Her One Mistake(64)

“But—”

“I mean it,” he said. “If you can’t promise me that, we don’t do this.”

“How would I ever be able to do that?” I asked him. “Alice will say she knows you and then it’ll be clear I’ve been meeting you for months.”

“I’ll come up with something,” he said. “But for now it’s best we don’t see each other again.”

I gaped at him. “Why can’t we see each other?”

“We can’t risk anyone seeing us together while we work out what to do. But I’m deadly serious, Harriet. You need to promise me you’ll never let anyone think you had anything to do with this if it all goes wrong.”

I stared at my father, whose eyes hadn’t once strayed from Alice. “Okay,” I said in a whisper. “I promise.”

He nodded.

“What made you change your mind?” I asked.

“I just did,” he said shortly.

“Dad? What is it?” I followed his eye line to where Alice played, running after an unsuspecting peacock. “Has Alice said something to you?”

He squirmed beside me, never taking his eyes off my daughter.

“If she has, please tell me.”

“I said I’ll do this, Harriet, so let’s just focus on what we do now.”

? ? ?

FROM THE TIME we agreed to this plan, I’d known there were many what-ifs. I was well aware everything could fall apart at the slightest crack, but by then I was desperate. I picked out parts that needed slotting together and forced them into place. I ran my fingers over the points where something could go horribly wrong and I knew I was taking a leap of faith, but faith was all I had.

“I trusted you, Dad,” I said aloud as I drove on toward Cornwall, hands trembling against the wheel. “I trusted you.”

But then, deep down, didn’t I still?

Yet if I did, all I was left with was the unsettling worry that something must have happened to them to stop him from answering my calls.





HARRIET


Four days after Alice was taken I called the pay-as-you-go cell my dad had bought, as we’d agreed. I told Angela and Brian I needed to get some fresh air and stopped at a pay phone three streets away. My hand was shaking as I tapped in the numbers, praying I’d remembered them in the right order.

As soon as my dad said, “Hello,” four days of tension flooded out of my body.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. She’s asking for you, but she’s okay.”

“Oh, thank God,” I breathed. “Can I speak to her?”

“She’s outside but I don’t think it’s right that you do anyway. She’s more settled today.”

I tried to imagine Alice through the pictures of the house I’d seen online. It was my dad’s idea to take her to Elderberry Cottage, a holiday home in the tiny village of West Aldell in Cornwall. He and Marilyn had stayed there twice and we were both comfortable that he knew the area. He assured me that they had never been bothered, that during both stays they’d barely seen anyone in the area, at least no one who took any interest in them.

“But she’s okay?” I asked him. “She’s well?”

“Alice is doing fine. I’ve told her it’s a little trip. She thinks you’re not feeling well, like we said.”

“And how was she at the fair? She wasn’t frightened?”

“No. She was surprised and confused, but I told her what we agreed, that I’d spoken to Charlotte and told her you weren’t well. Then she was just worried about you, but once I assured her it was nothing serious—” My dad broke off. I felt our deception cutting through my skin and I knew he did too.

“It’s so good to speak to you, Dad,” I said.

“Right.” He sounded flat.

“Dad? You sound strange, what is it?”

“It’s nothing, Harriet.”

“Tell me. What’s the problem?”

I heard his large intake of breath. “Where do I start? You’re all over the news. Alice is too. Her picture is everywhere. I worry about leaving the cottage in case someone sees her.”

“I know, but it’s not going to be like that for long,” I said, sounding more determined than I felt. “You have to do this now, we can’t turn back.”

“I know that. But it doesn’t feel right anymore. Hell, what am I saying? It never did.”

“You’re scaring me,” I said, pressing my hand against the glass of the phone booth.

“I am scared,” he said in a whisper. “And I have a very bad feeling this isn’t going to work out the way we want it to. Listen, we need to keep these calls short. Just let me get on with it here and we’ll keep our heads down.”

“Okay, but I’ll call you again next Wednesday as agreed.”

“Fine.”

“Keep her safe, Dad. Don’t take her anywhere.”

“We have to go out sometimes.”

“Well, nowhere anyone sees you.”

My dad sighed again. “We go to the beach, but that’s all. Like I told you, it’s deserted most of the time and the cottage has a fishing boat I can borrow, so I’m going to take her out on that.”