Author: Sophie McKenzie
Category: Thriller
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/sophie-mckenzie/page,14,57523-missing_me.html
There was a stunned silence on the other end of the line. Jam sucked in his breath. I could hear the murmur of voices in the background.
‘What are you talking about, Mo?’ His voice lowered. ‘Lauren’s fine. I talked to her less then half an hour ago.’
‘Oh.’ I remembered Annie telling me the same thing just a few minutes ago. ‘Lauren must have been made to say she was OK. But I had a call. It’s this man, Declan Baxter, I—’
‘Listen to me, Mo,’ Jam said gently. ‘Lauren called me earlier and said she wanted to go away for a few days to Craven Manor. It’s a spa hotel an hour or so outside London . . . got a big swimming pool apparently. I’m going to join her there tomorrow night.’
‘No, it’s a trick,’ I persisted.
‘Is this you talking, Mo?’ Jam asked. ‘Or is it your mother?’
I gasped. What was he saying? And then it struck me – Jam was implying I was being overanxious and hysterical, like Annie.
‘It’s not like that, Jam.’ Tears bubbled up behind my eyes. I desperately needed him to believe me. ‘I was investigating this man and—’
‘Who? Why would you do that? Is this something to do with your birth dad?’ Jam sounded even more sceptical than before. ‘Lauren told me you’d tracked him down.’
‘Never mind Allan,’ I said, feeling desperate. ‘This is about someone else: Declan Baxter. I found out that Baxter has been paying pregnant girls to give up their babies so that other families can adopt them and—’
‘You mean a surrogacy operation?’ Jam interrupted.
‘Yes, but—’
‘Surrogacy isn’t illegal, Mo,’ Jam said. ‘This Declan Baxter probably isn’t doing anything wrong. D’you have proof of anything illegal?’
I hesitated. Natalia had made the same point: girls choosing to give up their babies wasn’t against the law.
‘Some of it might be legal,’ I conceded, ‘but if the girls change their minds and want to keep their babies, he won’t let them go. Natalia said that when one of the pregnant girls tried to escape a few weeks ago, he caught her and Natalia never heard from her again . . .’
‘So why hasn’t this Natalia gone to the police now she’s free?’ Jam said.
‘She . . . she was too scared . . . and also Baxter paid her a lot of money, so she’s kind of part of the illegal side of it,’ I explained. Jeez, this was all coming out wrong. ‘Look, the point is that I helped Natalia to escape and now Baxter’s taken Lauren as revenge.’
‘Are you sure, Mo?’ Jam asked. ‘Was this call you received even definitely from Baxter?’
‘He didn’t say it was him,’ I admitted. Baxter hadn’t identified himself on the phone. I hesitated. ‘But he said “your sister will pay”.’
‘OK,’ Jam said wearily. ‘It sounds like a prank call, but if you’re worried, I’ll call Lauren again.’
‘OK.’ I rang off and waited.
Five minutes later, Jam called back. ‘I just spoke to Lauren,’ he said. ‘She’s fine . . . about to go swimming.’
I gulped. I was sure Lauren was being made to lie – probably to protect herself and us – but I couldn’t see how I was going to convince Jam.
‘Don’t you think it’s a bit odd, Lauren wanting to go to a hotel on her own?’ I said.
‘She’s pregnant, Mo.’ Jam sighed. ‘Believe me, this is nowhere near the oddest thing she’s done in the past few months. She’s got a bunch of weird ideas from that Chelsey Barton pregnancy “bible” she’s always quoting.’ He paused. ‘Now stop worrying and when we’re back, I want you to come over. Lauren told me what happened the other day – it’s crazy you two falling out.’
I agreed, my heart sinking, and we ended the call.
Now what did I do? Annie was still upstairs, humming to herself. I took my phone and dialled Lauren directly. The call went straight to voicemail. Still, if Jam was right, that wasn’t surprising. According to him, Lauren had been about to go swimming. I left a message asking her to call me and redialled for Craven Manor. The receptionist confirmed that a Lauren Purditt had indeed checked in though she wasn’t answering the phone in her room at this moment.
That proved nothing. Anyone could check in pretending to be Lauren. I paced across the living room. Clearly no-one was going to believe me without more evidence that she was actually missing. I stopped walking. If Lauren had been kidnapped, the chances were high that she had been abducted from her home. Annie and I had a set of spare keys. I should go there right now – see if I could find any signs of a struggle that might help prove Lauren had been taken against her will or any clues to where she might be now. I shouted up to Annie that I was popping out, grabbed the spare keys from their hook in our kitchen cupboard, then raced over to Lauren and Jam’s flat.
I passed their car, parked outside, on my way in. That was strange, wasn’t it? Surely Lauren would have driven herself to the hotel? As I let myself in, I couldn’t help but remember the last time I’d been here and the argument we’d had. Suppose those words turned out to be the last we ever spoke to each other.
It was unthinkable. Unbearable.
I darted from room to room. Everything looked just as it normally did – clean and tidy. It was funny . . . Lauren was always moaning about how neat and uptight her adoptive mum, Lydia, kept her house, but Lauren’s own flat wasn’t that different. A complete contrast to the way Annie lived, in perpetual chaos.
I whizzed from the kitchen to the bedroom to the living room. Nothing seemed in the slightest out of the ordinary. And then I saw the spilled drink – an upturned glass of orange juice on the low table in the living room, just by the sofa where Jam and Lauren sat to watch TV. The wood of the table was still damp and sticky and the juice had left a dark stain beside the bowl of dark green apples that stood there.
It was odd Lauren hadn’t wiped the juice up.
Her pregnancy book – the Chelsey Barton ‘bible’ that Jam had mentioned – was on the sofa. I picked it up and fingered its worn pages.
It was, surely, also odd that Lauren had left this behind.
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled as I walked through the flat again. Nothing else seemed out of order. The only room I hadn’t checked was the bathroom. It was clean and tidy, as usual. A picture of me with Lauren taken the year we met, when I was six and she was fourteen, hung on the wall by the door. I looked around. Everything was just as normal – from the blue and white striped towels hanging on the towel rail, to the red enamel mug at the sink containing Jam and Lauren’s toothbrushes.
I glanced at the bath. Now that was weird. In the centre of the bath sat an apple with a large bite taken out of it and the vintage cross Lauren had been wearing the last time I’d seen her.
What on earth were they doing in the middle of the bath?
I picked up the cross. Jam had bought it for Lauren last Christmas – it was made of silver and studded with little coloured jewels. I remembered the three of us stifling giggles and trying not to catch each other’s eyes as Carla had claimed she could sense its ‘aura’. Why was it off its chain? And what was it doing in an empty bath alongside a half-eaten apple?
I took both items and carried them out to the hall. The apple clearly came from the bowl in the living room. Maybe Lauren had been eating it when she was kidnapped. And she could easily have been wearing the cross.
I gazed from the living room to the bathroom to the front door. Suppose Lauren had begged to be allowed to use the bathroom before she was taken away? She could have left the apple and the cross in the bath as some kind of sign.
Yes. I didn’t understand what they meant, but I was certain these things were a clue.
24
The Trail
My heart was beating fast. I stared at the apple and the cross again.
What had Lauren been trying to say with them? Information about what had happened to her? I puzzled over it but got nowhere.
After a few minutes, I shoved the apple and the cross into my bag. If I
was going to track Lauren down, I needed money, which meant going home and raiding Annie’s emergency jar. I set off, hoping I’d be able to work out Lauren’s clue on the way.
It only took twenty minutes to get home, and as I turned onto my road, I wasn’t any closer to working out what Lauren had been trying to communicate. I rounded the corner. There, just ahead of me, standing outside my house, were Wolf and Esme. I stopped, a feeling of dread swamping me. What were they doing here?
Esme ran over as soon as she saw me. Wolf hung back.
‘Why haven’t you been in touch?’ Esme pouted. She was wearing a silver jacket over a short black dress, black tights and pumps. She wouldn’t have looked out of place at a cocktail party.
‘I . . .’ I stopped, wondering what on earth to say. I had so hoped Esme would just take my silence as a whopping hint that I was backing away from our embryonic friendship. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t like her – but it was equally impossible to tell her what I knew about her dad or to be friends with her without mentioning it. Now I was certain her father was intending to hurt Lauren, I felt even more awkward.
‘I’ve been really busy,’ I stammered.
‘What?’ Esme made a face. Her blonde hair was tied off her face in two long, thin plaits. They made her look younger than usual – despite the simple sophistication of her dress. ‘Is it a boy?’ she demanded. ‘Come on, tell me. Don’t be so frickin’ mysterious. You know, that’s what Wolf and I call you . . . Mysterious Madison . . .’ She giggled.
I sighed. Esme had to be the most confident person in the world. Anyone else faced with a friend withdrawing contact would surely have wondered if they’d done something wrong. But Esme just assumed I’d been preoccupied with a boyfriend. I glanced ahead, where Wolf was leaning against the low wall of my front yard. He was looking in our direction and, though I couldn’t properly make out the expression on his face from here, I could tell from the way he held himself that he was feeling awkward.
Was that because of the way we’d left things when we last spoke?
‘How did you know where I lived?’ I asked as Esme linked arms with me and led me towards Wolf and the house.
‘You told me when you were leaving my dad’s party the other day,’ Esme said. ‘At least you told me the area – and there aren’t any other Purditts who live in N10.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I know I could have called, but I really wanted to see you in person.’
I nodded. The sun came out from behind a cloud as we reached Wolf. He glanced at me without properly meeting my eyes.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hey.’ I swallowed. My palms felt all clammy just standing next to him. It felt like everything came into sharper focus when I looked at him . . . like I could see everything, from the expensive cut of his jeans to the yellow stitching in his top, to the natural golden-red highlights in his thick fair hair. Which was the last thing I needed. I had to get inside, get my money and work out Lauren’s clue. Which meant I had to get rid of Esme and Wolf, not be distracted by them.
‘Let’s go inside,’ Esme said brightly.
‘Er . . .’ I couldn’t think of a way to say ‘no’ so . . . ‘OK,’ I agreed reluctantly.
We trooped indoors.
‘I’m going to have a nose around,’ Esme said with a grin. ‘I love looking at other people’s houses.’
Before I could say anything, she sped off, into the kitchen.
I exchanged a glance with Wolf. This time he met my gaze. He rolled his eyes.
‘She’s kind of an unstoppable force,’ he said quietly.
I led him into the living room. We sat down, side by side on the couch. I was itching to get Lauren’s clues out of my bag and see if they made more sense now.
‘What’s wrong, Madison?’ Wolf asked.
I couldn’t tell him. I didn’t want to confide in him. And yet I didn’t have anyone else to turn to . . .
‘My sister’s been kidnapped,’ I whispered, hardly able to say the words. ‘At least I think she has. Everybody else thinks she’s fine, off on some spa weekend, but . . .’
Wolf’s eyes were wide with shock. ‘What? Why?’
I hesitated. I didn’t want to tell Wolf the whole story, but maybe he could at least help me decipher Lauren’s clue. I could hear Esme crossing the hall and tramping up the stairs as I took the apple and the cross out of my bag. I laid them on the couch, explaining I’d found them in Lauren’s bathroom.
‘I’m sure she left them there deliberately as a clue,’ I said. ‘But I have no idea what they mean.’
Wolf’s face paled. ‘Why would anyone want to kidnap your sister?’
I ignored his question. ‘So do they mean anything to you?’ I said. ‘I’ve tried all the combinations of the words I can think of . . . but nothing makes sense: “Apple Cross”, “Cross Apple”, even “Bath Apple Cross”. None of them mean anything.’
Wolf picked up the apple. ‘Suppose the clue she was leaving wasn’t “apple” but the type of apple this is?’
‘OK, but . . .’ I stared at the dark green fruit. ‘What type is it?’
Wolf shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I’ve heard of Golden Delicious and Cox’s Orange Pippins and Russets, but I don’t think this is any of those.’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t think Lauren would know about types of apples.’
Wolf put down the apple. He fingered the cross. ‘That doesn’t have a brand name anyway.’ He looked at me. ‘Why don’t we Google the words, see what comes up?’
I tapped ‘apple’ and ‘cross’ into my phone’s search engine. The result flashed up instantly:
Appleton Cross.
I gasped, clicking through to the entry. ‘It’s a place – a tiny village based around an old monument on . . . on the outskirts of Linton in Cambridgeshire,’ I said.
‘A place?’ Wolf sucked in his breath. ‘Do you think it’s a clue to where Lauren’s been taken?’
‘Yes.’ I stared at him. That had to be it. Excitement thrilled through me.
Wolf smiled. A dimple I hadn’t noticed before appeared in his cheek. My stomach did a backflip. ‘Thank you so much, Wolf,’ I said, feeling myself blushing again. I stared back at the information on my phone. Lauren’s clue totally made sense now. I was certain that she had been taken to Appleton Cross by force, but I still had no proof. Which meant trying to find and rescue her was down to me.
‘Er, Madison,’ Wolf said. ‘I’ve g . . . got something I have to tell you.’
I froze. Surely not another declaration of his feelings? Not now.
‘It’s n . . . nothing like that,’ he said, clearly reading my expression. ‘It’s just that I kept quiet for ages about Natalia and how we rescued her. I never said anything to Esme, but in the end I told my dad. I was trying to help, to stop Baxter and—’
‘You?’ A cold weight settled in my guts. ‘When did you tell your dad?’
‘Last night,’ Wolf went on. ‘My dad was furious with me. He didn’t believe any of it, said I was attention-seeking . . . spreading lies . . . it was horrible . . .’
I stopped listening. Baxter’s threatening voice on the phone earlier filled my head: ‘You were told to say nothing. Now . . . your sister will pay. An eye for an eye.’
So that’s why Lauren had been taken. Because Wolf had told his dad what we’d done to help Natalia, his dad had told Baxter and Baxter thought that meant I’d defied his order to keep quiet about his surrogacy operation.
I stood up. ‘Get out,’ I said, my hands trembling.
‘What?’ Wolf stared at me. ‘Why?’
‘It’s your fault Lauren’s been kidnapped,’ I spat. ‘Your dad obviously told Baxter what you said and— Get out of my house now.’
Wolf’s mouth gaped open.
‘You mean you think Baxter has taken your sister?’ he said. ‘To this Appleton Cross place?’
I looked away, furious with myself. I hadn’t meant to reveal so much.
‘Go away.�
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‘Madison, I’m so sorr—’
‘I said leave it.’ I tugged at his arm, half shoving him to the door. ‘I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I just want you to go.’
Wolf looked shell-shocked as I propelled him into the hall and out the front door. I’d almost forgotten about Esme. She appeared, trotting down the stairs, just as I was walking back across the hall. ‘Nice house,’ she said politely.
I gritted my teeth. ‘Sorry, but I’m afraid I’ve just remembered I have to be somewhere, so you’ll have to leave.’
‘OK.’ Esme looked around. ‘Where’s Wolf?’
I shrugged. ‘He had to go too.’
Esme raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t think I don’t know something’s going on between you two.’ She gave me a hug. ‘Well, call me, Madison. Soon.’
‘Sure.’ I drew back. I was still so angry with Wolf I could barely speak. But I didn’t want to explain any of it to Esme. Except . . . ‘Hey, Esme, your family doesn’t have any holiday homes, does it?’
‘Loads.’ Esme waved her hand as if to indicate she had lost track of the many places involved. ‘We have homes in the States and Tuscany and the south of France. There’s a cabin in Sweden for skiing and—’
‘What about England?’ I asked.
‘Sure, though most of those are investment properties. Daddy buys places in upcoming parts of the country hoping they’ll go up in value or something.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘There’s too many to count.’
‘OK, thanks.’
Esme gave me a curious look. ‘Why are you asking?’
I shrugged. ‘Just wondering.’
Esme grinned. ‘Mysterious Madison, enigmatic as ever. Well, see you soon.’ She swept out of the house.
I went into the living room and picked up my phone. Esme hadn’t exactly confirmed my suspicions, but knowing Declan Baxter owned lots of properties certainly made me more determined than ever to find the best – and fastest – way to Appleton Cross.
Half an hour later, I had checked out all my options and was waiting for a train at Liverpool Street Station. I was going to have to change at Cambridge and find a bus or maybe a taxi to Appleton Cross. Once there, I would have to ask around to find out if any of the locals had heard of Declan Baxter. It seemed likely that he owned a property in the area and, if his Hampstead mansion was anything to go by, I was hoping it would be memorable in some way.