Chapter 20 #2
‘I just wish she wasn’t so reactive. She does things in the heat of the moment without thinking them through properly.
She always has done and now she’s done a flit, while she’s still not fully recovered.
She’s on her own apart from Merlin, and it’s going to stress Mum out so much too.
I feel like shaking her.’ Bex could barely stand still now, her legs twitching with the urge to run out of the door to try and find her sister.
She couldn’t think about anything else and she was wasting her time even trying.
‘You might want to shake her, but you want to hug her even more.’ Rowan knew her far too well.
‘And I think you should let us try and help you find her. We’ve spent the last fortnight reading Dear Debbie by Freida McFadden, so we should know everything there is to know about solving mysteries.
All you’ve got to do is give us the clues and we can help you work out where she might be. ’
‘They’re right.’ Matt was suddenly framed in the doorway, and he never interrupted book club night.
‘It’s obvious that it’s the only thing you can think about and you’re going to make yourself ill worrying about her.
If you don’t try to find her, I will, and Triss is already driving around looking for her. ’
‘I can’t lose her again.’ Bex’s eyes filled with tears, the pain made worse by the fact that she knew now that she was to blame for Briony’s disappearance and that she’d have to live with herself if they’d blown the chance to put things right. Matt held out his arms and she leant against him.
‘You won’t lose her again, sweetheart, I promise.
You’ve got all of us to help, and we’ll make sure we find her.
’ His words were meant to comfort her and in a way they did, but Bex could no longer contain the tears she’d been fighting so hard not to cry.
She was surrounded by people who loved her and were there for her, but Briony was alone and Bex had a horrible feeling that at least some of the blame for her sister living such a solitary life lay with her too.
She’d dug her heels in for years, refusing to even consider the possibility of reconciliation, when she’d had so many reasons to be grateful for what had happened and to put the past behind them.
It meant Briony hadn’t felt able to come home in all those years, and now Bex had pushed her away for a second time, and she was out there all on her own again.
Bex was almost certain that it had been that way for her sister the whole time they’d been apart and she had to change that, whatever it took.
All that focus on mystery-solving in the book club’s latest novel had paid dividends.
It had taken them less than fifteen minutes to help Bex come up with a very short list of places to look for Briony if she was still in the Three Ports Area.
All she could do was pray that her sister had been sensible enough to stay local.
She still needed weekly check-ups with the consultant at St Piran’s Hospital.
Surely, she wouldn’t be reckless enough to risk her health by going too far?
Bex had to hope so, because if Briony had gone beyond the parameters of the area where they’d grown up, Bex would have absolutely no idea where to start looking for her.
As it was, they’d come up with a shortlist of three places to try, and one stood out above all the others.
Ocean Cove had always been their escape.
It was where they’d gone with their mum to scatter their beloved nan’s ashes, when they were just eight and five.
Ocean Cove had also been where their mum had taken them on numerous other occasions, to cheer them up when their father had let them down again.
Unlike the main beaches in the area, the cove was secluded and if you didn’t know where it was, you’d never find it.
That meant it was never over-run with tourists, even in the height of the summer.
It was somewhere they could go and swim, throw a frisbee, or just dig pointless holes in the sand until they felt okay again.
It was completely free too, which meant their mum could always afford to take them there, even when she was having to watch every penny.
When Bex and Briony got older, they’d still hung out at Ocean Cove a lot, sometimes with friends, but more often than not just the two of them, lying on the sand, looking up at the sky and talking about life.
They’d even made a ‘movie’ down there once, with a video camera Briony had managed to borrow from a friend’s parents.
Bex had been about fifteen, and her sister just twelve, and they’d come up with a whole storyline, although in truth it was more or less a direct rip off of Cast Away.
Briony had still been convinced she was going to make it as an actress, and Bex had been certain her sister could do anything she put her mind to.
Whatever the X Factor was, Briony had it back then, but something had squashed it and suddenly Bex was terrified that it might have been her.
She’d refused to listen to her sister’s warnings about Liam for almost eighteen months, when Briony had repeatedly told her that he wasn’t all he seemed to be.
The two of them had always had such a close bond, and she’d allowed Liam to come between them, choosing to believe him and doubt her sister, until Briony had proven to her without any shadow of a doubt that she was telling the truth about him, but it had cost her everything.
There was no way Briony would have been able to drive Woody down on to the sand at Ocean Cove, but there was a passing place at the top of the narrow road that was closest to it.
From that point the only way to get down to the beach was on foot.
If Briony had headed to the cove, she’d have parked Woody in that passing place.
‘I’m going there now.’ Bex had made the pronouncement as soon as Matt and her friends had agreed that it was the most likely place for Briony to head.
‘I’ll come with you.’ Her husband had reached for her hand and although she’d taken it, she shook her head. ‘I need you to stay with the boys. Please can you serve up the food, Linda?’
‘Are you sure you don’t want one of us to come with you?’ Rowan eyes had been round with concern.
‘Thanks, Row, but I need to do this on my own.’ Bex hadn’t hesitated for another moment after that, leaving the farmhouse to a chorus of shouts of good luck.
Now that it was summer, it was staying light until after 9 p.m., so when Bex arrived on the narrow lane above Ocean Cove, there was still at least an hour’s light left.
She held her breath until the passing place came into view, her heart soaring at the sight of Woody parked in the spot where she’d silently prayed he’d be.
There was just about room for her to squeeze her car into the space behind it, although her front bumper was a hair’s breadth from Woody’s back bumper.
She’d half-expected Briony to fling open the door of the van and start ranting at her again, but there was no sign of life, and Merlin’s deep bark was absent too.
If they weren’t in the van, that had to mean they were on the beach.
Unless… No, she couldn’t think like that.
There had to be time to put all of this right and suddenly she was running down the rough track that led to the sand, not even slowing down when she scraped her skin against the sharp edge of one of the rocks, blood dripping down her leg.
‘Briony!’ She called out her sister’s name at least three times, but there was no response and when her breathing started to get ragged it had nothing to do with exertion of running down the track.
She was starting to panic that Briony wasn’t going to be there, but then she spotted her, sitting on a rock, facing out to sea, at the far end of the cove.
She quickened her pace even further, breaking into a full-blown run when her feet hit the sand.
‘Briony!’ This time when she called out her sister’s name, she turned around and it was obvious even from a distance that Briony had been crying.
‘Just go away, Bex, please. I can’t keep doing this or having the same conversation over and over again, it’s killing me.
’ Briony looked desperately sad and Bex had an almost overwhelming urge to wrap her arms around her sister, but she had to resist. There were things that needed to be said before they had any chance of hugging it out.
‘In that case, we’ve got to have a conversation we’ve never had before.’ Bex took a deep breath. ‘I want you to tell me everything that happened with Liam and I promise not to stop you this time. I need to hear it all, even if you did sleep with him.’
Briony looked completely shell-shocked for a moment, but then she shook her head. ‘I didn’t sleep with him, but I know you’re never going to believe that, so what’s the point?’
‘If you say you didn’t sleep with him, I believe you.
’ When Bex had started the sentence her only intention had been to ensure Briony didn’t shut down the conversation, but suddenly she realised she meant it.
If her sister said she hadn’t slept with Liam, she did believe it.
Briony was looking at her open-mouthed, and Bex knew there were still some really difficult questions she was going to have to ask to get the full story, but for the first time ever, she was truly ready to listen.
‘I just want to know what did happen, and why Liam was so convinced the two of you were in love, but most of all why you did what you did.’