Chapter Twenty-Three
Isabella
I search the house up and down, but Alfie is nowhere to be seen.
Wracking my brain, I try to remember if I’d somehow forgotten to close the front door or left the French doors ajar by mistake.
But I know myself; I wouldn’t have done that.
Would I? I’ve been so preoccupied lately, so consumed with Raven and the DNA test results.
Could I have simply forgotten? Like all those times I’d left the key in the front door, hadn’t turned the headlights off after parking, or got to work worrying if I’d remembered to turn the stove off after cooking breakfast. It’s easy enough to do, forget some mindless thing you tend to do every day, yet that one moment of absentmindedness could ruin everything.
I set off on foot, calling Alfie’s name as I trek around the grounds.
Usually he’d come running at the sound of my voice, bound up to me ready to knock me over for slobbery kisses.
But not today. Today, he’s injured and vulnerable.
Did whoever hurt him come back for him, finish him off?
I gulp, trying to shake off the thought as I venture over to the fountain, terrified of what I’ll find.
We’ve always had to pull Alfie out of there.
He likes to think it’s his own personal paddling pool, a place to cool down, especially in the summer months.
I let out a sigh of relief when I get there, grateful he hasn’t tried to climb in. The water is still, untouched. Marble sculptures with deep crevices for unseeing eyes follow me as I make my way down the driveway.
The rake is still in the hedge, but the sharp points are no longer dripping.
There’s a rusty brown substance stuck to them that disintegrates as I rub it between my fingertips.
Copper and iron fill my nostrils as I breathe in, and that’s when I’m certain this is the weapon used on Alfie this morning.
Like a game of Cluedo, now all I need to figure out is who used it in the kennel, but not before I find my boy. I’m pretty sure I already know, anyway.
James chose for us to live in this area because it’s secluded, quiet.
I’m walking down the road for a good few minutes before a lime green tractor passes me.
The driver nods and waves, uninterested, rumbling on.
My anxiety stops me from flagging him down, from asking him if he’s seen a golden retriever.
I don’t know how long it is that I’m walking the streets until I get a call.
‘Isabella Rushmore?’ a timid voice squeaks down the other end of the line. Someone female, sounding girlish, too young.
‘That’s me.’
‘It’s Candice from the RSPCA. Your dog, Alfie? He’s just been brought in. We scanned his microchip and got your details,’ she explains.
‘Oh!’ My voice shakes. ‘You’ve found him! Thank you so much.’
‘He’s not in good shape. He’s recently had surgery?’
‘Yes. He was supposed to be home, recovering,’ I say, wishing I hadn’t left him. Wishing I’d stayed close by.
‘The stitches have reopened. He’s going to need to get back to the vets,’ she says.
‘I’ll call them now and come get him. Thank you, Candice. Thank you so much. I’m coming.’
I hang up and dial Simon, who thankfully answers on the second ring.
‘I don’t know if there’s time to waste. I’ll meet you at the RSPCA, we’ll need to use their surgery room,’ he says and hangs up before I can say anything back.
* * *
I’m sitting with my arms around my knees on a lumpy chair by reception as Alfie’s life hangs in the balance.
I’m waiting for him to be out of his second surgery when a notification chimes up on my phone.
Motion detected. I open the security app and look down at my daughter.
Home. She’s alone, completely unaware, and it’s a moment I want to savour, watching her just be.
Either Raven is in the bathroom or up in the guestroom, or with any luck she’s finally gone back home to that strange little caravan in the field.
If that’s even where she really lives. The DNA results have left me disgruntled.
I don’t know what I’d been expecting, what I would’ve preferred, but this outcome .
. . it’s left me in denial. Not one part of me believes the results, or wants to at least, but what choice do I have?
I have to believe what the evidence is saying.
Raven is Robin. She is my daughter. The results are there, in black and white, hidden in the glovebox of the Ferrari so no one else can see them.
Raven Brody is Skyla Rushmore’s fraternal twin sister and, therefore, my daughter.
My daughter that I loved, cherished and held to sleep in my arms all those years ago, who I have mourned and cried for all these years.
She’s back. She’s home. And yet — instead of the joy I should feel, there’s a certain apprehension in its place.
I watch Skyla for a while, putting her feet up on the coffee table, flicking through Netflix as she sinks further into the sofa. It makes me smile, seeing her simply just be. It’s the first thing that’s had me smiling in days. Perhaps it’s because I know where she is. I know she’s safe.
I click back in the app, bringing up the page with recordings of previous motion detected alerts.
Most of them are of us or Alfie, charging through, his tail going so fast it blurs the footage.
But then I see something that makes me stop.
It’s from earlier today; the time stamp says 12:43 — which can’t be right.
We were all out at that time, still at the veterinary practice with Alfie.
No one was home to set off the cameras . . . or so we thought.
Pressing play, the hair on the back of my neck rises as Raven drifts past the camera and sits on the sofa.
Raven was there, in our house, while we were all out.
How did she even get in? I haven’t given her a key, and I wouldn’t even if she’d asked, not even under special circumstances.
She’s not invited in unless Skyla is there and Skyla was at the Model Village with her grandad, so what was Raven doing here?
Skyla doesn’t even have a key of her own so it’s not like she could’ve lent Raven a set. Had she broken in?
For a while, I’m transfixed, but she doesn’t come back on camera.
She doesn’t leave the way she came in. She just disappears, though I know she wasn’t there when I got home shortly afterwards.
When I’d arrived, the house had been silent and empty.
The more I think about it, the harder I bite at my lip.
There are only a few things I now know for certain.
One is that Raven was at our house when Alfie was initially attacked.
The other is that she was there when he disappeared.
When other cameras in the house had stopped working, she had walked inside, unaware of the camera hidden in between the books on the bookshelf.
I clutch my phone firmly in my hand, knowing that this could be some sort of evidence I’ll need in the future.
Watching the footage again and again, I try to work out what it is she’s doing inside.
All I can make out is her sitting on the sofa for some time, on her phone.
Alfie’s dog bed is empty, so I trail back in time to a few minutes before Raven enters the lounge.
12:40 p.m. I watch Alfie’s head snap up, watch him struggle to get on all fours.
He leaves his bed and heads in the direction of the front door, but I don’t have another camera set up to follow his movements there.
Then Raven walks in alone, without Alfie at her heels, which is unusual because Alfie follows everyone around if he’s been cooped up alone for a while.
That’s when I know she must have let him out.
That’s when my eyes drift down to her hands.
She’s holding something. I squint, looking closely.
A small white envelope is in her hands, an envelope with a little window to the left.
Bile rises in my throat.
What has she done to the DNA test results?