy Gabby silently mouthing the word ‘anxiety’ for the benefit of the detectives.

“Gabby’s right. I’m not ashamed of it. I’ve suffered from anxiety, in some form or other, ever since that day.”

“Understandable,” Trouser Stain—sorry, I mean Richards—capitulates, and for the first time I see him as something akin to a real human being.

“So much for the British stiff upper lip,” I confess. “I’m not sure how long I sat here, just trying to match my breaths to that clock—” (here they both turn in their seats to see what I'm pointing at) “—but I’m sure it can’t have been very long, as I was already running late for our restaurant date with friends. Minutes. Maybe less.”

Gabby confirms this, stating the precise time I arrived at the restaurant. And I mean, to the minute.

Of course she does. I knew she would have been counting every second I was late.

“And this call,” Grimm asks. “Was it to your mobile?”

“The landline.”

I shift to one side to reveal the old rotary phone behind me with its spiral cord, dial for a face, the whole shebang.

“I thought it was the so-called reporter from the BBC again.”

Richards-cum-Trouser Stain-cum-The Annoying One is leaning forward, his attention solely upon me. His features considerably softened. It’s beyond irritating, as I now find myself starting to like this guy instead of loathe him.

“And was it the reporter calling back?”

I shake my head.

“No. It was her…Rosie.” Stuttering, I awkwardly correct myself. “I mean, it was the woman claiming to be her.”

Silence.

I take another deep breath and Gabby follows suit. A moment later, so does the uniformed cop behind us.

“So, it sounded like Rose?” Grimm asks. “Rosie Tanner? You feel it may have been?”

I don’t confirm it, but my head is bobbing up and down as the tears begin to well.

“It sounded like Rose to you?” Grimm repeats. “Like the way your old friend might sound today, I mean?”

“Yes.” I clear my throat, still nodding. “It sounded like Rosie.” Under my breath I add, “It sounded like my BFF.”

Now tears have filled Gabriella’s eyes, and I don’t know if it’s sadness, joy, or a mix of every emotion in-between.

Richards takes a beat. So does Grimm. A whirlwind of thoughts swirl palpably behind their eyes.

“Okay,” Grimm finally says. “So… Ms. Briggs… do you think you might recognise Rose if you saw her face today? I mean, people change.”

There’s more than a soupçon of scepticism to his remark as he takes one last sip of tea.

“After all, it’s been a while,” he adds as he scans for somewhere to place his own empty mug. But having nowhere in my tiny flat to set it aside, he chooses to nestle it in his lap instead. “Are you really so sure you’d know her?”

Neither Gabby nor I offer to take the mug from him.

The comment is absurd, like I have to be schooled about this concept called time. Now I’m no longer sure which of these two detectives I’m supposed to like and which I’m not. Wasn’t it Richards who was Bad Cop a minute ago and Grimm who was Good Cop? Now it seems like they’ve swapped roles. Maybe it’s a deliberate ploy to unnerve me.

Whatever. I won’t even justify his scepticism with an answer.

But then I do.

“I would recognise her,” I assert, cool and steadfast. A moment later I cover my arse by qualifying: “I’m pretty sure I would.”

“So, okay Detective,” Gabby prompts in her usual pointed manner but in that Italian accent that somehow makes you forgive a thousand sleights. “You have a photo? Surely by now you have an image, no?”

Right on cue, the uniformed cop appears at my side with a tablet. The screen is a dark void, a black rectangle awaiting a simple tap from me to bring it—

and Little Red Riding Hood

—back to life.

Just like the act of an index finger applying five effortless pounds of pressure to a gun trigger, I realise I’m one simple tap away from changing the course of my life irrevocably.

My chest tightens.

Goosebumps rise down the length of my arms and spread to my shoulders where they become a column of ants marching along my spine.

It's been twenty-eight years since that day.

Twenty-eight pain-filled years.

And now, with nothing more than the mere tap of a finger, I’m about to see the face of the only real friend I’ve ever had. A friend so close she could have, she should have, been my sister. A friend whose disappearance I’d finally come to terms with, once and for all accepting that she was dead and gone.

Forever.

Only, she never was.

And the past twenty-eight years have been a lie…

23

Ican’t do it.

24

Gabby’s holding my hand and won’t let go.

I’m visibly shaking, the cop’s tablet jittering in my lap. The screen is still a black void.

Any moment now I anticipate a communal sigh of frustration from the peanut gallery.

To my surprise, it doesn’t come.

“I’m sorry, I just—”

Richards cuts my apology short with a wave of his hand like he’s telling a blackjack dealer he’s sticking.

“You don’t need to apologise, Ms. Briggs. We know this has come as a considerable shock, so you take all the time you need. We’ve waited a quarter-century.” He glances at his partner. “We can wait a little longer.”

“Just not another twenty-eight years, please,” Grimm qualifies with an exaggerated ‘ha’!

“Well, maybe that would be a good thing,” says Richards. “I’m retiring in a few. Leave it to the young bucks to sort all this out.”

Now they’re both chuckling, the vibe in the room ten times lighter than the tense, stifling energy it had been since the moment of this same detective’s snarky indictment: ‘You were more than just there, Ms. Briggs…’

I have no idea where that shitty cop went, and frankly I don’t care, because the Richards sitting in front of me right now is someone I could actually have a drink with. Or two. Okay, so he’s quite a bit older than me. But there’s something about that salt and pepper hair that gets me. Daddy issues, I guess.

“Aye, and Wolfe will be worm food by then.” Grimm swipes a hand down the sleeve of his charcoal wool peacoat as if he’d been rummaging around in the dirt himself. “He’s gotta be what, in his seventies now?”

“Sixties,” Richards corrects. “Still, chances are he’ll be a goner by then. And not a moment too soon. Good riddance to bad blood, is what I say.”

Wolfe.

As in, Levi Wolfe.

The mere sound of the name plunges a spear of cold fear into my heart. And now the shivers are back, forming between my shoulder blades and creeping oh-so-slowly down my spine.

Levi Wolfe.

The transient carnival worker who raped and killed Rosie’s grandmother, Flora Tanner, not a dozen feet from where Rosie and I argued in the kitchen.

Levi Wolfe.

The monster convicted of abducting Rose after stabbing her with Gran’s kitchen shears.

Levi Wolfe.

The living embodiment of the Bogeyman. Though in a full quarter-century, he never did reveal why a thirteen-year-old girl had to die, or where her body could even be found.

And now that tracks, because apparently, Rosie never died.

Or so they say…

25

Her Majesty's Prison Belmarsh…” Inspector Grimm informs me.

Like an old married couple, which in a way they kind of are, Detective Richards finishes the sentence for him:

“…Maximum security unit.”

My stomach sours at its very mention.

The reputation of HMP Belmarsh, southeast London’s prison on the banks of the River Thames, is as bleak as the river itself on a Victorian February morning. More commonly known as Britain’s Guantanamo Bay, Alcatraz on the Thames, or my own personal favourite, Hellmarsh (as dubbed by Member of Parliament-cum-novelist Jeffrey Archer who was once an inmate there himself) boasts a list of abuse allegations longer than the rap sheet of most of its tenants.

This is where transient carnival worker Levi Wolfe has lived most of his last twenty-eight years. Transported by armed guards the moment the Crown Court Judge struck her gavel; a Whole Life Order was the sentence. This made Wolfe one of just a few dozen convicts in all of Britain whose acts were deemed so heinous they were sentenced to imprisonment for the rest of their natural lives with no opportunity for parole.

I still recall the moment of sentencing as clear as if it were yesterday: Metropolitan Police frog-marching Wolfe from the courtroom, hands pinned behind his back as public observers gasped and parted. Staring down a then fifteen-year-old me, Wolfe craned his neck to keep me in sight as long as possible, a shit-eating grin plastered across his face that never quite reached his empty eyes.

While I may not have uttered his name in over two decades, that image has perpetually haunted my dreams, the moment all but imprinted upon my DNA.

“What happens now?” I ask, sheepish and fiddling with the tablet in my lap, caressing its sides and turning it this way and that. “To Levi Wolfe, I mean.”

It’s a question they clearly hadn’t expected, for both Richards and Grimm appear stumped. Or perhaps that look is chagrin.

A good minute passes with no one speaking.

That doesn’t sound very long, but try it sometime. You and four of your pals just sit there in silence for sixty seconds.

No music. No phones. No telly on in the background.

Silence like that is excruciating these days.

Gabby is the first to break it.

Wringing her hands together and jostling in place like she’s desperate for a pee, her voice is uncharacteristically timid as she repeats my question.

“Well, that’s the thing,” Grimm answers. His chill, cool guy demeanour has stiffened, his words tenuous and brittle as if by merely speaking them aloud he might cause them to crumble into powder mid-air. “If Rose… if she’s… alive… then we’ve, well, then I guess we’ve imprisoned an innocent man for a crime he never committed.”

I can’t speak.

My breath has caught in my windpipe and won’t shift. Did he really just use the word innocent? It feels like I’ve just made some kind of timeline shift and am now operating inside an alter-universe version of my life.

“Innocent? Fucking innocent? You can’t even be saying that to me right now. I mean, what?”

Richards raises his hands, instinctively gesturing his nonconfrontational intent. Although answering me without pause, I can tell he’s choosing his words carefully.

“Levi Wolfe is not innocent, Emily. Far from it. Trust me, we are in complete agreement. But of the crime of murder against Rosie Tanner, in the eyes of the law that is exactly what he would be.”

“Innocent,” Gabby repeats, deadpan but flummoxed. “This… this… man, he rapes Flora Tanner. He chokes the life from her. He then stabs and kidnaps the woman’s granddaughter. All in front of Emily. And you say he is innocent in the eyes of your laws.”

Of course she’s right. But I can’t help but catch that she’s used the phrase ‘your laws.’ I don’t know if she’s aware of it, but this isn’t the first time Gabby has leaned into her Italian nationality and just that little bit away from Britain. Like she hasn’t lived here for most of her adult life… which she absolutely has.

“Of the murder of Rose, yes. He would be considered innocent. If Ms. Tanner is in fact alive, that is.”

I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but Grimm is right. And thank God that’s the case. Levi Wolfe is evil incarnate, but I’m grateful that I live in a society where you can’t just be put away for the rest of your life without reason, or on the mere whim of some potentate.

Still, I’m shaking my head.

Because Levi Wolfe has given society a plethora of reasons to never be returned to it.

Ever again.

“Here’s the reality.” D.I. Richards uncrosses his legs and leans in, lowering his voice the way you do when you’re about to reveal a secret. “Levi Wolfe is a piece of filth, and the British public are better off without him in it. But he’s served twenty-some years in possibly the worst place on the planet for someone like him. Even amongst the detritus of society there’s an unspoken code of sorts. And you can probably imagine what they do to rapists and paedophiles in a place like Hellmarsh. So, those years will have been no walk in the park. But the fact of the matter is this: without the murder of Litte Re—” he catches himself before saying it “—Rosie Tanner, it’s safe to assume that Levi Wolfe would not have received a Whole Life Order.”

“And no Life Order means a chance for parole,” Grimm adds.

“So, what you’re saying is that if Rosie is indeed alive, Wolfe can actually apply for parole? He can be free?”

Turn me over, ‘cause I’m done.

I really must be in some kind of alternative universe right now if the monster who raped and killed Mrs. Tanner, and then abducted my best friend, could walk. Whether he actually killed Rosie or not.

“…When?” I ask.

“When what?” Richards asks, his hands pressed together like he’s praying, only they’re pointed in my direction instead of up.

“When could Levi Wolfe apply for parole… if this woman in the States really does turn out to be my Rosie?”

“The average number of years served for murder in the UK is less than seventeen.”

D.I. Grimm nods in agreement, fingertips tapping as Gabriella does the maths in her head: “So, six years ago?”

Now Richards is nodding too, and together they look like a pair of bobblehead dolls. Despite the hot dread growing heavy in my stomach, I nearly crack a smile because of it.

Nearly.

I already know the answer to my next question but need to hear it from them. “Which means Wolfe could’ve been released to the general population already. Quite a while ago, actually.”

“That’s not up to us,” Grimm states. “That would be a judge’s call, and pending a parole intervie—”

“—Yes,” Richards interrupts, blunt as a stone. “He could have, and most likely would have, been out by now. And chances are high that if this woman really is Rosie, he’ll be out within weeks. Maybe sooner.”

To this, Grimm shrugs.

“But my best friend is dead. And he’ll be allowed to just walk around like it never happened?”

“I don’t think you’re grasping this, Ms. Briggs,” says Grimm. “If Rosie Tanner is eating sun-ripened peaches and living it up in Georgia, then she isn’t dead. Which means the events of that day never did happen the way we—the way the whole world—thought they did.”

I suddenly realise the full weight of what he’s saying.

That, and the fact that I might be coming across just a little too certain that Rosie is in fact dead and gone...

26

Iwas starting to come around to the idea of it—to the fact that some woman in the States is claiming to be Rosie. At least, enough to no longer feel the constant need to vomit.

In a way, an odd sense of relief was even starting to bubble up.

After all, if the one person you loved most in the world was gone forever and then you were told they weren’t—that you could actually see, hear, talk with and hold them in your arms again—most people would experience a sense of euphoria once they got over the initial shock.

My relief wasn’t like that.

Yes, I was beginning to feel like a weight had been lifted. Just not in the way you’d expect. But now that I consider the many implications, the weight of it has become even heavier.

A vise grip of panic begins to press upon my chest.

“W-W-Why—” Stuttering, I’m barely able to croak out my question and need a moment to compose myself. I’m sounding awfully guilty for someone who’s as much a victim in this as Rosie was. Perhaps more so. “W-Why, exactly, have you come to me about all of this…?”

But I already know why. Because Mr. and Mrs. Tanner, both of Rosie’s parents, are long gone.

Rosie’s mum, Elizabeth, never lived to see the sentencing. After being found guilty, Levi Wolfe still refused to reveal the location of her daughter’s body, even though doing so could have lessened his sentence. That’s when Liz Tanner swallowed a bunch of pills and slipped into the embrace of a warm bath—

from the womb to the womb

—just as the chimes of Big Ben heralded in a new year, new decade, new century, and millennium.

Rosie’s father, David Tanner, lasted seven more years but spiralled into increasingly isolated misery. That descent ended in 2007 when his car took a swan dive over Cayton Bay cliffs. They said the heart attack came first, that he would never have known what happened. This theory was corroborated by the discovery that there was no sign Rosie’s father had ever attempted to hit the brakes. Bursting at speed through the railing on Killerby Cliff Road, his tyre tracks were clean and straight as a die (excuse the pun) for another good fifty meters across the clifftop field.

Personally, I think the heart attack came after he plunged that shiny red Peugeot sport over the cliff.

I pray I’m wrong.

Richards and Grimm answer my ‘why me’ question with ‘who else?’ expressions. Even the uniformed copper at the door clears his throat, the first sound I think he’s uttered, and it feels to me like judgement.

“Because I’m the only one left,” I say aloud, answering my own question with a lie.

It’s a lie because my mother, Margaret Briggs is most definitely still alive. But good luck if you’re hoping to get a lick of sense out of that mad old bird. She was never a beacon of warmth and caring at the best of times. Over the years, any light left inside her just slowly extinguished until she’s become unrecognisable from the woman she had once been.

We scarcely talk anymore; see each other even less. Always confrontational and cavilling, my mother’s bitterness reached its all-time high when I ‘came out’ to her and introduced Gabriella as my girlfriend. Without blinking, Mum looked me in the eyes and told me she wished it had been me who had been killed that day instead of Rosie.

Spewing that much hatred must’ve surprised even her, because the instant she said it, she apologised in a flood of tears and locked herself in her bedroom.

As awful as that day was, I’ll always be grateful for the wakeup call it turned out to be for everyone—including Mother—about the state of her declining mental health.

The very next week she hired round-the-clock care (a polite way of saying she got herself a personal staff à la Downton Abbey, albeit a paired down version) courtesy of my father’s hospitality empire.

Yep, she sold every single one of his hotels and inns for a not-so-little sum within weeks of his death. And in case you’re wondering, no, it never once crossed her mind to preserve Daddy’s legacy and the one thing besides me that brought him any real joy.

I’ve come to accept that what beats in my mother’s chest is a dark heart of hardened steel, and I won’t subject myself to its enmity anymore.

Rose is gone.

Her parents are gone.

My father is gone.

And my mother might as well be.

If it weren’t for Gabriella, I’d be utterly alone in this world.

As this stark realisation echoes through my mind, the police tablet glares up from my lap. I can’t explain why, but beyond its black void of a screen lies a photo with the power to destroy even that—my one and only human connection—leaving me truly alone.

My heart is pounding so hard I’m sure everyone can hear it.

Just a single tap, and the face that goes with the voice I heard will be revealed.

But can it really be my long-lost friend?

I already know the answer to that. And as much as I wish it were yes, it just isn’t possible.

It’s true that I often pine to have someone left from my childhood to fight in my corner. But total abandonment does come with one significant advantage: it also means I’m the only one left—and lucid—who knows what really happened that day. And what happened is that Rosie Tanner was unquestionably taken from this world.

So, I alone possess the power to breathe life back into Little Red Riding Hood.

If the face I’m about to see looks even remotely like Rosie’s, with little more than a nod of my head I can choose to resurrect the little girl the entire world mourned. If it looks nothing like her, I can ensure Rosie Tanner remains dead and gone.

Irrevocably this time.

Which is worse, alive or dead?

Which is more dangerous?

Take the red pill and see how far down the rabbit hole we go. Take the blue pill and live on in (not so) blissful denial, the truth forever vibrating just beneath the surface of my reality.

The weight of this moment is unmistakable, and I’m starting to feel woozy. Every single aspect of my life hinges on what I see and say next. I can’t begin to imagine how everything will change if I choose the wrong path, and that in itself floods me with terror.

I need to calm myself, to ground. I can’t possibly make the right decision if my mind is drowning in fight-or-flight adrenaline.

Grimm and Richards see that I’m visibly trembling, and that’s okay. After all, I’m still that little girl who saw her best friend attacked by a monster who had just raped and killed another woman I loved, mere steps away. It’s only right that I should be overcome by emotion, so my reaction is perfectly fitting.

Even if it’s for an entirely different reason than they think.

Besides, I assure myself in a grasping effort to self-soothe, perhaps it doesn’t really matter what I decide—whether to resurrect my best friend or keep her in the grave—because in its own way, the outcome has been inevitable for years.

Now all I hear is the Cheshire Cat’s famous advice to Alice upon her descent into Wonderland: ‘If you don't know where you want to go, then any road will take you there.’

I’ve never related to a thing more completely in my life. For whatever I choose, Rosie Tanner has found her way back to me.

One way.

Or another.

27

Ijust have to take the next step. In any direction.

So, with a deep breath, I tap the tablet’s screen.

It springs to life in vivid colour.

But before the picture solidifies, I look away.

My vision has begun to blur, my eyes wet and heavy at the corners. My eyelids are already chafed from rubbing them over and over again in a futile effort to stop the tears from falling. Because tears are weak. And patently un-British.

I’ve become atypically cold and I’m trembling all over.

It has to be obvious, as if I were on the cusp of a seizure. Yet no one but me seems to notice. Or so I think, until Gabby weaves her long model’s fingers into mine.

I pull my hand away.

If I don’t, I know I’ll succumb to the normalcy of that feeling and the safe harbour of deception I’ve kept all these years. Survival instinct will then prevent me from entertaining doing the one thing that threatens this comfortable, protected reality I have created.

Yet entertain it I must.

I can’t even look at Gabby. I don’t want to see the dejection I know she must be feeling.

Nor can I look at the face I know is burning a hole through me from that tablet.

So instead, my eyes seek a point far beyond the wall, as if I have X-ray vision and am staring at something halfway across town. My expression is blank, my gaze a thousand metres away.

For far too many years, a single moment in a young girl’s life has defined me, the undertones of that day ever present in my world. I tried to ignore them, to push them deep down, to pretend they were not there.

Yet still they whispered.

But I’m a different person now.

After I met Gabby, everything changed. I finally had a life of my own, even if the shadow of Rosie Tanner always managed to block just a little bit of the sun’s warmth upon my face.

Only now, Rosie’s shadow is looming large. And if I don’t look at this tablet, I will never get out from under it. Even if that means going back to that day, just one more time.

But you can’t, my adamant mind declares. I won’t allow it.

‘Oh, my dear,’ responds the Cheshire Cat as he floats into my unfocused gaze. ‘You can never go back to yesterday.’

His image is as clear to me as Gabby’s or D.I. Richards’ or Grimm’s. But in an instant he’s already beginning to fade, only that lingering, toothy smile as proof he was ever here at all.

‘You can’t go back, because you were a different person then. We all were,’ the teeth say and then are gone.

Pulling myself back from this nebulous place of confusion and fear, I force my eyes to look upon the tablet…

…And the adult eyes of my childhood friend that are looking right back at me.

28

Jesus—!”

It’s not possible.

How can I be seeing what I’m seeing?

Leaping from my seat, the tablet tumbles from my lap and flips end over end. I must be shrieking, because Grimm and Richards are both wide-eyed.

They lurch to their feet, recoiling from the tablet as it skids across the floor, our circle widening as though the device has morphed into a venomous snake.

“Christ almighty,” Grimm exclaims and nearly trips over the legs of my chair as it topples. Richards grabs it, keeps it upright, partially to steady his own balance.

Gabby is clutching her breast in shock, eyes alight.

I can’t catch my breath.

Or rather, I can’t let it go.

I’ve inhaled a half-dozen times in ragged, shuddering spasms, but cannot exhale. I’m drowning in a carbon dioxide fuelled panic.

It’s the uniformed constable who saves me from passing out. Wrapping both arms around me from behind, he clenches one fist with the other and gives my abdomen a quick upward pump. It forces the air from my lungs in a whooshing exhale. Ironically, I find myself taking another deep gasp of air into my lungs, feeling the burst of fresh oxygen permeating my blood.

For a length of time, nobody speaks.

I don’t mind. It affords me the chance to process what I’ve just seen. Because I still can’t believe it.

The uniformed constable has retrieved the tablet from under my small dining table, and despite my best instincts, I gesture for him to allow me to see it again.

Shaking my head while opening and closing my eyes wide like I’m preparing for some great physical feat, I ready myself to look upon that face a second time.

When I do, my breath hitches.

An asymmetrical brunette bob frames the woman’s face. Her electric blue eyes are even brighter than my own. The lines of a quarter-century punctuate the mouth, chin and eyes—natural brackets scribed upon the flesh—but the features themselves are as familiar as mine. In a way, perhaps more so.

They are the features of my childhood friend.

A drop of moisture breaks upon the tablet’s screen and causes the image to jitter. It makes it appear as though she winks at me, but I know it’s an optical illusion.

Now another drop quakes the screen and I realise they are my own tears falling...

29

My revelation made the news that evening, broadcast across the country.

(Just like last time.)

Before long, the international news had it as well.

(Also, just like last time.)

But of course, today we have social media, and it was mere minutes after Detectives Grimm, Richards and the uniformed constable (whose name I never did get) left that the breaking news was already popping up across the feed of most platforms.

(Nothing like last time.)

Which meant it was flowing around the world like a tsunami news wave before I’d even stopped crying. And it only took eight words from Grimm standing on the front steps of my building to whip this story into a viral frenzy:

“Ms. Briggs has tentatively confirmed the woman’s identity.”

For three more days, I couldn’t leave my flat.

Not that I wanted to, mind you. Cocooned in my bed, I barely spoke. Barely ate. Barely did anything but grieve for the life I could’ve had, had I not been mourning the loss of Rosie Tanner for most of it. Eventually, after crying my tears to extinction, I gathered enough mental fortitude to take a shower.

After that, I ate my first something in three days. A few hours more, and I was as ready to get the hell out of here as Gabby was.

While I packed my things into a travel bag—socks, underwear, a couple changes of both casual and more professional clothes—Gabby tidied up and strategised our escape.

The throng gathered outside hadn’t yet seen Gabby’s face, but it wouldn’t take a genius to start clocking the faces coming in and out. Ater all, my building isn’t very big; there’s not that many of us who live here. And as I think I’ve made clear by now, I’m not wealthy. Not by a long shot. So, my neighbours are working folks, just like me. They have to come and go on a daily basis: for their jobs, their groceries, whatever. By default, if someone came out whose face the media had never before seen, it would be likely that that person was my girlfriend.

But Gabby, brilliant as she is, had the idea of going—and then coming back again—whenever she heard someone trotting down the stairs. The first time she did this was that very night.

I was certain it would not work

But there she went, sauntering out the front door alongside Mrs. Robbins from 3B, chatting away as a sea of cameras parted.

At first, a couple of the reporters shouted for them to give their names, cameras snapping and flashes flashing. But Mrs. Robbins, in her sixties if she’s a day, shot them such a look of disdain that they quieted themselves and did not ask again.

Once Gabriella was able to come and go without raising suspicion, it left only me to sneak away… unseen, unnoticed or unidentified.

It didn’t matter which, as long as one of those uns worked.

I couldn’t play the blend-in game that Gabby had so cleverly devised. For one, I’d been catatonic for three days, barely capable of getting out of bed let alone hiking three flights of stairs to pretend I was just another resident heading to work or making an Aldi’s run. For another, even if I’d been filled with enough energy to run a marathon, the swarm outside already had my photo… long before Grimm and Richards ever showed up.

Now, I know what you’re gonna say. But before you judge me, yes, I make sure all my social media accounts are set to private, and yes, I use only a cartoon avatar as my profile pic.

Of course, they all had my pic as a thirteen-year-old. But I had no idea where they’d managed to acquire one of me in my late thirties, just a couple years ago. But then I visited the website of the Scarborough Daily Standard where I work, and right there on the ‘Our Leaders’ page was my smiling mug, rendering all my facile attempts at social media privacy moot. You could even click on it to download a nice high-res version, suitable for print.

How I was going to leave without this media swarm seeing my face, I had no idea. Especially as there’s only one way in or out.

Needless to say, my brilliant girlfriend had already hatched our plan and was in the process of setting it in motion.

Gabby made a quick call to her friend Antonio, and an hour later his wife was pulling up outside our building with an Uber Eats light on the dash of her car, the hazard lights flashing as she made her way through the throng of reporters.

Brandishing a keep-warm pizza delivery pouch and wearing jeans, an American baseball cap with her hair tucked up into it, and big Jackie Onassis sunglasses, she buzzed our flat.

Four minutes later, I came out wearing the same, the empty keep-warm pouch dangling from my side as I strolled to her car without a single reporter looking at me twice.

That was two days ago.

Now we’re at Gabby’s place overlooking the sea, not a reporter in sight. Such is the power of anonymity… and wealth.

At first, I did nothing but watch the news, over and over, as I tried to process it all. Then, I spent hours fielding emails, texts and phone calls.

Now, I’m once again packing a bag. This time to fly to America. Savannah, Georgia, to be precise.

Gabby assures me I’ve packed more than enough as I continue to stuff more clothes into a single piece of luggage than I could ever possibly need for a five-day trip.

Hey, cut a girl some slack! How’s a Yorkshire lass to know what the weather is like in the American South in November?

I could just take two bags if I want. Unlike those all-in holidays to Greece I’m used to taking, the ones where you have to be frugal about how much you pack unless you want to pay a hefty surcharge, for this trip I’ll be flying Business Class.

A first for me!

But two pieces of luggage always feels so cumbersome when you’re trying to navigate airports and rideshares and hotels. Especially when you’re on your own and have a carry-on and handbag to boot.

As it happens, my beloved newspaper, the Scarborough Daily Standard, was one of the media outlets that approached me in the hopes of securing the UK exclusive of the reunion with my long-lost friend, and I was thrilled to be able to agree. The deal comes with a £50k bonus (equal to my annual wages), a Business Class ticket to America on Virgin Airways, and the honeymoon suite in Savannah’s oldest bed and breakfast.

Quite the windfall, yeah?

Well, it is… until you hear that I received another offer that totalled a cool £1 million once everything was added up. That was from a lascivious tabloid newspaper owned by a mega media corporation you probably know, but that I shouldn’t mention. Mostly because the majority owner has a reputation for engaging in activities not that dissimilar to that creepy fuck, Alan Jenkins.

Now, make no mistake. I did think it over. A lot. And of course, I bounced it back and forth with Gabriella. After all, a million is lifechanging. For a start, I’d never have to worry about money ever again. It would also place me on equal ground with Gabby, at least financially. And the idea of no longer having to look at her like some kind of ‘Sugar Mama’ or safety net was more appealing than I should admit.

But did I really want to live the rest of my life knowing that whatever I did from that point forward was the result of taking money from a creep that treats women like disposable sex toys? If that were the case, I might as well have just slept with Jenkins and been done with it.

That insanely huge offer wasn’t the only one I received. Like I said, over the past two days I’ve been inundated with emails, calls and texts from every national UK newspaper and major media outlet trying to seduce me with mind-numbing deals. Because, let’s face it, whichever one scores the clout of being the firsthand authority for the Little Red Riding Hood Reunion will essentially score a licence to print their own money.

After Gabby and I talked it over, giving the exclusive to my beloved newspaper, the local Scarborough Daily Standard, was the only real choice.

Up to a couple days ago, all I wanted was to help keep the paper afloat. Hell, I nearly succumbed to that creep Jenkins in order to do it.

Now it won’t just survive, it’ll thrive. And it’s Jenkins who’ll get the finger this time. The middle one. It may be his wallet that’s getting diddled (and maybe a little of his pride), but aren’t they both where it’ll hurt him the most?

I only just signed the deal last night, and already the Standard’s circulation numbers are through the roof. Given the meteoric rise they expect to see over the coming week as they receive all the intimate details of the Little Red Riding Hood reunion direct from yours truly, the resultant injection of revenue from circulation and advertising alike could actually empower them to return to a daily edition again. After all these years of limping along as a weekly, they’ll be able to fulfil their name once more by publishing daily.

So, there!

Take that, Alan Jenkins, you absolute wanker.

I show Gabby pics of Berendt House, the quaint little Bed & Breakfast where I’ll be staying in Savannah, along with the contact info in case she needs me.

Or, more likely, in case something happens and I need her to bail me out.

The fact that this historic B&B is only a decade older than the building in which my own modest little flat resides makes me snicker. I mean, just about every other building in Scarborough is as old as this place in the States that’s so proud of how old it is. But, I do appreciate the owner’s respect for its history. Lord knows America has enough plastic and plasticene culture for the rest of the world three times over.

“Like Britain doesn’t?” Gabby replies in her rhythmic Italian accent, making me realise I must’ve been thinking out loud again. Either that, or she’s a witch.

And yes, I do sometimes wonder…

“Piccola, do you realise that when our Roman Empire ruled the world, your ancestors were still dressed in loin cloths and playing with big rocks?”

She’s talking about Stonehenge.

I think.

And okay, that’s a bit of a stretch, but I take her point.

After all, the Romans had built a sewage system five hundred years before Christ even existed, while Britons were still wallowing in their own filth.

“You sure you don’t want to come?” I ask again. I do it out of politeness more than anything, because I already know her answer will be the same one she’s given me three times already. But I do have to admit that my nerves are starting to get the better of me and it would be nice to have her around for emotional support.

Which is exactly what I tell her.

“Piccola, I love you. I would adore spending time with you in such a genteel American town. I have been to Savannah. And to say it’s charming is an understatement...”

“But?”

“But… this isn’t about shopping and art galleries and dining and sightseeing. This is about reuniting with a friend that was taken from you a very long time ago. Your best friend, no?”

“If it is my best friend.”

I suck in a breath, the excitement on my face wilting. It’s odd that she said it that way, because I’ve made a point of not using that particular turn of phrase—best friend—on the few rare occasions I’ve ever mentioned Rosie or my childhood. I think it’s because I never wanted to hurt her feelings. After all, isn’t your soulmate supposed to be your best friend forever?

…’BFFs, I think the Yanks call it,’ says my dad, and I cringe at how lame he’s being right now…

“What if she isn’t Rosie Tanner?”

“You’ve already said she was, Piccola. Your heart knew it to be so, the moment you saw her face. And of course she was your best friend, I don’t know why that’s so hard for you to admit. You grew up together, close as sisters. And that’s as it should be for two girls finding their footing in this world. Why are you so sensitive about admitting that you miss Rosalie… that you loved her.”

Gabby may not know why. But I do.

Yes, I loved Rosie… more than I’ve ever admitted.

But that’s not the only secret I’ve kept.

I’ve been the sole keeper of a dark, horrible truth for decades now, and it’s eating me alive.

Some might say I’ve shoved it far down to protect the innocent who can no longer defend themselves. But the truth is, I’ve kept it far from the light of day to protect the not-so-innocent.

And that includes me.

Because not even Gabby knows who Rosie Tanner really was…

30

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO

Mum! Mr. Jacobs wants to know if we have a wine opener!” I’m calling out to her as I navigate a sea of adults laughing and chatting so loudly, I can barely hear my own voice. “Mum? Where do we keep one of those corkscrew thingamabobs.”

But my mother is nowhere to be found.

Neither is my father.

I’m about to go back and tell Mr. Jacobs we don’t have one, or at least that I don’t know where it is, when Rosie comes running across the lawn. Behind her, the door of the garden shed where my dad does his homebrewing and Mum pots her plants and stuff, has been thrown wide open.

And Rosie’s crying, her face screwed tight.

She darts past without even looking at me.

“Rosie?” She doesn’t stop. “Rosie!”

But the sound of my voice is overpowered by the cackles of Mrs. Churston-Ferres in response to something Mr. Roberts just said. Clearly, it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard in her life, and I can’t help but draw my attention to her… as does everyone. I can’t be the only one who notices that she’s preening herself—fingertips gliding through her hair and a gleam in her unblinking eyes—as she mentally devours the man who is nothing like her husband.

When I turn back toward Rosie, she’s gone. I don’t even see the adults parting like a human wave to allow her through.

She’s just… gone.

Her mum, Mrs. Tanner, either doesn’t notice, or she doesn’t care. Because she’s laughing it up with three other APs I’ve never seen before. But Mr. Tanner must’ve seen his daughter just as I did, because he’s out the door in a blink. Unlike me, he has the height advantage to be able to see where Rosie went.

I’m about to follow him when Mrs. Churston-Ferres grabs my shoulder and asks where she might freshen up. I can’t even hear myself think, so I end up walking her to the downstairs toilet like I’m some kind of housemaid.

By the time I’m finally out the front door, neither Rosie or Mr. Tanner are in sight. I don’t even see their car.

The party drones on for another couple hours despite my mum failing to make another appearance at what is basically her idea in the first place. My dad is still around, and he’s doing his thing, mingling and acting like he gives a shite about any of this. But I can see the lacklustre way he’s chatting to everyone, his heart no longer in it.

Once the last of them have left, I begin the task of cleaning up. It’s something I always do with both my mum and dad while we joke and laugh and share our highlights of the party, placing guests into a list of various categories of our making: who was the most interesting, who was the funniest, things like that. If mum’s feeling particularly cheeky, we’ll giggle over who we think wore the most ridiculous outfit.

This year, I’m on my own.

No jokes. No highlights. No giggling. Just a nasty pile of dishes that looks taller than me, and three bin-bagfuls of rubbish my dad will have to take outside because they’re too heavy for me to carry without spilling them everywhere. The whole time I’m tidying up I’m certain they’ll come downstairs to join me any minute. So, I brush and wipe and put things away as I think of my answers to the questions my mum will ask.

Most interesting?

I can’t remember his name, but he was from America and living here in Scarborough now, working with the newspaper. And he was cute… in an adult kind of way.

Funniest?

That’s easy: Mrs. Churston-Ferres. Not because she had the best jokes (if she indeed had any at all) but because her laugh was loud and she herself was rather ludicrous, doing little to hide the fact that she had the hots for poor ol’ Mr. Roberts.

Most ridiculous outfit?

I can’t think of anyone else now except Mrs. Churston-Ferres. But that’s okay, because she fits in this category too. Maybe next year I’ll suggest to mum and dad that we add another category to our little tidy-up roundup: How many guests can we name who tick the most of our boxes?

Before I know it, the tidying is all but done.

My mum and dad never did come down, and all that’s left to do is take out the binbags and hoover up the crumbs and bits of stuff that are everywhere. It’s only half-seven, so I could do it. But I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open. The way I figure it, if it’s there now, it’ll still be there in the morning. And besides, I’ve done way more than my fair share. Way bloody more. Enough to bank a few future yeses for things they’d normally say no to.

I trudge up the stairs to say goodnight and tell them that all the cleanup for their party is done—no thanks to you—when my dad’s voice booms from beyond the closed door to their bedroom.

That’s not like him at all, and so striking compared to the hushed conversation they were having when I topped the stairs that it stops me in my tracks.

Heart in my throat, I freeze in place.

“I told you, Margaret, that’s not… what... happened!” Muffled by the bedroom door, my dad’s voice is so aggressive it’s frightening. I’ve never heard him talk like this to my mum. Not to anybody. Not ever. “Jesus fucking Christ, Margaret!”

He also never calls her Margaret. To my dad, Mum is always just Mags. Sometimes Maggie. But Margaret only if he’s talking about her in some weird, formal situation.

Or if he’s mad at her.

“What do you expect me to think?” Mum’s voice is wet and shaky. I wonder if she’s been crying. “I come looking for you… to help me… in the kitchen. And what do I find? You… sidled up to her like… like… like I don’t know what!”

“And so, you think the worst. Immediately. Isn’t that right, Margaret. Everyone’s wrong. You’re always right. Every sleight is a hanging offence. Christ, I was only talking to her! She’s our daughter’s BF—” he cuts himself short, backs it up “—our daughter’s best friend! I’d like to get to know her more. What in the hell’s wrong with that?”

My mum exhales, a popping series of staccato breaths.

“What’s wrong with that? Are you really asking me that? She’s thirteen, Marc. You understand? Thirteen! She’s too young. God, it would ruin everything!”

And that’s when I know it’s something awful that’s happened. Something adult. Something I shouldn’t even be hearing.

Confused and scared and fighting off my tears, I sprint to my room and pull my door shut. In the safety of my own personal refuge, I weep into my pillow so they won’t hear me.

It’s Sunday morning, and I’m preparing myself for that awkward silence and the kind of tension that makes your stomach sour. Instead, my dad is making a full English breakfast, humming along to Janet Jackson’s ‘Together Again.’

Hoovering up in the other room, Mum’s not singing along to the radio like dad is, even though he has it loud enough for all of us to hear over the vacuum. But I guess she seems okay enough. Nothing like I expected after what I heard last night.

“Em!” My dad exclaims loud enough to be heard above Janet—

Ms. Jackson if you’re nasty

—as he spots me in the doorway. “Good morning, pet! Come, come! Your aged father has made the best Full English this side of the Watford Gap! Sit, lass, sit!”

Mum doesn’t join us. But she is running errands today and also going over to the Tanners, so she finishes hoovering and gets ready while we eat. It’s too much food for me, and not sweet enough for my liking (I prefer my cereal) but it’s still pretty good. I offer to help him with the dishes, but he says I’ve done more than enough, with cleaning up last night ‘n all, and tells me to go get ready. He knows there’s no way Mum’s going to the Tanners without me tagging along.

I give him a big kiss and wrap my arms around his neck, squeezing until it feels like we’ll just squash together into one human being.

“I love you, Daddy. You’re the best.”

“Hmmm. Well, I think you’re okay enough,” he muses, fingers playing comically over his chin. “I guess.”

He always manages to make me smile.

Mum and I go to Aldis and the market, then Marks & Sparks for our lunch where she orders my favourite: a prawn sandwich and one of those little individual trifles. She seems happy enough, but quiet. Like she’s excited about something but a bit nervous at the same time.

I kinda get that way when we’re about to go on a school field trip. I can’t wait to go see the castle or stately home or the museum or wherever it is that we’re going, but I’m always a little anxious about being so far from my parents. I don’t know why. It just feels like there’s this big, dark cloud about to envelop me.

It’s times like that when I find myself clinging to Rosie more than ever. I feel safer when we’re together. Like I’m whole. Not vulnerable, the way I so often feel on my own. Though I do think I’m alone in this feeling. I can’t imagine Rosie Tanner has ever felt weak or defenceless a single time in her entire life.

“Stop daydreaming and eat,” Mum tells me. “We still have the Tanners to visit before we go home and put away all this shopping.”

She turns to the big bay window overlooking the high street. Unlike yesterday, the weather is cool and damp. Very October. And very Tupperware Syndrome.

“At least it’s cool enough today, eh, pet?” she says without really looking at me. Her eyes are staring out the window of the café, but her focus is somewhere far away. “The veggies and such will keep a while longer. Not like yesterday. Phew!” She pretends she’s wiping her brow. “Now, that was a scorcher, wasn’t it?”

I nod, a mouth full of custard and vanilla sponge soaked in raspberries. I want to enjoy it, but the way Mum’s acting feels forced and I’m starting to lose my appetite.

When I’m upset, I can’t even think about eating. And right now, it’s clear that something big is on my mother’s mind. I’m pretty sure it has to do with whatever the thing was that happened between Rosie and my daddy at the garden party yesterday.

We’re not even a minute at the Tanners before Rosie half-drags me up the stairs.

“Oh my gosh! You gotta come to my room and listen! I saved all my money from doing chores for a month and used it to get the new Robbie Williams CD! You’re gonna just bug, Em. It’s soooooo wicked good!”

I don’t have the heart to tell her that Mum just bought it for me this morning during our shopping trip. I do chores around the house too, but I don’t have to save it to get stuff like CDs. I just ask Mum or Dad to get it for me. That kind of thing is nothing for my parents. It’s not the same for Rosie’s parents.

“I can’t wait!” I exclaim, bummed that I won’t get to hear it for the first time from my own copy, but glad I can share this moment with my bestie.

We listen to the songs out of order, starting by jumping straight to track number 3, ‘Millennium.’ With the volume way up, Rosie grabs me by my hands and we dance together around her bedroom. I notice that at least a couple of the pictures of Liam Gallagher from Oasis have now been replaced by Robbie Williams. They’re cutouts from one of the Sunday papers, probably from this morning, and one of the pictures has big fat letters that read, ‘TAKE THAT, TAKE THAT!’ above Robbie’s cheeky grin.

“Isn’t he dreamy?”

Rose sidles up to me as I study it more closely, nodding in full agreement. Only the first few lines of the articles text are intact below Robbie’s devilish smile, but apparently the writer thinks his new album is a major success, and something of a snub to Robbie’s old group, Take That. Not that I really care. I mean, I like them okay enough. But of the five of them, Robbie’s always been the brightest star.

“He’s SO yummy!” I giggle when I say it, a little surprised that it came out of my mouth. It’s definitely more the kind of thing Rosie would say. And she lets me know it.

With a dramatic gasp, she takes a step back, swatting the air in front of me with a weak-wristed slap. “Why, Emily Briggs, I dare say you are becoming quite the little hussy!”

I don’t know what a hussy is, but I’ve heard it used on The Golden Girls. Usually in reference to that one old bird with the thick accent who’s always acting super randy. I guess that’s why Rosie is putting on the funny accent that she is. It’s supposed to be American Southern, but coming off her tongue, it sounds more like a mix between Scottish and Northern Irish.

We both crack up and end up chatting away about everything (a couple of Chatty Cathys, remember?) until we’ve completely missed most of the songs on the CD. Rosie is bummed, but I don’t mind. In a way, I’m actually glad. Now I can listen to my copy at home and it’ll still be like I’m hearing it for the first time.

“I’m parched,” Rosie says and paws at her neck, gasping. The gasps turn to rasping coughs and before I know it, she’s in the grip of a death rattle.

Immediately, I’m submersed in a wave of panic crashing down on me. She’s clawing at her throat, squawking for air.

“Rosie! What’s the mat—” My own breath hitches, the words choking. “Rosie—”

I fling open the door and begin to scream for my mum, when I hear Rosie’s telltale laughter cackling behind me.

As my cry for my mother is cut short, I feel the deafening silence which has settled over the downstairs sitting room as I turn to find Rosie pointing at me and chuckling as she reenacts her pantomime death scene.

“Em? What’s the matter!”

That’s my mum now, calling up the stairs. Whatever she and Mrs. Tanner were talking about, Rosie’s little stunt has disturbed their conversation good ‘n proper. Now Mum’s shouting louder, and I know she’s heading toward the stairs. I hear a hint of panic in her voice as she demands that I answer her.

Meanwhile, to mute the hysterical giggles bubbling up at my expense, Rosie’s hands are clamped over her mouth. My face has gone beet red, and I’m clenching my fists in frustration

“You’re… awful!” I whisper-shout at her. “Just an awful, terrible person! That wasn’t funny!”

“Emily?” Footsteps on the stair treads. “Emily! You answer me!”

One.

Two.

“I mean it, Emily, you’re scaring m—”

“—I’m okay, Mum. It’s alright!”

“What in the world was that for, then? Mrs. Tanner and I are in the middle of a very important discussion!”

I glare at Rosie and at least she’s stopped laughing now. But there’s still one of those trademark smirks twisting her tight little lips. Lips I’d like to smack right now, punching her stupid face.

And I would, too. Except I’d be afraid she’d punch me back… and twice as hard.

“We’re okay, Mrs. Briggs,” Rosie shouts from behind me, her tone as sweet and thick as syrup. “Sorry Emily bothered you!”

I can hear my mum saying something to Mrs. Tanner beneath her breath, probably something along the lines of me being ‘just impossible’ sometimes. I can’t hear enough to tell for sure, but I know for a fact that she’s shaking her head with disdain.

My mum’s always shaking her head with disdain.

“An awful, terrible person!” I repeat to my best friend, but Rosie only mimics me by mouthing the words as I say them. Now I really am about to smack her in the gob. “I’m going home!”

I stomp out of the bedroom.

She knows I don’t really think she’s terrible. And I’m definitely bluffing about leaving. So, after storming into the upstairs the corridor, I poke my head back into her bedroom and tell I’m just going down to the kitchen for a drink.

She winks and blows me an air kiss. Not a sarky one, but a real one. A gentle one. I can almost sense it floating through the space between us before it softly lights upon my cheek.

This is how Rosie Tanner apologises. She’s done it a thousand-gazillion times, but it still makes the little hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Because it’s the little moments like this when I feel she really loves me.

“Get me a lemonade while you’re down there,” she barks, ruining it. Like always.

Downstairs, I apologise to Mrs. Tanner and Mum. I could really drop Rosie in it right now, but I’m no grass.

‘Snitches get stitches,’ Rosie once said to me, emulating those old American gangster voices from the black-and-white films we sometimes watch on Saturday afternoons when it’s gross outside and there’s nothing else to do.

That’s not why I won’t tell on her, though. I just know that I wouldn’t like it if she told on me.

Not that I’d ever do anything worth telling.

“Perfectly okay, pet,” Rosie’s mum, Mrs. Tanner, says.

My mum, however, is distant. She doesn’t look at me. I guess she’s really mad.

“Sorry, Mummy,” I repeat. She doesn’t answer me verbally but gives me a little sideways nod, eyes downcast.

“I think your mum just needs a minute, petal. Yeah?”

I know I screamed when Rosie acted like a right minge and made out like she was choking, but was me calling out for help really so bad that my mum won’t even look at me?

Retreating to the kitchen with my tail between my legs, I pour me and Rosie both a lemonade.

I’m nervously running over the past three minutes in my head—there must be something else I said or did that’s caused Mummy to be upset—when I feel carbonated liquid tickling my fingers. Startled back to the present, I realise I’ve completely overfilled the second glass and it’s not only pouring down the side but streaming across the Tanners’ kitchen counter. It takes a moment for me to stop watching it happen. Kind of like it’s someone else who’s making this mess and I’m just witnessing the whole fiasco, before I realise that someone is me.

Oh! Fuck-a-duck!

I jerk the heavy 2-litre upward and lemonade sprays my face, the contents inside becoming a bubbling volcano. Rising into the bottleneck, a geyser forms and gushes into the air in a liquid arc. By the time I’ve got the bottle over the sink, it’s half-empty. Yes, a fair bit is in our two glasses. But a terrible amount is pooling over the counter, running down the cabinets, spreading across the Tanners’ linoleum floor.

The roll of kitchen paper next to the sink is cheap one-ply and barely soaks anything up before its already saturated and the paper begins to disintegrate in my hand. Swabbing the counter and cabinet doors, I go through what’s left of the roll on the dispenser. But there’s still the floor to clean up. So, as quickly and quietly as I can, I open and close all the cupboards, searching for another roll.

But there is none.

Helpless, I watch the lemonade bubbles die as the clear liquid continues to spread across the floor. I tell myself not to panic, that it’s only a spill. Besides, without the carbonation, you might think it just water.

But I know it’s not. I know it’s syrupy soda that’s making the floor all sticky and probably already starting to attract ants, even as I stand here.

Studying the kitchen once more, I finally accept that there’s nothing else in sight that I can use to clean it up.

It’s no good. I have to tell Rosie’s mum what I’ve done and ask if she has another roll of kitchen paper hiding away somewhere.

With my tail between my legs, I skulk back to the sitting room.

I’m about to snitch on myself—

don’t be such a grass, Rosie’s voice chastises in my head

—the words in my mouth, when I stop dead.

Because Mum is crying.

Her back is to me, but her shoulders are rising and falling in spasms, her hands covering her face to mute her sobs. Mrs. Tanner has a glimmering tear clinging to the corner of her eye. Even as I stand here it’s growing in size, about to roll down her cheek.

Before they see me, I duck down behind the big armchair Mr. Tanner tends to favour, holding my breath and clamping a hand over my wide-open mouth.

“Oh… Margaret… when did you get the diagnosis?” Mrs. Tanner asks my mum, her voice flat and not at all like her usual bubbly manner. I can tell she’s trying to hold it together.

“Last week,” my mum slurs, her voice nasally and wet from crying. “I went on my own, Liz. I’ve been going on my own. For the tests, you know?” She stops to blow her nose. “I didn’t want to scare Marc and Emily if it ended up being just a whole lot of something over nothing.”

Neither of them speaks.

Time, now a thick syrup, pours so slowly that I can no longer bear the silence. My heart is pounding, my pulse in my ears. They must surely hear it too, or at least sense that I’m here. Another body in the same space as them.

Which means it’s a prank. A cruel, awful joke. Probably one they’ve been put up to by Rosie, who will think it hilarious. Because this can’t possibly be the way I’m learning that my mum is sick.

But they don’t know I’m here.

And I am learning about it this way.

“So, that’s why I’m here,” my mum says. The tone of her voice is low. Serious. The way she talks when I know I’m really in trouble. She takes a deep breath then looks straight at Mrs. Tanner without blinking. “It’s time, Liz.”

Mrs. Tanner bristles at this. I hear her suck in her breath. Her voice begins to shake. “Time for what, Margaret?”

MARC & MARGARET

31 MARC & MARGARET

DECEMBER 1984

Margaret Sutherland placed a hand on her tummy. Flat and firm, it was every bit the belly of a nineteen-year-old with the metabolism of a hummingbird. Margaret’s room in her parents’ home was filled with an array of posters of objectionable radio stars her mother accused her of worshipping. False idols she revered even more than her mother’s Lord and Saviour. Groups like Van Halen, U2, The Cure, R.E.M., The Smiths, INXS…

‘Original Sin’ by the latter pulsed away in the background as Margaret paced tight circles in front of her bed. Shuffling in place, she shifted her weight nervously from one leg to the other.

On the dresser, reflected back from the vanity mirror, the pee stick stood proud in the third and final pot of the home test. Purchased from a chemist’s shop on the other side of Driffield, a can of hairspray, bottle of Orangina and a Mars bar concealed the test in her hands until the woman at the till gave her a bag to keep it from prying eyes.

“Whatever the outcome, love,” the cashier whispered to the girl she did not know, a sympathetic pang briefly tightening her chest, “I hope it’s the one you’re praying for.”

Margaret said nothing in return, hardly making eye contact. The moment the items were bagged and paid for she scurried from the shop, head down, hot prickles of shame rising upon the back of her neck.

She now glanced at the dresser, eyes flitting.

Two more minutes.

The seconds were ticking by slower than hours.

Please please please please please.

Another cursory look at her watch.

One minute, fifty-three seconds.

She’d started the test exactly at noon so the timing of each pot would be easier: exactly ten minutes each.

Why had she waited so long?

She cursed the decision as her attention haphazardly spun from test to wristwatch to window. Her mother would be home any minute now.

God, please, don’t let her catch me with this.

The timing was going to be close. Too close. But with the test costing her nearly fifteen quid, Margaret couldn’t afford to just dispose of it and go buy another. Along with the other three items, the total was more than a day’s wages from the fish & chip shop where she worked part-time.

Besides, there was no way she could possibly wait even one more day to find out. She’d just have to hope the test gave her the answer she needed before her mum got home.

Fifty-seven seconds.

Margaret steadied her nerves with a deep, deliberate breath.

Almost there. Almost there.

But then came the sound of a large vehicle steadily braking at the bus shelter in front of their home, followed by the whoooosh of air like a massive exhale of relief as the pneumatic door concertinaed open. Far too quickly on the heels of this came the sound of gravel crunching beneath feet.

Twenty seconds.

Outside her window, Margaret’s mother strode quickly across their makeshift gravel and dirt driveway. Shaking her head, the woman kicked at weeds that basked in the drizzle, weeds Margaret’s father had promised to pull before the summer rains would duplicate them by the day.

Twelve seconds.

The sound of a key turning in a lock.

The tell-tale creak of the front door Margaret’s father was ever-promising to grease.

The stamping of shoes on the weather mat.

Then the call:

“Margaret? Are you home?”

Zero seconds.

And the dipstick was bright blue.

32

What are we going to do? God, Marc. How do we fix this?” Margaret Sutherland paced the alley, the pong of fryer oil thick in her nose that only the tang of cigarette smoke could mask. Every once in a while, the bell above the door to the shop would punctuate the arrival or departure of another customer, each one heralding less time she could comfortably leave her colleague Lauren on her own.

“I already told you.”

“Marry you? Marc, I’ve only just been accepted to university. I’m set to start in the spring term.”

“And?”

“And I’ve already pushed it back a year, slinging fish and chips to lager louts and horny blokes hurrying home to their wives with dinner, but not before them asking if I wanted to batter their cod. Like, what does that even mean?”

At this, Marc Briggs chuckled.

“I’m serious, Marc. It’s okay for you—you’ve been to uni, you got yourself a degree and have gotten out of here. You’ve had the chance to make something of yourself. But I’m still stuck here. What do I bloody do now?”

“I’d hardly say you’ve been stuck very long, Mags. You haven’t even turned twenty yet. I didn’t leave until I was twenty-one.”

“But at least you left! I don’t want kids right now, Marc. Maybe ever! All I want is to get out of here, as far away as possible. And now you’re asking me to marry you and settle down… just you, me and baby makes three? I don’t think so, mate.”

Dejection washed across Marc’s face, and in that moment, Margaret caught one of those rare glimpses of the adorable if pouty little boy the man she loved had once been. Not the confident, educated and affluent thirty-four-year-old he now was.

Fuck.

Margaret Sutherland stared at the ground.

Another chime from the front door of the fish & chip shop.

Her watch read 5:47.

She’d already been seventeen minutes, when she’d promised Lauren she would be only be five.

The door chimed yet again.

Mumbled words.

A customer ordering. Then the muffled sound of her name as Lauren called to her through the back door propped ajar.

“Listen, I have to get back in there. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I just said.” She paused. “Well, I kinda— No, I’ll just shut up now and get back inside.”

“Will you promise just one thing, Mags? While you’re working. Today, tonight, tomorrow, whenever. Will you at least just think about it?”

A hesitant smile lit Margaret’s face, fleeting as she snuffed the cigarette beneath her thick padded sole. She smoothed down her uniform, straightening the fabric over her taut belly.

“You would look great with a baby bump, you know.” Marc stepped in for an embrace. “Even better with a ring on that finger.”

He held Margaret at arm’s length, studying her like a prized calf at the Saturday farmer’s market just outside of town.

“Just sayin’.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Marc pulled her to him and hugged her tight.

Margaret conceded, if only for a few seconds, before easing from his embrace with a breathy sigh. Coming from a place deep inside, it rose from the girl as demoralising resignation, a portent that she secretly knew she had no choice at all.

33

There’s always termination.”

The woman saying this was a fair bit older, closer to Marc’s age. The words she spoke were sterile and passionless, perhaps seeming more so against the instrumental Christmas music playing softly in the background.

The clinic for which the nurse worked was out of town, far enough from Scarborough that the chances of Margaret bumping into someone she knew, or worse, someone her mum knew, were slim to none.

“Termination… What does that entail?”

“Two doctors must agree significant risk to your physical or mental wellbeing. You only have until twenty-four weeks. Then it’s—” she sliced the air with a stiff swipe of her hand “—curtains for you. No more choices.”

Margaret quickly did the maths. “Is that around five months?”

“Five-and-a-half,” the woman corrected her.

“How?”

“How what?”

“How do they do it?”

The very words on Margaret’s tongue felt like venom.

“D&C. The doctor surgically removes the foetus from the uterus. It takes just a matter of minutes. Then it’s like the whole bloody thing never happened.”

D&C.

Surgical termination.

Fancy words for slicing the baby from the womb, chopping it into little pieces and vacuuming it into a bio-waste bag.

The whole bloody ‘thing.’

Not, ‘the beautiful baby’.

Not, ‘your soon-to-be child’

Just, the ‘thing.’

Margaret Sutherland, now legally Margaret Briggs, gently rubbed her stomach, sensing the life within that bump as the imagery played vividly in her mind.

She fought back the urge to be sick. If Marc knew she was here, he’d be furious.

No, he’d be devastated, she corrected herself. Which is worse.

Under the harsh fluorescent lights, the substantial diamond in her wedding band glimmered like a star.

The Star of Bethlehem.

Now, try as she might, she could not shake the image of the baby Jesus wrapped in rags, lying in a manger beneath the dark winter sky.

“How long do I have until I have to decide… How many weeks?”

“Weeks? Oh no, my dear. You have days, not weeks. If that. To be honest, you may even be past the point of no return already.”

Margaret’s stoicism crumbled. Burying her face in her hands, her tears flowed. With them came a frail, tottering whimper.

The nurse made no attempt to comfort her.

Just another set of tears from another careless lass who should’ve told yet another bloke to keep it in his pants.

She paid no attention to the girl’s low, muffled keening which might have been relieved with a hand upon her shoulder and a meaningless, ‘There there, now.’

Instead, she was drawn to the sparkling light which danced from the girl’s third finger. This one was prettier than most, but she was plain. With a ring that size, it was evident the girl had married up. Way up. Some older sugar daddy type. Had to be, for her to be sporting a rock like that.

The nurse sighed, shaking her head in undisguised disdain.

“I’ll put you down for a hundred and ninety days. It’s the best I can do. And I shouldn’t even be doing that.” She scribbled the number on a page pinned to the clipboard she held. “That gives you six days, do you understand? Past that, well…”

Margaret Briggs, née Sutherland, nineteen-year-old wife and potential mother-to-be, swiped the moisture from her cheek with the back of her hand. Again, the diamond on her ring finger sparkled in the bare fluorescent light, slicing the sombreness of the examination room like a laser.

“Six days. Okay, yes.”

Again, she almost cried, curtailing the impetus to do so only by chanting the chorus of U2’s ‘Gloria’ in her mind.

…In te, Domine…

(In you, O Lord, I place my hope.)

“Do you want to know the sex?” the nurse asked, indifferent of the girl’s response.

But all Margaret heard was, ‘—sex?’

Surprised, her attention jolted back to the moment.

“Um, yes. Wait, sex? Oh… you have that? Okay. Yes, please… Is it a boy or a girl?”

The nurse grinned at this, a cold, twisted expression. Her eyes again darted to Margaret’s left hand and the conclusion she’d already drawn of this spoiled, reckless little girl, so gormless that she didn’t even understand her own body yet.

“It? Oh no, dear. Not it…” Here the nurse paused uncomfortably long, relishing the dramatic effect. “Them.”

34

Girls,” Marc repeated. “Girls, plural? Two girls? We’re having twins, Mags?”

He hadn’t blinked since she’d told him. At first, she thought he appeared angry. But that quickly evolved to excited, thrilled, ecstatic even.

Not the response she’d hoped for.

What she hoped was that he would find the news as overwhelming as she, and need some time to rethink the entire situation. Instead, he was embracing it like he’d just won the lottery. Although for Marc, with his wealthy parents, Oxbridge education and looming inheritance of three boutique Yorkshire hotels, winning a boatload of cash would be far less thrilling than it would be for most.

“What else did the doctor say? Tell me everything!”

Margaret hadn’t dared reveal that she’d received this news from a (slightly dodgy) women’s health clinic far out of town. It was better for everyone concerned if her new husband assumed the revelation had come from the O&G specialist she had seen once but never again.

“What else should he have said?”

“Well, are they healthy? How’s everything coming along? I mean, are the buns in the oven baking the way they should?”

They would be natural questions for anyone who cared about her, let alone her husband and the father of the babies being carried. But each subsequent word from Marc’s mouth made Margaret want to punch him.

Or worse, just pack a bag and go.

But what would she possibly do then?

“I shouldn’t have told you, Marc. I knew I shouldn’t.”

The words alone not enough, Margaret Briggs shrunk from her husband’s touch with a look of distaste souring her typically soft, welcoming features. This knocked the wind from her husband as surely as if he’d been gut-punched by Mike Tyson. He had begun to pull her close so he might kiss her forehead, nuzzle her neck. Caress her bump. But now he stood frozen, arms outstretched, confusion etched upon his face.

Marc began to speak, stammered, then said nothing. Soundless but for a shallow exhale, his mouth continued to hang open.

“I told you before we got married, Marc. I told you. I didn’t want kids… I… Don’t. Want. Kids.”

Definitive and harsh, those three words hung in the air. Even to Margaret’s own ear they sounded cruel. At the very least, more feral than she’d intended.

Yes, they matched how she felt. But did Marc really deserve them?

Plus, from somewhere deep in her subconscious, a growing vibration was starting to ping like perhaps Margaret had just spoken herself into childlessness for a lifetime. Worried that she had just cursed her future with bad juju, she felt the urge to correct it immediately.

“Not now, at least. Later? Sure. Maybe… But I’m not even twenty yet. What I want right now is to go to university. Like we said I would. I want to graduate and have a career that I love. I want to have… Purpose.”

Marc Briggs snapped closed the mouth which had been held agape. He then reopened it, which he shouldn’t have.

“Mags, you don’t need to work. The hotels are going great, I know the biz inside-out now, and my father’s hinted that it’s soon time for him to retire. ‘Let a younger cowboy take the reins,’ is what he actually said. You know my dad and his obsession with cowboys. Maybe he'll finally take that trip to a wild west dude ranch, or whatever the Yanks call those things. Can you imagine? My dad—”

“Marc! What are you rambling on about… and did you really have the audacity to just say I don’t need a career?”

“You know what I mean. We don’t have to worry about money.”

“Oh, that’s alright then. So, I can forsake every dream I’ve ever had for myself and just pop out chubby little parasites on demand for you. That’ll be my job title, then: Wife and Breeder for Marc Briggs, Hotel Magnate Extraordinaire and Big Man On Campus.”

Before she even said it, she knew it would cut him off at the knees. It was a particular knack Margaret possessed—a caustic sixth sense to effortlessly home in on a person’s greatest insecurity, their most sensitive button, then give it a jolly good press just to see what happened next.

Like all the others, this time was no less effective.

The tension was thick for days. Becoming too much for Marc to bear, he broke the silence.

Cue the arguments.

These lasted another two days.

By the sixth day after visiting the abortion clinic, there still was no resolution. Which is when Margaret told him the truth about where she had been and what she was considering.

“Please, Mags. Please. Listen. Just list—”

“Christ on the cross, Marc. All I’ve done is listen! I would like babies. With you. One day. But that day can’t be today.”

She lowered her voice, softened her tone. Taking his hand, Margaret caressed Marc’s fingers as a tear wetted his cheek.

“Babe? Let me ask you something. Half a year ago, when we were just dating, is this how you saw yourself, before the year was even out? Married, a father of not one but two babies? Saying goodbye to pub crawls with your pals; passing on the tickets to the footie match of a Saturday; washing nappies and getting no sleep and growing old before your time?”

“I’m already old,” he mumbled and tried to crack a smile.

And it was true, in a way.

At thirty-four, Marc Briggs was fifteen years his wife’s senior. An age gap you wouldn’t suspect, given his boyish good looks and youthful attire whenever he wasn’t at work playing Head Honcho, as his dad would say.

“Yes, you are. But now you’ll look it.”

Margaret’s expression was dour, ungiving. Locking eyes with her husband, she forced a grin. A hideous attempt that came off as creepy and surreal rather than jovial. Which made them both laugh, the first glimpse of real, albeit fleeting, joy for the first time in nearly a week.

Once he had stopped laughing, Marc did not contest his wife’s observation. Because she was right, of course.

When he’d first started dating this vibrant, bubbly young woman whose maturity was beyond her years, the idea that she might one day be his wife definitely crossed his mind. But they were both several years older in that vision, the baby on its way very much a well-planned, well-prepared event. A round peg for a round hole, one might say. A hole they had created together after having first dedicated themselves to not only each other, but to making what they wished of their own life’s ambitions.

But the Universe had dealt them a different hand. This hand. Where it was all happening in but a matter of months, not years. The baby on its way was now babies. And both of the newlyweds had yet to truly fulfil their real potential—Margaret most of all.

“I’m having this abortion,” Margaret cooed while caressing her husband’s chin, the words so strangely at odds with the tenderness she displayed. “If it was just one baby, maybe I might feel a little different. You know? But here we are, unable to even talk about it without blanking each other for half a week, then going at each other tooth and nail for the other. What kind of parents would we make?”

She took a long, slow breath and picked up the phone.

“What kind of wife would I be for you? Not the one I want to be. And not the one you deserve. Just like I deserve a husband who understands that.”

Selecting the first digit of the clinic’s phone number, Mags spun the rotary phone’s dial, waiting for it to spring back to zero before dialling the next. Each pause was marked by a series of rapid clicks, each of which wheedled into Marc’s thoughts as though his wife were not dialling into the clinic at all, but into his own submission. For what she was really saying was:

No abortion, no marriage.

“Is this last number a one or a two?” Presenting the card upon which the nurse had scribbled her direct line, he confirmed it as a one. The woman picked up after a dozen rings, vexation strangling her tone.

They were busy. Beyond busy. Six days didn’t mean Margaret could just call at the eleventh hour. Life doesn’t work that way, lassie. You’ll find out. Aye, you will.

Then, after a pause and many tsks, she barked, “Half-three,” and hung up.

There was one woman ahead of them.

On her own, she silently wept in the soulless waiting room, avoiding eye contact with Marc and Margaret as the young couple fidgeted in their seats.

Minutes later, when the woman was led through a translucent plastic curtain into the back, Marc squeezed his wife’s hand and Margaret squeezed his right back.

Thirty minutes passed.

The same nurse who had chastised Margaret now summoned her. Leading Margaret through the same cheap curtain and down that same sterile corridor, the sobs of the woman from the waiting room preceded the sight of her. As Margaret passed an open door marked Recovery, she and the woman locked eyes.

A split second passed in which the weight of Margaret’s future had been embedded.

The woman shook her head.

Slow. Deliberate. Conscious.

And the breath in Margaret’s chest hitched.

Cradling the bump she had come to despise, Margaret turned around.

35

Adoption, Margaret repeated as she exhaled a plume of smoke which rose and danced on the ceiling before dissolving. She may still be carrying their twins, but that didn’t mean she had to give up the cigarettes she needed to keep her sane. Lord knows, she’d already quit alcohol. And that was bloody-well hard enough.

Without her smokes, she might as well throw herself down the stairs and fix it all. Which she did actually attempt.

Once.

But only half-heartedly. And only from the third step.

To her chagrin, she’d also instinctively protected her stomach as she fell. A sprained wrist and several days suffering a great deal of pain was the only consequence.

“Adoption.” It wasn’t a question, but passive resignation as Marc backed away, eyes down. The wind stolen from his sails.

She had already met with the agency which had a list as long as your arm of wannabe parents who would all but kill to take home a newborn. Twins was a different story. But even that waiting list was significant.

“They’ll have lives they wouldn’t have with us, Marc. Parents who both want them. And unless you’re willing to quit your job and become a stay-at-home daddy, this is the only solution. As it is, I’ve put off yet another year to start university.”

He couldn’t argue with that. The babies were still alive and well (despite Margaret’s less than healthy habits) and had a chance to not only live, but to live a life where they were completely loved and happy. Certainly happier than being born into a life where their own mother did not want them.

They came early.

Barely three months had passed before the contractions began and Margaret strained and screamed from a bed at Scarborough General, cursing Marc and blaming him for not letting her go through with the termination.

Six hours later the first of the twins emerged, the baby vocal and aware as she alerted the world to her coming. The second came painlessly, mere minutes later, so inert and quiet that Margaret feared the girl was stillborn.

This one she asked to hold, coddling the baby to her chest where it could hear the beat of its mother’s heart over the demanding shrieks of its sibling.

A moment turned to minutes.

Minutes to an hour.

An hour into a lifetime as Margaret chose to never let go.

36

I'm calling her Emily.” Margaret Briggs nuzzled the infant and pulled her close for warmth. Swaddled in a blanket, the girl cooed and settled into her mother immediately.

Smaller and weaker than the firstborn, and so keen to nestle into her mother’s protection, it was clear to Margaret from the outset that Emily had spent the last eight and a half months in a battle of survival against her larger, more dominant twin. Just two and a quarter kilograms to her sister’s three-plus, Emily came into the world timid and compliant.

Her firstborn sister, on the other hand, had come into it kicking and screaming. So full of piss and vinegar that she screeched and squirmed from the moment of her first breath. Mere seconds in this world, and already she was determined to set it on fire. Is it really any wonder she was the one to come first?

So unlike Emily, Margaret reassured herself. Emily, who had shied away from delivery, joining her new world only when she was forcibly expelled from her previous. So vulnerable.

How could she ever let her go now?

If Margaret’s decision to keep the baby had come relatively effortlessly, more so than she could have imagined, it was still not as easy as her decision to give up her firstborn.

Which sounds awful.

But to Margaret, there was something off about that one, something that felt like impending doom, souring her stomach with low, disconcerting vibrations. Whereas there was something about Emily that lit upon Margaret’s very soul.

After that day, Marc and Margaret Briggs would not see their firstborn again, which was just fine for Margaret.

Less so for Marc.

Initially, Margaret agreeing to not abort the twins had been enough of an emotional buoy for her husband. Despite longing for fatherhood, just to know they were alive, that they would be loved and nurtured and grow up to be amazing young women, had become enough for Marc. But when his young wife had embraced Emily to her chest and not let go, Marc felt he had been touched by an angel. Just hours before, he had prepared himself to hold the girls once and never again. And while that was true of the first, the second, Emily, would be his to hold for a lifetime.

What terrified him now was the legality of his wife’s decision, having chosen right there on the spot to partially invalidate the adoption contract. But watching Margaret coddle the second girl in her arms, his heart filled with joy and sorrow in equal measures as the cries for attention of their firstborn became evident from another room.

It took little effort to convince a Circuit Judge to grant custody of Emily to her biological mother. And so, Marc’s worries that Margaret’s decision might devolve into a legal and emotional nightmare, became a simple matter of merely signing a new pile of documents.

Later, they would come to learn that the ease of the process had largely been facilitated by the cooperation of the adoptive parents, who saw fit to concede their legal rights to Emily as long as they were permitted to adopt the other girl. This in itself irritated Margaret, but it was a small price to pay, Marc said, for the blessing of bringing Emily home for good.

Which is exactly what happened within the fortnight.

But as days turned to weeks, weeks to months, when the pain of Margaret’s perineal tear (caused by the frenetic impatience of the firstborn) had subsided, Margaret found herself beginning to wonder if perhaps she hadn’t made a mistake.

Not for keeping Emily, but for failing to also keep the first.

The First.

Not Janice. Or Olivia. Or Kieran…

Just… The First.

That’s all Margaret knew her other daughter by.

She wondered what her name was now. For how odd it was to mourn a child for whom the mother had no name. Even odder to have such feelings of loss for someone who was very much alive. Feelings she could never reveal to her husband.

While Marc Briggs felt the same pangs of grief as his wife, he found his pain buffered by the unmitigated joy in being a father to Emily. As the months quickly melded into a blur, Marc Briggs made it his life’s purpose to be the father Emily deserved. Margaret, on the other hand, made it her life’s purpose to discover the identity of the couple who had adopted her firstborn.

For the third time in as many months, the agency explained to Margaret that they were not at liberty—legally or morally—to reveal the names of the couple who had left hospital that day with the Briggs’s first daughter. Vague generalities were given, but nothing that could violate the adoptive parents’ privacy or later be used to identify them.

What the agency was willing to reveal, and even this was provided with the intention of it merely being a balm, was that the couple were older. Not as close to Margaret’s age as they were Marc’s. Perhaps even a few years older.

Without it being confirmed, Margaret queried if perhaps the woman might be getting to that age where the biological likelihood of becoming a mother were increasingly diminishing, if she’d even borne such a faculty in the first place.

But that also meant they were likely stable in their lives, the social worker reassured her, well past the age of chasing fruitless dreams and putting their needs first. No, they were reliable, respected pillars of the community.

The social worker said this as if Marc and Margaret were none of those things. Or so Margaret felt. Yet her father-in-law, Marc’s father, was one of the most respected men in all of Yorkshire, let alone Scarborough. His small collection of boutique inns and quaint B&Bs were multiplying by the year, and he regularly donated a sizeable percentage of their profits to various charitable organizations. Particularly those whose focus was on children or animal welfare. More than just getting out his chequebook, her father-in-law volunteered for many of those same organizations, serving as an active board member of at least three at any given time.

In line to inherit his father’s flourishing empire, Marc Briggs had already spent much of his adult life dedicating himself to its success. Starting off as an hourly employee at the ground floor level, Marc proved his worth, to his colleagues as much as his father, as he worked his way up to senior management over the years. As well as his dedication, Marc had also been gifted his father’s heart. Which is perhaps the trait about him Margaret loved most, and why she had fallen for him in the first place. Being several years her senior, Marc was also more than stable, he was steadfast. She herself might have only just turned twenty, but Marc Briggs had begun chasing his dreams years ago, and that raw ambition had been far from fruitless.

So, why the social worker insisted on speaking of this anonymous couple as if they possessed everything Marc and Margaret Briggs did not, was beyond Margaret.

“She didn’t mean it like that,” Marc insisted. “She was just trying to reassure you—to reassure us—that we’ve made the right choice. Letting us know that our daughter is having a wonderful life.”

He spoke in such a way that was meant to console his wife, but the lament in his voice was impossible to hide. Because deep down, he knew Margaret was right: they possessed all of these traits being attributed to the adoptive couple, and then some.

On top of which, the girl this other couple now called their daughter was of Marc and Margaret’s own blood, created from their union.

The best and worst of them both.

It was difficult to imagine her having a better life with anyone but them, and it would have been a lie if he’d said he didn’t resent Margaret for barring the girl from having it. Still, he was grateful the baby had been given the chance for any life at all. While it might not be the one Marc’s heart wished for her, it was a life all the same. The First was someone else’s daughter now. And it was likely that she would grow up to never know otherwise.

“Besides, why does it bother you, Margaret? You’re the one who didn’t want to keep her. Why do you care if the couple she grows up with are spoken of in glowing terms? Isn’t that what she deserves… isn’t that what you want for her?”

Margaret had no answer.

All she knew was that it irked her to think of her baby being with a family that might be as prestigious as her own. Perhaps more so, if the social worker were to be believed.

And that just wouldn’t do.

37

Public records were challenging to access. The internet being still fairly new, most governmental sites occupied what was effectively a placeholder on the worldwide web, little more than a business card with a slurry of departmental contact numbers and shiny new emails to send an instant letter.

Which is exactly what Margaret did, every week, until she received a response.

A list of the births is what she requested. A register of the children who had come into the world via the sterile, brightly lit halls of Scarborough General, the same day as her Emily.

A month later, the document was in Margaret’s possession. Instructed to pick it up in person, she was mandated to sign a rather official-looking form to acknowledged that she had done just that.

Filled with electric energy, it was all she could do to wait till she got home to open it. When she did, the names on the paper were first names only.

No surname. No gender.

These had been printed, but the information subsequently redacted with a heavy black marker.

There were twelve in total, which of course included her Emily. One of the other eleven was Margaret’s other daughter, the girl she had been calling only The First; the girl who had become her greatest regret.

Why she felt she’d made a mistake in letting her go, Margaret herself couldn’t tell you. And she could never tell Marc.

Ever.

If her husband were to learn that she now wished she’d never given up The First, not only would Margaret never hear the end of it, but Marc would stop at nothing to get the baby back. Which was the last thing Margaret wanted.

Such disruption. Such angst. Such hurt and sorrow… and expense. No, Margaret did not want The First back again. And certainly not at that price.

She only wanted to… know.

Her first major break came several months later when, purely by chance, Margaret happened upon a rather older woman—an unlikely new mother, she felt—at one of the New Mothers groups she had come to frequent. Many of these were hosted by churches; a few took place in local parks, the erratic English weather permitting. Some were at the new Scarborough Centre. Wherever they were held, most of the young mothers took the opportunity to bring their babies along, relishing the chance for mother and baby alike to socialise outside the home for a spell.

Unlike the others, more often than not, Margaret did not bring Emily, relishing instead a measly hour in her day when her every undertaking wasn’t dictated by the infant’s needs.

On a few rare occasions she did deign to bring the girl along, a matter of keeping up appearances more than some grander ideal. For Margaret Briggs did not join the groups to learn how to be the perfect mummy, or to bitch or moan or brag about her little shit-spewing parasite. Margaret Briggs was there to find The First. And on this day, with baby Emily along for the ride, she knew she had achieved exactly that.

The older woman’s name was Elizabeth Tanner, she learned. And to Margaret, the mother looked decidedly out of place as she sat in a circle of so many younger ones, rocking a months-old baby girl in her arms. A baby who was not only the same apparent age as Emily, but the spitting image of her daughter to boot.

Even Elizabeth herself said so when Margaret made it a point of bumping into her immediately after the meeting.

Formulating a plan for nearly an hour as the other mothers shared and laughed and cried and cheered each other on, Margaret went to work the moment the meeting was officially adjourned.

“First-time mummy?” she asked the older woman, feigning casual affectation.

Standing alone in a corner as the twenty-something mothers flocked to their little cliques, Elizabeth bumped her hips side-to-side, beaming with joy as the baby in her arms shrieked unconsolably.

“I’m Elizabeth. Elizabeth Tanner.” She held out her right hand. “My friends call me Liz. I hope you’ll do the same.”

With Emily asleep in her arms, Margaret extracted her own hand from beneath the baby’s blanket and awkwardly shook.

“Margaret. Margaret Briggs. It’s so nice to meet you!”

They went for coffee.

Don’t you just love being back on caffeine?

Oh hell, yes!

And nicotine?

Well, I don’t smoke, but you do you, girl!

And just like that, the two became tight as a spring.

Meeting at the weekly New Mothers group became the standard. Soon, this was followed by a second weekly meet-up (‘baby dates,’ Liz Tanner liked to call them) where just the four of them would meet at various locales around Scarborough. These were invariably at the suggestion of Liz, as frankly, Margaret couldn’t care less where they met. To her, their rendezvous were a means to an end, and nothing more.

They talked about life.

They talked about love.

They talked about their aspirations and their careers, their hobbies and their husbands—

weren’t those one in the same thing? Margaret chided

—but most of all they talked about their babies and this new thing they were experiencing called motherhood.

“Is that right?” Liz Tanner exclaimed when Margaret revealed that Emily was also born on February third. “That’s the same day as my Rosie! My God, what’re the chances!”

Margaret Briggs lit up.

Yes, what were the chances?

“…Right?”

“That does it then, we were meant to be best friends. It’s kismet. It has to be. Anything else would be bogus!” Elizabeth blushed, chortling while covering her mouth. “That’s a thing the kids are still saying, right?”

“Cringe!” Margaret said laughing. “No, no Liz, they’re not. But don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you said that. Like, never. Trust me on this one.”

And Elizabeth Tanner did trust her.

As a mature first-time mother, it felt good to have someone going through the same experience, even if Margaret Briggs was many years her junior. In fact, in many ways it was this age difference that made Elizabeth appreciate Margaret’s support all the more. The younger generation had their finger on the pulse of what was the latest, greatest way of doing things, and this helped Liz feel as though she were still in the loop. Especially as she was already having to go back to work and leave Rosie with her husband, or sometimes a sitter.

Margaret had no such problem.

Marc Briggs had apparently built himself quite the career in his father’s company, and Margaret, barely twenty years old when Liz and she first met, made it clear she was in no need of a job. She did have aspirations of going to university, but becoming pregnant with Emily—very much an unplanned surprise, Margaret openly admitted—put pay to that. Instead, she was now able to dedicate all her time to home, and her daughter.

Had the roles been reversed, and Liz Tanner were the one with a wealthy husband, she would have gone stir crazy not being out there in the workforce, regardless of their financial situation. Three months had been more than enough time at home. And while she did often pine for her beloved Rosie as she worked, for Liz, her job was more than a need to make money. It was a point of pride, a sense of independence, a feeling of satisfaction that she had more than just one purpose in her life.

David, her husband, worked nights. So it wasn’t often that Liz had to find someone to look after Rosie. But when she did, Margaret was often their lifesaver, willing to take Rosie during the shifts when Liz could make no other arrangements.

Soon, Margaret proposed a solution to the problem by offering to watch Rosie for all of Liz’s shifts when David, too, was working.

“No germ-infested, expensive daycare required,” Margaret proposed, her tone leaving little room for discussion or debate.

“Are you sure about this, Margaret? I mean, that’s a big offer, and an even bigger undertaking. If you’re not a hundred percent, I’d rather not have Rosie pushed from pillar to post when—” she politely corrected herself “—if you ever got tired of taking care of two girls instead of one.”

“It’s not like she’s my own daughter,” Margaret duly countered. “She goes back to her mama at the end of the day. Anyway, you and David have conflicting shifts, what… once a week? Two, tops? It’s hardly like I’m taking care of two girls. It’s more like a weekly playdate.”

“An eight-hour playdate.”

Margaret waved her words away like flies.

“An eight-hour party, is what I say.”

Besides, Margaret reminded Liz, she and Marc had just bought their beautiful new home in St. Nicholas Mews. They had more than enough room for two babies.

This, Liz Tanner knew all too well.

While Margaret might not mention their disparity in incomes, she was more than happy to draw frequent comparisons between her privileged new life and the lives of most others. Which is to say, she was more than content to (not-so) subtly remind her new friend that Liz and David were in a different social caste to herself and Marc.

Frequent mentions of their new (old) home were a case in point. Overlooking the sea at St. Nicholas Cliff, the Briggs’ home boasted three stories with five bedrooms, two-and-a-half baths, a home office for Marc, a formal sitting room for guests, modest library, and a less formal living room where the girls played during the day and the family watched telly of an evening.

So yes, the Briggses were lacking anything but space.

“How about a trial run?” Liz acquiesced. “Perhaps next month?”

“Next month would be wonderful!”

Slightly reticent, Liz Tanner nonetheless allowed herself a breath of relief.

“You don’t know how much that would mean to me, Margaret. David and I have at least seven conflicting shifts with our upcoming schedules, so you’d be my own personal hero for taking that worry off my plate.”

“Oh, yay! Consider it done!” Margaret mimed extracting worry from Liz’s head, plucking the air all around Liz’s scalp as a monkey might do when it picks fleas from its mate. Laughing, she then gave her friend the deepest hug Liz Tanner may have ever received. “You say I don’t know how much it means to you, Liz. But you don’t know how much it means to me. Now everyone will think I’ve given birth to twin daughters. How fantabulous, and how fun for my Emily. She finally gets the baby sister we always wanted.”

Realizing she said ‘we’ instead of ‘she,’ Margaret quickly lifted Emily from her pram and nuzzled her daughter’s nose. “Isn’t that right, my precious baby girl? You’re getting the sister you always wanted!”

It didn’t stop Elizabeth Tanner’s gut from twisting.

There was nothing overtly wrong with what Margaret was saying. It was more the way she was saying it. Liz tried to explain the feeling to David later that night over supper, sharing such wonderful news while also expressing just a modicum of concern over Margaret Briggs’ response.

“It was just so… so… emphatic, David. I can’t explain it. I guess it’s just one of those things that you had to be there.”

David Tanner chewed his food and looked at his watch for the third time.

“I guess. But I’m going to be late for work if I don’t get a move-on, Liz. One more and I get a formal write-up. And we can’t afford for me to lose this job. So, I’m sorry. I know you have concerns, but I think she sounds like the answer to our prayers right now. And she’s your friend, right? What’s to worry?”

“I know, babe. I know. I just do.”

“You do enough worrying for the lot of us, love. She’s just young, remember. She probably speaks before she thinks. After all, what is she, in her early twenties or something?”

“Not even. I think she only just turned twenty.”

David’s eyebrows raised with a hmmmmph. “Must be nice. Twenty years old, has a husband set to inherit half of the county’s so-called independent bed and breakfasts, and lives in a veritable mansion on St. Nicholas Cliff.”

“Are you jealous?”

“Of Marc and Margaret Briggs?” David snorted. “Not a chance. I wouldn’t swap our magical little family for anything. I’m just saying, she’s got a lot on her plate for a girl so young. She’s showing her immaturity, is all.”

A lot on her plate.

Liz considered his words.

She doesn’t work all day and she wants for nothing. Try being out here in the real world, working graveyard shifts for bloody peanuts, instead of judging the rest of us from that ivory tower.

“Maybe,” is all Liz replied.

“Definitely,” David insisted and kissed his wife’s forehead. He was halfway out the door before he realised he hadn’t done the same to his beautiful Rosie. “Right, my precious Rosebud…? What other nefarious motive could she have?”

EMILY BRIGGS

38 EMILY

PRESENT DAY

So yes, I have a sister out there—

had a sister

—somewhere.

Whether it’s this woman looking back at me when I open my phone’s photo gallery, I can’t say. All I know is that I have to find out; I need to see her in person. I need to meet the woman who’s claiming she was once the young girl the entire world came to know and mourn as Little Red Riding Hood…

39

Gabriella appears in shock, visibly alternating from numb to profoundly affected, then back to numb again. It’s too long without her responding, and I have to quash the silence. I do so by asking if she has any questions, like I’m giving a TED Talk and preparing to wrap up. Not that I’ve just dropped a bombshell on her that only one other person in the entire world knows.

Or so I thought.

“You and Rose were… siblings? She was—” catching the habit that’s going to be hard for both of us to break, Gabby corrects the past tense. “—She is your sister. Your twin sister? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.” I audibly swallow. “I think so.”

It’s lot to take in and honestly, I don’t know why I told her. Part of me feels like this admission just might be the end of me. Another part is relieved that someone else finally knows the truth: someone who loves me and can share the burden instead of adding to it, the way my mother has… my entire life.

“I—I—”

Gabby reaches for me and that embrace—with her long dark hair brushing against my cheek as she wraps herself into me, catching a hint of the perfume that will forever cement this moment in olfactory memory—feels like home.

“Piccola. I have no words. Your mother, she let your sister go… and kept you. I can’t imagine what that felt like. For your mother, for your sister. For you…”

I can’t say what it felt like for my mother. She’s never shared her feelings about it. Not once. Not even after my dad died and we had the only real heartfelt conversation I think we’ve ever had in our lives. It was also the only time I ever asked her outright if I had a sister—if Rosie was my sister—and she put an end to the conversation before it even began.

“It felt like a part of me was unaccounted for. Which doesn’t make any sense, does it: if I was never one-hundred-percent sure that Rosie was my twin, how could I feel anything about it? Yet somehow, I always felt like a piece of me was—”

“—Misplaced,” Gabby describes it, encapsulating the entire experience in a single word where I would take a hundred to achieve the same. As is so often the case with many, many other things, I’m again enviable of her blunt concision.

“Yes, misplaced. I felt like a special piece of me had been set down for a moment and then was left and forgotten as my life walked away without it.”

“But now, Piccola, that piece may have been found.”

As much as I want to believe it, I still won’t allow it.

Not yet.

I’ve spent a quarter century mourning the loss of Rosie, feeling responsible, knowing that if she hadn’t done what she did, it would have been me who was taken that day. Me who was lost to the world. Me stolen from parents whose suffering would ultimately end their own lives.

But it wasn’t.

So why does it feel like it was?

I break into tears.

Soon, I’m ugly crying.

Not just about Rosie, but everything in my life that I’ve been cramming so deep down that it’s a wonder I can even walk with the amount of baggage I have weighing me down.

It's an hour before the tears are truly silenced.

I’ve not been bawling uncontrollably the entire time, but I have been crying for most of it. After so many years, so many decades, of damming it up out of a fear of what its release might bring, this is the first time I’ve permitted myself to just let go.

At last, even my hiccupping weeps have subsided, and I’m left exhausted and nearly mute but feeling physically lighter than I ever have. Far from something to fear, what this long overdue outpouring has brought is a cleansing, purgative relief and I’m suddenly ashamed for not allowing this gift of cathartic self-care years ago.

It’s another hour, and two more cups of chamomile, before Gabby asks me anything more taxing than honey or agave?

When she does, it’s the perfectly concise question I’d expect only from her, as barbed as it is efficient:

“Do the police know?”

40

Idon’t even know .

Not anymore.

And that’s exactly what I tell Gabriella: that all I know for certain is the way I’ve always felt. That, and what I started to overhear at the Tanners’ house the Sunday morning after my parents’ garden party. But even I recognise that what I heard was filtered through the ears of an emo thirteen-year-old girl.

“Young girls of that age are full of emotion,” Gabby admits. “But they are also full of emotional intelligence. More than we often give them credit for, no? Maybe thirteen-year-old Emily heard the truth.”

Maybe, I answer, but only to myself as I fold the last of my clothes into a hard-shell suitcase. Packed tight with fresh regret as much as it is clothing, I’m starting to second-guess why I ever agreed to take this trip to America, let alone to do it all on my own.

It’s not too late, right?

Maybe I can tell my newspaper that I made a mistake. Except, I know that I need to meet this woman in person. If for no other reason than to satisfy my own uncertainty.

Zipping my suitcase with a grunt, I pat the bed and invite Gabriella to sit with me. Steeling myself for a trip down memory lane I’d rather not take, I place her hand in mine as we go back to the Sunday after my parents’ garden party.

Mere days before my world fell apart…

41

Crouched behind the Tanners' armchair, thirteen-year-old me heard Rosie’s mum suck in her breath,” I tell Gabriella, the words sticking in my throat the way Rosie’s mum’s must have. “Her voice began to shake. ‘Time for what, Margaret?’ she said, and even at that young age I knew it wasn’t a question, but some kind of denunciation.

“I didn’t stay to find out what it was time for. Crab-walking backwards to remain unseen, I retreated back to the kitchen. Retrieving what was left of the 2-litre lemonade bottle, I loosened the cap and threw it to the floor, ensuring it was a proper clamour. My own melodramatic outcry at what a damn klutz I was (yes, I really did curse) sealed the deal.

"Both mothers appeared right on cue, Rosie mere seconds behind them. My bestie started laughing, pointing and doubling over like my mishap was the funniest thing she’d ever seen.

“'I wondered where my bloody lemonade went,' she said. 'A girl could die of thirst, y’know. Ha! A right daft cow you are, Em!'

“If looks could kill, my glare would’ve dropped her dead on the spot. I was cut up inside, trying to process what I’d just heard, and all she cared about was making me feel small. As usual.

“I called my Dad, to come pick me up,” I share with Gabriella as she caresses my palm.

She isn’t making eye contact, only gazing deeply at my hand. She knows if she looks at me, I’ll get self-conscious and won’t allow myself to be as vulnerable as the situation merits. Either that, or I end up getting lost in those gorgeous Mediterranean blue eyes and will just want to kiss her.

Either way, the story never gets told the way it should. So, she’s just staring at a distant horizon I cannot see.

“I couldn’t stay there another second,” I add, my voice trailing away. She waits until the following pause is pregnant enough to know I’m at the point where I’ll need prompting in order to finish.

“Did your dad know? That your mum was sick, I mean?”

I nod as we rub each other’s hands in slow, comforting circles.

“We didn’t go straight home. Instead, he took me to North Beach and we walked in the drizzle as waves lapped up and the surf roared in the distance as he cautioned me that Mum might not live to see me grow into the woman he knew I’d one day become. ‘She may, my love,’ he said. ‘But right now, it doesn’t look so good.’”

Gabby bites her lip. It’s one of those ‘how very British of him’ gestures she displays when she passionately disagrees with something, but knows it’s better if she just holds her tongue…

…For now.

“There was crying. From Dad as well as me.” I tell her this to soften her judgement about my dad. But it’s a lie, of course.

Yes, I did cry. A lot. But my dad didn’t. Purely stoic, his hands in his pockets, he merely kicked pebbles into the surf as he stared into the distance.

The lie is a good call.

Gabby softens, no longer squeezing her lips so tightly that they’re in danger of turning blue.

“My mother stayed and finished talking to Mrs. Tanner. When she got home that evening, her breath was laced with the tang of vodka, her clothes smelling like they used to be before she quit smoking her Silk Cuts. My dad said nothing, other than asking her how it went. Just those three words: ‘How’d it go?’ My mother replied by sweeping her hands from waist to head, presenting herself as Exhibit A. ‘Do you really have to ask?’ she quipped, her balance bobbling as she made her way up to their bedroom, leaving Dad and me to put away whatever was still left of the shopping that hadn’t defrosted, melted or gone off in the back seat of the car.”

Now I’m jonesing for a cigarette myself. It’s been years since I’ve lit one up, but I feel jittery. Foggy. I either need a smoke… or a drink. And as soon as I get through this story, I’m damn well gonna have at least one of them.

“Rosie rang me later that night.” I go on, determined to get the rest of the story out. “It was late. Really late. And remember, it was Sunday, so we had school the next day. Not that I was asleep, mind you. I remember lying there, eyes wide, staring at the shadows morphing from one thing to another on my ceiling as the headlamps of cars and motorbikes and redeye delivery lorries reflected through the curtains. One full ring echoed through the house from the phone hanging on the wall of our kitchen. Then a second, this one cut off mid-chime. That was Rosie’s special calling card. Whenever I heard this, I was meant to wait until the coast was clear, then sneak downstairs and ring her right back. With the phone being one floor down and two rooms away, there was little risk of anyone hearing me do this. It was our special way of being able to talk at night after our APs all went to bed.”

“APs?”

I suddenly realise how easy it is to slip back into the slang of my childhood, something Gabriella hadn’t experienced.

“Aged Parents,” I explain, drawing her attention to the two initials. She appears confused. Not about the acronym, but why it’s even necessary. “I don’t know, Gabs. Kids do all sorts of daft things. Why is any of it necessary? Anyhoo, I snuck downstairs and rung her back. Rosie was poised at the ready and picked up on the first ring.

“‘I’m sorry about your mum, Em,’ she said to me and meant it. But she also said she’d heard them talking about something else after I left. The reason my mum had come there in the first place.”

“Ahhh, the thing,” Gabby realises, “that your mother cryptically warned Mrs. Tanner it was time for.”

“Yes. The thing. Rose told me that after dad picked me up, she hid at the top of the stairs and eavesdropped on the rest of our mothers’ conversation. She overheard the real reason my mum had insisted on visiting Mrs. Tanner that Sunday afternoon.”

As Gabby waits with bated breath, I realise this is harder to get out than I expected. I sip the remnant sludge of my now cold chamomile tea, and force myself to just say it:

“Alone in the dark with the phone pressed to my ear, Rosie told me that my mum insisted that she and Rosie’s mum admit to the whole world who Rosie really was. ‘Before it’s too late,’ Rosie claimed. ‘She wants me to know who my real mum is… before she dies.’ Standing in the cold silence of my kitchen, my best friend said this to me as casually as if she were telling me my shoelace was untied.”

It falls to such quiet that you can hear a pin drop. As quiet as it had been in that kitchen, back when I was thirteen.

I’m awaiting Gabriella’s embrace of sympathy for the girl who learnt such shockingly fundamental information about her life in such a bleak and lonely manner.

It doesn’t come.

Instead, I’m beginning to feel the frustration ebbing from her in thick, bass-like waves as she realises I’ve kept this massive secret from her the entire time we’ve been together.

“So, you’ve always known this. From childhood…”

Her tone is as cold as her concision is brutal. Coming from her lips, I hear how awful the indictment is for never having shared any of this with her before. It paints me as a distant and self-absorbed partner at best, a narcissistic liar at worst.

And she isn’t wrong.

Still, I can’t seem to find it in me to admit it. So instead, I find myself going on the offensive.

“Except, my mother’s still alive, Gabs. Twenty-eight years later, and the alleged illness that was poised to imminently take her life never did. She’s healthy as a steer; immortal as ever. And unable to recognise the truth if it smacked her across the face…”

The words are bones that catch in my throat. I can’t finish them, for fear I’ll choke on what remains of my tenuous hold on a life I believed to be real. Instead, I simply say, “You do the maths.”

42

What does that mean, I do the maths?”

Gabby tugs her hand from mine and rises from where we’re perched on the edge of the bed.

“Do you not believe Rosie when she told you what your mother said? Then who is the liar… Is it Rosie…? Your mum…?”

A contemplative pause. It’s minuscule, but it’s there. Which makes the third option all the more painful when she adds:

“…You?”

I’m winded by the brutality of it. And still, her verbal blows keep coming.

“One minute you tell me Rosie was your sister. The next, you say no, you’re not sure. Maybe, probably. You tell the police it’s your long-lost friend in the photo, your eyes filling with emotion which I believe. Then you make out like no, perhaps she is not, that you have to see her in person to be sure. I can’t get a purchase on you, Piccola. You’re a cloud of dust, blowing in a thousand directions. I need you to settle and make a pile, something I can see and feel… only then can I help you clean it up.”

Hands on her hips, Gabby’s cerulean eyes have lost their sheen. They’ve grown heavy. Doleful. But far from angry, as would be entirely justifiable, they are saturated with compassion.

“I just want to help you, Piccola. But how? How do I do this if you do not stand in any one place long enough for me to tend to your wounds? To help you heal?”

I refuse to allow another tear. There have been more than a lifetime’s worth shed in the last few days alone. But of course, she’s right. As the consequence of one fateful decision at the age of thirteen, my life has been lived inauthentically ever since. Guilt has eaten me from the inside out. Instead of a future expanding to all it can be, mine has narrowed, dreams reduced to pragmatism, their limits defined by a single day.

Paranoia is my constant companion.

“I want that, too,” I whisper, not caring if she hears it.

“Then maybe this trip, a little time apart and a chance to decide who this woman really is to you, maybe it’s a very good idea. Not only for you, but for us?”

43

The last thing Gabby asked before I boarded my flight the next day was the question I’d already tried not to answer: if the police knew.

I’m sure it was no mistake that she waited until I’d joined the queue for airport security before she asked it.

She wanted a one-word answer.

And it worked.

I probably wasn’t going to miss my boarding call, but I was definitely cutting it close. If I were going to make it on time, every step between here and my gate had to go off without a hitch. So, with no time to give her anything else, that’s exactly what she got—a single word:

“No.”

But volumes were spoken in that one syllable, the look by which I left her conveying all the words I could not articulate.

And Gabby heard them all.

It’s one of the reasons we work. I am a woman of a thousand words, particularly when my anxiety is heightened. Gabby is a woman of few. Yet hers are rich with meaning and power, so much of what she says conferred by the nonverbal. It’s a discipline I’m still learning, and in this moment, I believe I nailed it.

I need to see this woman in person, my eyes said. To look her in the eyes and see the light behind them… or not. I need to decide how I process what has remained muddled and cloudy in my memories. Then you and I can move on. Once and for all. My metaphorical dust will only ever settle once I have done this.

All of these things I said by saying absolutely nothing at all.

Gabby and I aren’t the only ones who need this to happen.

For a start, the helpful folks at North Yorkshire Constabulary, namely, detectives Grimm and Richards, expect updates throughout my trip.

I’m not a suspect in anything. Of this, they have assured me. But they’ve also expressed that they would be a lot more comfortable with me leaving the country if I were to keep in touch. Given that my mobile provider may not deliver texts while I’m travelling the American south, they gave me their email and have politely requested that I share the outcome of my reunion with the woman claiming to be Rose as soon as the meeting is over.

“And make sure she agrees to a DNA test,” D.I. Grimm insisted. “Without it, she’s just an attention-getting crackpot—”

“—Regardless of how convincing she may be at acting or sounding or looking like your old friend,” D.I. Richards reiterated. “Or how much you want her to be.”

On this we couldn’t agree more.

Only by seeing the undeniable proof that this woman is in fact Rosie Tanner will I allow my life to move forward without having to look back ever again. It’s a thought that makes me smile, if cautiously. For that is a life where I am set free: of guilt, of shame, of loss… and fear of accusation.

Ironically, as I soar above the clouds and an ocean so vast I have yet to see its next edge, a rapist and murderer in a six-by-eight concrete cell aches for the very same. Imprisoned for his natural life, Levi Wolfe needs only a simple DNA swab from a woman four thousand miles away to score a fifty-fifty chance of breathing in the air of freedom before he dies.

But with no known living relatives against whom a DNA sample from ‘Rosie’ can be matched, I’m confused how my efforts to get one from her will provide any answers.

Well, apparently, according to D.I. Grimm, the blood on the kitchen shears from that day is more than enough to provide a baseline. While DNA testing itself was new to the late 90s, someone was smart enough to foresee that advances would come which would far outstep capabilities at the time. So, the scissors in evidence have been kept in airtight storage, away from light and heat, ever since Wolfe’s trial ended.

“One little finger prick or mouth swab,” D.I. Richards explains, “and we’ll know without a doubt if this woman really is your long-lost friend. I know you must want that, Ms. Briggs. And we… well… we need it.”

I’m imagining how that will go:

Hi, I’m Emily, remember me? The childhood friend who stood by and did nothing as you were attacked and taken by the big bad wolf. How about we go grab a coffee and catch up? Oh… and I’d like some of your blood or saliva or hair, please. Follicles and all…

I slept most of the flight across the pond.

I’d downloaded Netflix movies to my phone and also brought two books (why two for a five-day trip that’s anything but a holiday is beyond me) but the steady, brown noise thrum of the engines lulled me to sleep within the first hour.

Once in America, after I finally got through the dreaded and quite intimidating customs screening, I had seventy-five minutes to kill at Atlanta airport. I had to get from Terminal E to Terminal B, but after eight hours glued to a seat, I figured a short stretch of my legs would be just what the doctor ordered. After all, my layover gate was only three terminals away, and they even have those people-mover conveyors to speed you on your way.

And now you know it was my first time at Atlanta airport, officially the busiest airport in the world.

If you’ve never been there in person, you won’t understand. In which case, if you ever do find yourself in the unfortunate circumstance of having a layover at ATL, just trust me…

…Take the tram. Don’t walk. You’re welcome.

For the second time in a row, I find myself running through an airport, my nerves alight. Why do I always manage to be harried whenever I’m traveling by air? Striding long and fast along the people-movers, I catch my own image reflected back to me in a line of glass windows overlooking the tarmac. Aided by the ever-moving conveyor belt, I’m legging it twice as fast as anyone else, an Olympic sprinter if ever there was one.

A small patch of sweat is blossoming at my lower back, and I might be out of breath and fretting that I’ll be stuck in this hellhole, but this image of me (the least athletic woman you’ve ever met) makes me forget all of that, if for only a second, and I smile.

Until the people-mover comes to an abrupt end.

Confused by the fact that the ground beneath my feet is no longer moving, my equilibrium spins out of whack and I find myself performing an impromptu somersault, right there in front of everyone. Legs akimbo, I collapse in a graceless pile on the hard tile floor as my carry-on bag keeps on rolling down the passageway without me.

Welcome to America.

Which is exactly what the man says who offers to help me off the floor. Not in the habit of taking strangers’ hands, I do so for no other reason than an urgent need to intercept my wayward carry-on before it careens into an elderly couple with walking frames towards whom it is making a beeline.

I snatch it back from disaster just in time, eliciting looks of disdain from the elderly couple as I pat down my dishevelled appearance.

When I turn, my Knight in Shining Armour is waiting for me.

“Where are you from?” His accent is so flat and American it’s shocking to my British ears. Funny how Yanks sound so different in person than they do in films or telly. “Back in England, I mean?”

“How do you know I’m English,” I answer with a question of my own, but immediately realise the absurdity of my response as I hear my own lilting accent in a sea of others unlike it. “Oh…” I concede, tightly pressed lips concealing a grin of embarrassment as shades of Sesame Street cross my mind, the singsong verse, ‘one of these things is not like the other…’ flashing through my thoughts and then evaporating as swiftly as it materialised.

My knight nods.

“Mmm hmm. I overheard you asking that TSA agent if this was the right way to Terminal B. It is, by the way.”

“Yeah, cheers for that.”

Sarcasm. My go-to when under duress or feeling intimidated. It helps that a great big sign reading Terminal B is visible just over this Yank’s head, mere yards from where we’re standing.

“I was going to grab a coffee…” he says.

I’m thinking, okay, great for you, mate, when I realise it’s his way of an invitation. “Oh,” I repeat.

Twelve words I’ve spoken to this American, and two of them so far have been ‘oh.’ So much for the articulate Brit hailing from the motherland where the English language itself was born.

“I’m kinda coffeed out. But thank you?” I don’t know why it came out as a question. “Yeah, I think I’m good. Thanks, though.”

He doesn’t shift as I move off. I’m nearly under the terminal sign (and already about to overtake the poor old couple with the walkers) when he shouts out:

“A drink, then.”

People turn. Smile.

One guy, flamboyant as the day is long, answers back from the crowd: “Honey, I’ll go for a drink with you if she won’t!”

More people snigger, then carry on their way as I stop and the hurried mass parts around me like a living wave.

My knight shines, a smile as American as they come. He saunters to me and offers to take my bag.

“Thank you. But it’s got wheels, see?”

I jiggle and roll the carry-on in a little circle in front of me. It’s small, but it’s still a welcome separator between me and this stranger with whom I’m now considering going for drinks. I glance at my Cartier and mentally do the maths because I haven’t yet updated the time. Surprisingly, I’ve made it to my terminal way faster than I expected when I was traversing endless miles of moving conveyors in wide, sterile passages.

“I’d actually love a drink. But I board in thirty minutes and still don’t know where my gate is. All I know is it’s in this terminal somewhere.”

“Where ya heading?”

This feels a little personal, like I shouldn’t be giving this guy any more private information. But then again, we’re at an airport. Everyone here is going somewhere else. It’s hardly a secret.

“Savannah,” I admit after a moment’s hesitation. “You?”

“Same! That’s where I call home. So you see, it’s kismet. And…” he points over my shoulder “…our gate is right there. B3. I promise, we won’t miss our flight.”

I follow his finger and see the gate with Savannah emblazoned on its digital board. He’s got me. So, how can I possibly decline?

“Just one,” I concede. “I’ll have one drink. But only if you let me buy. For saving me, and all.”

I roll my eyes. More sarcasm. Why am I only now realising how much I revert to it when I’m tense?

My knight holds up his palms.

“Hey, if you’re offering to buy, I’m not gonna say no. I’m no knight in shining armour.”

And just like that, I like this guy.

44

SAVANNAH, GA

Iforgot how much airport bars charge for a drink. Two are over thirty-five U.S. dollars. A quick mental calculation to cut a quarter of that amount off, and it comes to a robust twenty-five or twenty-six quid.

Ouch.

Joshua (my knight’s actual name) sees me squinting over the check with its many lines and charges and fees, not to mention the blank space for a tip which we Brits never, ever get used to seeing. Before I know it, he slides the paper from my hand.

“Seriously. I got this. What kind of ambassador would I be if I didn’t welcome you to the colonies on your first ever visit?”

Cute.

“You mean you’re not going to throw me overboard? Into the harbour?” A lame and nerdy reference to the Boston Tea Party. I have no idea why I said it, and now I’m cringing.

Except, Joshua gets it.

“Nah, that’s Boston.” He pronounces it Bahston. “This is Atlanta, darlin’.” Now it’s all Southern gentleman. “We treat our Anglican brethren with more dignity, here in the land of cotton…”

I’m sure that’s true.

Unless their skin is darker than mine.

He must be reading my thoughts. Either that or my facial expressions are betraying me more than I realise—

nonverbal communication, Gabby would be proud

—because Joshua is now the one who’s cringing.

“…These days, anyway.” Heat flushes his neck, the colour rising instantly to his cheeks. “Sorry. I love being from the South. I do. but even an oblique reference to our history can be a landmine. Tread anywhere near that treacherous field and you risk losing a limb to the many, many mines our godforsaken ancestors buried.”

I feel that.

Love and hate. Pride and shame.

It’s a fine line we walk once we see the place of our upbringing through eyes which have become enlightened.

“You realise it was we Brits who started it all, right?”

A bone to a skittish dog, I throw it out there to ease his discomfort, never having really considered the truth of the matter before.

“I mean, your ancestors were mostly British subjects. And the British Empire operated the largest slave trade in the world for eons. It’s just far easier to let you Yanks take the fall. We Brits have wonderfully selective memories when it comes to things like that.”

Joshua nods. Purses his lips. “And better PR people, maybe.”

I know it’s a joke to lighten the moment, but he’s not wrong. Few look at the British Union Jack and sees the atrocities it shrouds. Affronts which have been perpetrated for centuries. But show anyone the world over a Confederate flag, and those villainies are apparent.

“Maybe, maybe,” I ponder. “Or maybe we’re far more practiced at turning a blind eye to our own offences while being wildly proficient at pointing out everyone else’s. Particularly America’s.”

“Why America in particular? Why not a European country?”

“Oh, well. We don’t play nice with many of those, either. The Frenchies are Frogs. Germans, Krouts. Italians, Eyeties. But we Britons have a special place in our hearts for the disdain of America. A kind of love-hate relationship, if you will. On one hand, we idolise the culture: Hollywood, surfing, big cars, big homes, big money, big mouths that say what they mean and don’t give a damn who hears it. On the other hand, we find Americans themselves superficial, crass, materialistic and obnoxious, faulting them for the very traits we envy for lacking them ourselves.”

“Wow. Okay. So, you’re going to have an interesting vacation then. Sleeping with the enemy, so to speak.”

I laugh out loud.

“I was using the royal ‘We.’ I can’t say that I have any particular predisposition either for or against Americans myself. To be honest, I don’t give them enough thought to even form an opinion, really.”

“Ouch.”

“And as for sleeping with the enemy? Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, John Wayne.”

“Double ouch.”

Joshua feigns receiving a pair of gut-punches. But a modicum of light has left his eyes, enough to reveal an element of truth to his jest. It returns moments later as he theatrically sweeps his hands around himself, drawing attention to the prize on offer in this gameshow.

“You sure? How about now? Any opinion yet?”

“Too early to say. But I’m warming up.”

“Oooh, I’ll take that.” He licks the tip of his finger and swipes it through the air by way of an invisible tally. “One point for the good ol’ U. S. of A.”

I concede, letting him have this one. “But I’m not on holiday—erm, vacation—I’m actually here to reunite with an old friend.”

His interest is duly piqued; head tilted, leaning in. “Oh?”

I know he wants to ask whether that friend is male or female. But I don’t satisfy the itch. I’m more interested in watching him squirm and curious how he’ll broach the subject. Will it be a smooth, charismatic reference, or a blunt, ham-fisted question?

Silence.

Swelling into awkwardness.

Then:

“Well, that’s wonderful. And the perfect reason to hop across the pond. Hell, I can’t think of a better one.”

He swigs the last of his drink and glances over my shoulder toward our gate. My eyes naturally follow. Seating in the pen is at a premium, and quite a few people are already queuing up despite the gate agent not yet announcing our boarding.

“As this is your first time visiting our shores, I’m assuming you haven’t seen him for quite a while?”

Very nice… Nestled amongst praise. Full of positive tones. Not too rushed. Even separated by a pragmatic check on our flight.

“Correct. But he is actually a she.”

What’s more impressive is his complete air of nonchalance when I reveal this, despite the giddy dance of opportunity I know is playing through his mind at this very moment.

Very slick.

I don’t have the heart to tell the poor guy that even if my friend were a bloke, it would make little difference to me.

Most of the time, anyway.

“Well, it looks like we’ve got just a few more minutes till we board. I don’t know about you, but I have zero inclination to join that jostling herd. I’m fine having one more drink while it thins. I mean, we all have seat assignments, for God’s sake. And the flight’s hardly gonna leave without us.” he points and nods “The plane’s literally right there.”

Before I answer, he’s already ordering two more drinks. He slides a fifty-dollar bill across the bar, and our drinks are first poured despite the bartender’s pending request from at least three other patrons seated at the bar.

“Are you trying to get me drunk, Joshua?”

It’s a joke. But is it?

“Never.” He downs his whiskey in one and reaches for my glass. “I’m happy to have yours if you don’t wa—”

“—Oh no you don’t.” I slide it out of his reach, the hefty cubes of ice making that reassuring sound as they clink against the sides of the tumbler; against each other. I take a sip. Then another. The gate agent is now at his counter and fiddling with her microphone. “As long as we don’t miss that flight.”

Of course, we don’t miss it.

Joshua is completely right, of course. Once the gate agent announced preboarding for families with toddlers and those with mobility issues, at least a dozen or more passengers rushed to the stanchions, desperate for her to lift the flimsy barrier.

After this, First Class—now more politically correctly called the airline’s valued A+ Members or some such horseshit—made their way to present their boarding passes, albeit at a much less harried pace.

Then came Business Class, by which time a good seventeen minutes had passed since the agent first snapped on her mic with a startling, earbashing pop. Not only do I finish my drink in more than enough time, but we actually have time for a third, should we want one. But I’m already feeling lightheaded. One more, and I’ll be flying high as that airplane we’re now boarding.

I have an extra legroom aisle seat, just behind the last row of First Class. Joshua’s is a few rows back. As he sidles past, I thank him again for the drinks and conversation, since our paths probably won’t cross again in Savannah.

But I kind of hope they will.

He’s smart, fun, easy on the eyes… and the only person I know in America.

Well, maybe the second, I correct myself as the woman’s face that may be Rosie’s floats into my mind.

Still, Rosie aside, it would be nice to see Joshua again. If not, at least there’s an odd comfort in knowing he’s out there somewhere. A kind of safety net, I guess. You pray you never need one, but when you’ve chosen to take a leap of faith, it’s always good to know there’s one out there, on the off chance the ground starts coming at you fast.

There’s only one thing that bothers me: the way he referenced it was my first time in the States when he plucked the bar tab from my hand and offered to pay it.

It wasn’t a question, or a tentative observation, even. It was said with the kind of casual confidence that one has when one is absolutely certain.

But the thing is, I never told him that.

45

The glass doors slide open and I step into a pizza oven.

Wearing a wool cardigan over a long-sleeved blouse, I’m dressed perfectly for November…

…In northern England.

But this feels like our July weather. And then, only on a particularly balmy day. The stifling humidity is instant, and before I’ve even scheduled my rideshare, rivulets of perspiration are gliding down my neck. Across the many pick-up lanes bustling with cars and arriving passengers excitedly greeted by friends and family, a digital billboard proclaims the current temp to be 87° F. I’m trying to do the maths in my head to convert this to Celsius when the digits flip to 30.5° C.

“A scorcher, even for us,” a man’s voice states.

I turn with a start, my rideshare app still spinning as it seeks a car to come collect me. When the face that voice belongs to registers in my preoccupied mind, I’m as pleased as I am horrified to find that it’s Joshua. Pleased for the obvious reasons; horrified because I can feel myself wilting by the second, butter under a heat lamp as sweat drips down the crease of my back.

“Oh, hey! I thought I’d missed you. Didn’t see you at the baggage carousel.”

I almost add that I was beginning to regret not exchanging numbers, but that feels overeager, so I force myself to stick to a full stop after the ‘carousel’ line.

Fidgeting about my person, I release strands of hair from the folds of my cardigan and reach behind me in an ungainly fashion to pluck my heat-soaked blouse from my lower back where it’s become plastered.

Joshua answers my carousel comment by spinning his carry-on in a tight little circle in front of him.

“Only thing I have. Just a quick business trip. Besides, I hate that whole process: funnelling into line just to check your bag, then waiting to collect it again when you land. Mindless cattle at a feed rail, everyone so eager and pathetically grateful when their haybale finally comes their way.”

“Ahh, so you’re one of those rare species I’ve heard about, a truly light traveller.” I step aside to reveal my oversized bag, my carry-on, my handbag. “I should be so lucky. And aren’t you just full of agricultural references, my friend.”

“What can I say. You can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country outta the boy.”

I’ve not heard this before, but it’s perfect. And quintessentially American, which I tell him. Gabby would love it for the power of its brevity as much as its colloquial colour.

…Gabby…

My heart pulls as her name floats to mind. To be honest, it’s the first time I’ve really thought about her since the airport. And now here I am, chatting up some charming southern colonial; even thinking about giving him my number.

I’m an awful human being.

You wouldn’t know I feel this way from the wide smile on my face, as genuine as it is unexpected. Effected by a rush of joy I haven’t felt in longer than I care to admit, I quash it immediately.

But not before Joshua says, “Hey, I was thinking. If you’re not doing anything tonight…”

I’m exhausted. 9pm is 2am the next day for me, so why have I agreed to meet?

Just one drink, I insisted.

Now I’m at a charming little place called the Six Pence Pub, alone and absolutely shattered for lack of sleep, feeling almost tipsy before a single drop of alcohol has even passed my lips. The fact that this place looks and feels like a real pub back home isn’t helping. For all I know, I’m floundering in some kind of surreal vision right now. Some weird, unsettling dream. Until I hear the twang of American voices from all around instead of the clipped Yorkshire brogue, and I realise…

…I’m not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

Increasingly giddy, I laugh at my own joke and the irony that I’m now three times closer to the place where Dorothy was swept away in colour-saturated delirium than I am to home.

“Hey! Sorry I’m late.” Materialising from the crowd like a ghost, Joshua pulls up a chair opposite me. Just like English pubs, the tables here are modest, so I’m grateful for him respecting my personal space. “What’s funny, what’d I miss?”

He reaches across the table and touches my hand. It’s a casual, gesture. But time grows thick as his hand lingers, fingers trailing slowly to my wrist.

Instantly, I’m overcome by suffocating fear, oppressive and dark as a shadow. Looming over me, it’s stifling, and I find myself heaving for breath.

I have no idea why.

Until I do.

Alan Jenkins and the White Hart.

Jenkins must have been certain I’d succumb to him when his hand slid under my skirt, his finger a fat and leathery eel plunging into me. While the assault itself was concealed beneath a table in the corner, the mere idea of the act was fearless, the man cocksure that I’d be willing to prostitute myself to earn his business… To earn an advertising budget, for Christ’s sake.

About that, it turns out Jenkins was wrong.

Dead wrong.

And I’m glad I finally believe in myself enough to know that there was no way I was ever going to sleep with the creep, no matter how lucrative his quid pro quo may have been.

But Jenkins was right about one thing: that he was safe to even attempt such abuse. Married for years, a father of three, and owner of the largest independently run business in the area, he was counting on me being too ashamed and too concerned with my own reputation and career to report him, whether I played along or not.

No harm, no foul, as they say.

And I’m overwhelmed by disgust. In Jenkins, for what he did… in me, for letting him get away with it. I’m not ashamed that it happened. No, that’s all on him. Absolutely, unequivocably, him. But I’m beyond sickened with myself for proving him and by doing exactly what he was counting on me to… which was nothing at all.

Jerking my hand from Joshua’s, I push back from the table with a vocal 'NO' that thunders above the din of conversations.

Everybody turns our way, a hush blanketing the pub. It’s an IRL (in-real-life) reenactment of American Werewolf in London, the scene when the two American lads first saunter into the Slaughtered Lamb and ask for hot soup.

Just like them, all eyes are on me as the ticking of the wall clock is the only sound.

Then, a few mumbles.

A growing drone of muffled comments.

Finally, a return to the buzz of myriad conversations, everyone reverting to what they were doing or saying.

Everyone except Joshua.

Wide-eyed and pale, his mouth is open, cheeks flushed with heat. Gulping air like a guppy out of water, I can tell he’s trying to form words he can’t muster.

I should reassure him, let him know it’s not his fault. That I’m dealing with something that has nothing to do with him.

But all I can manage to do is dart for the door.

46

The night air kisses my cheeks, warm and wet. In my mind it should be nippy and sharp and feel like cold fingers cupping your face. But I’m thousands of miles from North Yorkshire, where everyone is currently sleeping under a blanket of cold November stars.

I can barely remember where I am, or from which direction I came. I know Berendt House B&B wasn’t far. It was right next to an American-sized Baptist church on the other side of Chippewa Square. I’d meandered through that lovely greenspace on my way to the Six Pence Pub, taking in the grand trees and the Spanish Moss so elegantly hanging from their limbs like garland. In the pallid amber light of gas streetlamps, a throwback to the history of this place, that same organic garland now waves and moves in the evening breeze to cast shadows like tendrils; reaching, groping. Everything looks foreign to me. And not just because it is, but because darkness has drained what little recognition I had as I marvelled at this new world on the way to the pub.

Why didn’t I pay more attention to where I was going?

I’m sure my historic little inn is somewhere to the right, and I dash in that direction. On the corner is a coffee bar I recognise from earlier. I remember thinking how brilliant it was going to be that I could stroll there tomorrow morning to start my day.

Headed in the right direction, I pick up my pace. The inn has to be straight ahead.

I’m recalling my earlier amble through the square better than I thought, and when I reach Bull Street, I slow down to find the small sign I saw when I arrived, the one hanging from the entrance to my B&B that declared all were welcome to rest at… Something House.

I can’t remember its name.

God help me, I can’t remember it.

A flash of cold blossoms in my chest.

Spinning in place, I find a street sign just behind me: Bull Street. So, I have to be in the right place. I must be, because I remember conjuring an image of a herd of cattle running rampant through this romantic town square, no doubt a subliminal upshot of Joshua’s earlier reference to a herd mentality.

So why am I not seeing the inn right in front of me?

Nausea swims into my stomach, my head filling with helium. I’m becoming disoriented, detached.

Where’s the Baptist church?

It was huge. Unmistakable.

Where the fuck is the church?

Spinning in place, I again check to confirm I’m at Chippewa Square and Bull Street. The signs adorn the wrought iron railings on every side of the square, and this one right in front of me is for Chippewa.

Where’s the massive church? Where’s my B&B?

A metaphorical ice pick penetrates my chest, and I race to one end of the square then the other. The places that I know for certain were here just an hour ago are no longer.

But that’s not possible.

I’m either lost in some surreal waking dream, or I’m in an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Bolting headlong down an alley bathed in the neon glow of the nearby Savannah Theatre, I don’t realise just how panicked I am until someone grabs my arm. Not the light touch of an accidental graze, but a powerful grip that wrenches me back midstride, the tug so violent it all but lifts me from my feet.

It happens so fast that everything slows, and I experience this moment in IMAX vision—every person, every expression, every reaction of those around me intensely clear in visible slow-mo.

I scream.

Wannabe ghosthunters on a passing tour bus recoil. Reactive shrieks roll into nervous relief when they see it is only me, a real, living woman. Now filled with delight at such an immersive tour, a babble of chatter rises from the double decker as my attacker spins me around and the tour bus trundles on its way, diesel smoke crushing the delicate, fruity scent of Amaryllis.

Balling my hand into a fist as I’m spun around, I use the full force of my momentum as I throw a punch at my attacker’s face, preferably the nose or the eyes, the throat if my aim is too low. But he blocks it mid-swing, catching it in his own huge fist with a clap like a cricket ball snagged from the air by a wicketkeeper—

—Just as a horse-drawn carriage dashes by me, so close that the mare’s roiling haunches brush my shoulders, pulling my cardigan to one side.

It canters past without stopping, the carriage driver cursing me for not watching where I’m damn well going as it disappears down Drayton Street with a shocked couple staring back at me wide-eyed.

Joshua releases my hand balled into his palm, stepping back as he does so to create a safe gap between us.

“You nearly got fucking trampled, Emily—” He’s out of breath, his chest hitching up and down. The colour has drained from his cheeks, the blood travelling down his arms instead to dye them a patchy blush. “—Traffic comes from the left here… not the right.”

The dawning realisation that I was nearly just killed, or seriously injured at the very least, washes over me like ice water. Stock-still and trembling, I can’t speak.

Joshua bends and grabs his knees, panting.

“I—I was—” he catches the breath that’s been evading him. “I was calling out to you. Did you not hear me? Jesus, Emily…”

I heard nothing.

I can barely remember what I saw or what was going through my mind, other than suffocating dread.

“Sor–ry…. I’m-I’m so sorry. I don’t know… what happened. Some kind of panic attack. I—”

“I can see that,” Josh confirms as he rises from holding his knees. His breathing is slower now. “What did I do back there that got you so upset?”

Of course, I don’t tell him the truth.

He’s a stranger. Someone I met mere hours ago. At an airport. If you think a Brit’s going to just open up and spout all their dirty laundry like that, then you’re either 1) very American… or 2) have been watching way too many rom-coms.

What I do tell him is that I’m exhausted, overextended, wrecked by jetlag. That I had no business agreeing to meet him for a drink. Tonight, of all nights, let alone any other. And that I appreciate—very much—him preventing me from being trampled to death by a horse, on my first night in America, no less. Though he could’ve been gentler about it. I can already see the purple hues forming beneath my skin. It’s going to be one hell of a bruise by morning.

He offers to walk me to my Bed & Breakfast, which is just on the other side of the square. We’re there in a matter of minutes, and there it is, right alongside the Baptist church. Exactly where I left them both.

Apparently, there are two Bull Streets.

“Well, really only one,” he explains. “Think of our squares like your roundabouts. Bull Street is a two-way thoroughfare. northbound traffic enters on your right, southbound on the left. Basically, the line down the middle of the road bulges into a big square park every few blocks. You were on the right Bull Street. Just on the wrong side of the square, that’s all.”

“Thanks for mansplaining that.”

Sarcasm drips from me like the perspiration running down my back. I thought we had humidity back home in Scarborough, being as we live right next to the sea. But, like most things American, this takes hot and sweaty to a whole new level. I know Savannah is also by the sea, but how in God’s name that makes it feel like we’re swimming in the air is beyond me.

“You’re welcome,” Joshua replies, and I’m reminded how much I like him. Maybe that’s why I pull him to me and kiss him hard, not letting go until the front door of Berendt House opens, soft yellow light spilling over us.

Josh says nothing to the woman holding the door and turns to leave. But I grab his lapel and pull him back, marching him past the matron of Berendt House and straight to my room at the top of the stairs…

47

Morning comes fast.

Apparently, jetlag, more vodka (from the minibar, no ice) and an orgasm so good it curled my toes and ignited a ball of fire in my belly, are the perfect ingredients for a flawless slumber.

Josh is no longer next to me as I stretch beneath sheets pulled up and over my eyes, the glaring Georgia sun forcing its way through the gaps of the heavy curtains. It dapples my dusky room in spots of golden light. From the Baptist church next door, the Sunday bell tolls, and I count as it reaches ten. I haven’t slept this late since I was a girl, yet I still feel groggy.

On the pillow where Josh’s head had lain, a handwritten note on a napkin has taken its place:

9:40 Gone for croissants and coffee. Meet me on the Forrest Gump bench.

The what?

I have no idea what he’s bloody talking about. And the thought of meeting him before a shower is cringeworthy. But coffee and a croissant in the park sounds delightful, before the sun smothers the day beneath its stifling grip.

Thankfully, I brought my Yankees baseball cap for just such an occasion. Not that I planned to hook up with anyone, mind you. But knowing me, there was going to be at least one day this week where I’d want to be up and running without all the fuss. I just never thought it would be my first proper day here.

After a quick sponge bath, the application of some lippy and eyeliner, I toss on a T-shirt and jeans. Pulling my hair into a ponytail though the back of the baseball cap, I cinch it with a hair band that’s seen better days.

I feel like a proper American on her way to the grocery store, and I have to say, it feels liberating.

In the lobby, the savoury tang of brewed coffee, eggs and streaky bacon greet me. My rumbling tummy wants to sit down and eat. Breakfast is included, and Mrs. Webb, the B&B’s matron, is already coming my way gesturing toward a table.

“Would you like some breakfast, sweetheart?” Her eyes are kind, her voice soft and welcoming. I feel goosebumps rise across my skin as her energy embraces me in a soothing hug.

“Oh, my, it does smell delicious. Thank you. But I’m meeting someone? He asked me to come to the Forrest Gump bench. Can you—”

Mrs. Webb doesn’t need to hear the rest. Leading me by the hand to one of the inn’s bay windows overlooking the park, she points toward the northern entrance to our left, where Bull Street splits, just as Josh had described last night.

“Why, you must know the film, darlin’, surely. Tom Hanks? Forrest Gump? This is where he sat on his bench, narrating his life’s story as he awaited the bus.”

But I see no bench where she’s directing my gaze. Inside the square—what they call their parks—yes, there are plenty around its periphery. But where Mrs. Webb is pointing?

Not a one.

Again, I don’t get in more than a word or two before Mrs. Webb all but hushes me, in the most genteel way, to answer the question I haven’t yet asked.

“Of course, there’s no bench there now. Never was, to be truthful. Movie company put it there.” She draws the curtains wider to show me. “Right there. Facing Bull Street. No bus stop either. I mean, it’s right in the middle of the intersection, so how could there be? But I guess that’s movie magic.”

She’s beaming, clearly proud of this cinematic history that sits at the very doorstep of her inn, and I have to admit it’s pretty cool.

“We, and by we I mean the residents and local business owners,” Mrs. Webb goes on to explain, “have petitioned the city to install a bench there. Several times, in fact. But all they keep saying is that it doesn’t fit the historic stature of Chippewa Square. I say fiddlesticks. That’s a damn sight more interestin’ than that big ol’ gloomy statue of Oglethorpe there. He may have established Savannah, but he was a British General, you know… and a Tory at that. No offense, dear.”

None taken, because I agree.

Oglethorpe was a British Army officer, colonial administrator, and the original Governor of the King’s Province of Georgia (now the state of Georgia). Concerned for the plight of the poor in his beloved England, Oglethorpe saw this new world as a safe harbour to shelter and bolster a new, better life. Particularly for those in British debtors’ prisons. He was a cool bloke who I knew nothing about until I stumbled upon a Facebook reel when I was looking up details about this Bed & Breakfast. Feeling it somewhat like kismet, it’s one of the reasons I chose this particular square and this particular B&B. But yeah, Forrest Gump trumps some stale old imperialist any day.

“If you look closely, among those camellias, you’ll see a raised brick and concrete base the movie company installed for their bench. It’s still there, all these years later. All the city’d have to do is bolt a real bench to it, screw on a plaque. But they’ve got the petition tied up in so much red tape, I’d swear every Savannahian could wrap their Christmas parcels with it and there’d still be plenty left.”

Just listening to her, with that soft southern drawl and natural disposition toward colourful storytelling, gives me the warm fuzzies all over. Like going home to a mother who wants only to pamper you.

I have to admit, I’m more than a little tempted to ditch my meetup in the square and settle down to breakfast here instead, coddled by Mrs. Webb’s hospitality. But then I spot Josh on one of the benches just inside the entrance to the greenspace. He appears fidgety as he talks on his mobile phone, a pair of American-sized takeaway coffee cups and a white paper baker’s bag resting on the bench at his side.

“Well, I truly appreciate you showing me that, Mrs. Webb. And I’ll happily sign that petition later, if you’d like. For now, though, I see my friend waiting for me.” I pull aside the ornate curtain and nod toward a bench on the other side of a knee-high wall, half hidden by a beautifully blooming camellia. “He’s waiting for me with a coffee, so I really should go say good morning.”

Mrs. Webb shoots me a sly smile.

And is that the hint of a wink?

“Oh, you mean Josh? Why yes, dear. I hadn’t realised you two have yet to say good morning. Do tell him hello from me!”

Before I can process the impact of all she’s just crammed into those few words—

Gabby’s kindred spirit

—she’s already gone from my side to welcome another guest to breakfast. Unceremoniously left here to unpack her meaning, I’m slack jawed with the heavy gold lamé curtain still clutched in my fingers.

Mrs. Webb knows Josh’s name.

More than that, it sounds like they’re acquaintances, friends even? The only reason to express surprise that he and I haven’t shared morning greetings yet is because she already knows Josh spent the night. (That he fucked me, and I fucked the bloody hell out of him.) And she wants me to know she knows.

Feeling inexplicably violated, I’m sure I’m the butt of some obscene inside joke, amusing to everyone but me. Is this Mrs. Webb’s way of telling me that Josh just manipulated a frightened, exhausted foreigner for no reason but to score a night of sex?

There’s no smile on my face as I march across the street.

Failing to look the correct way for traffic, once again I’m nearly struck, this time by a speeding bicycle courier on a mission. My second near-miss in twelve hours and barely twelve minutes total time outside.

Left, I curse myself to assimilate before I end up dead, or worse, in an American hospital.

Left is right. Left is right, Left is…

“—Right,” Josh declares with no context offered as I storm up to him, my fists firmly digging into my hips. Engulfing the bench, my silhouette casts him in shadow and he’s able to lower the hand shielding his eyes from the already intense southern sun.

“I’m sorry?”

There’s no apology in my tone, only undisguised disdain.

“Right,” he repeats. “You keep looking right instead of left. Am I gonna have to put a leash on my girl, to keep her safe?”

You son of a bitch. Did you seriously just make me your dog…? Your bitch…?

Then it hits me.

In the throes of it last night, he called me his good girl then immediately blushed with embarrassment.

A rush of heat rose in me as well, though somewhere entirely different. Grinding against him harder, I pressed him deeper into me, whispering a playful bark in his ear before biting it, just a shade harder than seductively. I asked him—no, I told him—to say it over and over again—

you’re my good girl you’re such a good girl who’s my good girl

—until I climaxed with a half-dozen tummy-clenching spasms. Eventually, I rolled off him, our bodies slick with sweat.

“Oh, yeah. Ha.”

I wait for him to say something else, to do something else, to give me anything whatsoever that might invalidate my new, terrifying hypothesis that he’s a predator.

Instead, he only smiles and pats the spot next to him on the bench, handing me a coffee and the white paper bakery bag.

“Got you some brekkie. Isn’t that what you Brits call breakfast? Brekkie?”

I accept both offerings, my disdain downgrading to thinly veiled hostility. “So, Josh. Wanna tell me anything? Maybe about you and Mrs. Webb?”

He’s waiting for me to go on, his inquisitive eyes seeing only me despite the college girls passing by in shorts that are way too short, mouths that are way too mouthy. When he’s sure that I have nothing else to add to such a vague question, more of a statement actually, he asks:

“What about me and Mrs. Webb…?”

I wish I could say his tone is facetious. Impudent. Aggressive. But the truth is, it’s merely curious.

Which sucks the wind from my sails.

The argument my mind had so readily geared up for is fast becoming no quarrel at all. Merely clear and respectful communication.

As a Brit, I’m not used to it.

“Nothing,” I answer, my passive-aggressive scowl replaced by the first real smile I’ve offered since I fell asleep in his arms, as sweaty as I was satisfied. “So, my love, what’d you get us?”

Feeling lighter for debunking yet another of the awful stories I tend to make up in my twisted mind (usually with little evidence or reason), I’m keen to join him for my first American breakfast where Tom Hanks once famously sat.

“Sugar-free vanilla oat milk latte, extra hot.”

So oddly specific for an assumption. And random.

“What on earth made you choose that?” I’m genuinely curious, my tone devoid of its usual sarcastic lilt.

“Well, it’s awfully warm out already. And I can’t abide that sour feeling in my stomach when I’ve had dairy on a scorching day. So, the way I figure it, oat milk’s the way to go.”

That checks. Good logic. Colour me impressed.

Score: one for one.

“Okay… Go on.”

“Vanilla, because, welp, it may be boring—it may be, well… vanilla—but who doesn’t like it? Or at least, not hate it?”

Two for two.

“Okay…?”

“And personally, I don’t like a lot of processed refined sugars. I’m not a freak about it, but I think we have far too much of it in our diets in this country. You know? I hope you don’t mind.”

Three for three.

“I do know. And no, I don’t mind. And…?”

He considers what he’s left out.

“Oh. The extra hot because I didn’t know how long you’d be.” He glances at his watch. It reads 10:21. “Should still be a half-decent temperature, if you start drinking it now.”

Four for four.

Checkmate.

Where has this unicorn come from?

We talk about everything and nothing.

Josh holds up his end of the conversation much more than I do at the outset, and I realise it’s to give me a chance to savour my breakfast croissant. When I’m nearly done, I return the favour as he dives into his. Though I’m sure by now it’s as cold as his latte must surely be.

It’s not yet eleven, but the sun is already peeking above the massive oak trees that otherwise nurture Chippewa square in pleasing shade. As we sit and talk on the edge of the square, it shamelessly declares its intent to bake us in its unimpeded glory.

I begin to squirm as the air thickens, an unsettling combo of searing heat and oppressive humidity forcing me to find cover directly beneath one of the oaks. Its bark is rough but cool, with branches thick and dense enough to offer respite to my porcelain English skin.

It’s beautiful here, make no mistake. But the Georgia sun must surely be different to the one we (occasionally) see in our English sky, because I feel woefully inept at dealing with its suffocating heat.

It’s merciless.

“Oh, man. I’m sorry.” Josh, of course, has followed me, his words trailing as I duck for cover. “I forget you’re not used to it.”

Turning slowly in place, he raises his chin to the sky, all praise given to the sun god, Ra.

“When you grow up here, you get used to it, I guess. Ever been out west? Like Arizona? Now that’s brutal. I’m talking pizza oven. People are always like, ‘but it's a dry heat, it’s not as bad.’ I call bullshit. Because any time I pass through for longer than a few hours, my face actually hurts, like my skin is preparing to slough from my muscle. Picture a tiny, microscopic cigarette lighter held up to one of your pores. Now imagine that all over your face. That’s what it feels like. That lack of humidity is no joke.”

Well, I think this profuse humidity is no joke. But Arizona does sound perfectly dreadful, if that’s what it’s really like.

Reminder to my pasty British self: do not go there.

In fact, after this trip, I’m not likely to come back to this godforsaken hellscape of a colony ever again. We Brits may not know what to think about Yanks, but make no mistake, they have to be tough as old boots to not only survive but thrive in a place where the natural climate assaults them on the daily.

And they don’t even acknowledge it.

But you, too, are tough as old boots, Piccola. No?

My girlfriend’s velvety, Italian-accented voice rises in my mind from a place where I’d conveniently buried it, and I feel sick for having done so. Not only does Gabby love me, she wants to share her home with me. She wants to make a family with me, the one she’s always longed for; the family she’s always needed. Because what I haven’t shared about Gabriella is the fact of her identity, and why it was so important to me that the reporters outside my flat last week didn’t find out who she was.

Gabby’s full name is Contessa Gabriella di Medici. And yes, that officially makes her an Italian Countess.

While her title may hold little sway under Italian law since before the second World War—and none whatsoever in Britain—it boasts plenty of swagger amongst Italy’s fashionable elite. Especially Italian bankers.

And as to her craving family so much?

Well, that’s a story for another time. But suffice it to say, the family she once knew is little more than a memory behind a trust fund. The family and future Gabby really wants is with me.

Which is admittedly hard to grasp sometimes.

She’s an Italian Countess, as stunning to look at as she is clever. Sixteen years my junior, yet utterly, inexplicably blind to our age difference. She’s financially set for life. Generous to a fault.

And I’ve just jeopardised all of that, willing to betray her trust and crush the kindest heart I’ve ever known… for one night of sex with a stranger. Not even a night. An hour. Maybe half.

There must be a reason why I’d take such a risk.

Josh senses my thoughts, feels the gaze that does not quite meet his own, for I feel him pulling away emotionally. Just a hair, perhaps, but to me it’s palpable.

A vibe.

“Everything okay, Miss Emily?”

He knows it’s not.

Maybe he believes the jetlag still has me a little off kilter. And perhaps it does. After all, I’ve never travelled so far from home.

But it feels like something more.

Something deeper.

Something that feels like a noxious mix of guilt and confusion lying heavy in my gut.

And just like that, any clarity I thought I was beginning to have about this whole trip is suddenly blanketed by a darkness even the searing Savannah sun can’t dispel…

I need to call Gabby.

48

Piccola, I’m so happy to hear that pretty voice!”

We may be thousands of miles apart, but the line is as clear as if I’m ringing from streets away. Amazing, given that I wasn’t even sure my mobile service would permit it. Either I have international calls included in my plan, or I’m burning up cash by the minute.

If the latter, I couldn’t care less at this point. Hearing Gabby’s voice is as comforting to me as it seems to be to her.

“How’s your first day as a Southern Belle?” she asks.

My first day? Frightening… yet exhilarating. Historic. Beautiful. Genteel. Sexy. Impressive. Striking. It’s also like we’re three feet from the sun with humidity so high that walking is tantamount to swimming. The old me, by which I mean the young me, would have adored everything about it, and every single thing in this moment. I don’t understand how so much about me has changed.

I say none of this, replying with only: “It’s good.” And then: “I miss you, Gabby.”

“Oh, Piccola. I miss you too, yes? But this is such a pivotal moment. For you, for your life.”

Gabby’s joy for me overflows in every bright syllable and carefully crafted word.

“Your future, how your story unfolds, is being written as we speak. Every new experience is leading you now to the one person who could very well be the part of you that’s been missing all these years…” She’s being so understanding, so nurturing, so unquestionably trusting, that I can’t catch my breath. “…How exciting it is to be Emily Briggs today!”

I explode into tears, not caring who sees or hears, and eventually hang up the phone without even saying goodbye.

How very un-British of me.

This place must be casting its voodoo on me already.

It’s more than a minute until I can gather myself, poor Josh doing his best to offer solace while having absolutely no idea why I’ve begun to bawl like a toddler in desperate need of a nap or a nappy change.

Gabby calls back twice in that time.

I know she’ll be worried, but I just can’t pick up.

Not yet.

Only when I’m composed enough to pretend none of this just happened do I return her call. When I do, Josh takes a polite if taciturn stroll around the square, stopping to study the plaque at the base of the Oglethorpe statue.

(Like he really gives a shit what the plaque says.)

When Gabby picks up, she’s calm and stoic. Asking what happened and if I’m okay, I hear a delicate quiver behind her words that belies the worry she’s making great attempts to mask.

I reassure her by telling her it’s nothing more than jetlag; a case of onset loneliness in a strange place.

She responds with a soothing purr of affirmations: How strong and courageous she knows I am. That she would give anything to be here, but this is the only way I’ll ever exorcise the shadow of my past. And that I must face it… alone.

The intensity of that dreadful last word and her choice to use it elicits a pang of anxiety which instantly roils my stomach.

Alone.

It’s still resonating in my ear when Josh’s eyes seek mine from halfway across the park, his smile conveying a mix of both understanding and desire in one look. I force a narrow grin in return, and swallow down my rising panic.

Gabby knows. Somehow, she knows. She must. Why else would she choose that particular word? Why accentuate it?

I can’t breathe.

“Gabby, how… how… are you, my love? Everything okay at home? Please tell me things have begun to calm down?”

If she knows I’ve done something awful, I’ll be able to hear it in her voice. Gabby can’t tell a lie to save her life. Her tone always rises at the end when she does. It’s a tell she doesn’t even know she has, and I’m praying I don’t hear it now. Almost as much as I’m praying she’ll confirm what I desperately hope to be true—that this whole Little Red Riding Hood story has blown over and the media has lost interest and moved on to the next tragedy.

She confirms no such thing.

But at least her voice does not rise when she tells me nothing is wrong. I breathe a sigh of relief for small blessings… then face the reality of what she says next:

“Far from blowing over, Piccola, you have become the talk of the town.” By ‘town,’ I know she means the whole country. “It’s all the news can do but talk about Emily Briggs and her reunion with her long-lost friend. The miraculous transatlantic resurrection of Little Red Riding Hood, they say. Although some, of course, are—”

She cuts the observation short.

“Some are what, Gabby?”

“Nothing. Nothing, Piccola. I’m rambling.”

But Gabby never rambles.

And her voice just rose at the end.

The gentle sound of her breathing is all I hear before she finally admits that D.I.s Grimm and Richards keep calling.

She does not elaborate why, or for what, or how many times, and it’s all I can do not to vomit right here in the middle of Forrest Gump’s famous square, beneath the same grand oak which must have shaded Tom Hanks as he innocently shared his pearls of wisdom about life and chocolates.

A new silence between us becomes all-consuming.

In the end, Gabby is the one who breaks it, asking the only question she can think of, despite already knowing its answer:

“When do you meet her?”

49

For reasons I can’t explain, Joshua doesn’t abandon me despite it being obvious that I was speaking to someone significant in my life.

Nor is he overkeen, expertly balancing a healthy level of interest without coming off as too clingy. He thinks I haven’t noticed him judiciously waiting to approach me after I slide my mobile back into my pocket, my hand shaking. But twice now I’ve caught his head peeking out from behind the arse of Oglethorpe’s statue, trying to decide when to return. It’s beyond adorable, soothing oil upon my storm-tossed sea of anxiety.

“Good phone call?”

Oh, here we go. Here’s where men show their true colours. Now he’ll question me about who I was speaking with, what it was about, if there’s something I want to tell him…

I’ll either have to lie or brush him off, because to tell him the truth at this point would make me feel like a creep. Besides, we’ve only just met, and only slept together once.

Who is he to keep tabs on me?

“Not really. But that’s something I have to deal with.”

“Well, if you ever want to bend an ear, I’ve been told I’m a pretty good listener.”

That’s it.

That’s all he says.

No inquisition. No suspicion. (At least, not apparent.) Just an offer to hear me out if I ever need a sounding board.

And not for the first time today, I find myself wondering where in the world this guy has come from. More Venus than Mars, Josh is unlike any man I’ve dated.

And the truth is, I’ve actually dated more men than women.

Many more.

Before Gabby, there were casual encounters. Sporadic and irregular trysts, with men and women, both.

I always knew I was different in that regard, and that realisation goes all the way back to the day a thirteen-year-old Rosie dared to kiss me. But instead of embracing my feelings back then, I went ballistic on her like a wild animal cornered. It’s a toxic trait of mine, and one of my greatest regrets.

Because the truth is, I did like it. The way her lips felt on mine, their warmth and softness, and that smooth, velvety slickness. I wanted to kiss her back in that moment, but something snapped in me… and snapped bad. Because liking it had to be wrong. Had to be disgusting. Unnatural. A sin, even. And I wasn’t queer, so how could it be possible for me to like it?

I shouldn’t be liking it.

Those heinous feelings stayed with me for years, a venomous, destructive self-loathing, as I turned my back on my authentic self. Unable to face my truth, I satisfied my urges by sneaking off for illicit encounters instead. Encounters I never, ever told a living soul about, as if what I was doing was engaging in a depraved and despicable act instead of genuinely shared moments of intimacy between two people.

What I regret more than anything—

well, almost anything

—is not figuring it out sooner. Not just for the years I wasted as a construct of what the world thought I should be (which really means what my mother thought I should be), but because if I hadn’t reacted in the way I did, what happened next might never have happened at all and Rosie might still be alive today.

Except, apparently, she is.

Josh offers me his arm, and I loop mine through it without hesitation.

We spend the day sightseeing, and he shows me his hometown in a way your average tourist would never experience. I can tell he’s enjoying seeing Savannah through the eyes of someone who’s never even been to America before.

We stroll through Forsyth Park on a path wider than most British roads, beneath a tunnel of moss-hung oaks to what is arguably the most iconic sight in Savannah: Forsyth fountain.

Modelled after Parisian fountains at the Place de la Concorde some hundred and fifty years ago, Josh reveals it was actually built to provide fresh drinking water to the citizens of Savannah during the time of yellow fever.

Artists plying their wares chat with us as though we’re long-lost friends, while somewhere in the background a jazz singer croons to a broody saxophone. Dotted throughout the park, couples nestle on picnic blankets spread upon the thick-bladed grass while others lose themselves in books. All the while, affable chatter blends harmoniously with bright birdsong.

We stop for lunch at Collins Quarter, again eating al fresco as cunning gulls survey our every move. Awash in the sights and sounds, I can’t help but become lost in the memory of endless childhood hours spent at a similar park back home where a thirteen-year-old Rosie and I spent many a summer’s day together, dreaming out loud about our futures.

Just a stone’s throw from her grandmother’s house, it was the same park where the carnies set up the Guy Fawkes festival every November.

The same park we ran through to get to Grandma Tanner’s place as the rain pelted us.

And the same park nestled at the edge of those deep dark woods that were the perfect place to hide a young girl’s body…

50

Against that memory, the unrelenting Georgia heat again feels debilitating. I say again because funnily enough, I hadn’t even thought about it until my thoughts returned to Scarborough and those Tupperware Syndrome days, giving my mind a benchmark against which to measure it.

“You seem preoccupied,” says Josh and I realise I haven’t heard a bloody word he was saying. “Something you wanna share?”

Normally, I’d be waving a great big red flag in my brain if someone I’d only just met started prying like this. But when Josh does it, it feels like legitimate interest.

Considering what I should and shouldn’t say, I’m still weighing the odds of how much is wise (and safe) to admit when I find myself just blurting it out.

I tell him about the attack that happened that day when we were thirteen. About Levi Wolfe and Grandma Tanner’s rape and murder. About Rosie going missing because of what I—

Cutting myself short, I reveal nothing more before I unintentionally admit something very, very bad.

Releasing eye contact, I bite my lip.

I refuse to cry even one more tear, determined to keep my shit together until I meet this woman claiming to be my childhood friend. Once I know the truth, I’ll either cry the rest of my life… or never again.

“Wow.” Josh leans far back in his chair as he presses his empty plate toward the edge of our table. “And this made global news? Why? And how come I never heard of this?”

Fair enough questions.

After all, why would the news of a murder-abduction in a faraway place across the ocean make its way to the States when the same must happen by the day in a country so vast and intense?

As to his question about never hearing of it, Josh changes his mind when I ask, “Have you heard of the Little Red Riding Hood missing persons case?”

“Oh, God. Yes, I remember now. She was taken from her grandmother’s house wearing a red hoodie or shawl or something?”

I nod without looking him in the eyes. “It was the perfect hook for the press to latch onto. And that was before anyone had even heard of a transient carnival worker by the name of Levi Wolfe. Once they did? Well…”

Josh has grown quiet. Maybe it was a mistake to tell him. Still, I’ve come this far. “More than Rosie died that day. A lot more.”

Though my eyes look upon the glorious greenspace which is Forsyth Park and the diverse spectrum of life in it that makes Savannah Savannah, all I see is a past I still can’t fathom against a present I could never have imagined.

“Her name died. Who Rosie Tanner was as a person died. Who she was as my friend. My best friend—”

In a moment of time so fleeting that it barely constitutes one, I consider whether or not to say what’s hanging on the tip of my tongue. It isn’t wise. But I don’t care anymore. The only way I’ll ever be able to drag myself from beneath the shadow of that day will be by releasing its secrets which bind me.

“—My sister… my twin… reduced to a fairy tale cliché because it made for a clever fifteen-second soundbite.”

…Little Red Riding Hood…

The memory of those newscasts from his own childhood must be playing out before his eyes, for I can see the cogs turning in Josh’s mind.

“It’s a lot to unpack for just a second date, I know. And I’m sorry. But I find myself wanting to be entirely transparent with you.”

“It’s a lot for a first date, you mean. A handful of minutes at the Six Pence Pub barely constitutes a date before… well… you know. So, really, I think this is our first date.”

His uncanny ability to lighten the moment without coming across as dismissive is a rarity. It’s a balm for my worn and weary soul.

God bless him.

“Ummm, if that wasn’t a date, then what do you call the rest of the night?” I thumb over my shoulder in the general direction of Berendt House B&B somewhere behind me, probably a mile from where we’re sat. “That sure as bollocks wasn’t my imagination.”

Josh laughs out loud.

“Nope. No, it certainly was not. Okay,” he retracts, “then our first public date. Better?”

I pretend to think about this, still chewing on my lip.

“I guess I’ll accept that, Mr.—”

And I suddenly realise I don’t even know the surname of the man who shared my bed last night, and whose company I’m sharing today. The man for whom I’m jeopardising the very foundation of my entire relationship with Gabriella.

I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks, a bout of atypical bashfulness coming over me.

“—Hayes, Joshua Hayes.” Taking my hand, he gently kisses the back of it. Now I know my blush must be as bright as the azalea blooms surrounding the café which envelop us with their sweet, clove-like scent. “Making your acquaintance is my finest pleasure, Ms. Briggs.”

“And yours, good sir,” I respond in kind, offering a surprisingly passable rendition of a sultry southern drawl before my cheeks again burn beet red.

I don’t want to go home yet.

And by home, I mean Berendt House B&B. The idea of sitting there in my room, stewing in my own anxiety about tomorrow, has all the appeal of a root canal. But sitting alone out here, watching all these happy couples on holiday parading by, sounds even worse.

It’s been said that the best sign that you’re truly at peace with yourself is if you can eat alone in public and simply enjoy your own company.

Which is why I don’t do it.

“Take me somewhere,” I implore. “A place you’d be sure to see if you were only in Savannah for a single day.”

Mercer-Williams House is a short walk from the park, and I’m no longer noticing the heat I found so unbearable just a few hours before. It’s liberating, and enables me to truly appreciate the splendour of this fascinating and stunning town.

“The home you see before you occupies a full city block,” Josh tells me in his finest tour guide elocution as he frames the mansion with presenter’s hands, “and is revered by Savannahians almost as much as it is reviled. For what you are looking at is the setting by which much of the world was first introduced to Savannah. The home of Jim Williams—antiques dealer, socialite, architectural and historic preservationist… and the central player in the bestselling novel and film by the same name, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.”

My eyes widen. I know my mouth is hanging open, if only a little. Midnight has always been one of my favourite books and I can barely believe I’m standing before the actual setting of it. Moments like these are always surreal to me. On one hand, I’m filled with awe. Not only from the magnificence of this mansion’s undeniable pedigree, but the energy of what took place here which I can feel coming off it in tangible waves. On the other hand, the locals passing by without so much as a glance bestows upon it a workaday air, not so far as dismissing it, but relegating it to just another of Savannah’s sardonic icons with a storied past.

Josh insists we do the tour, and despite my jetlag and nerves periodically taking hold of me, I’m grateful that we do. The architecture alone is worth it. But matching the story as I know it to the reality is bewitching. And discovering that Jim Williams’ sister Dorothy lived here until her death in 2023, going about her daily life upstairs as tours traipsed through the downstairs of her home, is fascinating.

Before we leave, I grab from the gift shop a copy of what local Savannahians simply call The Book, so ingrained it has become in local lore that it’s all but appropriated the status one traditionally finds ascribed to the Bible.

Gabby will absolutely love it.

Pangs of guilt accompany this thought. Fierce this time, they’re ice picks scratching at the inside of my stomach. The Book, as they say, was a considerable part of Gabby’s and my first date conversation: She had been to Savannah, I had not. We both adored the film, though I said the book was even better. So good, in fact, that Berendt’s publishers apparently decided not to change a single word. (Unheard of in the world of commercial publishing today.) And yet, I believe it to be true.

“Read Midnight and tell me if you agree,” I had told her. To which she promised she would, her eyes alight with admiration and passion as she reached for my hand, each stroke of her fingers shooting a branch of electric pleasure up my arm and exiting via my shoulder blades.

My spine still tingles to this day when I think of it.

“Ah, The Book,” Josh affirms with a wink. “Excellent choice.”

“You’ve read it?”

Intense guilt transmutes into something akin to desire at the thought of this man, to whom I am far too fast becoming enamoured, reading this book.

The Savannah Bible.

In many ways, my Bible.

I can imagine Josh in a distressed leather armchair, five o’clock shadow accentuating his square chin, The Book in one hand, a bourbon in the other, like one of the posts that populate my Facebook feed every now and again from a group aptly called Hot Dudes Reading. I have no idea who started that page, but they’re not wrong for doing it. It’s a guaranteed thirst trap for me.

“What self-respecting Savannahian hasn’t?” Josh answers my question which now seems as if it were posed years ago, and no sooner have I come out of the fantasy than I find myself pulled right back in again.

God, yes.

I’m biting my lip, this time for a completely different reason than I was at the café, and now I can’t stop the next image from forming:

Josh, Gabriella and me.

We’re in Gabby’s bedroom, which has somehow found its way inside Mercer House, one of the grand four-poster beds from Savannah’s best-known home serving as our playground.

Below us, albeit four thousand miles away, the North Sea surf pounds the shore in perfect rhythm to the feral fucking taking place beyond Gabby’s floor-to-ceiling windows, the debauchery visible to any passersby.

It’s a hodgepodge fantasy that ignites a glowing red poker deep within my belly and I pull Josh to me, a single, grinding thrust that blends my features into his as I kiss him like I’ve never kissed before.

I don’t remember the cab ride.

Josh hailed it as I clung to him, and we were bounding hand-in-hand up the stairs of Berendt House before it even registered.

Fumbling for the old-fashioned key, I drop it twice before Josh snatches it from the floor and steamrolls the door open, tugging me behind him like a living rag doll. Now I’m buck naked on the bed as Josh stands before me, fully dressed and thirsting.

Every few seconds his crotch swells in slow, thick pulses.

Vulnerable and defenceless, I embrace the sensation as I watch him unbutton his shirt. Far from hairless and jacked (the perfectly torrid male protagonist of romance novels), Josh is Everyman, if slightly more athletic. Unpretentious muscle defines his pecs, arms and shoulders, with fine hair forming a V on his chest. Neither does he sport a six-pack. But his stomach is smooth and inviting, and I feel the instant urge to lick it before biting it…

…And I mean, biting hard.

My legs are scissoring like a cricket filmed in slow motion, my hand beginning to slide down my own torso to my belly.

Josh unclasps his leather belt and snaps it from his pants with a staccato craaack like a whip.

My hips lurch from the bed as I reflexively clench my pelvic muscles. A low, rolling gurgle of surprise bubbles into laughter as I reach for him, but he swats my hands away.

He unbuttons his jeans, and they drop to his ankles, revealing a pair of black boxer briefs stretching in more rapid cycles. A small patch of fabric is darkening at the apex of their rise and fall.

Watching it, I massage myself in small, patient circles, rubbing lighter, harder… faster, slower… until I can’t bear it.

I plunge my fingers into me, first one…

…Then another…

…And another.

Better judgement takes a hike as adrenaline courses through me, base desire giving my brain permission to succumb to this man. Right now, he can do anything to me he wants. The fact that I’ll let him is as electrifying as it is intimidating. Experts call this an Amygdala Hijacking: when that part of your brain that’s responsible for the Fight or Flight response kicks in to override your logical cerebral cortex. Reverting you to nothing but a bundle of physiological responses, these reactions are usually to danger or stress. But they also happen in sex.

Really good sex.

Flooding your brain with adrenaline, your heart beats faster, your blood pumps harder. Muscles become engorged. Breathing quickens. Sensation intensifies. Reflexes heighten.

I’ve become what we all are deep down inside: a yearning animal whose only instinct is unbridled satisfaction, rationale cast aside for the antiquated killjoy it is.

There is no means, only end.

A goal to be achieved at all costs.

I’m already on my third climax when he comes, too, and we collapse into each other’s arms, sweaty and panting as we roll onto our sides.

Neither of us said a word during the act, and we don’t now.

Feeling him pressed against me, the occasional spasm pressing into my thigh, I’m half-tempted to reach down and start it all over. A little grip, a little stroke, nails dragged gingerly along that flaccid shaft, and I know I can make him hard enough to at least allow me to ride him a second time, even if he won’t reach the finish line the way I will.

I start to do exactly that, but Josh twitches from my hand with a cackle and a shudder, his sensation so piqued that every caress is magnified tenfold.

In an uncommon display of both mercy and restraint, I give him a break and shunt backwards across the bed with the sheets riding up in waves. I want to be just far enough away to be able to take him in as he lies next to me, a unicorn of a man whom before yesterday I had no idea existed.

Try as I might, I now can’t imagine how anaemic my life had been without him.

But how does that make any sense?

I love Gabby.

I love her mind.

I love her courage.

I love her passion, her independence, her heart.

I love her youthfulness, and the body that goes with it.

I love her sex. It’s softer, more adept. Nimble. A level of artful finesse one woman can only give and receive from another.

I love that she’d never hurt me.

I love her trust.

I love her… well, I just love… her.

So, as I lie here staring in wonder as the afternoon sun paints the walls of our—

my

—room in golden layers of light, why is the person next to me someone other than Gabriella?

Not only someone else, but a man.

A man I’ve only just met.

A man to whom I’ve now bestowed the power to destroy my life in any of a half-dozen ways more than this trip already wields.

Though I’m sure he never would.

Cocooned in a false sense of security brought on by the uninhibited haze of a post-orgasmic dopamine dump, I’m apparently prepared to test this conviction.

Before I can stop it, I hear myself blurting out four words that have never before crossed my lips:

“I killed my sister.”

51

At first, Josh laughs. An awkward, pitchy snicker. Until my own bewilderment at the admission etches across my face and silences him. His features draw long, twisting into something akin to disdain.

No, not that.

Twisting into fear.

“What are you talking about?” He forces a smile at what is clearly a very bad joke but can’t maintain it. “Emily. What are you talking about.”

It’s not a question but a pronouncement, the judgement in his tone as evident as it is in his body language. He just isn’t stating it aloud. At least, not yet.

Slithering out of my four-poster bed, half the sheets come away with him, exposing me. He tugs his pants over his legs, a clumsy effort that nearly sends him toppling into an antebellum black walnut chifforobe. And just like that, the unicorn of a man I was certain I knew Josh to be is now deconstructing before my very eyes and reconstructing into something entirely different.

Something entirely… typical.

I grab a fistful of linens and pull them over my bare body, pressing up against the headboard as the man who just came inside me stares aghast as if I’ve grown a second head. Or worse, as if I’ve told him I have an uncurable and deadly STI.

You fucker, you.

I shake my head, a slow dismissal as the fear and judgement arrive in his words.

“Emily! I asked you what you mean by that!”

He’s already pulled his shirt on. Unbuttoned, it hangs open, wrinkled and with the collar twisted under on one side.

“You mean you feel responsible. Right, Em? Like… survivor’s guilt, or whatever.” He begins to button his shirt lopsided. “Emily. Right?”

My chest is in the grip of a giant but invisible vice, the handle slowly cranking tighter.

God help me, what have I done?

Eyes downcast, I’m silent as I pump my head furiously in small, intense nods.

Sure. Survivor’s guilt. Something like that.

I can’t look at Josh’s face. Handsome, strong, and permanently affixed with adoration since I met him, disquiet and dread are now turning it ugly… soft… weak.

He slumps back into the room’s only armchair with the lament of a combined whimper and groan. I can tell before I even raise my eyes that he’s staring at me, trying to find the attraction which had been so apparent up to seconds ago, but is now as elusive to him as a snow leopard.

“Jesus. Emily…”

“Right…?” It’s all I can think to say. Right. Like we’re just a couple of pals chatting around the water cooler at work. Or more apt, teenage girls gossiping about boys in the cafeteria:

(Can you believe Vincent had the nerve to ask Patty out? I mean, ewwww, he’s not even in the same league as her.

I know! Right?)

“Did you just say, right?” The unease on Josh’s face has become abject disappointment. “We’re talking about you murdering your sister, and that’s your response?”

“What do you want me to say, Josh?”

“I want you to tell me what happened, and why. That’s what I want you to say!”

“And you have the right to this info why… because we fucked twice? Because you bought me lunch and a thirty-dollar home tour?”

“Because you just told me you fucking killed someone, that’s why, Emily! Because I thought we had something here. Or at least, could’ve had something!”

He’s pacing, no longer in the chair but tracing a figure eight around the room. I’m pretty sure he’s panting. He’s definitely sweating. It glistens on the nape of his neck every time he turns.

“You’re an arse, you know that, Josh? A right fucking arsehole. I share the deepest secret and greatest sorrow of my life, something I haven’t even told Gabby, and this is how you respond? Not, ‘Oh my God, that must’ve been terrifying.’ Or, ‘Jesus, Em, do you want to tell me about it?’ Not this—” I’m gesturing in the air, my hand spinning weakly at my wrist in his general vicinity “—this pathetic display of… whatever this is.”

I snort, placing a derisive, sarcastic full stop of disgust at the end of that indictment.

And he stops dead in his tracks.

Good. Maybe I’ve touched a nerve.

“Who the fuck is Gabby?”

Great job, Em. Seriously. Fucking bang-up, ace of a job.

In my head, I’m slow clapping myself for pouring petrol on the already billowing flames of my life.

“None of your business, that’s who.”

Which is when the penny drops, Josh’s slow but certain dawning of realisation taking place before my eyes.

“You’re in a relationship…? And with a fucking woman…?”

He squares up to me, and I realise he’s now positioned himself between me and the door. I don’t know this guy from Adam, not really, and if I need to get away for any reason, he’s just blocked my only way out of here unless I jump from a third story window.

“Christ, Emily. You’re fucking gay?”

“Clearly not, Sherlock.” My palms rotate skyward. “I mean…”

“So, bi, then. And you didn’t think to tell me this?”

Again, I remind him of how insubstantial our relationship is, despite it feeling like we’ve known one another forever. The truth is that it hasn’t even been a full twenty-four hours yet. Hardly at a level where it’s earned the privilege of being privy to extremely sensitive personal insight.

“And yet you just go and drop it on me that you murdered your sister—”

“—Killed. I said killed. Not murdered. That’s not the same.”

The nuances of the semantics are beyond him. Perhaps they wouldn’t be under normal circumstances. In fact, I’m sure of it. His intellect is one of the things that drew me to him in the first place. But in this situation?

Well…

“And not telling me you’re in a relationship? I deserved to know that, if nothing else, Em. I deserved at least that much.”

Which is fair enough. He’s right. I should have told him. And I wanted to. I nearly did at the steps of my B&B last night when he showed me the way back. But the timing was uncomfortable, and the next thing I knew, we were going at it, a randy dog on a bitch in heat.

Except, that’s not strictly true, is it?

The randy bit, that’s all true. And then some. But the reason I didn’t tell him is a convenient rationalisation. The truth is, I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want him to walk away.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I’m grateful I can at least admit that much to myself.

Josh seems to accept this involuntary reaction as some kind of apology, because he slumps back down in the armchair, shirt half-buttoned in the wrong holes, sockless and his trousers loose around his waist.

“I’m sorry, Emily. I didn’t mean for it to sound so bad when I said you were gay. I like gays. I mean, people. I like gay people. Not that I’m gay myself, ummm, but, I—”

“Shhhhhh.” I place a finger to my lips. “I get it. Just stop. While you’re ahead.”

And I do get it.

The guy only just pulls his cock out of me, and I lay it on him that I’m a killer. And in a same-sex relationship. To some, deciding which of those was worse would be a toss-up, a fact that shakes me to my core. Kids in Britain or America can watch programmes saturated with violence: muggings, rapes, shootings, suicides, murders. But dare show two adults having consensual sex, a natural act we all enjoy, and the zealots come out in force.

(And don’t even get me started about the reaction if those adults having sex happen to be of the same gender.)

At least I know in my heart of hearts that Josh isn’t one of those bible thumping hypocrites. I think he could still be worth the price of my vulnerability.

“Her name is Gabriella,” I admit, starting with the slightly more manageable of the two issues at hand. I then proceed to tell him about my girlfriend, and why I couldn’t say anything earlier.

Okay, okay… Why I made the choice not to say anything.

Which segues nicely to why I’m here in Savannah.

I’d already told him about Rosie and (some of) what happened, and now I’m glad I’d shared at least that much before now. Sure, I may have omitted some of the specifics, but he did already know that Rosie was missing presumed dead since 1998 and that Levi Wolfe was the culprit who’d been put away for it.

What he doesn’t yet know is that a woman in Savannah is now claiming to be my long-dead twin sister, or that my whole reason for being here is because I’m going to meet her tomorrow to verify if she really is who she says she is, or an imposter.

Oh, and that I’ve been tasked by Detective Inspectors of the North Yorkshire Constabulary with procuring her DNA.

With her permission, of course.

It's a good hour of awkward silence as Josh slams minibar drinks like they’re tiny bottles of water. Eventually, he moves on to asking more clumsy questions as he wraps his head around everything I’ve just unloaded on him.

Outside our window, the tops of the trees glow fiery red in Chippewa Square as the sun begins to set. Veiled by the tall gabled roof of the adjacent Baptist church, dusk settles over the greenspace here a good thirty minutes earlier than it does over the city blocks to the church’s western aspect.

“Again, I know how it sounds, Josh. But I promise, I will tell you everything. If you still want me, that is. Because I don’t want to lose you. Not this way.”

He shoots me a look drenched in scepticism while tossing the umpteenth empty whiskey miniature to the floor.

I don’t blame him—for the look, or the drinking. After all, I’m not far behind him.

“Okay, I know how ludicrous that sounds coming from someone who’s barely known you a day. But it’s true. Please, Josh… I need your help. Tomorrow. If you do this for me, I’ll tell you the truth. About everything. Then, if you still want to go, I’ll understand. I just need one day. Not even a day. One morning. Tomorrow morning. And your help to get through it. Will you do that for me? Can you do that?”

Girl in distress is the trigger that works. I should’ve known, given how we met, and then how we ended up in bed together.

Josh rubs his hands over his face, waking up his senses.

He grunts, shuffling in the big armchair which isn’t nearly as comfortable as it appears.

Leaning forward, he lets out a long, resigned exhale. His lips briefly part, but close again just as quickly.

We stay this way, with me naked under the sheets and he partially and incorrectly dressed, for a spell that feels like eternity.

Eventually he says…

“I’m listening.”

52

Morning comes hard and fast. Again.

Lucky morning, the adolescent voice in my head sniggers, no longer willing to remain buried under the veil of maturity and respectability I have worked so hard to cultivate for decades.

Alone in bed, I replay the clusterfuck that was the previous evening over and over again in my mind.

I’ve done this so many times that it’s essentially lost all meaning. Just when I think I’ve gotten a handle on what I’d done and how I can fix it, the solution slips through my fingers like a nimble ghost when the lights are switched back on. My fretful and angst-addled brain then starts the whole replay from the very beginning, and I watch all over again the trainwreck that was me upending my carefully curated life with four simple words:

I killed my sister.

Why on earth had I believed I could trust a man I’d just met with the most guarded secret of my life, something I’d never even told Gabriella? As if this weren’t enough, why had I then told him about her as well, when all I had to do was say nothing… about any of it?

Just shut up, Emily, my thick and throbbing head demands. Get your arse out of bed, get showered. Go meet this woman. Make sure she can’t ruin you. Have another night with your fancy man (if he’ll still have you). Then go back home to England with all your loose ends tied up, leaving the past in America, thousands of miles away from your reality.

Sound like a plan?

It sure does.

I can just carry on then, put it all behind me, and maybe—just maybe—embrace who I really am at heart. I know it’s all Gabby wants for me. And that should be enough for me too.

Shouldn’t it?

If only my heart would listen.

Now here I am, restless and worried, yesterday’s alcohol still tart in my belly, my head and mouth filled with cotton wool.

As I wait for Josh over a breakfast I’ve barely touched, I pray, pray, pray that he’ll actually show up this morning like he promised.

Come on, Josh. Come on. Come on c’mon come on c’mon.

If he doesn’t, my life as I know it could be over.

I think I might pass out from the sheer intensity of anxiety I’m having right now. Things are starting to swim on my periphery. That shimmering road haze you see on a hot summer day’s horizon? That’s how the interior edges of Berendt House’s dining room appear, and I catch myself keeling to one side.

Off balance and feeling sick as the perceived motion churns my stomach, the whole B&B has become a ship on choppy seas.

I lurch the other way to try and find my centre, but it’s an overcorrection and I nearly come out of my chair.

All the while, Mrs. Webb patiently hovers.

The rest of the guests left yesterday. Which kind of makes sense being that it was Sunday. People have jobs to go back to, kids to pick up from grandparents, pets to collect from boarding kennels. I’m the only one who has an appointment with her dead twin sister. Which also makes me Mrs. Webb’s only patron, and it shows. A social butterfly with only one remaining flower on which to alight, the proprietress is overly attentive.

“Is the breakfast not to your liking, sweetheart?” Circling. Fluttering. She’s seeking an invitation to land on my petals.

“It’s fine, really. I’m sorry.”

She’s waiting for more. If I give it, perhaps she’ll flit away.

“I have an important meeting this morning and my tummy’s just a bit upset. I guess I’m more anxious about it than I thought.”

“Oh, dear! Well, why didn’t you say? I have just the thing.”

Biding me to stay put with a single finger held high in the air, she disappears into the kitchen without another word.

The time is 8:55am.

I’d asked Josh to meet me here for breakfast at 8:30.

It’s on me, I said, like biscuits and gravy would make up for the two bombs I dropped on him: first a megaton hydrogen bomb, then a smaller but no less lethal atomic one, just to make sure he was finished off. I told him that if he couldn’t stomach breakfast with me—and let’s face it, who would blame him—then I would be forever grateful if he would at least meet me here by 9, because I could really use the moral support right about now.

Well, here I am, eating (or trying to) on my own.

In less than five minutes, I’ll know if he’s going to show up at all. If he doesn’t, I may have to accept that my life as I’ve known it could very well be over.

The time is 9:02.

Last night I prebooked my rideshare for ten past nine. If the driver’s on time, or even a shade early, they could be here any moment.

Josh isn’t going to show, that’s obvious now, and my stomach roils cold at the realisation.

“Heeeeeere you go, darlin’,” says Mrs. Webb singsong as she presents a dainty floral cup with rising steam infused with a light fruity aroma. “Chamomile berry with vanilla and honey. No cream, of course. It’ll calm your nerves. And your funny tummy. Drink, sweetheart, drink.”

She’s not wrong.

From the first sip the herbal tea warms my throat all the way to my belly. Soothing my nerves and flushing the lingering alcohol, it’s the perfect antidote to a hangover wrought with anxiety. It’s not going to make my problems go away, but at least I no longer feel like I’m going to vomit.

I got ninety-nine problems, but the puke ain’t one.

Still, I’m glued to my watch.

9:08 is here in what feels like seconds, so unnaturally fast that I need to check with Mrs. Webb. Having finally left me in peace, my prompt is the permission she’s been seeking to come flutter around me some more. This time, I won’t be able to get rid of her. Thankfully, it can’t be more than a minute or two till my ride comes.

“Yes, that is the correct time, sugar.”

She points toward the far corner of the room where a grandfather clock stands sentry over a library area and its reading nook nestled in the bay window. The same window we looked out yesterday, when I learned all about the Forrest Gump bench.

Still pointing with one hand, Mrs. Webb’s other is cocked to her ear. Poised and waiting, her mouth is slightly agape until the clock strikes nine deep and soulful notes.

“There it is!” She exclaims. “Just like clockwork!”

Chuckling at what she clearly feels is a wildly original joke, I can’t help but smile with her when normally I’d find such an inane observation annoying as shit. But there’s something about this woman, something intrinsically maternal, that shines a harsh light of truth on what I missed by living my life with a mother who resented me, maybe even hated me… Just for being me.

“I call him Ben. As in Big Ben! But of course, with you being British and all, you’ve seen the real thing? I’m envious. Green, I am! What a wonderfully rich life you must have had, growing up in a place like London!”

Americans always think Brits are from London.

I don’t have the heart to tell her I’m from Scarborough, a northern seaside town a good two hundred and fifty miles away. The same distance, coincidentally, as Savannah is from Atlanta. And I flew here from Atlanta.

“Yes, it was,” is all I say, genuinely not wanting to burst her bubble. “If you ever come across the pond, feel free to knock me up. I’ll be happy to show you around.”

It’s a cheap platitude. A throwaway. But Mrs. Webb titters with glee, her hands coming together in silent little mini claps. I don’t know if she’s thrilled at my invitation, or if it’s the phrase ‘knock me up’ that’s got her so giddy. I guess I should’ve said something more like look me up, or gimme a shout, but there’s no poetry in that for me. Knock me up elicits an image of knocking on a friend’s door to enjoy some good conversation and even better company. Unless you’re an American schoolboy, in which case it elicits an image of something else entirely.

“I will, I will!” she exclaims. “Yes. Oh my. I’d love to!”

As if she’s planning on taking me up on my invitation posthaste, Mrs. Webb sets about searching all things British on a dated and finger-dirty computer replete with a bulky, putty coloured CRT monitor. Available for guests’ complimentary use, it sits atop a small desk on the other side of her very own Big Ben.

She’s still muttering excitedly about little titbits she’s finding about the UK when the car that pulls up out front gives two polite little pips. I tell her to check out Scarborough, and leave her to her magical online mystery tour as I head outside, my stomach again tightening in knots.

My car’s here.

Josh isn’t.

The weird thing is that my rideshare app shows my driver still three minutes away. But seeing as I’m the only guest, and there’s not another soul in the square right now, this car can’t be pulling up for anyone else but me. Still, I’ll check the number plate and driver details one last time before I hop in.

For safety’s sake.

I go to refresh the app, but this time it just spins round and round. lte and roaming are showing next to the four grey bars at the top, not one of them filled in with solid white. It’s already 9:12, and the entire reason I’ve flown to America is to meet this woman who says she’s Rosie. If I don’t take this car right now, there’s no time to wait for another. That’s if I can even get service on my phone to rebook one in the first place.

The entry to Berendt House is five steps up from the street, so before I go to the car, I use the height advantage for one final scout around the square.

Please Josh… please come. I could really do with you being here right now.

But Joshua Hayes is nowhere to be seen.

Neither is a single bar of service on my phone screen.

Descending the stairs, I climb into the back seat feeling more alone than I’ve ever been. I’ll need to put this feeling aside if I’m going to be of a right mind for this meeting that’s being hailed as the reunion of the century. And maybe it is. But there’s only one living soul who understands how truly momentous this day is to me. One small misstep, and the world as I know it comes crashing down, a rockslide with my crushed and impotent future tumbling beneath it.

Drama Queen, much? a young teenage Rosie accuses me. Suck it up, buttercup.

The smile this conjures is enough to help me get my head back into the game.

“Hey,” I greet the driver, polite but expressionless as I wriggle into the rear of the car. “My phone service is fucking shite around here. Can you please confirm the name of the passenger you’re supposed to be picking up?”

No reply.

Maybe he doesn’t speak English.

“Sorry for the cursing,” I add, just in case I’ve offended him. “My day’s not off to a great start.”

I wait for him to say anything… but receive only silence.

Something tells me I should leave my foot in the open door and not get too comfortable.

“I just need to know. For safety’s sake. Y’know? So that I’m not climbing into the car of a psycho killer right now. Ha.”

Still no answer.

Three strikes and you’re out, my friend.

Isn’t that something the Yanks say?

“Ooo-kay,” I murmur, already scooting back toward the door I was at least smart enough to keep open.

I’m halfway out when the driver floors it.

Tumble-sliding across the seat, my rear door slams with such force that the glass shakes. If not for quick reflexes, it would have crushed my foot.

We streak away from the curb so fast that my scream merges with the squealing tyres as we careen first around one corner, then another.

And I realise just how badly I’ve fucked up.

Again.

53

My heart is in my throat, my fingers twitching as they fumble over my phone’s keypad. I manage to press 999 despite the car’s chaotic swerving.

It’s when we fishtail around yet another corner that the first of my phone’s four reception bars turns white.

Trembling, I press send.

Frantic as the call struggles to connect, I search for a street name or landmark so I can share my location once it does.

Three bars now.

Still, my phone does nothing.

Then it hits me: 999 is what we call in England, not here.

Fuck, what’s the American number again? The one they use to call the police?

I know this.

I know this.

Every Brit does.

We’ve seen it a thousand times in cop shows and movies, a frantic victim punching them into a keypad or dialling them on one of those old rotary phones like mine at home. But it’s a different story when the emergency is real…

…And your own.

“Nine-one-one,” the driver informs me deadpan, and my eyes jitter to the rearview mirror hanging above the dash. Framed in a rectangle of glass, the eyes looking back at me are cold and impersonal as they survey my unfolding turmoil with apathy.

It takes a second before I realise they are Josh’s eyes.

I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.

“Josh, what the fuck! What the serious cunting fuck! You scared the goddamn shit out of me!”

His eyes flick to the road. Then back to me in the mirror. He takes a corner untenably fast and I can feel the car’s rear tyres losing their grip.

“Past tense?” he asks, no longer watching me. A group of girls is stumbling on and off the road ahead, three sheets to the wind despite it still being breakfast time.

“Sorry, what?”

I’m confused. I’m fuming mad. I’m ready to reverse out the last two nines on my phone’s screen and replace them with number ones when Josh looks at me in that mirror with pale indifference and asks again: “You said scared. Past tense.”

“What the fuck are you waffling on about? Stop. This. God. Damned. Car.””

He slows, but not in response to my demand.

The drunk girls up ahead are now staggering fully into the street. First one, then another, until the rest follow. A flock flying in unison regardless of where their leader heads. One of them (not the leader, oddly enough) is wearing a sash with the word BRIDE printed repeatedly across it.

“You’re not scared now?”

I reach for the door handle. The hen party—I think they’re called bachelorette parties over here—is blocking the road as the girls continue to weave in and out of parked cars, undecided if they want to be on this side of the street or the other.

God bless drunk bachelorettes, because we’re now going slow enough that if I jump out, I can probably pull it off with just a scratch or two. Maybe a sore arse.

I reach for the handle.

Josh blocks it with the flick of a finger. Casually pressing the child safety lock at his side, both rear doors click. I tug on the latch anyway, prepared to dive into the street if the door flies open. But pull as I may, the handle does nothing. A limp dick in my hand.

“You know,” he says into the rearview mirror as he takes a wide berth around the cackling hens, “I’d expected at least a similarity or two. But you really do look nothing like her. It’s astounding.”

“Like who, Josh? Stop this fucking car!”

My voice rises to a crescendo so loud that it breaks. One of the hens must hear me, because her head jerks up, a look of drunken concentration upon her feet replaced by concerned interest as her gormless grin evaporates. But before she can get the attention of her stumbling friend, we’re already a good thirty yards away.

Not that it matters. I can’t open the door, and neither could the hen, if she even wanted to.

Aware of this, Josh seems less bothered about a hasty getaway and has slowed the car to a more conventional speed. On top of which, we’ve also zigzagged around so many squares that I no longer have any idea where I am.

Now I do type those two number ones after the nine and hit send, but again, my mobile has lost all bars of service.

Joshua only smiles at me in the mirror.

When our progress is halted at a traffic light, he casually checks his teeth in the rearview to see if there’s something caught between them. And there he is, the all-American boy I fell for—with those silky-soft lips and soldier-straight teeth so white they could be an image in a toothpaste commercial. Add to that a killer personality, higher than average intelligence and a girl with abandonment issues from a faraway land, and there you have the perfect recipe for me falling so fast that I willingly confessed to the worst thing I’ve ever done.

Breathing through the fear and the stress, I ground myself with slow, calming inhalations until I muster the composure to repeat more softly:

“Josh? Who is it that you think I’m supposed to look like but apparently don’t?”

For a second, he chooses not to answer. But then that killer smile flashes, those beguiling eyes sparkle, and he says with self-satisfaction: “Why, your sister of course.”

I’ve only just told him about Rosie. About what happened. How could he know what she looked like, when he claimed to have barely even remembered hearing about her and what happened?

Conclusion: he must’ve looked it up online.

But when could he?

Yes, we’ve both slept since then (in our respective beds) so officially, our conversation was yesterday. But in terms of waking hours, it wasn’t more than two or three ago. Four, tops.

Even so, Josh didn’t just disappear after I told him about that day. Listening and absorbing as I told him how drastically my relationship with my mother has changed over the years, Josh also shared the occasional private truth about himself.

He stayed with me until we’d both agreed that we’d drained our emotional tanks. If his needle was edging well and truly towards E, mine was below it. Since last night—hell, since I left England—I’ve been running on fumes.

Eventually, he said goodnight and disappeared into the square.

I, in turn, lay in bed… and fretted.

As my next few hours were spent drowning my torment with minibar doubles, Josh must’ve been quite the busy bee. He must have immediately gone online to research my story the minute he got home.

And can you blame him?

Perhaps he wanted to see if what I was saying was true, or if I was some kind of attention-seeking whack job. And trust me, they exist. Lord knows I’ve come across more than my lifetime’s share of them since that day, so long ago.

Still, I can’t figure out why he would remark on the lack of resemblance between a woman in her forties and a thirteen-year-old Rosie Tanner. Sister or not, twin or not, those years add something to a person’s appearance that isn’t quite measurable. Especially when those years are as tethered in pain and guilt as mine have been. Besides, Rosie and I were fraternal, not identical. We never did look the same. I mean, bloody hell, you could even compare me to me—now versus back then—and make the same claim. I know for a fact that I look nothing like that awkward, gangly, but somehow still slightly pudgy teen, Emily. And forget age-progressing that photo a quarter-century. If you fed it into one of those AI programs that are poised to take over the free-thinking world, the likeness it would spit out would in no way resemble me today.

I know this for a fact because I’ve already tried it.

So, why this is in any way relevant to Josh kidnapping me is beyond me.

Still, I’ll play his game.

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the years as a survivor of one of the most recognisable and emotive crimes in modern times, it’s how to hold my own.

That, and how to dodge the truth just enough to come out smelling like Roses.

Excuse the pun.

“You knew my sister? You knew Rosie, Josh?”

He takes in a deep breath and exhales it smoothly as we move through the stoplight and head down East President Street.

East President, I repeat mentally, overcoming my sieve-like memory when it comes to names by picturing Abraham Lincoln wearing one of those stovepipe hats while giving the Gettysburg Address. That was around here somewhere, wasn’t it? Well, it is now, I determine and at least have a directional benchmark to give the police.

We’re not on this street more than a few short blocks before the splendour of historic Savannah gives way to urbane industrial blight.

“Again with the past tense. Man, this whole childhood trauma thing is no joke. It’s really done a number on you, hasn’t it, Emily? Kinda feels like your whole life exists in the once upon a time, and a place far, far away.”

He’s grinning with pride at that one: the classic fairy tale intro to dismiss the worst moment of my life as nothing more than a cautionary tale from the Brothers Grimm.

Half watching me and half watching the road which has split into a four-lane divided highway, he puts his foot down and we pick up speed. There’s no way for me to get out of here now, even if that door was unlocked. All I can do is focus on landmarks and street names and try to remember which ways we turn.

“How do I know your sister, I think you mean. Present tense, Emily. Do, not did. Know, not knew. Or are you forgetting why you’re here and who you’ve come to see in the first place?”

His gaze is fixed upon me in the mirror. We’re on a long stretch of road so straight that Josh could probably put on a blindfold and we’d still be okay. Which is why he chose this moment to drop his little bomb. It’s a power play, and those are no fun unless you can feast upon the person’s reaction.

But it’s also a lie. I know one when I hear one. Just like I know a liar when I see one.

You know what they say about liars… takes one to know one.

“Okay, Josh. I’ll bite. How, exactly, do you claim to know my twin sister—present tense—if she went missing when we were barely thirteen?”

He can’t. That’s how. Because Rosie Tanner is dead and gone. Of this, I am certain. (And the only person on earth who can be.) Who this woman is that I’m supposed to meet today, I have no idea. But it can’t possibly be Rosie…

…Could it?

A shit-eating grin lights Joshua’s face, twisting it ugly and raw. He’s obviously been chomping at the bit for this moment since we met, another whack-job zealot whose life has become defined by the most popular cold case in the world.

I’m disgusted that I fell for it. Even more so that I let him fuck me. I betrayed the woman I love more than anything… for this piece of shit. But most of all, I’m sickened that I told him my darkest of secrets, only to be so fully and unquestionably duped.

What he’s about to reveal will no doubt be some implausible rubbish that’s supposed to make my jaw drop.

But I’ve got news for you, mate. I can’t wait to wipe that smug grim wipe right off your bloody face.

“Eh, Josh? How ‘bout it then. How does a stupid, pathetic Yank like you claim to know my dead twin sister?”

“Because,” he answers without hesitation, his tone saturated with unadulterated glee. “She’s my wife.”

54

I‘m unable to blink, my eyes fixated upon Josh’s in the rearview mirror. The silence is deafening,

She’s my wife.

Those three words might as well have been gut punches, for each one hit me progressively harder until the wind was well and truly knocked out of me.

You need to take a breath, I coax myself. Breathe, girl.

Such an unsettling thought to consciously have: instructing oneself to do what has come naturally and without thought a thousand times a day for forty-one years.

I gasp, sucking in air. But there’s no satisfaction in it. A fish out of water, each jagged inhalation leaves me needing the next even more.

Something isn’t right.

The panic is setting in.

“There it is,” Josh croons. “I was starting to think you hadn’t been given enough.”

He only takes his eyes off me when we cut sharp right off the straightaway that is Lincoln Street—

no, not Lincoln, that’s my mental token… President Street

—onto another that stretches as far as the eye can see.

President. Who’s the American president now? I can see him. That hair. The resting bitch face. That annoying drone of a voice. But his name… what’s his name?

Something isn’t right.

My mind’s a jumble.

Jumbo. Wasn’t that the cute elephant in that old Disney film? The one who could fly?

I can’t focus.

No, that was Dumbo. He could fly! Flying. When do I fly back home? Is it today? No, not today. I haven’t even met Rosie yet.

My tongue is thick in my mouth; lazy; it feels silly.

“Mna, mnaaya, nommh.”

What the fuck was that?

My lips won’t form the words I’m sending them.

Hilarious!

Chuckling aloud, I repeat them over and over, a baby making sounds just for the sake of sounding. Now I’m laughing so hard that I feel should cover my mouth out of politeness. But my arms won’t move, my hands heavy at my sides—sooooooo heavy.

Two iron mitts.

No, not mitts… skillets. Ha! Two skillets. Cast iron, like the ones in old cartoons. Emily Skillethands. That’s me!

I’m slumping back, possibly melting…

…into the seat

I’m not scared.

Well, a glimpse, maybe. A little eensy-weensy, itsy-bitsy bit. I think I say, ‘Uh oh,’ but can’t be sure.

I don’t care—do I?—‘cause this is too fucking funny.

“Goddamnit, Mom,” Josh scolds a woman (who I don’t think is there) as he watches me sink into my seat.

I’m a puddle.

A puddle…

55

She gave her too much. Mom, yes. Who else, Amy? …About five minutes, now… Yes… Yes. I showed up at Mom’s B&B like we said… Uh huh... I’ve got this. …Kill her. Yes, I know. Just hang up and get the hell over here.

These words could have been spoken in a single string… or across the course of an hour. I have no idea. The fact that I can hear them at all is incredible, because I’m surrounded by water, swimming—

sinking

—down, down, down beneath the surface, Josh’s voice coming to me in waves that are thick and muted and belong to no one.

The slap that comes out of nowhere doesn’t hurt.

In fact, I barely feel it.

My head bucks to one side, lolling on my neck. This catches my attention, but the stinging comes later.

Maybe a year later.

Not that it’s a stinging so much as a buzzing sensation.

“Wake up!”

Okay.

“Wake up...!”

Hasn’t he just said that? Boooooring. So boring. What else ya got?

“Emily. Wake up! Emily…”

Yes. Wake up Emily.

Who’s Emily?

Oh, yes. I am. She is me. Emily, right? Wake me up.

Amy Lee’s haunting voice flows into my head on another wave, Evanescence’s ‘Bring Me To Life’ slinking toward me from far away until it resounds in my skull and becomes nothing but a roar of static that vibrates from my insides out. Bass that pulses in waves like the thrum of my blood coursing through my veins.

“…Can’t wake up.” This voice is different. Nearer. Not the man’s, but another person’s. A woman’s.

Do I know this voice?

“Why can’t she wake up? The idea was to get her to talk. Get it on camera. Not to kill her. Jesus, Josh. Your fucking mother…”

Little by little, the water drains away and I find myself still belted into the back of Josh’s car.

But there is no water, only buckets of my own perspiration.

The voices continue, starting to come more clearly.

“Time to get up, Emily. Come on now, love. That’s it.”

British.

That’s a British accent.

More specifically, that’s a Yorkshire accent.

“You can do it. That’s right.”

Sort of. Instead of that rolling ‘roight’—which now that I’ve been surrounded by nothing but Yanks for a couple days I notice we Yorkies somehow give more than one syllable—the way the woman says it is more like the brusque, clipped American pronunciation.

“She’s coming back up.”

Male. I know this voice.

How do I know this voice?

Is it Alan Jenkins?

The blood drains from my face, my hands clenching.

God help me! Alan Jenkins is going to rape me. Rape me!

The scream that builds deep in my gut—lower than my gut; in my groin—is a hurricane of fear and fury by the time it gusts from my mouth. I can hear it. I can see it… a visible wave that bends metal and blows out glass.

It doesn’t translate to the two people crowding around me. To them it is little more than a whimper.

“Emily Briggs. I need you to listen to me carefully. Follow my voice, okay, love? Josh, get this on vid.”

I nod. It’s a slow, cautious movement that takes seven minutes or maybe a year of more seconds than I can count. No longer in water, I’m in syrup. Treacle. Molasses that swamps me, binding my limbs. My thoughts.

“I’m going to ask you some questions now, and I want you to answer them,” the woman explains. “Okay? Just answer them honestly, and this will all be over soon. Then I can tell you what it is I want from you… why I had you come all this way to find me.”

Find you? But I didn’t. You’re the one who found me. I never wanted to see you again, Rose.

Never. Not ever.

If only that were true.

“Alright. Let’s begin. I want you to tell me your name…”

That’s funny! What a softball question. This one’s easy.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

Then why is it so confounding... and making me giggle?

I snort, all my laughter condensed into a grunting exhale.

“My…name…

…is…

…is…

…is…”

What is my name?

“Go ahead. Tell me your name, love. For the video. It’s okay…”

I can’t stop chuckling to myself. I wish I could see properly.

Are they laughing, too…?

Everything’s so hazy. The treacle and now the fog.

…They must be cracking up as much as I am, because this shit is mint. C’mon! Let’s paaaaar-teeee! I gotta find some of this for me and Gabs when I get back home.

Home.

Gabs.

Gabby. Gabby-gal.

Me.

Me me me. In my mind I’ve begun warming up my voice for a killer vocal performance. Me me me me meeeeeeee…

I waggle my head, chuckling.

Why don’t I know my name?

56

How long have I been out?

I have no idea. But my head is pounding.

White-hot light travels through my closed eyelids as though they don’t exist, rendering them moot. I cover them with my palm. The movement is alarmingly slow, my hand itself thick and heavy. A wet sandbag at the end of my wrist.

There was a car. Driving so erratically. Before that, a breakfast I barely touched, bristling with nerves as I waited for—

“What’s your name, for chrissakes? It shouldn’t be this hard.”

—Josh.

That voice is his.

I can’t see the man to whom it belongs, but I know it well enough by now: it’s been moaning sweet nothings in my ear two nights in a row. But wasn’t there a woman here a minute ago?

I’m sure there was.

I’m trying to open my eyes beneath my hand, but it’s harder than I expected.

“I swear to God, your mother nearly killed her, Josh! How stupid is the old cow?”

There it is, that other voice. The woman’s voice. I remember something about her accent. A mix of Brit and Yank. Transatlantic, I think it’s called in finer circles. I call it stupid. Am I right? Make up your damn mind—are you English or American?

“I’m giving you one more chance,” she warns. “Just say your bloody name for the camera. If you don’t, I go public with the rest of my story. Today. Right the fuck now.”

I’m starting to remember who she is, her face coming into slow focus. Piece by piece.

…She’s my wife…

Josh’s voice is a ghost inside my head. Did he tell me that a minute ago, hours ago, or days ago?

“Either way, I’m golden,” she assures me. “But you, my duck? You’re done for.”

I retract my hand, force my eyes open. Instantly, violent sunlight skewers my brain. No longer in the backseat of Josh’s car, I see only miles of sky.

Lying flat on the ground, rows of headstones align either side of me. Above, hovering like predators, are Josh and the woman. Josh and a face I know from many years ago. Josh and—

“—Rosie?”

“Your name is Rosie?” The woman makes no attempt to hide the eagerness creeping into her voice as her facial features gel further, becoming clearer.

“No… you… you…”

My tongue rejects the words.

Because it’s not possible.

Yet I’m seeing her, right before my eyes. My best friend, alive and well and glowering upon me as though she had never been taken from this world.

Not only taken, but by my very own hand.

A hand directed by my mother…

57

You’re alive…?”

Rose flinches from the pronouncement as though my words are a physical jab. She takes a small, tentative step away from me. Stares. Her mouth falls open. Standing before me in a way that now blots out the glaring sun, I’m finally able to see her without squinting.

Her features emerge.

Crisp, clear detail.

Except that face is no longer Rosalie Tanner’s.

This woman looks like…

…like…

… Emily.

But I’m Emily.

The fine hairs all over my body are standing at attention as I lean upon my elbows amidst row upon row of headstones, as far as the eye can see. My heart’s beating so hard I can feel it, and it hurts. Too much blood pressure carries too much adrenaline and my muscles are on fire, tightening and starting to shake as my body jitters in place, a tightly wound spring about to uncoil in a fierce paroxysm.

This isn’t real. None of this is real. You’ve been drugged, Emily, I reassure myself, the weirdest thing my brain has ever tried to do. You aren’t seeing what you’re seeing. You’re still drugged, that’s all. Try to breathe.

I must be saying at least some of it aloud, because Joshua responds to me directly.

“You were drugged, yes, ma’am. My mother’s doing, you see. She does worry about me.”

It’s apparent by my blank expression that I still don’t understand.

“Mrs. Webb, Emily… the doting matron of Berendt House B&B?” He waggles both index fingers in circles then slowly brings them to point to himself. He then draws a heart in the air. “A mother’s love. She just didn’t want you to scratch my eyes out when you realised what was happening.”

At this, the Rosie-Emily woman scoffs.

“Such a mama’s boy, isn’t he? I mean, seriously.”

My wet eyes jitter away, unable to look at her face. Or Josh’s. Hers, because it triggers something deep, deep inside me that makes me feel sick to my stomach, like my entire life has been a lie. His, because I betrayed my Gabby for this piece of shit. This lying, married, manipulative, narcissistic piece of shit.

I don’t know what’s going on anymore.

This was supposed to be a straightforward endeavour: come to the States, decide if I should claim that Rosie is really Rosie (she can’t be), then go home to my life with the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. It may not be ‘happily ever after,’ but it’s at least good riddance to bad blood of the past.

And that’s enough for me.

“God. Margaret Briggs really did a number on you. Didn’t she.”

Rosie-Emily is leaning down again, and I’m inching away from her on all fours, an ungainly spider crawl in reverse. Where I think I’m going, I have no idea. There’s nothing but graves on every horizon.

“It’s actually kind of hilarious,” she declares. “I didn’t know exactly what to expect when I saw you again but—

Again? So, she has seen me before?

“—but it wasn’t this. Who’d’ve thunk it? That you weren’t actually pretending. All this time. You really believe it don’t you?”

“Believe what!” I effectively blurt out through lips thick and claggy. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! What the fuck is going on here?”

A cold disquiet fills the space my words have just vacated, and I frantically scan row upon row of tombstones for someone—anyone—who might hear me if I screamed.

There’s no one.

“Why aren’t we at the police station?” I try to rise to my feet but I’m too weak. “And bitch, who the fuck are you? Like who are you, really?”

Josh steps forward, casually examining his nails.

“Oh, we’re heading there next. Believe me. The cops are waiting for us, and so is every media outlet in the country. Well, any that’re worth a shit anyway. We just have this little transaction to take care of first.”

“Great.” I lick my lips. They’re chafed and cracking. My heart may be racing, my skin crawling, but my mind is drawn back to my lip balm and the moment this crazy bitch, whoever she is, called me at my flat. Was that a week ago? Two weeks? A year…? “Please, I want you to take me to the police. I’ll be happy to tell them how you drugged me and—”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Josh is waggling his finger in the air. “I did no such thing. I’m just the acquaintance who offered to give you a lift and avoid any, shall we say, unscrupulous folk from taking advantage of you today.”

“Even better. I’ll be sure to tell them how your mother, owner of one the oldest B&Bs in Savannah, poisoned my breakfast. What was it, THC? Shrooms?”

“Ketamine.”

It’s Josh who answers, said with no more severity than one dude casually swapping tales of a wild night with another.

Fucking ketamine? No wonder I zombied out.

“Ketamine, Josh?” Rosie-Emily slams both palms into his chest and he totters in place. “Jesus H. Christ, the crazy old cunt really could have killed her. What was she thinking? What were you thinking? You’re the one who let her do it!”

Wisps of mental fog still come and go, but my extremities are feeling more normal and less like four lead pipes.

“Good luck proving it,” Josh says in response to my threat to expose his mother. “There’ll be witnesses who saw you bumbling around the square Friday night. After the Six Pence, remember? A drug-addled panic attack if ever I saw one. And what’s this?” He feigns holding up a small vial, pretending to turn it in the light. “A cruet of ketamine? Found by my mother under your bed? That certainly explains all the erratic behaviour she witnessed from you in just forty-eight hours.”

You motherfucker!

Perhaps literally.

“Prove it?” I expect to have to fight to get the words out but they’re finally matching my thoughts as they should. “Oh, I don’t have to prove it, Josh. My father ran inns all around Yorkshire, remember? So, I know how it works. She’ll be done. Once word gets out that there’s even a chance your mother may have poisoned someone, not another soul will darken her doorsteps again. She’ll lose her beloved Berendt House.”

“Oh, I doubt you’ll accuse her of anything remotely like that,” says the Rosie-Emily woman. “I doubt it very much, in fact. You see, I know everything, Miss Emily. I know what you did. That day, and every day thereafter. So, I don’t think you’re gonna say a single, goddamned word.”

You know, memory’s a funny thing.

When I heard Rosie-Emily’s voice out of the blue last week, something inside me intrinsically recognised it. A flashback from childhood, it was ingrained deep within my subconscious. It may have been a little huskier, a lot more American, but it was a voice I knew all the same.

In hindsight, it’s easy to see why I so readily believed it might actually be Rosie’s voice. When in fact, it was the voice of another someone I once knew, someone from a long time ago and a place far, far away…

Josh sees my cogs turning, my still-muddled brain trying to process what I’m hearing with faint and distant memories. He may be naïve, but he’s not as stupid as he’s coming across right now. My silence is the perfect opportunity for him to prove just how much cleverer he is than I.

And he takes it.

“By the way, please excuse me, I just realised you two haven’t officially been introduced. Emily, meet my wife…” He’s gesturing grandly toward the Rosie-Emily woman, and for me the penny drops, a thunderous, heartrending epiphany. For not only is this woman someone I know, she’s someone I’ve known since well before my life inexorably changed. “…Amy. Amy Hayes.”

Rose-Emily-Amy shakes her head.

“Not Hayes. Well, it is now, yes. But you’ll not know me by that name. You, Miss Emily, will know me as Stratton. Amy Stratton.”

“…She’s a third wheel,” Rosie moans. “I just don’t like her. At all.”

Amy’s the same age as us and she’s okay by me. But Rosie doesn’t like being around her for some reason.

“She puts off a weird vibe,” Rose tells me. “Like she’s so desperate for us to like her. For me to like her. But like you said, Em, she’s alright enough, I guess…”

It was one of our last conversations the morning we trekked so innocently through the woods to a fate no one could have anticipated. A fate that changed everything. For everybody.

It’s a memory I’ve spent years trying to forget.

But sitting here in this cemetery, lightheaded and confused, something about that conversation feels different this time, like my mind is playing it back in a way I can’t understand.

Until I do.

And my breath sucks from my lungs.

“…But she’s no Emily Briggs,” I rasp aloud, openly repeating the flippant conclusion of a thirteen-year-old Rosie Tanner, a quarter-century later and thousands of miles away.

Despite the time and distance, that little girl’s voice is clear as a bell in my mind as I repeat those words today.

“Well, that’s true enough,” admits Amy Stratton, a glib reply as her unblinking eyes stare me down, dark and cold above a thin, vacant smile. “I’m no Emily Briggs. But then again, my dear, neither are you…”

58

She’s crazy as a bat. And now there’s no question in my mind, this woman is without a doubt the real Amy Stratton. Not my Rosie, as she’s trying to claim to the world.

Never my Rosie.

Before my very eyes, the hands of time are winding back, Amy Stratton transforming with them, until she becomes the annoying, whingeing thirteen-year-old brat who insisted on tagging along with us. The girl on the fringe of every clique. The buzzkill Rosie wanted nothing to do with, secretly despising her, saying she was mad, though she never came right out and said those words.

She didn’t have to.

I always knew exactly what Rosie was thinking.

Always.

Why Amy is trying to assume the identity of my long-lost best friend is beyond me. What could she possibly gain by it?

Nothing, that’s what. Not as far as I can see, anyway. She can achieve nothing but fuel her lifelong crazy even more.

There’s a depth of hatred in her eyes that I’ve only seen in a human being once before. After that day, I prayed I’d never see it again. Because more than taking my best friend’s life, that hatred robbed me of my life, too.

But I’m no longer a scared, naïve little girl. This time, I’m not going to just sit here and let something happen.

I’m tough as old boots, remember?

Scrambling backward as quickly as I can, I create separation between us. As soon as I’m beyond the reach of them both, I stagger to my feet. It’s a graceless drug-addled attempt and I’m tottering in place, but at least I’m fully upright.

Until one leg buckles.

Crumpling to the ground, my back grinds against a gravestone. A low, hollow report rings out as my head connects with it.

The wind knocked out of me, my stomach loosens.

Now my scalp opens… just like it did when I was thirteen.

Starbursts fill my eyes and travel all the way to my feet in a cold, palpable wave.

My consciousness goes gossamer.

Using the headstone for leverage, I press the small of my back against it to try to get back up on my feet. The only reason I don’t pass out is the sensation of the cold stone where my shirt has lifted to expose bare skin.

Now comes the throbbing: a pain like rusty spikes being hammered into my brain as I try again to stand.

I force my eyes open despite the world beginning to spin.

“Rooooosieeee!”

I cry out loud and long, little concerned with adult comportment as decades of yearning pour from my soul. As I do, Amy snatches Josh’s phone from his hand and hits a big red button on the screen.

“That’s it! Go on! Tell us. Tell us about Rosie…!”

Everything’s a blur.

My brain always knew this woman couldn’t be Rosie.

My Rosie died on Guy Fawkes Day, bleeding out as I ran.

Still, my heart longed for it to be true, hoping I’d somehow been mistaken. I needed that memory to be wrong.

But now that I know it isn’t, I long more than ever to be reunited with that bright and cheeky thirteen-year-old girl I used to love more than I loved myself.

“Rooosieeeeee…!”

59

NOVEMBER 1998 | SCARBOROUGH

I’m frozen with pain.

“Roooooo-sieeee!” I shriek again and think I can hear her calling back my name, but it’s hard to tell over the racket of somebody’s screams.

I don’t realise those screams are coming from me.

“My God, Em!”

Rosie’s on her knees, trying to decide what to do, her hands all aflutter. In the end, as I lie contorted and shaking on the cold wet floor, all she does is embrace me.

Wrapping her arms around my waist, she tells me over and over again how sorry she is; that it was an accident; that she didn’t mean to hurt me. But her apologies are lost in a sea of agonised wails crashing down upon us in waves. They sound as if coming from a place far away, but I know they must be my own.

I’m still in tears when Rosie leads me to her Gran’s kitchen.

Carefully dabbing the blood from my scalp, she’s trying to tear into a brand-new pack of self-adhesive plasters at the same time. But the box is new and wrapped in shrink film, and no matter how hard she tries, she can’t open it.

Finally, a pair of kitchen scissors tucked away in one of her gran’s kitchen drawers does the trick, and she’s able to apply the plaster to my cut with a genuine kiss.

The bleeding has stopped and Rosie says the tear in my skin doesn’t look nearly as bad as it first did.

“But it hurts! It r-r-really hurts, Rosie.”

“It’s fine now,” she insists, her tone less charitable than it was just a few minutes before. “Really. You can’t even see it, Em, it’s that small.”

“I wanna go home…”

Rosie ignores me, sliding those long, gleaming scissors across the kitchen table and putting away the plasters. She won’t acknowledge me.

“I wanna go home! Rosie, I-I-I wa-wanna g-go h-h-home.”

My tears are on the verge of returning. Not accompanied by shrieking wails this time, but whimpering rivers streaming down my face in a torrent. The only reason they don’t is the pain that shoots through my skull with each stuttering spasm, a rusty nail hammered into the back of my head with every lurching hiccup of my diaphragm.

“Stop being such a big baby! It’s only a scratch!”

A whip-crack report echoes through the tiny kitchen as Rosie’s palm swipes across my face. I’m gobsmacked, literally, my wide-open mouth silenced as heat blossoms in my cheek.

“I said, shut up, Emily! Shut up, shut up, shut up!”

Silence. So thick you can slice it.

Only the ticking of her gran’s cartoon kitchen clock continues as if nothing’s happened, the novelty cat’s eyes watching this emotional tennis match of sorts.

More than my head hurts now. My chest feels tight. My jaw clenched and sore. One elbow smarts, like it’s being gripped in a vice, with Rosie being the one who’s turning the handle.

“I’m sorry, Em. Really, I am. I don’t know how many more times I can say it! The day’s only just started, and I don’t want to go home. I mean, we haven’t even seen Gran yet. Plus, the rain’s stopping. The fair’s gonna happen now, after all.” She bends to lower herself to my level as I continue to sit on one of Gran’s hard kitchen chairs. “Take a minute and think about it, ‘kay?

Rosie runs her fingers over my cheek, wipes away the tear that fell before I would not allow the rest to come.

“Please, babe? For me?”

She’s looking at me with those big blue eyes.

I don’t answer her. But I’m not wailing anymore.

Which is when we both hear it: a muted clap and a sound like a man’s laughter. It’s strange, but there’s already movement outside, Mrs. Ludlow no doubt forcing everyone to make up for lost time. If we were back at the community centre right now, I’d bet a penny to a pound she’s already got all the carnies and old geezers out there in the drizzle to resume booth setups.

“How ‘bout this…” Rosie proposes. “It’ll be done raining soon. Let’s just wait for Gran to get back. She’ll look at your cut, just to be on the safe side. Then, if you still wanna go home, I promise I’ll go with you.”

Her fingertips linger upon my cheek, brush ever so lightly over my mouth. Their tips are cool against lips warm and slightly wet from crying.

“Eh, babe? How’s that sound?”

She’s never touched me this way before.

No one has.

All these years of us being friends—best friends—and for the first time ever, I have a sudden desire to kiss Rosie’s lips, a full, round urge building in my tummy to know what they taste like.

Closing my eyes, I become silent, truly silent, for the first time since I cracked my head against the floor. Slowly parting my lips, I invite Rosie’s fingertips to play over them a second time, and my heart starts racing.

Bending down, she presses her lips to mine.

I don’t pull away.

The taste of my own tears is shared between us before she parts her lips, soft and warm, her tongue gently probing.

Which is when I push her away.

Hard.

“Get away from me! What the bloody hell are you doing!”

The legs of my chair scrape across the linoleum with a juddering squeal as I create distance from her.

She’s speechless. Shocked. Rejected.

“I just… just thoug—”

“Just thought what, Rose? What did you bloody-well think?”

Her cheeks flush as she also backs away.

“You pushed me on purpose back there, Rose!” There’s a fury in my eyes now. For the first time in my life, I think Rosie Tanner might be intimidated by me. “You wanted me to fall, to get hurt. Admit it! You wanted to play nursemaid and kiss it all better!”

She doesn’t see my hand until it’s already struck her face. Payback is a bitch, and I grin as the force of the slap spins her around. Eye-to-eye with her grandmother’s stupid novelty wall clock, Rosie touches her mouth, and her finger and thumb come away red. Her tongue plays across a tooth no longer as firmly rooted as it was a moment ago. And now the tears are flowing down her cheeks.

“You’re a fucking whore, is what you are, Rose! My mum is right! You’re just a dirty, filthy slut! And a raving lesbo!”

At first, she’s too stunned to protest, though she tries.

“I—I—didn’t! I’m not!”

“You are too!” I raise my hand again and she shrinks away, defensively covering her face. “I know what you did with my dad, Rose! Mum said. She said, Rosie! She saw you. She knows what you did. She saw everything!”

“It’s not true! He’s my dad, too, Em! He’s my daddy too! That’s what he wanted to tell me in the shed. That’s what I heard your mom—our mom—tell my other mum. She told Elizabeth.”

Clutching the back of my head, I collapse back down onto the kitchen chair. The gash has burst open again and is oozing dark blood. Through hair already matted with it, it’s thick as treacle.

“It is true!” I refuse to back down this time. I’m sick of her lies. I’m sick of her. “You’re evil, and I hate you. I hate you, Rosie Tanner! I’ve always hated you… I wish you were dead!”

On the table beside me are her Gran’s shiny kitchen shears, the ones Rosie used to open the box of plasters. Only now, I’m seeing them in a way I hadn’t before. Mere minutes ago, they were a mundane tool. Now, they gleam with menace.

Rose follows my eyes; I can tell she sees the scissors in the same way I do. She lurches toward the table.

Before she can make a grab for them, I slap my own hand over hers. Hard. She screams.

Now I scratch my nails across her face and Rosie winces and stumbles back.

Her head claps against the wall and she lets out a stifled shriek, but not before strands of her hair come away from her scalp in my fingers.

Her grandmother’s stupid novelty cat clock tumbles from the wall. Its plastic case shatters. But the eyes are still ticking back and forth, staring up from the floor like something undead.

I grip the scissors in my hand; feel the cold, smooth metal in my palm. My heart is in my throat, pounding so hard I can feel it pulsing through my neck and across to the back of my head where blood seeps through the gap widening in my scalp.

Ignoring the pain, I rise from the chair. Waving the scissors in wild circles, I level them at Rosie’s face. With her back to the wall, her eyes frantically scan the kitchen for a weapon of her own. She doesn’t find one. Instead, she spins around and runs—

—Headlong into a hulk of a man.

Towering in the threshold between kitchen and hallway, a carnie reeking of oil, alcohol and body odour has appeared from nowhere. One end of a leather belt is wrapped around his wrist, and he snaps it with a sharp whipcrack.

I scream.

Rosie is too shocked to.

Frozen in place, she’s diminutive before the carnie. But it’s me he’s looking at, the longing of a shark just before it unhinges its jaws to expose baleful rows of ragged, razor-sharp teeth.

His empty eyes probe me.

Undress me.

Rape me.

You’d think I could feel the hate in them. But it’s worse than that. I feel no emotion in them at all.

It’s so insidious that my pulse does a stutter step, my blood running cold to slither through my veins like the wispy tendrils of a dry ice fog. A million fragmented thoughts burst into my mind, but the one that stands out the most is the one that tells me he’s seen a reaction like mine before.

And that he likes it.

I know I’m correct when he grins, a vacant expression that does not extend to those dark, unblinking eyes.

“Run, Rose!” I shout. “Run!”

But I’m too late, there’s nowhere to go. The kitchen is small, and his massive frame fills the doorway.

He’s blocking our only way out.

Rose’s eyes are the size of saucers as her head pivots my way. If one of us doesn’t do something, this guy is going to kill us.

Or worse.

What happens next, happens in slow motion:

Scrabbling to get away, I drop the scissors.

The man pushes Rosie down.

I clamber backwards, but there’s nowhere to go.

Slamming to the floor, Rosie skids across the linoleum, leaving a snail trail of glistening blood from the split in one of her knees.

The carnie’s nearly on me now. The only thing between us is a flimsy kitchen chair.

It topples over as I claw my way to the table.

Grandma Tanner’s pie and my dad’s bottle of honey wine both crash to the floor.

The man lunges—

—But so does Rosie.

With her gran’s oversized shears gripped high above her head, she brings them down fast and hard.

But the man’s senses are unnatural and he swings around.

Before she knows what’s happened, Rosie’s wrist is in his grip, the shears now in his possession. He flips them in the air, swapping the direction of their gleaming tips—

—And punches them into Rosie Tanner’s chest.

A stream of hot blood arcs through the air, painting me from hairline to sternum.

Now the man’s predatory eyes see only Rosie.

Shrieking, she’s clawing at her chest and the scissors embedded in it when I run…

60

PRESENT DAY | SAVANNAH

Rosieeeee!” I howl aloud a third time, unsure where I am right now… or when I am. A woman bends down to lock onto my eyes. She looks just like… just like…

“God almighty, she really doesn’t know,” she says to… to… to someone I can’t remember. “My God. I’m telling you, Josh—”

yes, that’s right, Josh

“—she really doesn’t know. I can’t believe this. She actually thinks that’s what happened.”

I sense more than see Josh coming closer. Leaning down, he’s also scrutinising me, a crouching silhouette blocking out the sun.

“Come on, Amy. She’s gotta know. She’s just acting.”

The woman is Amy. Yes, that’s right. Annoying Amy Stratton.

Amy is shaking her head.

“She doesn’t know. And she isn’t.”

A minute passes where no one moves or speaks.

“Goddamnit!” Amy yells as she begins to pace in tight circles. “How long do we have?”

Josh taps his phone. It lights up. “Thirty minutes, tops.”

With a resigned sigh, Amy returns her attention to me.

“Okay, so listen. That’s not how it happened that day. You know that, right? You’ve had to always know that, somewhere deep down inside. Didn’t you?”

I don’t want to look at her, let alone answer, but confusion is bubbling up inside, causing my world to swim again.

“Rosie was never your sister, Emily. I know Margaret Briggs believed that was true, but she got it wrong. She saw what looked like the missing piece to her puzzle when Elizabeth Tanner and baby Rosie came into her life, purely by chance. She made that piece fit. Even when she had to force it at times. That’s the real reason she never told her husband. Even so, over the years Marc Briggs started to suspect. He’d even begun to approach Rosie about it, seeing if he could sense that connection a father would intrinsically have with his child. That’s what went down in the shed that day—Marc Briggs was trying to figure out if Rosie Tanner might actually be his daughter.”

Amy Stratton locks onto my eyes.

“But you already know that, don’t you? All of it. Everything I’m saying, it all rings true to you, doesn’t it?”

She takes a slow step forward and we stare at one another, each of us unblinking.

“Because I’m the one Margaret Briggs threw away like I was so many pounds of trash, Emily. I’m your sister. Your twin sister. The one Margaret Briggs called The First…”

61

You’re lying! Rosie was my sister! Rosie, not you!”

Each word jolts my brain, a hammer inside my skull desperate to break through where the split in my scalp has started to pucker.

Deaf to my protest, Amy Stratton lowers herself to her knees alongside me. Leaning in, she’s so close I can smell her hate.

I dry heave, squeezing my eyes shut. I can barely think, let alone move.

The ketamine stupor may be waning, but the pain in my head is fierce. Raw agony descends into my gut where it rolls like a lead weight, filling me with the urge to be sick. Trickling down my scalp is that chilling but familiar sensation as warm blood oozes through my hair.

Wildly paradoxical to this, a wisp of breath tickles my ear as Amy nuzzles into my neck.

She inhales, deep and slow.

The stream of her breath flows over my skin. Her lips brush the nape of my neck. In a blissful purr she then whispers what she’s been longing a lifetime to reveal.

“Oh, my sweet, deluded, naïve girl. I most assuredly am Emily Briggs’s twin sister. But you, my dear, are not mine—”

Whispering ten simple words as lethal as the kitchen shears that once took a young girl’s life, a triumphant Amy Stratton proceeds to cut mine into pieces.

“—Because you are not Emily Briggs,” she declares, her lips so close I can all but taste her breath. “Are you now… Rosie.”

62

Concussion or not, ketamine hangover or not, those words sharpen my focus like a knife and I start swinging.

“You’re fucking crazy! Get off me! Get the fuck away from me!"

I slam Amy in the chest with both hands and she tumbles back. It's the one chance I need, so using the headstone for support, I heave myself to my feet and start a lumbering, awkward run.

I'm not a half-dozen shaky strides away before Josh lurches forward to intercept me.

But Amy stops him, literally tugging him back.

"You killed your best friend!” she shouts through cupped hands. “Not Levi Wolfe. You! You killed my sister!"

I don't know why I stop running.

But I do.

"It was never Rosie Tanner who was killed that Guy Fawkes Day.” Amy’s voice is so calm that her words pierce my heart. “It was Emily Briggs who died. I know, because I was there. I saw you, Rose.”

“No!”

“Yes! I saw you go to the Briggs’s house, Rose. You may have gone into the woods with Emily, but you came back out alone.”

“You’re lying! Why are you doing this to me!”

“I’m not lying.”

Amy takes a step toward me. My back is still turned, but I can hear her moving closer.

“You didn’t see me, Rose, but I saw you. I was late to the fair, remember? I had to do chores. So, I was on that woodland trail when you came back, all alone and covered in blood. I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. So, I followed you, Rose. I followed you as you stumbled all the way to Emily's house.”

Amy shrugs.

“Why there? I don’t know. Shock, perhaps? Because the Briggses’ house was the closest? I called out to you to stop, but you didn’t hear me. You were like a zombie. But it was you, Rose. Not Emily. You. Your face was scratched; you had blood all down your front. A lot of blood.”

As she says this, I lift my hand to my cheek, still expecting to find those three long scratches which once etched it. Scratches that haven’t been there in a quarter-century. Scratches that I thought I’d made… not received.

So, why can I feel the memory of them?

“I was frightened, too, Rose. I could tell you’d done something bad. Really bad. So, I ran. And I never told another living soul.”

Amy has now come around to face me and there’s a faraway look in her eyes as though they’re seeing that scene in the woods all over again. She seems so genuine I can’t help but think how fierce a psychotic break she must be having for her to believe such a wild, unfounded delusion.

Either that, or she’s an Oscar-worthy actress.

I don’t know which, and I really don’t care. All I know is that she’s fully committed to this grotesque lie.

“We didn’t just lose my sister Emily that day, Rose.” Her voice is all but a whisper now. I’m not even sure Josh, who continues to lurk a dozen feet away, can hear. “We lost you, too. Because Rose Marie Tanner walked into the home of Marc and Margaret Briggs that morning… and never walked back out."

She is insane.

Literally.

She has to be.

Why else would she be making up such an absurd and awful thing like this? Making out like I don’t even know who I am? What can she possibly gain with such a deranged story?

It makes no sense, because I am Emily Briggs. My mother—

was Elizabeth Tanner

—is Margaret Briggs, a cold and bitter woman who hasn’t wanted to see me in more than two years. Not for lack of my trying, believe me. My father was—

David Tanner

—Marc Briggs, a successful and generous entrepreneur whose name came to be respected by all of Yorkshire in his time. My best friend in the world was—

Emily Briggs

—Rosie Tanner, who was attacked, abducted and presumed murdered by transient carnival worker, Levi Wolfe.

My name is Emily Briggs… My name is Emily Briggs… My name is Emily Briggs… My name is—

63

NOVEMBER 1998 | SCARBOROUGH

Rosalie Marie Tanner!”

Elizabeth, my mother, is shouting from the bottom of the stairs as thirteen-year-old me bops around in that tiny room in that tiny house on the edge of town. I’m barely able to make out what she’s shouting over the Oasis song blasting on my boombox.

But I can still tell that she’s cross.

Instantly, that unique anxiety blooms in my gut: the awful feeling I get anytime Mum is upset about something. It’s a special kind of queasy to know there’s something wrong with a parent, but not knowing what it is, or how you can help.

Mum has been this way ever since Mrs. Briggs—Margaret—brought my bestie Emily over last Sunday. Margaret’s ill, or so she told my mum. She also tried to make out like she is my real mother and wants me to know the truth while she’s still alive.

A ‘truth’ I’m about to tell Emily.

We’ll be walking through the woods to Scarborough’s Guy Fawkes fair when I say it. More than say it, I’ll boast it. Act like I believe it. Even though my mother’s already assured me it’s just another of Margaret Briggs’s delusions. She even showed me my birth certificate to prove it was a lie when I wouldn’t stop crying that Sunday night.

Still, I think a part of me is envious and wants it to be true. After all, Emily lives in the Mews at St. Nicholas Cliff. It’s a terraced house, yes. But not a tiny, colourless one like ours, crammed amongst so many other identical ones on a cookie-cutter housing estate. No, Emily’s house is one of just a handful that are historic and whitewashed and massive. It has three floors and tons of space and overlooks the sea. Hell, I think Emily’s bedroom is bigger than our whole downstairs.

And Emily’s parents are cool, too.

Well, Marc Briggs is.

Margaret is always a bit off somehow. Always believing she’s sick or dying or hard-done-by in some monumental way that makes her ivory tower life sound pitiable. Still, she’s nice enough to me. Sometimes I even think she’s nicer to me than she is to her own Emily.

But if what she says is true, the best part of all would be that it would make Emily and me sisters. Twins, just like we always pretend we are. So, yes. Maybe a bigger part of me wants it to be truer than I realise.

I wish more than anything I were able to take it back; that no part of me would ever wish it. Because it’s this insane idea that’s about to start our argument.

The one between Emily and me, I mean.

In the kitchen.

Just before my grandmother’s shears will be driven into my best friend’s chest.

“Rose Marie Tanner, are you ready…” Mum shouts again, fateful words that herald the start of the worst day of my life. And the last as I know it. She’s trying to make her indictment sound like a question, but it isn’t.

Plus, she’s using my full name...

64

PRESENT DAY | SAVANNAH

I‘m sick all over myself as the fabric of my world rents in two, vomit projecting from my mouth with alarming intensity.

In between heaving spasms, my wails crash down in waves along with the walls of the reality I’d assumed my entire adult life. Leaning against a tombstone covered with moss and filth, I realise the last twenty-eight-plus years have been a lie.

Worse, that they’ve been a juvenile game of make-believe.

It was thirteen-year-old Emily Briggs whose life was taken that day in Flora Tanner’s kitchen.

But in a very real way, so was Rosie’s.

Her demise may have been less savage, but it was no less diabolical. Death by a thousand cuts, that cheeky, strong-willed girl with a heart of gold, sailor’s tongue, and dreams bigger than the sky, was deconstructed to become a vacuous, dancing puppet. And the tune—no, the entire opera—to which she then danced had been both composed and conducted by a person so vile that they were willing to steal the life of a frightened and vulnerable young girl in order to assuage their own grief.

A person who was pathological. A person with the means, motive and opportunity to pull it off.

A person like Margaret Briggs.

It’s beyond sick.

And utterly unfathomable.

“It’s the ketamine,” I hear Josh’s voice say from a place faraway. “The vomiting. It’s from too much ketamine.”

Amy’s gone white, her aggression turned to abject horror.

“It’s not. She really didn’t know, Josh. God help her, she didn’t know she was Rosie Tanner. All this time, she really believed she was Emily Briggs. Fuck.”

She approaches me with the same caution by which you might approach a stray dog on the side of the road.

“Do you know what it felt like, Rose—”

I can hear Amy Stratton’s voice, but it sounds like it’s coming from the end of a long tunnel as I intermittently hyperventilate and vomit, trying not to choke. Or pass out.

“—To discover that you were unwanted, even before you were born? To grow up knowing your mother gave you away without so much as a second thought? Worse, to find out she then kept your twin sister? That she loved your twin so much that even when the girl was murdered, your mother immortalised her by systematically transforming her killer into the very girl she had killed…? Can you imagine that, Rose? Can you?”

I can’t.

But then again, I don’t have to.

Because I lived it…

ROSIE TANNER

(ADULT EMILY BRIGGS)

65 ROSIE

NOVEMBER 1998 | SCARBOROUGH

Someone’s calling my name.

At least, I think they are.

Then again, maybe it’s in my head. Just like the way Emily screaming my name as I ran from Gran’s house was all in my head. Because it can’t have been real.

It just can’t have been.

We weren’t really just attacked in the kitchen by a monster from the carnival. And Gran wasn’t really lying dead in her bed as I ran down the hallway and out the door. Just like Emily wasn’t really crying out my name as Gran’s shears plunged into her chest.

None of it’s real, it’s all just a bad dream.

Because awful things just don’t happen here. Not the way they do in the rest of the world…

…Especially on Guy Fawkes Day.

So, why is the person calling my name now standing right in front of me? And why does she look like Annoying Amy Stratton?

I really don’t like her, that Amy.

Emily thinks she’s nice enough, but I’ll never understand why. It’s like they have some kind of invisible connection no one else sees. And maybe that’s why I don’t like her. Maybe I don’t like the fact that Amy could one day take Emily away from me.

“…Three Musketeers!” Amy cries with delight as she cuts in front of me, panting as she catches her breath. She’s asking something about Emily, about where she is. She’s always trying to make out like we’re a threesome, Amy is. But we’re not. And we never will be. There’s only me and Em. It’s always been just the two of us and always will be.

We were meant to be besties.

Forever.

We even have the same birthday.

And now I know why.

Em’s mum came over to ours last Sunday and told my mum—I mean, I guess I should start calling my mum Elizabeth now?—that Em and me, we’re really sisters. Twin sisters!

Mum—I mean Elizabeth—says it’s a lie. She remembers all too well giving birth to me, she scoffed. After all, how could she forget? It was the hardest, and the best, day of her life. But I think she’s telling me porky pies (that’s Cockney rhyming slang for lies, if you don’t already know) and even though she insisted on showing me my birth certificate later that night when we were alone, I still think I believe Emily’s mum—I mean, our mum—more.

So, Emily’s not just my bestie (my BFF, as Mr. Briggs says, who I guess is now really my dad, too), she’s my twin.

There’s nothing Annoying Amy Stratton could ever do to even come even close to that. She can call us the Three Musketeers all she wants, but there’s only two of us.

Full stop.

I’m about to tell her exactly that when Amy’s face changes, her annoying smile twisting. Pointing at my chest, she claps her other hand over her mouth to mute a scream.

See what I mean? Melodramatic.

And so annoying.

I mean, what’s the big deal? Of course the front of me is all red. I’m wearing the hooded shawl Gran made me.

Except I’m not wearing it… am I?

Which is weird, because I’m not even cold. Something else that’s weird is my hands—they’re all red and sticky when I touch my chest, covered in something that feels oily, like that waxy paint we use in art class.

At least Annoying Amy is gone by the time I lift my eyes to the pavement ahead. Just in time, too, because I’ve found myself standing in front of the Briggses' house, which I guess will be my house now, too?

How mint is that!

I wonder if I’ll get a room as big as Emily’s?

Oooh! Maybe Em and me will share a room! Wouldn’t that be pukka! I hope she likes my music, ‘cause we’re gonna dance and sing and make up for all the time when we didn’t know we were sisters!

The Briggses’ front door is unlocked, but I knock anyway. Which feels weird, since this will be my home now, too.

But no one answers. Maybe they don’t hear me.

I’m just going to go in.

And I do.

It’s weird, walking in and seeing it different now. It feels kinda empty and big. I wonder where everyone is?

Roooooo-sieeee, Emily shrieks in my mind and my blood runs cold. I need my hoodie now. The deep red shawl Gran knitted for me. Where’s my hoodie? I can’t remember. I must be imagining things again, because Emily isn’t here, either.

Did I accidentally leave her at the fair?

I walk into the kitchen and there’s Mrs. Briggs—Other Mum—on the phone with a glass of something in her other hand. It must be alcohol, because I can smell it. That Mexican stuff with the worm, I think. She’s laughing and bubbly as she chats with a voice on the other end of the line that sounds like another woman, and I want to remember this moment forever: the first time I’ll ever call her Mum.

“My God, baby, what’s happened!”

Before my eyes, her giddiness dissolves to horror and she’s looking at me the same way the people at the Slaughtered Lamb stared wide-eyed at those the yanks who walked into the pub in American Werewolf in London. What’s really creepy is the weird joy in her tone beneath the panic. That, and the creepy smile on her face that doesn’t match her fear.

It's gross. And suddenly I feel dizzy.

Still, I take a step closer but nearly fall.

Something isn’t right.

Not at all…

Where’s Emily? Wasn’t she just with me?

Frozen in place with the phone clenched to her ear, Mrs. Briggs—I mean Other Mum—just stands there.

Slowly, that creepy smile that doesn’t look like a smile wilts.

Small and tinny, a disembodied voice chirps from the other end of her phone line as the cordless handset drifts slowly from my other mum’s ear. “—Margaret? What’s happening, Margaret? Is my niece okay? Is Emily okay?”

The glass tumbler and phone slip from Other Mum’s fingers; crash to the floor. Glass prickles her shins, alcohol splashing her feet and ankles. Her fancy new cordless phone skates through the liquid before spinning to a stop beneath the kitchen island.

I try to wave a slow hello, but my hand hurts too much. It’s swollen fat and turning a funny colour.

“Mummy… He… He…” I don’t know why I have to force the words. Even when they do come out, they’re flat and without feeling. “He took her.”

The world begins to swim, my eyes fluttering. My legs feel loose. Now my words gush out in a torrent of pain as I replay the image of Emily screaming, her blood squirting on me.

“The carnie! He took her, Mummy! He took her!”

66

It falls on deaf ears.

Mrs. Briggs—I mean Other Mum—is looking at me like I’m speaking another language. Or maybe have two heads. Is it what I said, or because I called her Mummy?

It’s like she hasn’t even heard me.

Why isn’t she thrilled?

From the other end of the phone, the voice of the woman Other Mum was talking too sounds frantic. Every now and then I hear her chirrups as she demands an answer Other Mum does not give.

“Come again, dear?” Other Mum’s voice has taken on the air of a customer service agent taking a complaint in her most calm speaking voice. “Who’s taken whom, precisely?”

No longer does she see the blood that covers my upper body in a spiderweb of lines ranging from as thick as my finger to as thin as a hair. She’s blind to the deep scratches in my cheek where Emily’s nails gouged it. She looks past my swollen hand which I’m now barely able to move. All that matters to Other Mum is what I say next.

“E-E-Emily! The carnie, he’s—”

“The carnie? And who is that, pray tell?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know! He came to my Gran’s, we were in the kitchen, we were fighting. But there he was! He grabbed me, he grabbed my arm! Hard!”

I try to raise my hand but it’s a dead fish at the end of my wrist.

“Then Emily came at him with the shears. She was protecting me! But he took them off her and stabbed her! The carnie stabbed her and then he took her! And I let him, Mummy! I just let him!”

“Rosalie Tanner, are you telling me a carnival worker has done something with my baby?”

Now I know I’m in trouble. It’s her tone. The same one my teachers at school use when I’ve done something I shouldn’t.

I nod my head over and over, my eyes wide and wet.

More than what I’ve said, it’s this that hits Other Mum the hardest. A shiver runs through her like she’s touched a light socket without a bulb in it.

Then sheer panic hits.

“My God, Rose, what happened! Where’s my sweet Emily!” She’s on me in an instant, shaking me like a rag doll. “What the fuck has happened to m-m-my d-daughter!”

Back from the shops with a slew of carrier bags bundled in one hand, a bottle of deep bronze coloured alcohol in the other, Marc Briggs—Emily’s dad, our dad—walks right past us. He barely gives us a glance as he makes a beeline for the kitchen.

“Oh, hey Rosebud! I thought you and Em were going to the fair.”

He drops the bags, cracks open the bottle and pours himself what smells like whiskey over ice. It’s only when he turns back to the sitting room, gulping from the tumbler with a satisfied ahhhhh that he sees us.

Really sees us.

“Jesus Christ, what’s happened?”

The tumbler nearly drops from his hand the way it did from Mrs Briggs’ when I first walked in, but he manages to catch it before it shatters into a gazillion pieces; pieces like the ones he’s now crunching through, the remnants of his wife’s glass which is now crushing to powder beneath his feet. Sliding on the puddle of the drink her glass once held, he fights to keep his balance.

If his face weren’t ashen, while Other Mum streams silent tears next to me, it would be comical.

“Margaret? Tell me what’s happened.”

His wife does not respond.

“Margaret! Tell me what the fuck’s happened!”

Nothing.

His eyes fall upon me.

“Rose! What’s going on here? Where’s my Emily?”

I shake my head.

I dunno I dunno I dunno I dunno…

“Rose!”

“We were at Gran’s,” I spurt out in a nervous volley I can’t control. “Gran wasn’t home. The door was unlocked. We went in. I’m sorry! We wanted to get out of the wet and cold!”

“I don’t care about you going into your grandmother’s. I want you to tell me where Emily is!”

“I dunno! I dunno!”

He takes one good look at my scratched face, my dangling hand, my blood-covered shirt, and runs for the door.

“Marc—” At first so slight, even I barely hear Other Mum’s voice. But then she says his name again, this time with that commanding way that she has, and he stops dead in his tracks. “Wait… Just wait…”

Mrs. Briggs cleans the scratches on my face, scrubbing hard and making them hurt even worse. She checks me over to make sure I didn’t have any other cuts, which I don’t, then tells me to change into a pair of Em’s Levi’s and her brand-new Robbie Williams T-shirt. Thankfully, Em and me are the same size. My hand is swollen though, and it hurts when I pull the shirt over my head, but after squeezing and shaking it, Margaret says it’s not broken.

We’re in the middle of wrapping a bandage around it when the doorbell rings. When Other Mum stopped Other Dad from racing out the door, he agreed to call 999 instead. Now the police are here. They’ve come super quick, ‘cause it’s only been like ten minutes since that all happened.

As Other Dad makes his way to answer the door, Other Mum tells me to stay upstairs and not come down unless she says so. She doesn’t say anything about eavesdropping though, so I hide just out of sight at the top of the stairs, listening.

More than crying, Other Mum is making this awful keening sound, like a cat that’s been hurt. It goes right through me.

“We’ve just left Sea View extra care facility where Flora Tanner lives,” this lady cop says, catches herself, then corrects it. “Lived.”

Detective Inspector Jackie-Something, her name is. She said it only a moment ago, but I already can’t remember. I’m awful about remembering people’s names.

“Flora’s adult daughter, Elizabeth Tanner is beside herself, as you can imagine,” Lady Cop goes on to say. “You’re friends, is that correct?”

Other Mum nods. At least, I think she does, ‘cause I don’t hear her say anything.

“But more importantly,” Lady Cop goes on. “Elizabeth Tanner says that she hasn’t seen her own daughter since this morning, not since she dropped Rosie and your Emily at the footbridge to the woods. The ones just this side of the festival greenspace.”

Lady Cop lets this sink in, and I feel sick to my stomach that my mum is worried about me. But Gran can’t really be dead, so now I think that maybe Emily is okay after all and Lady Cop has just got it all wrong.

“We have uniforms continuing to canvas the folks at the fair. But I have to ask, is Emily home? And have you or your daughter seen Rosie?”

“Oh my God,” Mrs. Briggs cries. “Oh God, oh God. The girls go to Flora’s for the Guy Fawkes fair. Every year. Oh. Oh, oh oh oh!”

It sounds like she wants to say something else, but can’t get it out. Like she’s choking on the idea of it.

A long pause.

Then the other cop, a bloke who hasn’t yet said a thing, dives into the conversation.

“I don’t want to alarm you, but we found blood on the scene. A lot of blood. In the kitchen. On a pair of scissors. On the floor.” He then repeats himself: “A lot of blood—”

Lady Copy shoots him a look and he clams up.

“What my partner’s saying is that we’re concerned someone is injured and may need help. The blood is inconsistent with Flora Tanner’s injuries, so we’re worried that one of the girls might be hurt. Is Emily here, Mrs. Briggs?”

Other Mum kind of lies but kind of doesn’t, telling her that she hasn’t seen Emily and doesn’t know where she is.

“We’re not wishing to alarm you,” Other Cop, the man, says, “and I’m sorry for providing too much description. But…”

Again, Lady Cop shoots him a look like daggers might fly from her eyeballs, and her partner’s words trail away.

“I do think you should know,” says Lady Cop, “that we did find Rosie Tanner’s red hoodie in the kitchen—”

Margaret is nodding.

“—And I’m afraid it is torn and cut. We believe there was a struggle. So, please, as soon as you see or hear from Emily, I’d like you to call me at this number, okay?”

Lady Cop hands Marc a business card.

“That’s my direct line at the station. If I don’t pick up, someone will. You tell them your daughter is with you safe and sound, and they’ll let me know so we can focus all our attention on finding Rose Tanner, if we haven’t already by that time.”

As soon as they leave, Other Mum shrieks in a way that sends shivers down my spine. She’s crying, so hard and loud that her voice turns to gravel and eventually becomes a reptilian hiss.

Mr. Briggs keeps asking her why they didn’t tell the police that I was here and that it was Emily who was missing, but all Margaret does is keep hissing one word, over and over and over:

“Because, because, because, because…”

I fell asleep at the top of the stars and don’t know what time it is when I wake up. But I’m in Emily’s bed now and the cold light of November is creeping through the curtains.

So that’s it, I’ve missed Guy Fawkes Day.

I’ve missed the fair.

I’ve missed the bonfire.

I’ve missed the burning of the straw man and the fireworks and the candy floss and the jacket spuds.

All because of stupid Emily.

When I see her, she’s gonna be for it, let me tell you.

I go downstairs to join her for a bowl of cereal, just like I do every time I come for a slumber party. But this time, it’s wrong. All wrong. Emily’s nowhere to be seen, and both Mr. and Mrs. Briggs are already at the kitchen table. They’re unnervingly quiet and look sick. Mrs Briggs’s face is running; her hair’s a mess. Like me, they’re both wearing the same clothes they were in last night.

I try to be cheery as I hop the last few steps (sticking the landing!) and give them a big wave and a hello. Mrs. Briggs jerks her head from her hands and is on her feet in a heartbeat, her face washed in relief when she sees the Robbie Williams T-shirt… but only for a split second.

She thought it was Emily.

Her obvious disappointment when she realises it’s me is the worst thing I think I’ve ever felt. I thought she was my real mum. Why is she acting like this?

I’ll have to ask Em, if the daft cow ever decides to show up.

“Rosebud—” Marc Briggs says with a similar level of disappointment when he follows his wife’s response at my appearance at the base of the stairs.

He pulls out a seat at the table and pats it.

“I tried calling your parents last night, but no one answered. I’m sure they’re having a really rough time of it right now. I’ll try again in a bit. I don’t want them to worry about you on top of everything else. What they’re dealing with, with your Gran, is bad enough.”

“What about my gran?”

I’m confused. I thought we already agreed that nothing happened to Gran. She must’ve just been sleeping the whole time Emily and me were there.

He doesn’t answer me, though. And his expression becomes even more sombre. Serious. And he’s never serious.

“Well, hey, I—” he starts to say, stumbling over the words, when Mrs. Briggs cuts him off.

“Your grandmother is dead, Rosie. Do you understand? She’s dead. Dead! Gone! Just like my beautiful Emily!” Her voice is raspy and rises to a screaming crescendo. “What did you do? What did you do to my babygirl!”

67

Marc asks me to grab a sausage roll and some juice and go upstairs. He wants to talk to his wife alone.

I don’t have to eavesdrop to hear them this time.

Because they’re screaming.

There’s a bunch of stuff I don’t understand—things that sound legal and scary, like accusations and consequences—and then Margaret comes right out and says it: “Because she’s our other daughter, that’s why! She’s our girl, Marc. The First…”

Silence.

So loud, it’s almost a sound in itself.

My stomach turns inside-out, just like it did yesterday when my mum—Elizabeth—was upset. Now it’s my other mum who is, and I think I might throw up. I spit out my sausage roll and bundle it into a serviette, squishing it into a little ball that I stuff into my pocket.

“You’ve lost it,” Marc tells her. “Lost it! We’ve been friends with the Tanners for how many years now? And you’re claiming, today of all days, that their girl is our other daughter?”

I can hear the anger bubbling up in his voice.

Not surprise. Not disbelief.

Anger.

Because he already knew, I tell myself, realising now that he’d asked me about it before, or tried to. But how do you do that? Hey, are you my long-lost daughter? I could tell that was what he was trying to ask me about at their garden party last week. But Margaret, I mean Other Mum, came bursting into the shed all aflutter, something about needing help with the canapés or opening a jar of gherkins or something, and that was that.

“I haven’t… lost it… as you say. I’ve known since the girls were months old. Why do you think I looked after Rosie all those times and all those years when Liz and David were at work? Did you think it was charity? An act of generosity? Jesus, Marc! No! I did it because she’s our daughter!”

I can’t see them, but it sounds like Mr. Briggs has pressed away from the table and is pacing. A second chair bump-scrapes across the floor and I hear the sound of a bottle being opened, its contents poured over ice.

There’s a lot of silence and even more low talking until I find myself getting drowsy again. I nod off for I don’t know how long when Other Mum, slightly slurring her words, says to her husband, “Now think about it, Marc. Baby… think what I’m saying here. We lost her once. Do we really want to lose her again? You never wanted to let her go in the first place.”

She must be in his arms, because I can barely make them out at all now. There’s something about it being all her fault and that she was sorry.

A sound like a man’s whimper.

The jangling of ice in a glass. Other Mum’s voice is muffled as she speaks into what I’m guessing is his embrace: “She’s gone, baby. I can feel it. I can feel it. Can’t you feel it, too?”

Now Other Dad is crying, while she’s the stalwart one.

“She’s gone, Marc. Do you really want to lose them both?”

“How can you be sure she’s our girl, Margaret? I mean ho—”

“—She is ours,” she answers before he can finish his sentence. “And you know it, too. That’s why you were talking to her in the shed. But that was so not the place or time. She’s only thirteen, she can’t understand. And in better circumstances, I’d not say a thing until she was eighteen. But…”

Her voice trails away. Marc Briggs doesn’t need her to finish anyway. When he speaks again. His voice is unsteady and weak.

“Jesus, Margaret. I mean, Jesus. How do we—what do we…”

“You need to trust me, Marc. I never should’ve let her go. Never. I know it broke your heart. But you supported me. Now we have a second chance—I have a second chance—to make it right. I’m not going to let it pass without taking it. Not this time. Not now. Not like this.”

“Rose, can you come down here?”

It’s Mr. Briggs, Other Dad, who’s calling me. I don’t know what time it is, but I’ve fallen asleep in Emily’s bed again. There’s no sun, but it’s not dark either. Is it still the same day? The same week? And where’s Emily?

It may have been Mr Briggs, but when I get downstairs, it’s Mrs. Briggs who’s summoning me to the settee.

“Rose, dear. Mr. Briggs and I have to talk with you…”

She tells me this crazy story about my gran being dead and my bestie going missing.

My mum is right. Elizabeth, I mean. Mrs. Briggs may be my real mum, Other Mum, but she really can be something of a nutter.

Only, her husband isn’t stopping her like he normally would when she’s acting out of sorts. Right now, he won’t even look at me. Pouring another Scotch, his back is to the sitting room as he stares at nothing outside the window and far away.

“They’re dead, Rosie. Both of them. Your grandmother Flora, and my beautiful, sweet baby, Emily,” Other Mum says. She looks dead in my eyes, and I see a scary kind of darkness there. “And it’s all your fault, Rose. Do you understand?”

She grabs my shoulders and squeezes.

“It’s all your damn fault! You were always the one causing problems, Rose. From the minute you all but threw yourself out of my womb. You were a noisy, self-absorbed brat from your very first breath!”

She’s shaking me, squeezing my shoulders so hard her nails are piercing my skin.

“Owwwww! No! Stop it!” I leap back but don’t know what to do now, or where to go. “Stop it! You’re lying!”

“I’m not!” she screams.

Now Marc jumps in and steps between us. He guides Other Mum to one side and whispers for a very long time, his words monotone. I should’ve run right there and then, but something in me made me want to stay, to know what he was saying.

Margaret is a lot calmer now. She has another drink in a tumbler clinking with cubes of ice. In the kitchen, Marc is pouring another one himself.

Margaret pats the couch, beckoning me to sit.

“I’m very, very sorry I lost my temper, Rose. I shouldn’t have done that. I know it scared you, and I’m sorry.”

I nod just a little, avoiding her eyes as I sit on the couch but far enough away that I’m out of arm’s reach.

“Something bad happened at your gran’s, do you remember?”

I shake my head no.

Shake. Shake. Shake.

“Yes, Rose. Something happened. Something very bad. And I think you do remember. But it was an accident. I know that now. Okay? It was just a bad, terrible accident. Because you would never hurt my Emily. Right? She’s been your best friend forever.”

“BFFs,” Marc Briggs mumbles into his glass, his shoulders slumped and still not looking at me as he takes a big, slow gulp.

I have nothing to say to this. This is crazy. Gran’s not dead. Emily’s not missing. Marc and Margaret are off their rockers. Both of them. My mum was right. I don’t think Margaret is my real mum after all.

“I wanna go home. I wanna go home!”

I press even farther away from her and start to get up, but Mrs. Briggs stops me by grabbing my hand.

My bad hand. The one that’s swollen and blue and really, really hurts if I try to move it.

I wince and gasp, but she doesn’t let go.

“Sit down, Rosalie.”

I do as I’m told, only so she’ll let go of my hand. When she does, the nerves light on fire where each of her fingers left their mark.

My eyes glisten with pain.

“This is going to be hard to hear, Rose. But you need to hear it anyway.” She softens, leans in. Reaches to stroke my shoulder but I pull away. There’s a slight hint of disappointment in her look, but it’s gone as soon as I glimpse it when she says in the most matter-of-fact way: “Your parents do not want you to come home. They think you had something to do with Emily’s disappearance.”

Biting my lip so hard that it stings, I refuse to accept that.

“No! You’re lying! And Emily’s fine!”

“She isn’t fine!” Marc Briggs bellows from the kitchen, so loud that Mrs. Briggs and I both flinch. At the same time, he smashes his glass in the sink. His face dark and angry. “She isn’t fine, Rose. She’s gone, do you hear me? Gone. Dead. She’s fucking dead! Her blood was everywhere in that kitchen. It was on you when you came here, Rose! My poor baby’s blood was all over you!”

He makes two fists so tight I can tell he’s digging his nails into his palms. Still, the tears fall from his eyes wet and fat.

“We’ve decided that we shouldn’t blame you for it, Rosalie,” says Margaret with a calmness I haven’t seen before as she gently touches my good hand. When I don’t wince away, she entwines her fingers in mine. “But your parents do. They think you hurt our Emily. And if you go home, they’re taking you straight to prison. Do you understand?”

68

Media vans have swarmed St. Nicholas Cliff like hornets. They’ve been here for almost a week, parked all up and down the mews. Chatter from the reporters is a constant murmur you can hear all the way up in Emily’s room on the second floor. It reminds me of the noise of the fair—the fair that I missed for the first time in my life—but without the bells and lights and calliope music.

I’m not allowed to go outside.

It’s for my own protection, is what Margaret says. If someone spots me, I could go to prison. So, I haven’t seen my parents or been to school since the Wednesday before Guy Fawkes Day. The only place I’m only allowed to go is the Briggs’s back garden, no farther from the house than the shed. When I do, I have to wear a baseball cap pulled low over my eyes and sunglasses so dark I can’t see anyway, so it’s kind of pointless.

Marc has been on the phone a lot to a bunch of different people. I know some are the other residents of the mews who are none too chuffed about their peace and quiet being disturbed by all the news vans. Every time one of them walks to their front door or pulls out of the garage, you can hear a kerfuffle as reporters buzz around them shouting questions.

He makes other calls, and these sound like they’re to the police, because he asks me to go up to my room (Emily’s room) when he makes them. More than once I’m sure he was speaking with my parents. Those calls came in, he didn’t make them. I can tell it’s my parents because they’re talking about me.

She’s been through so much… Thank you, she’ll be fine… But yes, I promise she will share everything she knows with the police as soon we feel it’s safe for her wellbeing to do so… Our thoughts and prayers are with you and David, Liz. We can’t even begin to imagine what you’re going through right now.

The weird thing is that he keeps calling me Emily when he talks to them, not Rose. I think he must be confused, and I don’t blame him. Poor Marc. I’m glad I’m here to make him feel less sad. At least until Emily comes home.

Lady Cop has come back.

Marc and Margaret have both instructed me not to come down from my—Emily’s—room. But I can still hear their conversation from a spot at the top of the stairs where they don’t see me.

Lady Cop wants an official statement. It’s a formality, she says, and also apologises, saying that she’s terribly sorry they have to do this in the midst of such a terrible time.

“But think of the Tanners,” she relates when Marc (he’s asked me to call him Marc now) remains quiet. “Think how badly David and Elizabeth want to find their Rosie. How they must be grieving. And with no answers to offer solace, only questions… questions your daughter could have the answers to.”

She pauses dramatically to allow that to sink in.

“I assure you, I’ll be gentle with your Emily.”

Again with the Emily.

It seems everyone is confused about my name.

As soon as she leaves, Marc and Margaret (Mrs. Briggs has also asked me to call her Margaret now) come up to my room. It’s so much nicer than mine back home, but I’m really missing my mum and dad now. And Gran. And Emily.

I just wanna go home.

Which is what I tell them.

“You can’t, my love,” Margaret tells me. “I wish you could, I really do.” Taking my hand in hers, she pulls me close. “How long have we known each other?”

I shrug, even though I know it’s been my entire life.

“Oh, come now. How long?”

“Since I was a baby?”

“Yes, since then. But do you know why that is?”

“Because you met my mum at a new mothers’ group?”

Margaret chuckles at this. It’s endearing, not mocking.

“Well, yes. And no. Rose, did you know Emily had a sister? A twin sister?”

I shrug and shake my head, yet somehow also nod, all at once.

“Well, she did. And I did a very silly thing. A bad thing. I let someone else take her sister home from hospital. And almost as soon as I did, I regretted it. I worked very hard to track her down, to find out who had my baby. The adoption agency wouldn’t tell me, you understand. I had to resort to good old-fashioned research. But do you know who I found?”

“Me?”

She nods, playing her fingers over mine. Hers are long and slender and perfectly manicured and smooth, and they feel nice as they caress my own. Not like my mum’s, whose are older and more wrinkly, and rougher. Sometimes, Mum’s are even dirty under the nails from the shift work she does at the factory.

“Yes! You, Rosalie. You were my first. And you will always be The First. It should not have taken such tragedy to bring us together, but that’s how life is sometimes. You may not know it yet, but you will. After every storm cloud comes the brightest rays of sunshine. That’s you. You’re our ray of sunshine.”

I hug her hard, burying myself so deep in her embrace that I may never come back out. I don’t know if I even want to. There’s something about being in her arms that makes me feel safe. And she’s so proper… most of the time. She doesn’t curse like a sailor the way my mum—the way Elizabeth—does. Now I’m really starting to see why Emily is the way she is; why she doesn’t talk the way I do, or do some of the stupid things I tend to.

“Mr. Briggs, Marc, and I, we love you, Rosie. Rosebud. That’s what he calls you, doesn’t he?”

I nod.

“Mmhmm. I like it.”

I feel a blush rising and look down and away to hide my embarrassment. But Margaret lovingly places her fingers beneath my chin and raises it so I am looking her directly in the eyes.

“You don’t have to be ashamed because you like that. My husband is a very charismatic character.”

She winks.

“Why do you think I fell for him in the first place? He’s quite a bit older than me, you know. But that smile and the gleam in his eyes made the young girl that I was at the time do a doubletake. Once I got to know him, I realised he was so much more than a handsome face. He was safe. He made me feel safe. And now, he wants to make you feel safe, too. Does he make you feel safe, Rosie?”

“Yes,” I admit honestly.

“Good.”

Margaret says and takes my other hand. Now she sits cross-legged on my bed, massaging my fingers.

“And don’t you ever lower your eyes to anyone, or anything. Do you hear me, my beautiful baby girl? You’re a Briggs. By blood. We regret nothing and ask forgiveness from no one.”

This makes me feel better.

At least better than I was feeling.

“Does that mean I don’t have to go to the police, then?”

Margaret releases one of my hands and fusses with her chin, scrunching her mouth this way and that. “Do you want to go to the Police?”

I’ve never shaken my head side to side more rigorously.

“Well, hmmm. Let me think.”

She spends a moment carefully considering this, looking up and away.

“They’re going to want to talk with you, even we Briggses can’t get out of that…” She nudges me with a wink, qualifying the fact with a whisper. “…Even though we should be able to. But, how about this—what if we have the police come here? That way Marc and I, we’ll be right here with you. The whole time.”

“But I don’t know what I should say to them.” Just the idea of it makes my stomach jump into my throat. “I don’t remember anything that happened.”

And I don’t want to.

A tear glistens in the corner of Margaret’s eye.

“Then that is what you tell them, Rosalie. Only what you remember. But, and this is perhaps the most important thing of all, so, are you listening?”

I nod again.

“Be sure you are. Because if you don’t listen to what I’m about to tell you, the police could march you straight to prison. If they do, there’s not a thing that even Marc or I can do about it. So…”

“I am! I’m listening—”

“Good.” She wipes away a tiny tear. “Then you must remember this one thing: my Emily, your best friend, is not the girl who went missing. It was Rosie. Rosie Tanner. After all, it was your shawl they found.”

“But I’m Rosie…” Trembling, I suddenly feel very dizzy. Fractured glimpses I can’t make sense of come and go in my mind, as fleeting as fog. “Emily is the one the carnie took… It’s Emily who’s missing, not me!”

Margaret Briggs purses her lips, again takes both of my hands and kneads my fingers. But this time it feels aggressive, like if she were to give them a sharp tug, she just might bend them all the way backwards until they snapped.

When my natural reflex to pull away kicks in, she realises and loosens her grip.

“If you tell them that, you’ll never see your parents again. Or me. Or Mr. Briggs. They’ll say that you’re the one who hurt my Emily, and you’ll be carted away in handcuffs. Is that what you want to happen?”

69

Lady Cop comes back the next day, this time with Other Cop, the bloke who always seems to be in tow.

They have a video camera.

If there really can be butterflies in your stomach, then they’re definitely flitting around in mine right now.

She’s the one who does the talking. Other Cop is just standing behind the camera, looking through the viewfinder and acting like he’s Steven Spielberg or something.

The first question, the one that should be the softball, is actually the hardest:

“What’s your name? For the camera, please.”

At first, the answer sticks in my throat. But I know I have to say it. Just say it.

Just say it, Rose. You’ve lied before.

Just tell them you’re—

“—Emily. Emily Briggs. B-R-I-G-G-S.”

“And your first name? How is it spelled?”

“E-M-I-L-Y.”

There, I did it.

I really did it.

A huge breath rushes from my lungs and when I inhale, it’s never felt so good.

See? Not so bad, was it, Margaret says to me with only a look, a look that no one else catches but me. All downhill from here.

And it is.

I tell them about the carnie; the awning of the food van we sheltered under on the green. I tell them how he made us both uncomfortable, but especially Emily.

I mean, me.

I must remember that I’m Emily in this game.

So, we ran to Gran’s house.

Rosie’s gran’s, not mine, erm, not Emily’s.

God, this is going to trip me up.

I tell them I slipped and fell on the slippery entry hall floor and banged my head. That Rosie—

Not me, 'cause I'm Emily… Okay, I’m getting into the swing of this.

—wiped it clean and put a plaster on it. That out of the blue the carnie was just there, from nowhere. That he was huge, a giant compared to us, and he tried to take Rosie, but I came at him with the scissors, those big shiny shears of Gran’s, and he got them off me (Emily). We fought for them, which gave Rosie a chance to tug free. I don’t remember what happened to her red shawl with the hood, but yeah, it was probably torn off her when we were both fighting this guy.

I show them the scabs on my face where he scratched me to prove it—

—And nearly drop myself in it when Other Cop says the marks look too small to have come from a ‘giant of a man.’ That they look more like scratches from a girl, he says.

A bowling ball drops to my stomach, my heart pounding. I’m only saved from going to prison, right there on the spot, because Margaret jumps in with a simple explanation:

“Well, Detective, they’re healed over now. Almost gone. Had you seen them the day it happened, you would have been aghast. So big and nasty, they were. And oily.”

She plays it up with a squeamish squint and furrowed brow.

“I had to scrub them out to make sure there was no grease still in the wound. God help my baby if her face would have become infected from that disgusting monster.”

That seems to satisfy Other Cop.

“Did anyone see you on your way home?” Lady Cop asks, not looking at me but staring at a pad as she takes notes, the question obviously not that important.

…Three Musketeers…

I hear Amy Stratton’s raspy, pitchy voice and for a second, I nearly tell them about her.

Nearly.

“No. I don’t even remember coming home. All I remember is coming through the door and M—”

I nearly say Margaret

“—Mum was on the phone with… with…”

My eyes widen. My breath hitches. We didn’t talk about what to say here. Margaret hasn’t practiced this bit with me and I don’t know who she was talking to.

I realise I’m starting to cry.

“Aunt Sophie,” Margaret says with a modest smile. “Your aunt Sophie, remember? We always talk on the holidays. Guy Fawkes is no different. It’s the only time we ever catch up with one another’s lives.”

“Yeah, Mum—was—was talking—to Aunt—Sophie,” I manage to repeat in a hiccupping stutter.

“And what time was that?”

Lady Cop’s pen is poised to write down whatever I say next. She couldn’t care less that I’m on the verge of blubbering.

My breaths start to hitch, quick little bursts I can’t control as I start to wonder if I’m doing the right thing. I know Marc told them that I (Emily) wasn’t here when the police first arrived at the Briggses’ house, here on St. Nicholas Cliff that day. So, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to answer that question.

I don’t like this game anymore.

If they ask me even one more thing, I’m going to just tell them the truth: that I’m Rosie Tanner, not Emily Briggs, and that it’s Emily—Marc and Margaret’s daughter—who’s actually missing.

“It was late,” Margaret pipes up, looking up and to the side at something that isn’t there. “Maybe six? Half-six?”

Lady Cop looks to me to confirm this and I silently nod.

“What were you doing from late morning until teatime, Emily? Can you tell me that? Can you tell me where you were?”

I withdraw into myself, shaking my head repeatedly until I hear Margaret tell them I’ve been through an awful lot, and she thinks that’s enough for today.

To this they say something like, ‘Okay, I think that’s all we need for now,’ and start packing up.

When they finally go, there’s an instant clamour on the mews as reporters camped in front of the tidy white row of houses circle the detectives, raining down a flurry of questions.

I stay away from the door but can see them through the shears over the bay windows. It’s freaky to think they’re all here for me, by which I mean Rose, the real me.

Little Red Riding Hood, they’re calling me now, because of the red hooded shawl they found in Gran’s kitchen, along with the broken bottle of Marc’s honey wine, and that massive American-style pie my mum, Elizabeth, baked for Gran. They’re all saying it’s straight out of the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, but I couldn’t say. The only one I’ve ever seen is that old cartoon where the wolf can talk and Red is a little girl who hangs out with a couple of naughty piggies. I think it’s called a Silly Symphony or something, but there’s nothing silly about what happened to Gran or Emily, so I don’t like them saying that at all.

“You did really great,” Margaret commends me once the door is shut and we’re alone, just the three of us again—

the Three Musketeers

—as she gives me a big hug. “By the way, when you were talking to Detective Mullins, did you like calling me Mum…? Because I am, you know. Your mum. Your real mum. I know it’s going to take some time to get used to, and you’re probably a bit confused still. But you are my daughter, Rose. My Emily’s twin, and I love you more than anything, Rosebud.”

She buries my head in the spot between her bosom and her shoulder, and it feels safe there.

In her embrace.

“Yes, Mum.”

70

Two days later, Emily’s picture is on the front page of the News of the World newspaper in every corner shop around the country. In big black letters above it is a headline that says:

ANGEL OR DEMON?

Does Pal of Little Red Riding Hood Know More Than She’s Saying?

Of course, the photo is actually of me, not Emily.

It was taken from a place high up, so you can’t really tell it’s me, just a blurry pic of some girl in a baseball cap and sunglasses in a rear garden. Still, Marc and Margaret are beside themselves.

From the angle of the pic, Marc is certain it was taken from one of the upstairs windows at the back of the Salingers’ house, two doors down at the end of the terrace. They’re the same neighbours who’ve been complaining about all the media vans outside.

‘Blocking up the mews and making it loud and ugly,’ is what Mrs. Salinger said when she called, screaming so loud I could hear her all the way across the kitchen.

Because of that stupid photo, now I’m not allowed to go outside at all. Not even in the back garden.

A week later we say goodbye to Scarborough. Marc—New Dad—has a place set up for us to stay in London. I’ll be safe there, he insists. The police won’t come for me. It’s not one of his own B&Bs, but we can stay there as long as we need to, at least until this all blows over. That’s what Margaret—I mean New Mum—says, anyway. New Dad isn’t coming with us, ‘cause he has to look after things in Yorkshire. So, it’s only the two of us.

I was really hoping Em would be back by now so she could come with us, but we still haven’t heard from her. I’m starting to get worried that she’s not okay.

I really don’t know what’s going on.

The TV keeps saying that maybe I did something to hurt her. I keep telling New Dad and New Mum that I didn’t, that it isn’t true, that it was the giant carnie that hurt her and took her away. But, if I’m honest, it’s getting hard to remember now.

Everything’s starting to blur.

I do remember some things, though.

I remember that Mum Elizabeth was upset about something that New Mum had said to her that Sunday before Guy Fawkes Day—the day she came over to our house with Emily and Emily dropped that bottle of soda and New Mum said she was sick and told my Mum that I was her daughter, not Mum’s.

I remember Mum telling me to pay her no mind, that New Mum was sick alright, but probably not with cancer or women’s problems or anything like that, but sick in her mind.

I remember calling Emily that night with my special ring then hanging up so she knew it was me and would call me back. I remember telling her what her mum said to my mum, but Emily not believing it.

I remember the morning of the Guy Fawkes Fair and grabbing Gran’s pie from the fridge.

I remember Mum Elizabeth driving me and Em to the fair and dropping us off at her secret parking spot near the footbridge.

I remember me and Em walking through the woods.

And the rain. And the carnie with the food truck. And then running to Gran’s house where Emily slipped on the wet floor and got a goose egg on her head.

But the rest of what happened is foggy.

All I know is that I would never hurt Emily.

Not ever.

I’m sure I wouldn’t.

Would I?

“C’mon now, Emily,” New Mum urges as she calls up the stairs. “It’s time to get packing.”

She sometimes calls me Emily now.

71

PRESENT DAY | SAVANNAH

Enough of this bullshit! I don’t care who this crazy bitch thinks she is.” Josh wraps his hand round my arm and yanks hard, twisting. Cold pain shoots through my shoulder as he plucks me from the grass and dirt, my arm on the cusp of wrenching from its socket. “I just want my fucking money. Bitch, let’s go!”

“Get off me!” I pivot my upper body to follow the rotation of his twist, then pull as hard as I can to free from his grip. But he’s too strong and it only makes him tighten his vicelike hold.

So, I swing.

My fist connects with his cheek and for a moment he recoils, his fingers loosening.

I wrench free.

And he strikes back, his massive fist landing across my jaw.

There’s no pain at first, only stars in a sea of black.

Pirouetting a full one-eighty, the only reason I don’t crumple to the ground a third time is the fact that I wheel into a gravestone bigger than me. Clutching a flagpole cemented into its base, I sway on my feet as the sky blurs, sharpens, blurs again.

A tattered Confederate flag snaps in the wind above my face.

Swallowing a mix of spit and blood, my jaw feels loose. Skating to one side as I clench my teeth, my bite no longer lines up the way it did just a moment ago.

I’ve barely registered what’s happened before the next punch comes. Then another. The first slams into my ribs; the second feels like a hammer blow to my stomach, knocking the wind out of me.

I double over, heaving for breath.

Choking on my own blood and sucking air like a fish out of water, I’m barely capable of understanding that Josh is tearing my blouse open, my breasts exposed as he pins me against the stone.

One hand has my throat in a chokehold.

The other is snatching at the clasp of my jeans.

I try to push him off, but Josh’s fingers only tighten on my throat as he bears all his weight against me.

You drive a hard bargain, lassie, Alan Jenkins’ voice echoes in my mind as my stomach floats to my throat, the White Hart’s distinctive scent of hops and stale cigarette smoke rising with it.

“Awww, what’s the matter, sweetheart? Now you don’t want it?”

Josh slithers a thick, dry tongue from my chin to my eye.

“Sure was a different story the last two days… love.”

He smirks as he emphasises the last word, mocking my accent. Like that's what’s going to bother me… not the fact that he’s about to rape me.

“C’mon now! You didn’t think I was laying pipe for you for free now, did you? Hell no! You’re gonna pay us a cool quarter-mil, so you might as well get your money’s worth, eh? One more for the road, before you head back across the pond, you fucking two-way swinging slut.”

He's undone my jeans and is tearing at my panties when the tip of a gun barrel presses to his temple.

“Get off her…”

It’s Amy’s voice, cool and calm as her thumb draws back the revolver’s hammer. With a distinct click the cylinder rotates clockwise and Josh becomes stock-still.

“I said get off her, asshole.”

The skin of Josh’s temple is blanching where the barrel presses into it, then radiating outward in graduated pinks.

He smirks, a side-eye even colder than Alan Jenkins’.

“Wotcha gonna do, shoot me, Amy?”

Where the barrel presses into it, the skin of Josh’s temple is blanching before radiating outward in graduated pinks.

“Yes. That’s exactly what I’m going to do if you don’t get your hands out of her fucking panties and move away.”

Her index finger tightens on the trigger.

Josh can’t see it, but he senses it, and I brace myself for an explosion of light and sound and the barbaric extinction of a human life right before my eyes.

72

It doesn’t happen.

Yanking his hand from my underwear, Josh releases his grip on my throat… but only after a final squeeze so hard that it feels like my windpipe is on fire.

I gasp and cough, doubling over as he takes a cautious step back, the gun still rooted at his temple.

“That’s a good boy,” Amy commends in a tone so patronising she’s all but singing it. “Now, there’s a certain matter of fidelity we need to address. You wanna explain what you meant just now when you said it sure was a different story the last two days?”

Josh’s face hardens. I see his hands twitching, balling into fists and slowly unbaling.

“Did you fuck her, Josh?”

His fists clench again, ribbons of muscle flexing in his forearms.

“I said. Did. You. Fuck. Her? I won’t ask again.”

Amy is now jamming the gun barrel so hard against his temple that Josh’s head is at an angle like his neck’s broken.

But before I know what’s happening, he spins aside, a haymaker punch coming at Amy so fast it’s a blur.

She convulses backward in slow motion.

Her finger squeezes the trigger.

A roar of sound and flames erupt from the muzzle and Josh goes down hard.

Screaming, his hand flies to his ear, cupping it as he writhes on the ground, scrabbling to get away from her.

“I can’t hear! You goddamned bitch! I can’t fucking hear!

He clambers to his feet.

Runs toward her.

Far from retreating, Amy stands her ground.

Despite the searing pain she has to be feeling and the blood streaming down her chin, she holds her outstretched arm steady. She cocks the revolver’s hammer back once more—

—And Josh curtails his attack mid-stride.

I’m sure I spy the hint of a taunting grin appear on Amy’s face.

“Next pull of this trigger puts a round through your fucking skull, Josh. Now, your brain may be thick as pig shit, but it’s no match for this thirty-eight. You stupid, self-absorbed asshole.”

Amy takes one step closer to her husband.

“Now get the fuck out of here. We’re through. You’re through. Comprende? If I see you again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Josh starts to protest but changes his mind. His eyes drill a hole through me.

“You’re not worth it,” he bays and snorts inward to spit a thick green wad of phlegm on me. It splatters on my abdomen and slithers slowly down to my belly button. “Neither of you fucking whores are worth it. I’m out. Of all of this shit. You can go fuck yourself, Stratton.”

Marching away without looking back, he flips us the middle finger with both hands thrust high above his head. It’s not until his car tears off down the cemetery road in a plume of smoke, tyres screeching, that Amy allows her gun arm to lower.

Carefully dropping the hammer, her hand begins to shake uncontrollably until she drops the revolver on the ground.

“Piece of shit. That motherfucking piece of shit!”

I’m still trying to catch my breath, clutching my stomach, my throat, my sternum, my jaw. I feel the heat and swelling in my face already, the pain pulsing through it like a heartbeat.

“I can’t do this!” Amy’s on her knees. “I can’t do this!”

73

Far away, somewhere near the historic district, the rise and fall of distant sirens becomes the soundtrack as our drama plays out in Bonaventure Cemetery.

“Do what? Amy? You can’t do what?”

Every syllable shoots a bolt of pain through my jaw.

“What are you even trying to do here? Why are you claiming to be Little Red Riding Hood…? Rosie…?”

I swallow hard, fighting back my emotions.

“Why are you trying to be… me?”

Amy Stratton shakes her head, the heels of her hands rubbing eyes. “I thought you were scamming them, somehow”

“Scamming who, Amy?”

“Marc and Margaret Briggs, my real mother and father! I thought this was—no, I was certain—this was some kind of elaborate long con to finagle your way into the Briggs’s fortunes! A fucked-up ploy to conceal the truth… the truth that it was you who killed my sister Emily!”

Amy sucks in a slow, deep breath.

“Or maybe it was just for attention? I don’t know, I don’t know what angle you were playing, but I knew it was something. Only…”

“Only now you aren’t so sure?”

Amy nods but won’t make eye contact, staring at the revolver lying in the grass where she dropped it. There’s a long pause filled only by the growing sound of sirens until she draws her eyes away to find mine.

“He really fucked you?”

I nod. Once. A slow, resigned admission.

“My adoptive mother was from West Africa,” says Amy without delay, as if my corroboration is irrelevant, “and I had questions about my identity from a very young age. I was only seven years old when she confirmed what I feared. She didn’t mean to be cruel, but it was the worst thing she ever said to me. No, scratch that. It was the only bad thing she’s ever said, because my mother was an angel. I still don’t know why she revealed such a thing when I was so young, but I know her intentions were good. She must’ve felt that honesty was better than deception. But it destroyed me, y’know?”

With every word Amy speaks, I can’t believe I didn’t see it before… her unmistakeable similarity with Emily: The line of her nose, her eye colour, those high cheeks and that bright raspy voice. But more than that, I can’t believe I didn’t sense the way they both gravitated toward one another, when all I ever wanted to do was chase Amy away.

Annoying Amy.

Now, as I’m slumped alongside her amongst the tombstones of Bonaventure Cemetery, the resemblance is so clear that my heart begins to ache for my best friend, the girl I believed was my sister… my twin… my BFF… and the sweetest soul who never received the dignity of being mourned, because the world had been deceived into mourning—

—Me.

74

Amy Stratton has become sullen, tears and frustration giving way to resignation.

“I carried so much shame with me, Rose. I was just seven years old, and I harboured that pain of knowing my real parents never wanted me.

“It was fifteen more years until I decided it was time to learn my true biological identity. By that time, I had moved to the States to study at Savannah College of Art and Design. When I graduated at twenty-two, I contacted the agency back in the UK which had handled my adoption. After a lot of back-and-forth, they finally emailed me the certificate that contained my real parents’ names. There it sat in my inbox for two solid weeks before I had the guts to open it.

“When I did, it revealed that Marc and Margaret Briggs were my biological parents, and that Emily Briggs, the girl I was so drawn to, had been my twin sister all along.”

No longer looking at me, Amy looks through me. At a place and time far away as she speaks.

“All those years of wanting to be accepted by you and Emily both, of wanting us to be—”

“—The Three Musketeers,” I finish for her. “Yes, I remember.”

Amy Stratton bows her head and twists a long flat blade of grass between her fingers. I can tell she’s experiencing nothing of this moment. Not the poignant sight of rows of moss-covered tombstones, not the screaming sirens ebbing ever closer, not the bright Savannah sun that lights upon my face… only those childhood days back in Scarborough.

“Yes, the Three Musketeers,” she whispers. “Only, there never were three of us, were there, Rose? Just two. You both kept me at bay, though you more than Emily. And all along she was my long-lost twin sister. The irony of it all is hard not to laugh at today. Because all I ever desired, the only thing I prayed for each night, was to be wanted. By someone. By Anyone.

“But most of all,” now Amy looks deeply into my eyes, and I find it impossible to look away, “I wanted to be wanted by you, Rosie. To be accepted by you.”

It’s said that we’re all the villain in someone else’s story.

Like it or not, it’s clear that I’m the one in Amy Stratton’s.

I had no reason to dislike her as a child. She had done nothing to me. To either of us. Yet Em and I wouldn’t give her so much as the time of day.

This thought simmers uncomfortably before I have to retract it for the caustic lie it is. Yet another one I’ve been telling myself my entire life.

Because it was never us who kept Amy at arm’s length.

It was me.

Maybe, deep-down, a part of me sensed how similar to Emily Amy really was, and feared that if I allowed her to get anywhere near, she would steal Em’s affections away from me.

“Anyway, that's when it all made sense,” she continues. “I remembered seeing you walk to the Briggs's that day. But then I also saw it plastered all over TV and the newspapers that you’d been abducted, feared dead.

“At the time, it didn't make sense to a timid thirteen-year-old girl who would have been too afraid to say anything even if it had. But it very much made sense to a bold twenty-two-year-old woman who had garnered the courage to move halfway across the world to follow her dreams. And that's when I knew Rosie Tanner was alive and well and striding without a care through her privileged life as Emily Briggs. I had no way to prove it, though, and pushed it out of my mind for years.

“After graduation I accepted an offer to join a prestigious design firm here in Savannah and chose to make America my home. Fast forward another thousand years and I then meet Josh. He's young and passionate and intense, and for the first time in my life I know what it feels like to be wanted. Truly wanted. He's also adopted, and those conversations filled many of our hours together in the early days. It wasn't long before I moved in with him, then one day, he has this idea. A way for me to balance the scales, so to speak. And here we are…”

The sirens are closer now.

Louder.

They ululate across the cemetery from row to row, an unsettling echo I can feel in my chest like biblical trumpets heralding the end of the only life I’ve ever known.

A life that should have been Amy Stratton’s.

“What do you want, Amy? How is any of what you’re doing ‘balancing the scales’ as you say? And what did Josh mean when he said I was paying him a quarter-million to fuck me?”

These last two words seem to hit Amy hardest, a raw nerve I’ve just touched with a hot poker, and it takes her a minute to compose herself.

Or so I think.

In hindsight, I now think she was weighing just how much I’ve lost because of Margaret Briggs, too.

“In 2008, a decade after Little Red Riding Hood went missing, Marc Briggs offered a hundred grand reward for any information leading to the whereabouts of Rosalie Marie Tanner. He did this within days of David Tanner’s car… your father’s car… going over the cliffs at Cayton Bay. Of course, all of Yorkshire—hell, all the world—thought him a hero for such a generous offer, certain it would help resurrect interest in a ten-year-old cold case. Little did anyone know that Little Red Riding Hood, Rosie Tanner, young daughter of grieving parents David and Elizabeth Tanner, had been in The Briggs’s home the entire time, with his daughter Emily being the real girl who had gone missing.”

Amy gives me a minute to let this sink in.

As a young woman in her early twenties who had already spent a decade living as Emily Briggs by that time, I vaguely remember news of this event taking place. But the implication of it went entirely over my head.

It’s now evident that it was both a wildly clever ruse to keep suspicion away from him and Margaret, while also assuaging his guilt for having abducted and indoctrinated the Tanners’ young daughter while standing by as the world of David and Elizabeth, his own best friends, came crashing down around them.

Now I can’t help but wonder if a part of him knew I was never the twin he and Margaret had given up for adoption. For that girl is now a forty-year-old woman, sat here with me in a cemetery as big as a village, on the edge of an ocean and a world away from North Yorkshire… in every possible way.

“That reward money was placed in a cash management escrow account for perpetuity,” Amy goes on to explain. “And it still sits there today. Untouched and earning compounding interest for twenty-eight years.”

Police sirens and red and blue lights now strobe from one tombstone to the next in a disturbing stereophonic daydream.

“Very specific conditions were stipulated before it could ever be withdrawn, ensuring the transaction's validity for all parties involved. The first was that Rosie had to be found within thirty years. After that time, the money and all accrued interest would revert back to the Briggs’ family estate.”

A hundred grand.

Compounding interest.

Twenty-eight years of accrual.

Converted from pounds to dollars.

I’m no accountant, but it’s not hard to imagine how that would equate to the cool quarter-million dollars Josh had referred to.

“However, the biggest condition of all,” Amy continues, “was that should Rosie ever be found, her identity would have to be scientifically verified. Which made sense, given the amount of money it was and the number of parasites who will crawl out of the woodwork to feed on someone else’s tragedy. Especially if it comes with a financial windfall.

“But Marc Briggs was no successful businessman by accident. He was a smart cookie. He knew no one would ever be able to claim the money and it would ultimately serve as nothing but a savings plan for their own estate. And if someone ever did come forward, he and Margaret were more than prepared to pull their reverse UNO card by finally revealing that Rosie Tanner, Little Red Riding Hood, was actually their own long-lost twin daughter they had given up for adoption at birth.

“With both David and Elizabeth Tanner—your parents—now gone, who was left to contest such a claim? To get the money, someone would have to prove that their DNA matched the blood the police found at Grandma Tanner’s house that day. Which in turn would match Marc’s and Margaret’s.”

“Which could never happen,” I realise out loud. “Or so they thought. Because they believed the only match would be me.”

Amy nods to this.

Slow and certain.

“Yes. The Briggses knew no one could ever come forward to claim that money. And if they ever tried to, they wouldn’t be able to fulfil the reward conditions. Because, at least in their minds, that long-lost daughter had been with them all along.”

Except that she wasn’t.

And now the penny begins to drop.

75

But how will your DNA match?” I ask out loud. “As Emily’s sister, it’ll be close. But close is no cigar. Not when it comes to two hundred and fifty K. The police took swabs from the kitchen that day, as well as the blood on Flora Tanner’s kitchen shears.”

“The shears covered in my sister Emily’s blood, yes,” says Amy. “The shears that were plunged into her breast. The breast everyone was deceived into believing had been Rosie Tanner’s”

Amy swallows hard, and I can tell she’s imagining the pain and the horror I don’t have to. Because I was there and I will never forget. The only thing that’s changed is the name of the person to whom it happened.

I knew it had been Emily.

But the Briggses said it had been Rose; the whole world said it had been Rose. Eventually, that landslide of perception became truth. A truth that it had been Rosie Tanner who was injured and abducted from her grandmother’s house, not Emily Briggs.

And since I was still here, that could only make me Emily.

I can’t explain it, but after a while, I began to believe it myself.

You may wonder how, or why I so willingly let my real parents suffer the torment of believing I had been killed. But until you’ve lived what I’ve lived you have no right to judge me. All I can say to justify it is that it was the only way for a young, fragile mind to cope with a level of trauma that no thirteen-year-old should ever endure.

Oblivious of my inner torment, or maybe because of it, Amy answers my question with an icy detachment that reminds me of… well, it reminds me of me.

“Identical twins are formed from a single fertilized egg. They share ninety-nine-point-nine percent of one another’s DNA. If the world happens to believe the girl who was killed that day was Rosie Tanner, then so be it. All it will take for me to assume her identity is a quick mouth swab. Then I’ll become Rosie. Just like you became Emily. The truth doesn’t matter anymore. Only perception.”

Amy pauses. Catches her breath. I can tell she’s waiting for me to draw the only conclusion.

Which I do.

“And then you collect the reward money.” Now I’m the one who pauses, allowing what I’ve said to sink in for both of us. “Even if to get it you have to become… me.”

76

Amy says nothing to this, but I know I’m right.

So that’s what this has been all about.

The almighty dollar.

“Is it really worth it, Amy? Becoming Rosie… becoming me… For a measly quarter million?”

“Oh, my dear Rosie, the irony of you saying such a thing. Of all people. It’s almost laughable!”

“I didn’t have a choice, Amy. I was held captive. I was young and scared and didn’t know what else to d—”

“—We all have a choice, Rosie! You could’ve just walked out into that street at any time and shouted to all those reporters, ‘I’m Rosie Tanner!’ And yet again, the world would have been at your feet… as it has always been! And as for the money? Well, only someone breezing through life as Emily Briggs, heiress to the Briggs family hotel fortune, could make so light of such an amount. Besides which, what I’m doing is about a lot more than cash. So, let’s just dispense of that vulgar aspect of it straight away, shall we?”

“What else could you possibly gain from such a fucked-up scheme?”

To this Amy laughs out loud.

“Again, only a woman who’s lived her entire adult life as her dead best friend could say that what I’m proposing is fucked up. I’d say the score is Stockholm Syndrome one, Rosie Tanner zero.”

“That still doesn’t tell me what else you have to gain by this. I mean, seriously. What the fuck?”

Amy Stratton grins, her eyes darting to the flashing lights beginning to surround us on all sides.

“Why, the adoration of the world of course! Back in the day, had the truth been known that the missing girl was actually Emily Briggs, a teen girl with an estranged twin sister, it would have generated some media buzz, but the ripples would have barely reached as far south as London or as far north as Edinburgh. But call her Rose, give her a red hooded shawl, and reveal that she went missing from her grandmother’s house? Suddenly the whole world takes notice. Now throw in the fact that the sicko that supposedly took her was a carnie by the name of Levi Wolfe, and well, that’s just pure poetry.” Amy begins to clap, and the staccato sound fires from the nearby tombstones like gunshots. “Would the money be nice? You better believe it. But you know what’s better?”

“You’ll finally be wanted,” I answer as the first of the police cars shows up, skidding to a halt where Josh Hayes had just peeled away minutes before.

I wish I could say that Amy Stratton’s mad; that she has a wild imagination and none of what she’s saying is true.

But the reality of the situation is that I feel like myself for the first time since I was thirteen years old, and everything she’s said makes more sense than anything that’s happened in my life for the better part of thirty years.

“It’s all up to you now,” Amy declares as the first of a dozen officers stalks slowly toward us, gun drawn and shouting orders.

Just a day ago, this would have terrified the shit out of me.

Now, it’s just another thing that’s happening.

“The way I see it, you have two choices, Rosebud. You can lie and simply tell the world that I’m Rosie, put this all behind you, fly back to Gabriella and your comfortable life in England and we all win. Hell, you and I might even become friends one day—”

“—Or?”

“Or you can tell the truth. Explain to a hundred eager cameras from around the globe that they’re all wrong, that they’ve always been wrong, for decades. That you deceived them all. That you’re Rosie Tanner. That it was Emily Briggs who was taken that day and I’m the abandoned twin from four thousand miles away who’s hellbent on revenge. And we all lose.”

Submitting to the bellowed orders of the police, Amy slowly lifts her hands in the air, and I instinctively follow suit.

“I don’t know about you, my little English Rose, but I know which one I’d rather believe… Which one’s easier to believe.”

All around us the police are closing in, gun barrels pointed at us from every direction.

“And remember, Rose, I have all the legal evidence. Police records. A Levi Wolfe murder conviction. Every article about Little Red Riding Hood that’s been written over the last two-plus decades. But best of all, I have DNA on my side.”

She’s right of course.

In this moment, Annoying Amy Stratton holds all the cards.

And she knows it.

“On the other hand,” she posits as a dozen hulking American cops stalk us through a maze of mausoleums just one lane over, “what do you have, my dearest Rosie—I mean, Emily? Besides the capacity to destroy your relationship with Gabby, your career and your reputation, while also putting your so-called mother, my mother, Margaret Briggs in jail for what little is left of the rest of her natural life? Besides these wonderful little glimpses of reality, what do you have… really?”

I have the truth, I think to myself.

But as I’m handcuffed and unceremoniously bundled into the back of an American police car, I have to wonder if that’s really enough.

77

At the police station I tell them the truth.

That Joshua Hayes had his mother drug me, then attempted to rape me but Amy Stratton stopped him.

I don’t know if Amy’s corroborating any of this or not, and I really don’t care. It’s obvious from the state of me that it’s the truth, and I have nothing to hide.

Not about that, at least.

When the paramedics are done attending to my jaw (it’s not broken, thank God), photos are taken of the fingerprint marks on my throat, the bruises on my chest and stomach, my stained and tattered clothes which have now gone into an evidence locker.

I decline a swab, for obvious reasons. Though I guess that would’ve really sealed the deal for a rape conviction.

Soon, a social worker arrives with a change of wardrobe. While it’s hardly what I would have picked for my global TV debut, it’s better than a kick in the teeth.

Amy is nowhere to be seen, but I know they’re grilling her just as they grilled me. Whether they charge her for anything will be up to them, but my testimony won’t be the reason.

The news conference was scheduled for hours ago, but far from the media outlets becoming disgruntled, they’re more than happy to lap up what they’re able to garner or merely speculate about this latest development in the Little Red Riding Hood saga.

Finally, after a paper cupful of a disgusting hot drink these coppers have the audacity to call tea, it’s time to head into the media room. Only if I’m up for it, they qualify, to which, I insist that I am.

It’s time to put this to bed once and for all, and for the world to finally know the truth.

Led into a cavernous hall brimming with reporters, a sea of cameras springs to life, flashes making a sound like a thousand pigeons pecking for seed on a sidewalk made of aluminium.

A cacophony of immediate questions blur into one, but one word stands out above all others: Emily.

…Emily, this way…

…Is it true, Emily? Is it her…?

…Emily! Emily…!

…Emily, are you okay…?

…Smile for us, Emily…!

I’m seated adjacent to a podium where a rather severe looking gentleman stands but does not address me. There’s a microphone on the table in front of me, and to my right is another before an empty chair.

Amy’s chair.

When the hall erupts in fiercely blinding light and a chorus of demands, I know she’s arrived.

…Rose! Did you stop a rapist…?

…You’re a hero, Rose…!

…Rose, Is it true he’s your husband…?

…Smile for us, Rose…!

Hearing my name being called when Amy Stratton walks into the room would be disconcerting if it weren’t for the fact that I’ve been going by Emily since I was barely a teen. But still, there’s a pang of longing for the name by which I had once been known… the name given to me by my mother and father, my real mother and father, Elizabeth and David Tanner.

Wearing the same clothes she had on in the cemetery, Amy takes the seat next to me.

She’s somehow managed to freshen up more than I, and in her presence I suddenly feel small. Her demeanour is purely professional, neither ignoring nor engaging with me, and I experience a sharp and unexpected pining for a person I barely knew as a child and with whom I wanted even less interaction at the time. This feels nothing like the dynamic we once had, where it was I whose attention was sought, and Amy who was the desperate seeker.

Settled in her seat, she turns to face me and her features light up with that same vibrant, genuinely enthusiastic smile I’ve seen a thousand times. A smile that reaches into my heart, setting it alight with childlike promise and the idea of ‘one day when…’ A smile I haven’t seen since the morning of that fateful day.

A smile that is my Emily’s.

Under these cheap fluorescent tubes of cold light, Amy’s hair appears darker than it did in the golden Georgian sun. Her skin, too, fairer than I thought. And with everything about her done just so, I no longer see Amy Stratton at my side, but her sister and twin, my beautiful, beloved, forever-gone Emily.

BFFs, that’s what my dad says we are!

Best Friends Forever!

I can hear Emily’s decree as clearly as if I’m thirteen again, and the small hairs on my arms stand at attention. We’d had grand plans, Emily Briggs and I. We would grow up to date handsome men who we’d each meet at random, but then later come to find out were brothers. There would be a grand double wedding with all of Scarborough invited. We’d buy houses next to one another and both have children (two each was the perfect number, we’d agreed), then look after each other’s as if they were our own. And of course, they would all be besties and grow up together as one big family.

Ours was the truest of friendships, and it was going to follow us throughout our lives.

It was going to last forever.

Only, forever came sooner than we expected.

I bite my lip to hold back the tears, but it doesn’t work.

Transported back to that trail in the woods, Em and I are again bounding toward my grandmother’s house and Scarborough’s annual Guy Fawkes fair. Brimming with excitement and the wonderful promise of things unknown, we hadn’t a worry in the world. Never could we have imagined how our world was about to come crashing down.

“Alright, folks. If you’ll kindly take your seats, we’d like to get started,” announces the severe looking man at the podium and the flurry of activity fades to near-silence. “As y’all know, I’m Chatham County Sheriff Atticus Asher. One of these women to my right has come forward in the last week or so to reveal that she is, in fact, Rosalie Marie Tanner, the girl y’all have come to know as Little Red Riding Hood. Going missing in ninety-eight, thirteen-year-old Rosie was legally pronounced deceased by the Yorkshire County Courts eighteen months later. She would have been fifteen at the time. A man by the name of Levi Wolfe was subsequently convicted for the assault and murder of Rose’s grandmother, Flora Tanner, as well as Rosie’s abduction and murder. Mr. Wolfe is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole in Her Majesty’s Prison Belmarsh in London, England. I have been in close contact with Detective Inspectors Grimm and Richards of the North Yorkshire Constabulary there, and depending upon what transpires today, here in the great state of Georgia, that sentence may change, and Mr. Wolfe’s conviction overturned.”

Sheriff Asher pauses for no other reason to catch his breath, and the room erupts with sound.

“Now, now!” he bays into the microphone, waving them down with both hands. “We will have a chance for y’all to ask questions when we’re done. But for now, I’d like to introduce you to Ms. Emily Briggs, sitting here to my immediate right. Ms. Briggs is Rosie’s childhood friend and fellow victim that day, but I know y’already know that.”

Cameras flash, heads turn.

“To Ms. Briggs’s right is Amy Stratton, A.K.A. Rosie Tanner, A.K.A. Little Red Riding Hood, and—”

Asher continues speaking, but his words are submerged beneath an instantaneous upswell of flashes and questions all shouted at once. The uproar is so loud that even shouting into the mic does nothing. Asher is only able to get them to stop by having one of his deputies flick the lights off, leaving us in total darkness in this windowless cavern of a space.

“I’ma tell y’all right now,” the Sheriff commands as the lights come back on, “if y’all do that again, this conference is over. More than that, I’ll have my deputies haul every last God-fearin’ one o’ ya off to the clink. We got the room, and y’all know I ain’t bluffin’ now.”

Sporting a face of thunder, his cheeks are the colour of a marshmallow poker that’s been left in the campfire too long. The reporters may not be able to see it, but from my proximity, I can tell that his chest is rising and falling with the breaths he’s trying desperately not to unleash in a hail of cursing.

“Alright, then.”

He only speaks again when every last reporter has quieted and a disconcerting, unnatural hush has descended over the hall. Each of his next words is spoken slowly and pronounced with clear and deliberate intent.

“As I was saying, Ms. Stratton claims that she is, in fact, Rosalie Marie Tanner and is willing to submit to a DNA test that would be undertaken by my forensic lab. The results of said test will then be crosschecked with evidence in the possession of the North Yorkshire Police. Now, before y’all jump the gun, I’m gonna tell you that we’re not here to establish what happened between nineteen ninety-eight and today. We have no jurisdiction in this matter, and that’s for them fellows across the pond to sort out. Our task is merely to provide witness testimony and scientific evidence that can either validate or repudiate Ms. Stratton’s claim. After that, our job is done, and y’all can descend on those English lads and leave my department in peace. Do we understand one another?”

Not one reporter dares reply verbally.

Most are silently nodding, while a few are mouthing their agreement without speaking it aloud.

“Okay, then it’s time.” Speaking sideways into the microphone he pivots to face me as every camera follows suit, and my stomach ties in knots as all eyes are upon me. “Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I give you Ms. Emily Briggs…”

78

Bursts of brilliant light from flashes and umbrella lamps are blinding, and I shrink back, my breaths short, heart pounding.

My future, my mother’s (Margaret’s) future, Amy Stratton’s and Levi Wolfe’s, all rest upon the next words that will come out of my mouth. The weight of it is impossible, and I feel myself buckling under the burden.

On one hand, if I tell the truth, I can reclaim my life as Rosie Tanner, the cheeky, adventurous thirteen-year-old with a heart of gold, an unquenchable thirst for life, and courage in spades to take her future by the horns.

But there’s not a scenario I can imagine with this option where Margaret Briggs, effectively my mother for more than twenty-eight years, doesn’t do time in prison for her part in abducting me that day. Because more than an abduction, Margaret systematically dismantled my identity, brainwashing a traumatised child into believing she was someone else. She successfully convinced me that my parents, David and Elizabeth Tanner, the only two people in the world who loved me unconditionally, believed I was the one who had killed my best friend and were prepared to put me in prison for doing so.

Unlike her and Marc, she told me as tears rolled fat and wet down my cheeks, who would do anything to protect me.

Worst of all, both Margaret and Marc stood by, saying and doing nothing, as grief deteriorated my parents’ mental and physical health until they had nothing left to live for.

In this option, I too will face outrage and ridicule.

Sure, a sympathetic British public might be on my side… at the outset. But fickle as I know them to be, they’ll turn on me at the first sign of disbelief and suspicion, led by ratings-hungry tabloid shows.

How long will it be before they question why I didn’t just walk out of the Briggs’s home and go back to my parents to tell them everything?

It’s even possible that some might speculate it was me, not Levi Wolfe, who killed Emily Briggs in that kitchen that day.

Either way, if I choose this route, Levi will be released for time served. It won’t matter whether he took Emily’s life or not. His conviction—the one that earned him imprisonment for natural life without the opportunity of parole—was for the abduction and murder of Rosie Tanner. If I am revealed as she, then Levi will walk the streets a free man.

Will he then come for me? Will he seek to tie up that deadly loose end? The very idea of it makes my blood run cold, my chest tightening with anxiety.

Then there’s Amy Stratton.

If I come clean, what will happen to my best friend’s twin, the woman who announced to the world that she was me? Will they charge her with a crime? Like Levi, will she then seek revenge?

Whichever way I look at it, the truth not only does not set me free—it sets me up for years of heartache.

Or worse.

On the other hand, if I lie by merely confirming that Amy is in fact me—Rosie Tanner, Little Red Riding Hood, the lass the whole world fell in love with from a little seaside town in the north of England—then I’ll get to go back home tomorrow as Emily Briggs and reclaim my comfortable life with Gabriella. I’ll finally have the opportunity to leave behind this literal hell which has plagued me for my entire adult life.

In this option, Amy also gets to claim the reward money while garnering the unadulterated adoration of all and sundry.

At last, she’ll be wanted.

Margaret Briggs will also be left in peace, allowed to live what remains of her years in the isolated little universe she has created for herself.

The only problem is that Levi Wolf again goes free. If I remain Emily Briggs while Amy assumes Rosie Tanner’s (my) identity, then—monster though he is—Levi could never have killed her. His conviction for doing so will be overturned, his sentence commuted, and he’ll again walk the streets untethered.

Tell the truth, and everyone loses except for Levi Wolfe.

Perpetuate the lie, and everyone wins… including that monster.

It’s all happening so fast, the options barraging me in such a blur, that I don’t know what to do.

But there’s no time left to consider it.

My heart’s pounding. So hard that I can feel every strained contraction; the very friction of my blood as it’s forced through vessels stretched to capacity.

I’m shaking.

Confused.

And more frightened than I’ve ever been.

Save, of course, for that awful reality-altering day.

Sensing my paralysing indecision and a trepidation so intense I can barely breathe, Amy Stratton takes my hand in hers.

At first, I’m sure it’s fodder for the cameras.

But then she slides our hands beneath the table covering, entirely unseen as she gently weaves her fingers into mine.

Such a simple act, yet such a grand gesture.

Filled with genuine warmth, it feels like home, and my heartrate begins to lower by the second.

Covering her microphone with her other hand, Amy leans toward me and whispers softly in my ear:

“I’m sorry I did this to you. Just do what young Rosie would do. What my Emily would do. Do what you feel is right. I’ll be okay, no matter what you choose.”

She then flashes me that same Emily Briggs smile I always loved, the one I’ve missed so much that my heart is crushed beneath the weight of a quarter-century of guilt and loss.

Tears begin to stream down my face and Emily’s twin sister wipes them away with a tender brush of her hand.

“You will be okay, too, Rose...”

Twitching all over, every part of me trembling to the point of no control, I lean forward and pull my microphone closer with cold reluctance. It’s heavy and impersonal in my grasp, and the sound of it bumping across the table as I drag it toward me issues a series of booms like gunshots reverberating through the room.

I lean in, my voice all but lost.

Clearing my throat with a dry scratching croak, I then hear my own words echo back to me, as foreign as a stranger’s as I say:

“H-H-hello. M-My n-name i-is—”

79

ONE YEAR LATER | SCARBOROUGH

My name is Rosalie Marie Tanner. In the late nineties I was abducted from a small English seaside town. Just not in the way everyone thought. I was famous for a while, because I was the girl the whole world came to know as Little Red Riding Hood…

…And I also wasn’t.

I decided to tell the truth that day in a strange and wonderful place called Savannah.

To say it was easy would be a lie. Perhaps the biggest one yet. But I still love Rosie Tanner and needed to find my way back to her again; back to the girl I had once been.

As for Margaret, my mother for much more of my life than she wasn’t, I pleaded with the Crown Prosecutor that I didn’t want her to go to prison for what she did. Margaret Briggs was a handful at the best of times, this I know better than most. But she really did love me, biological daughter or not. What I find most interesting is the fact that she continued to deny that Amy was her daughter, right up to the very end. And that end came sooner than anyone expected. Within three months of my return home, Margaret died peacefully in her sleep, her nurse’s aide at her side, exactly as she wanted it to be.

I still keep in touch with Amy Hayes.

In fact, after my mother—oops, I mean Margaret—passed away, I waived any claim to her and my father’s estate. And yes, I still think of Marc Briggs as my dad.

(Well, New Dad.)

I know that might seem odd to you, like maybe I’m a little twisted—

she’s still messed up in the head, you’re thinking

—and okay, I get it. Maybe I am. After all, everything that happened in my life from the age of thirteen onward, be it good, bad, or ugly, was all predicated on a lie. That’s not something you get over in a year. But Marc Briggs loved me, that much I know is true. And I loved him back, in my own way. He was smart, and kind, and the most giving person I’ve ever known. He worked hard for his family, to the point of putting himself in the grave. Cancer is funny like that: it has a way of singling out the stress, and then using it as fuel to eat you alive.

The big C really is a great big Cunt.

But what about the fact that Marc Briggs was your abductor? I hear you say. Didn’t he participate in his wife’s scheme? More than a mere party to the cover-up, didn’t he actively indoctrinate you in his wife’s sick pretence?

Yes, in a way he was as culpable as Margaret for the chain of events that methodically turned me into Emily Briggs. To the point that my vulnerable, traumatised mind soon came to believe it myself.

But was he, really?

Amy moved back to England from the States and now lives in the whitewashed house overlooking the sea in the prestigious mews located at St. Nicholas Cliff. There were no charges filed against her in the US as there had actually been no crime. One was nearly committed… but close doesn’t get you a cigar.

Nor was there any reason for her to stay in Savannah.

As it turns out, Amy and Josh were never a legally married couple, they just cohabitated as one.

Speaking of the devil, Joshua Hayes was arrested for my attempted rape before the news conference even ended, and he hasn’t seen the light of day since. He now spends those long days and even longer nights in Coastal State Prison, a high-security lockup for men.

Amy and I, on the other hand, see one another most holidays.

Although I was hesitant, I did return to the Briggses’ upscale terraced house at St. Nicholas Mews one more time. That was last Christmas, and I did it solely to honour Amy’s generous invitation.

Even though it had become my home for many years, that place holds too many memories for me. Not all of them are bad, many are filled with love. But the bad ones, though fewer and farther between, are so bad that they outweigh any joy I can muster from the good ones.

As for me and Gabby, well that was a tough one.

It still is.

But we’re fighting through it.

After all, how do you tell the love of your life that you aren’t the person they think you are… and never were?

It’s been untenably difficult for her, but she’s still by my side.

I wish I could say the same of the British public.

At first, I was beloved by all, the girl who was abducted by a crazed, grief-stricken mother, then forced to assume the life of her dead best friend.

But just as I suspected, the worm turned as soon as the story had lost its legs, as they say.

The vitriol the media then spread was enough to give it legs for a lifetime, but thankfully, people came to their senses and mostly leave me in peace now.

I still get the odd death threat, and had to delete all my social media accounts.

No big loss, the latter. I’ve always despised that online garbage and how artificial and superficial it is.

As for the former, well, the way I see it, Rosie Tanner was already dead once. Taken by my own hands, albeit so skilfully guided by Margaret Briggs, there’s not much anyone can do or say that will scare me more than what I’ve already experienced.

Like I said, Gabby has been a trooper throughout. The fact that I thought she’d be anything but, just goes to show you who the better soul is. She knows about my fling with Josh, but my infidelity was somewhat overshadowed by the assault and attempted rape. So, in a way, that piece of shit did both Amy and I a favour by giving in to his intrusive thoughts and revealing what he really is. I suspect he’s getting a big fat taste of his own medicine at Coastal State as we speak, likely at the uncomfortable end of nonconsenting sexual attention. Probably on the daily.

Which leads me to Levi Wolfe.

Yes, he was released.

Having served much longer than the average term for my grandmother’s rape and murder, there was nothing detectives Grimm and Richards could do to convince the courts to hold him once I revealed I was the girl he’d been legally convicted of killing.

They appealed that he was still responsible for the abduction, death and likely sexual assault of thirteen-year-old Emily Briggs. That the crime was the same, only the name had changed. But their argument fell on deaf ears.

While the Big Bad Wolfe may have had his sentence commuted, he remained one of the most reviled and notorious criminals in Britain. Some even called for him to not only remain in prison, but petitioned for the government to enact the American-style death penalty.

As his release from Hellmarsh neared, someone in the tabloid press discovered that Levi is an anagram for Evil.

In their ever-sardonic approach to reporting the state of Britain today, this dominated the headlines as Detectives Grimm and Richards made one final attempt to get Levi to reveal where he’d discarded my best friend’s body, having abandoned Emily’s corpse like so much unwanted trash.

Once he was released, he admitted that he’d taken her…

…But never revealed where.

In fact, Levi Wolfe now began to insist he was innocent of her murder, a new angle he’d never before claimed.

He even took a polygraph to prove it. Just for shits and giggles, he told the press, claiming it wasn’t he who had plunged Gran’s scissors into Emily’s breast.

Unfortunately, the results came back negative, indicating that he was telling the truth. But those evaluations are notorious for their flaws.

Levi Wolfe can claim all he wants that he didn’t kill my best friend. But you, me and the world know the truth…

…Don’t we?

∞

Thank You from A.G. Mock

Ihope you enjoyed all the twists, turns and delicious lies in What Big Lies You Have. By reading this book you're also supporting a full-time independent author who relies on readers like you for his living. It’s important you know that I appreciate you, I see you, and every word I write is for you. Thank you for being an integral part of my journey, and for helping make my dream come true.

—A.G. Mock

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Acknowledgments

Writing, much like reading, is by necessity a solitary endeavor. The irony is that success as a writer can only be achieved with the support of a great number of people.

First on that list is you, the reader. Thank you for dedicating your valuable time—perhaps the scarcest resource of all—to read my book. Without you, the words that flow from my convoluted mind for endless hours in front of a keyboard would be little more than a cathartic release. (Or perhaps a symptom of madness.) Secondly, I’d like to thank my wife Crystal, our two fur babies, and those friends and family who exhibit such understanding when hour upon hour, day upon day, week upon week comes and goes and still, they do not have all of me present for my ever having one leg planted in some fictional world of my own creation. Thirdly, I’d like to thank Haley, Katy and Rachel at the Hallowed Hearth Podcast for taking me under their (witchy bat) wings by choosing me as their official ‘Hearthside Author’ and dedicating so much of their support to my work. Fourthly, thank you to everyone at Tantor Audio for the way they bring each of my books to incredible life via the spoken word. And finally, thank you to Billie Jean Wiley for her valuable feedback as a Beta reader, along with every ARC reader who helped spread the word far and wide.

Without each of you, and many more not mentioned, this book would not be what it is. And for that, I owe you my heart.

—A.G. Mock

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ABOUT A.G. MOCK

A.G. Mock is an internationally bestselling author of thrillers and suspense. His work is becoming some of the most shared on social media and has earned him a Publishers Weekly BookLife Editor’s Pick as well as two American Fiction Awards. He’s an active professional member of International Thriller Writers (ITW) and the Horror Writers Association (HWA), and appears as a featured guest and panelist at thriller and horror conventions around the country. He is proud to now call Nashville his 'forever home' where he lives with his wife, two adorable rescue dogs, and at least one cheeky ghost. His wife and dogs he treasures wildly, the ghost he can take or leave.

Find out more (including appearance dates, new releases and other good stuff at AGMock.com