Chapter 70
amy
I park outside Colt’s farmhouse, and turn off the engine, but don’t get out of my car. My palms are prickling, and I have a strange, swooping feeling in the pit of my stomach, like when you’re swimming and want to touch bottom, but the water’s deeper than you thought and there’s nothing there.
I have no idea why Iris wants to meet me here, or what it is she needs to tell me, but I’d crawl over broken glass for news of my son.
My sister claims she has no idea where Nicky is, but she knows more than she’s telling me, I’m sure of it. Rose and Nicky were always close; perhaps they’ve been in touch. Or maybe Nicky went to his grandfather for help, and that’s why Iris wanted to meet me here.
My phone beeps with an incoming text.
Can we talk? It’s important.
Quinn Wilde can wait. I silence the phone and slip it back into my pocket, wondering where the hell Iris is. Her text told me to meet her here at two, and it’s already ten past.
I lean back against the car headrest and close my eyes.
I’m exhausted. I haven’t slept in almost forty-eight hours. All I can think of is my son, scared and traumatised on that shoreline. I can’t bear to imagine what’s happened to him in the intervening fifteen months. There are some places simply too dark for a mother to go.
Stowebury Police Department didn’t even pretend to take me seriously when I tried to get them to reactivate Nicky’s missing person investigation.
I’ve spent the last two days scouring social media and people search websites, looking for Nicky’s name on the remote off-chance he hasn’t changed it.
I’ve checked the DMV in every state in case he applied for a driver’s licence, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons website, trawling through their inmate locator system.
I’ve even engaged with the same conspiracy groups I’ve spent the last fifteen months blocking, and posted on chat boards in the fringiest edges of the internet, knowing exactly what I was opening myself up to, but willing to risk it.
And I’ve found nothing.
Iris is my last hope.
My phone vibrates again in my pocket, and I check it, thinking it must be Iris, but it’s the damn journalist again.
Call me back ASAP.
I ignore Quinn’s message, but it finally propels me out of the car and towards the farmhouse. There’s no sign of Iris or her Audi, but maybe she parked round the back.
The front door’s ajar, which suddenly strikes me as odd. It’s a cold October day; Colt might leave the door unlocked, but surely not open.
‘Iris?’ I call. ‘Colt?’
A floorboard creaks deep within the house.
With an uncertain glance over my shoulder, I push the door wide.
Instantly, I’m transported back to a moment in time I’ve spent the last three decades trying to forget. I’m not prepared for the sudden onslaught of visceral flashbacks that assault me the moment I cross the threshold.
The weight of Colt’s body forcing me down on the sofa.
His knee between my thighs, shoving them apart.
The intent expression in his eyes, savage, animal, oblivious to anything but his own satisfaction; and then – almost as terrifying – the sudden transformation into a genial, smiling host when his wife walked in.
Footsteps sound in a distant part of the house, and I jump. It’s difficult to tell where they’re coming from in a property as old as this.
‘Iris?’ I call again. ‘What’s going on? Why am I here?’
I glimpse a gleaming Japanese butcher’s knife lying on the wooden chopping block as I pass the kitchen. For a moment, I wonder if I should take it with me, for protection, and then I give myself a mental shake. I don’t need protection against my own sister.
The sitting room is at the back of the house.
At first, I don’t notice anything wrong.
Colt is seated in the winged-back armchair nearest the door with his back towards me, his thick copper hair – still barely threaded with grey – vibrant against the pale yellow fabric.
He doesn’t get up when I come into the room, but I notice his right hand grip the arm of his chair a little tighter.
He’s scared.
‘Where’s Iris?’ I call out.
Colt doesn’t respond.
The back of my neck starts to prickle. I loathe the man, but ever since I married his son, he’s always behaved with performative courtesy, as if by acting like the perfect gentleman he can challenge my knowledge of who he really is.
He stands up when I enter a room, opens doors for me, meets my contempt with warmth and a smile.
He’d never stay seated or ignore me like this.
‘Colt?’ I say, approaching his chair.
I hear footsteps behind me.
My fists are raised even as I turn.
I’m not going down without a fight.