Читать книгу Only Daughter: A gripping thriller of deadly deceit - Anna Snoekstra, Anna Snoekstra - Страница 11

5

2014

For a moment I think I’m back home. I cross my fingers under the blanket and hope my stepmom is at her early prenatal Pilates class, so I can have breakfast with Dad without having to listen to her yap and whine like a pampered poodle. I open my eyes and the room seems to physically tilt around me. The outdated teenage posters, the photographs on the wall, the Cabbage Patch doll looming from the bedside table. The last week comes flooding back, running from Perth, Sydney, the hospital yesterday. I try to swallow a lump of anxiety. Becoming a whole different person is going to be hard.

I take a mental tally. I had the parents fooled completely but I’d have to tread very carefully with Andopolis. He didn’t seem to be as much of a dope as I originally thought, but I could still have him wrapped around my little finger if he felt as guilty as it seemed about failing Rebecca. It was the twins who had me worried. They were warm, wrapping me in a bear hug when I’d interrupted their dinner, but I sensed some hesitation in both of them. I’ve never played the part of big sister before, and I don’t really know how it goes. They were both attractive and successful: one is a lawyer and the other in med school. I also had real trouble telling them apart. If I was a twin I’d do whatever I could to look as different as I could. That doesn’t seem to be the case with Paul and Andrew. They’re both clean-shaven, with closely cropped ginger hair and perfectly fitting T-shirts. It would be best if they left soon.

I push myself out of bed and open Rebecca’s closet. The musky smell isn’t so strong anymore, or perhaps I’m just getting used to it. I flick through her clothes slowly, sizing up each item. Surprisingly she actually has a few good brands in here. Parting the clothes, I notice a pink quilt and a few stuffed toys stuffed in the back. I almost laugh. She hadn’t wanted to seem like a kid anymore, but she hadn’t wanted to throw them out either. For an instant, I can imagine her as a real person rather than a picture on a missing persons sign.

I decide against the designer brands and pull out a light cotton dress. Something about the drop waist and pale fabric screams innocence. I’m seeing Andopolis today and I want to reinforce the image he has of me as much as possible. The bruise on my face was fading to a gross yellow colour. I couldn’t rely on it for much longer; I needed to dress the part, too.

Slipping the dress over my head, I feel something hard in the pocket. It’s a folded-up piece of paper, Exorcism Spell at the top in bold letters. Magic for the Modern Witch is written in the banner in Gothic lettering. I can’t imagine Bec had been into pagan stuff. Her room looked so preppy. Then again, teenagers like to keep secrets. I fold it back up and toss it into the closet with other things she was hiding. If she’d managed to conceal it all this time I wasn’t going to expose her.

When I was sixteen, I hid joints in the seams of my curtains. I’d been in my hippie stage then. I’d met a group of older kids, with dreadlocks and tie-dyed T-shirts, busking near the railway station. For a full month I had them convinced I lived in a commune near Fremantle where no one was allowed to wear clothes. That was before I realized the art of subtle lies. Somehow one of them found out who my dad was. They called him an “oil tycoon” and didn’t appreciate it when I laughed. Hippies always talk about love and kindness, but I don’t know if I’ve ever met a group of people so snarky. I squeeze the seams of Bec’s blinds. Nothing.

As I walk out of the room, I can hear the mumble of the brothers’ voices. I stand there for a moment, hoping to catch something, but the talking stops abruptly. They must have heard my footsteps. For a moment I consider knocking, but I don’t know what I would say to them.