Chapter Sixty-Two
Fox
Bibi.
My little Bibi.
I knew I had to say something. Just in case. I couldn’t risk keeping quiet. My Bibi was at stake, and there was nothing more important.
I waited until we were back in our kitchen. Haze was already changing into the clothes Jenny had laid out for her. Danny’s gun was on the kitchen table. Haze had been gripping it the whole drive back. She was standing there in her jeans and bra, and I couldn’t keep it in any longer.
“There is someone else who might have taken her. I should’ve told you. I just didn’t think she would ever…”
“Fucking spit it out!” Haze stared at me.
“Sally.”
“The therapist?” asked Jenny.
“She was pretty unhinged when I told her I didn’t want to see her anymore. Talked about all she’d done for me. Said she needed me to value her, as she’d been so understanding. Lots of crazy talk. I think…I think she’s in love with me.”
Jenny started tapping at her laptop.
Haze was completely silent.
It was more terrifying than if she’d screamed at me.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet and steady. “So much in love with you that she’d steal your daughter as a twisted revenge for your rejection?”
I tried to weigh it up. “No, I don’t think…” I remembered the flash of Sally’s face, the way her eyes had narrowed. “Okay, maybe.”
There was one more beat of ice-cold calm Haze before all hell broke loose.
“You fucking idiot!” She came at me. “How could you not tell me? I’m going to fucking kill you if—”
“Not helping!” Jenny shouted her down. “Fox, I’ve got Sally’s home address from when I did a deep dive into her. You can go to her house to make sure she’s got nothing to do with this.”
Haze’s hands were shaking. “If she is involved, I swear I will fucking lose my mind. You invited that woman into your life, and she’s a psycho!”
“I was trying to do the right thing! I was struggling and I got help. How was I to know she was an unstable stalker?”
“Because you should always think the worst of everyone!” Haze’s arms dropped to her sides. “Isn’t that what this has taught us? Never trust anyone!” Her voice cracked. “We’ve got to find her.”
“We will. Of course we will.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “We’re going to get her back. She’s going to be fine.”
Haze looked up at me. Her body rigid. A beat. And then she collapsed into my chest. I held her close.
“We need to move.” Jenny stood up from the table.
We unraveled from each other as Haze reached for her sweater.
“I’ve got two Ford Fiestas leaving this area in the right timeframe. I’ve got the number plates of each, and the last location sighting on CCTV. Haze, you’re on the one with a number plate ending in OGE.”
We had a plan. And we had each other. I had two knives on me. Haze had one in her back pocket, and Danny’s gun in her waistband. Jenny picked up the knife from the chopping board.
We were ready to get Bibi back.
—
Sally lived half an hour away from us in Surrey. I hadn’t known she was that close. Close enough, I realized with a creeping dread, to easily come and spy on us.
Weaving through traffic on my motorbike, the loud thrum of the engine was doing little to drown out the thoughts going round and round in my head.
One question kept coming back. How had she known to call me Fox?
This trip was just to rule her out. Just because she’d developed what was clearly an unhealthy fixation with me didn’t mean she’d take my child.
She lived in a terraced house on a long street of identical houses. Her small back garden overlooked a footpath. I charged down it and climbed over the fence.
From the end of the garden, it looked as if Sally was sitting watching television.
I could make out her outline in a fluffy dressing gown in an armchair.
A bowl on her lap. If you’d just kidnapped someone’s daughter, it was doubtful you’d be so relaxed.
But she could be a sociopath who didn’t think anything of it. I needed to get closer.
I creeped up to the garden door just as a security light came on, illuminating me. Sally turned toward the light, saw me, and screamed.
I opened the door and walked in. “Shush! Sally, it’s me.”
She half swallowed her scream and spoke with a quivering voice. “Why are you here? How did you get this address?”
She stayed stuck to her armchair, the remote control gripped in her hand. I saw her glance at her mobile phone, which lay on the coffee table.
I was now aware of how it looked. I was a patient, turning up at my therapist’s unlisted address. At night.
“My daughter is missing.”
“And…and you want a therapy session?”
“No! I’m checking she’s not here.” I took another step toward her, and she cowered further into the armchair. “Just walk around your house with me and then I’ll be gone.” I beckoned her with my hand.
She got unsteadily to her feet. “Why would I have her?”
I took her by the arm and led her through to the hallway. It wouldn’t take long to ascertain if Bibi was here.
“You were clearly upset about me quitting our sessions.” I checked the small bathroom off the hallway. Empty. I led her up the stairs.
“You thought I’d take your child as revenge for you quitting? How does your mind work?”
The first bedroom on the landing was a small double. I walked in and led her round as I checked inside the wardrobe and under the bed.
“You seemed kind of…obsessed with me.”
Her jaw dropped. “We should talk about your inflated self-esteem.”
I led her out of the bedroom and into the room next to it, which she seemed to use as an office. There was nothing but a desk and an armchair.
“You kept giving me compliments and being rude about my wife!” I snapped.
I headed back onto the landing. The bathroom. The last place to look. I opened the door and went to the bath, flinging back the shower curtain. Empty.
Sally shook her head. “You weren’t prepared to talk about whatever had really happened to you. Fobbing me off with this whole fake-mugging story. I thought if you weren’t going to be honest, I might as well use you to get this grant I’ve been angling for.”
“What grant?” Was she bullshitting me? Had she still got Bibi, but just stashed her somewhere else?
“I’m doing a thesis on coercive relationships, and you were a good candidate for a case study.”
“But I’m not in a coercive relationship.”
“I don’t think you realize you are.”
“So, you were encouraging me to think my wife was evil and controlling to get a grant?”
“Look, the stuff you were saying was close enough that I could fudge the data a little, but I had to have proof of you attending sessions—so you totally screwed me by quitting.”
I took this in.
Sally shrugged. “I’ve had a few problems in the last couple of years. Patients who got the wrong idea. Complaining about silly stuff. I needed this grant to get back on track.”
I could see how that could make her desperate enough to try and claw back her professional reputation. What caliber of therapist had I expected to find via junk mail? Why hadn’t I checked her out before I started offloading my problems to her?
“If you’re not obsessed with me, how do you know I go by Fox?”
Sally frowned. “Jesus, your ego! You were only useful to me for my career. And please—whenever you do an impression of Haze and put on an English accent, you’re all, ‘You need to get over it, Fox.’ ”
That did sound like me.
“And the pills you gave me? I know there was something bad in them!”
Sally chewed her inside cheek. “I gave you a perfectly harmless SSRI. It has been reported it may cause increased anxiety before they take full effect.”
“I had blackouts! Waking up and not knowing how I got there.”
Sally held her hands up. “I couldn’t have known that would happen!” She paused. “Okay, so with those particular pills occasional blackouts have been reported. But it’s very rare!”
She’d never mentioned the pills’ potential side effects, as she wanted me to think it was all me and my PTSD. She needed me to feel like I was really suffering to make sure I kept seeing her.
I didn’t have any more time to waste on her. Not when my daughter was missing.
“You’ve been completely unethical. Criminal, actually! And if you don’t mention all this”—I motioned toward myself, being in her house, uninvited—“I won’t report you to your board.”
Sally folded her arms. “Fine.”
As I rushed down the stairs, she called after me.
“You do clearly need help, though!”
I texted Jenny and Haze.
She’s got nothing to do with it. I’m coming to you, Haze.