Chapter 32
Thirty-Two
Morgan
We ran out of streetlights ages ago. The silence is eerie but the crunch of our boots in the snow grounds me, reminding me that we’re not in some sort of shared fever dream where monsters are about to jump out from behind the trees.
The sound of a car close by is soon gone.
There must be a road behind all these trees.
Harry had led the way with his heavy-duty torch and we finally made it to the den.
We’ve managed to set up our investigation room in this three-roomed wooden shack.
He’s inside, still working on the board, while I stand outside, once again checking that James or his friends aren’t around.
I flinch as I hear a cracking twig at feet level.
I crunch towards the shrubs in darkness.
‘Hello.’ Nothing. ‘James, go home or I might just have to push you again.’ I swallow nervously.
I don’t think I could hurt James if he saw me coming.
My heart is chugging as I take a few more steps towards the shrubs and part a few branches.
A little moonlight dapples through the trees.
There’s no one there. It must have been an animal.
I run back into the den to Harry and Diggerty, through the first two rooms and crouch to get through the hole to the third wooden room.
‘When did anyone last come here?’ I wonder if other kids use the shack.
If they do, they might be put out that we were here.
I reach for my scarf and realise it’s gone.
Maybe I left it at Harry’s. I can’t even remember if I put it on when we left his house.
Actually, I did. I was playing with it when Quinn came in.
I was so nervous that she knew I’d been through her bag, I’d walked halfway here in a daze.
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. It’s too far away from town for people to randomly turn up and there aren’t many people around here with kids. James prefers hanging out at the arcade in Whitby. I know that much because I avoid it now.’
Maybe it was just an animal. I hate that Harry has to avoid places he loves because of James. ‘We should go there soon. You can show me the pier and the arcade or we could do the Dracula experience.’
He raises his brows. ‘Are you asking me out on a date, Detective Morgan?’ It’s like he read my mind. Not with the date, with the detective title.
I scrunch my nose and my cheeks start to burn. ‘No, Detective Harry. I was just asking you to hang out, as in friends.’
He bursts out laughing and snorts at the same time. ‘I know, I was kidding.’
I think I feel insulted now. Wouldn’t he want to go on a date with me?
I know my hair is a disaster with the orange streaks.
I look around and shiver, telling my brain to drop the fear that’s swelling within me.
I’m scared, in the middle of the woods and the only protection we have is a dog who does nothing but dry pee up everything in sight.
I steal a quick look at Harry. I find his blinking cute and I think that makes me weird.
‘So, I guess that’s a no to hanging out, then. ’
‘No, it’s not a no. It’s just…’
‘James,’ I say.
He nods. ‘I’ll sort it soon then we can do all those things.’
He finishes pinning the last of our exhibits to the inside of the wooden walls that hold this weird contraption together.
Despite wearing gloves, my fingers are freezing cold.
Next time, I’ll dress warmer, though I wasn’t expecting my mum to tell me to wait in a café and then for Quinn to offer to bring me home.
‘How long do you think we’ve got here until your mum misses us or my mum knows we’ve been too long to be walking Diggerty?
’ I check my phone. I don’t have any messages.
Maybe Mum and Dad got sidetracked when they got home.
Actually, I don’t have a signal. I’m sure it’ll come back in a minute.
He shrugs. ‘My mum will get carried away with work in her studio. Sometimes I don’t even see her before I go to bed. Can I see that letter? We can pin it up.’
I pull the letter from my pocket. I took a photo of it so I have my own record. When Harry raises his brows again, I’m gripping the letter hard and he can’t take it from me. Whoever wrote it was extremely cruel to our parents and Harry. He can sense my reluctance to let it go.
‘It’s okay, Morgan. I can hack it. Thick skin and all that,’ he says again in his poor Morgan Freeman voice.
He wants me to laugh but I can’t. Whoever is writing these letters is a nasty bully.
I feel nauseous as I give it to him and wait for him to read it.
I squirm when he clears his throat and starts reading it out loudly so we both have to suffer through it.
‘“Hello Friend. Actually, hello trollop. That Barbie pink coat you’ve been wearing this past couple of days is pure trollop. I see you. We all see you, the way you flirt with Ray and what’s more, you invite the men around to your house when little blinky Harry is at school.
”’ He pauses then continues. ‘“I wonder if the newbie is safe from your many flirtations but then I remember, he isn’t. He has already tended to your bush, back when Mrs Newbie was still at home. I wonder if your secrets are safe with me…”’ He takes a moment to process the contents of the letter.
‘Gross.’ I can tell he’s picturing his mum and my dad.
‘What if?—’
He interrupts me by holding a hand up. ‘Like I said, gross and totally not true. I heard Mum and your dad talking about your mum and they were saying nice things. Mum wouldn’t, and she doesn’t even really like Ray.’ He frowns and I can tell he’s not fully convinced.
I think of Mai and her situation again. Maybe I’m closer than I think to being a divorce child. In a flash my new life hits me. I’ll spend weekends at Harry’s and then I’ll grow to hate him because he has my dad all the time.
‘Whatever you’re thinking, stop.’ Harry breaks my horrible thoughts.
I shake my head. ‘Agree and stopped. It didn’t happen.
Like you said – gross.’ I look at our board.
A constant draught runs through the den.
Good job we had some push pins to keep our exhibits stuck to the board.
The creaks and cracks with every gust make me flinch.
‘Let’s work this out. Who would send a letter like that?
Do we still think it could be James? You know him better than I do. ’
Harry blinks and shrugs. ‘I think he could have tampered with your hamper.’
Damn, did that almost rhyme?
Again, I don’t laugh. None of this is funny.
I badly want to mention seeing Great-Aunt Dorette’s notebook in Quinn’s bag and how some of the writing in it is in black ink capitals, but I really shouldn’t have been snooping.
Harry might never let me in his house again if I tell him what I did, so I stick with the letter.
I still don’t know if Quinn saw me doing that.
‘Okay, let’s say anything to do with worms is down to James, so doesn’t that put Tessa in the frame – big time?
They have to be working together. Is there a motive? ’
Harry sighs.
‘Is there a reason Tessa could be insinuating that your mum and my dad were up to something? I mean the letter she received mentioned her husband having a thing for my mum. I’m confused.’
‘So am I. Maybe Tessa is just losing it. People get my mum all wrong. She loves a party and she’s giggly which makes people think she’s flirting, but she’s not. She’s just enjoying herself, but Tessa could be jealous of Mum.’
Something is niggling me and it’s bugged me since questioning Quinn.
I’m acting like I’m a detective already.
‘Do you think all this has something to do with the missing girl, Jasmine? Maybe one of us is going to go missing, especially if someone out there thinks we’re onto something.
What if that someone comes here and sees our board? ’
He pulls out a thin black sheet from his bag and pins it up, covering our investigation. ‘This should hide it for now, but really, no one comes here. People keep away like this is some kind of haunted shrine to the missing girl’s memory. Kids are scared because they think they’ll go missing next.’
‘But what if the person writing the letters gets wind of what we’re doing?’
‘They won’t if we don’t tell anyone about our investigation.’ He raises his brows. ‘But, going back to what you said, do I think that Jasmine going missing and the letters are connected? Nah, probably not. That was so long ago.’
‘Your mum must have known Jasmine, and my mum stayed here a lot. Maybe they both knew her and with Mum coming back, maybe that started the letters. They’re really having a go at our mums.’ It’s a long shot linking Jasmine with the letters but I might be onto something.
I’m not so sure that Harry looks convinced.
‘Do we know anything about the woman who lives next door to us?’
‘Ruby, she does something with computers, writing code, I think. She lives alone. She had a boyfriend but they split up. That’s all I know.’
I realise that we need to snoop around more. I need to also do some more private snooping outside of what I share with Harry.
There’s a loud bang like someone whacking the side of the den.
There was someone out there earlier. Diggerty starts barking.
My heart hammers in my ribcage, and Harry holds a finger up to his mouth.
There’s no way I’ll make a noise. Like I said, we’re in the middle of nowhere.
We’re going to go missing forever, like Jasmine did.
No one will ever be able to find us again.
They might keep us in a cellar forever, or worse, they might kill us.
With shaking hands, I check my phone again and I still have no signal.
Someone knows we’re getting closer to finding out who’s behind all this.
They must have followed us here and I wonder if they’ll do anything it takes to stop us.
Harry turns the torch off and drags me carefully.
We crouch as we enter the next part of the shack.
I can’t see a thing. All I can do is trust that Harry is helping me to get out of here.
He pulls a couple of rotting wooden crates across the tiny doorway to the den in the hope that no one will move them and go into that tiny room.
Diggerty whines as Harry leads us to the door we came through. ‘No, I don’t want to go out there,’ I say in a whisper, pulling him back.
We sit there shivering in the dark for what seems like forever.
Harry eventually turns the torch back on.
Neither of us wants to speak in case whoever is out there is waiting for us to leave before grabbing us.
We can’t hide here forever and Diggerty is giving our presence away.
Harry nudges the door open and stands back as if there might be a monster out there, but there isn’t anyone.
My mind goes back to Jasmine. If she didn’t run away, maybe it was her ghost, warning us to leave and never come back.
No one knows we’re here and we’re alone.
Harry points his torch at the snow and I almost scream.
There are fresh footprints everywhere and with no way out, we’re trapped.