Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
The apartment was on a residential street a few hundred yards behind the main high street. Seeing the police car outside made Erica’s heart thump in her chest. Without thinking, she reached for Andrew’s hand.
He gave it a squeeze and then dropped it so that he could shake hands with the officer who walked towards them. ‘We’ve gained access to the apartment. There’s no one there.’
Erica closed her eyes for a moment. At least the first of the terrible pictures in her head hadn’t come true. But that didn’t help the fact that they didn’t know where she was.
Andrew turned to speak to her. ‘Do you want to have a look inside? See if there’s anything that might give us a clue as to what’s going on here?’
The apartment looked just as she’d remembered it. A long hallway with a living room and kitchen to the left and two bedrooms to the right. Glancing in to the living room with its heavy wooden table, dark-green walls and a fireplace, it was impossible not to remember that awful day when Benjamin had accidentally given Mollie a nosebleed.
The row she’d had with Andrew after that had lasted days. He was so angry that Mollie had been hurt that he didn’t stop to think about what it was like for Benjamin. How overwhelmed he’d been. How sad he’d felt for hurting his sister. He loved her. Awful though it had been, if they could go back to that day, would they – could they – have done anything differently?
She made for the bedroom at the end of the hall, the one she and Mollie had shared the last time they were here. The bedclothes were dented as if someone had lain there and – beside it – an open backpack spilled clothes onto the floor. Other than that, there was no trace of Mollie. Where was she? What was she thinking? Planning?
Heavy footsteps heralded Andrew’s arrival at the top of the stairs. ‘I’ve spoken to the officers. They’ve put the word out and posted a picture on their social media asking for people to keep a look-out, but it’s too early for a search party. I’m going to go to the high street to see if anyone has seen her. Do you want to stay here in case she comes back?’
The unravelling ball of anxiety inside Erica would take her over if she sat here doing nothing. ‘No. I want to look, too. We can cover twice as much ground that way, I’ll leave a note in case she comes back while we’re gone.’
Andrew was in police mode. ‘Won’t that just alert her that we’re here, though? I don’t want to risk her running away again.’
She wasn’t going to be the one to wait here doing nothing. ‘You stay, then.’
She held his gaze until he nodded. Gave in. ‘Okay, leave a note and let’s go. I’m going to start at the top end of the high street and work my way through the shops, ask if anyone has seen her.’
‘Okay. I’ll go to the beach.’
‘Do you have an up-to-date photo to show people?’
Was he making some kind of point? Maybe not. His face looked as if he was checking on her. It’d been strange to hold his hand earlier. Comforting, though. She hadn’t realised how long it’d been since someone had hugged her rather than her being the one giving out the hugs. She’d missed his solid, protective arms around her. ‘Yes. I have a photo.’
He nodded. ‘Let’s go, then.’
It was about a ten-minute walk from the holiday let to the high street. The last time they were here, it’d taken twice that with Ben wanting to stop at every pebble that caught his eye. Now – walking as fast as they could – they were likely to do it in half the time. Every so often, Erica had to almost jog to keep up with Andrew’s longer legs, her breath becoming ragged with the combination of the effort and the fear filling her lungs. The silence between them left her brain free to imagine the worst of outcomes: Mollie being attacked, Mollie being abducted, Mollie’s body washed up on the beach. Each image was another stone heaped on top of her. Only the adrenaline pumping through her veins prevented her from dropping to the ground under their agonising weight. In an attempt to ward them off, she pushed herself to walk faster, ignoring the burn in her chest, her voice coming in short, breathless sentences. ‘She wouldn’t have packed a bag… if she was planning… on doing something… awful… would she?’
Without so much as a glance in her direction, Andrew kept thundering onwards, ‘I don’t know, Erica. I don’t know anything.’
Fear wrapped its bony fingers around her throat. Concern about the kids was a constant companion for Erica. But Andrew was always pragmatic, stoic, rational. If he was considering the worst, it made this even more brutally possible. ‘You don’t really think…that she’d… hurt herself, do you?’
Even voicing her greatest fear seemed a risk, that she might cause it to happen. Up until now, Ben was the one she worried about hurting himself. Not Mollie. Never Mollie. How could this be happening?
With a grey face, Andrew glanced at her, picking up speed. ‘I don’t know.’
A whimper broke free from Erica’s throat. He couldn’t mean that. Her fears streamed from her mouth, burning her tight throat. ‘But she wouldn’t, would she? She’s such a happy girl. She has so much going for her. She knows we’re here for her. She wouldn’t do something to herself.’
Practically begging him to reassure her, to tell her that – of course – Mollie would know that there was always a way to fix things, that nothing was unsurmountable. That she wouldn’t be so ashamed that she couldn’t see a way out.
By the grim tone of his voice, it was clear that Andrew was as blindsided by all of this as she was. ‘I know that you think I have the answers here, Erica, but I don’t. I’ve been a police officer for years, I’ve seen a thousand cases, but this is different. This is Mollie. My little girl.’
His voice cracked and her heart echoed in response. She wanted to comfort him as much as she wanted his reassurance for herself. ‘I know. I’m just trying to make sense of it all. To think like she would think. And I’m so scared, Andrew. Really scared.’
When the twins were babies, she’d worried about so many things. When they slept, how they ate, what they touched. And she’d worried so much for Ben and what he needed, how to care for him best. But all of those fears became background noise to this cold, hard, visceral terror that Mollie was out there, vulnerable, scared, in danger.
To her shock, a sob came from Andrew. ‘I’m supposed to protect her, Erica. I’m her dad.’
Hot tears welled in her eyes. Even as they kept walking, she reached out for his arm. What could she say? ‘I know. I know.’
‘All I ever wanted was to keep you all safe, Erica. You never seemed to understand that. All three of you. I was doing my best. I tried so hard, but it was never enough. Never enough.’
Between the tightness in her throat and the shock of his raw honesty, she couldn’t reply. It’d been so long since he’d spoken like this. Here was the man she’d married. Who was kind and thoughtful and made everything work. The man who’d sat up all night with a two-year-old Ben when he had a cough that stopped him from sleeping. Who’d spent hours constructing a Tudor house out of cereal packets to Mollie’s strict architectural plans for her history homework. Who’d cheered her up when she was drowning in grading assessments by slipping her favourite chocolate bars between some of the piles of papers.
Not the man of the last couple of years who’d shut down on her, refused to listen, pushed her to make decisions she wasn’t convinced were right. Could they ever get back to the way they were?
There was so much to say, to unravel, to unpick. But now they had to focus. His show of fear galvanised her to wrench her thoughts towards the positive. ‘We will find her. I know we will. She has to be here.’
In another few steps, they would hit the high street. Wiping the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand, Andrew pointed across the road. ‘The beach is that way. I’m going to turn right up towards the shops. I’ll go into each of the cafés and shops and ask if anyone has seen her. Let’s check in every ten minutes or so.’
As they got to the corner, they turned instinctively towards one another. For the first time in months, he reached out and pulled her into a quick, tight hug and she nearly crumpled to the ground.
Then he was gone and she kept going past the pub to the pebbly beach. Praying silently – over and over – that they would soon have their baby girl in their arms.