They got as faras the next yurt before another gale of voices sounded.
Alex recognised Rayah’s immediately but didn’t grasp her words at first. She was angry and speaking almost as quickly as Helene had been.
“None of you are getting this!” Zack’s words seemed to come from nowhere; he wasn’t visible from where Alex and Abby were now standing. “She’s bringing trouble here. Alex has threatened to go with her if she leaves Severton, but if someone comes looking for her at the hotel and anything happens there…”
“You need to calm it! There’s more going on than you know…”
“And that makes me feel better.”
“Zack, stop. Because the only person going to drive anyone out of here will be you driving yourself away. Even Sorrell thinks you’re wrong on this one.” Rayah’s hands were on her hips, her tone slightly calmer.
“You’ve been talking to Sorrell about this?”
There was no response from Rayah because she was staring at Abby and Alex. “Shit. You didn’t need to hear all that.” She was focused on Abby.
Alex took her hand in his. “Let’s go. Everyone needs to go and rest. This isn’t like us. This isn’t how we do things here.”
Rayah nodded. “We’ll talk tomorrow, Zack. Or you talk to Sorrell. But you need to let this one go. We look after our own.”
Alex headed back home, Abby’s hand in his, saying nothing as they crossed over the fields. She was quiet and that worried him, but she didn’t seem upset.
“Please don’t worry about Zack,” he said, opening the door to the house they were sharing.
“It’s hard not to. I don’t want to cause trouble for you.”
“You’re not causing the trouble: he is.”
She shrugged. “Maybe. But if I’d been honest with you before I might’ve found what happened to Tilly by now. And there might not be anyone suspicious enough of me to break into my house.”
“We can’t live on mights. Let’s go to bed.”
She walked up the stairs with him, brushing her teeth next to him. When they were in bed, she curled into him and he knew that if there had to be a choice between Zack and Abby, Zack wouldn’t be the winner.
Fourteen
The notebook had been hidden in amongst her underwear, which probably wasn’t the safest place to hide something, depending on who might be looking. Abby tried to forget about who might be looking in her underwear drawer, not liking the idea of anyone actually being in it. She toyed with the possibilities for a moment, before acknowledging that she was procrastinating because what she was about to do was going to make her feel embarrassed.
The notebook was a plain black one, nothing girly, nothing shiny and there was no inspirational comment on the front. When she bought it from a newsagent’s, she’d been panicking. Probably terrified. Thinking the worst about everything and not knowing anything.
She and Tilly had known people to leave their lives. Their early lives had been marked with people who’d been around for a few weeks or months and then no longer there, but they hadn’t disappeared. They knew where they’d gone to, heard about them, sometimes passed them in the street.
Finding that Matilda wasn’t there; entering her house that felt so empty, as if the heart had been wrenched from it, had taken Abby’s soul and vacuumed it. She’d lain awake most nights, willing her phone to ring, waiting for Tilly to waltz through the door to her house, full of stories and explanations. It didn’t happen.
Becoming obsessed with something other than climbing had never been part of Abby’s plan. She lived for the next trip, spent the time in between planning and training, writing her blog, being interviewed by climbing magazines and journals. Checking in on Tilly was easy because she was having fun.
Until she wasn’t there.
The world spun off its axis at that point and every wall came tumbling down. Nothing was contained anymore, and nothing could be put back into boxes until she knew where Tilly was.
After the initial shock, she started to plan. To find out where Tilly was. The police had taken the information, but because of her age and that there were no leads and nothing suspicious, it hadn’t been pursued. It had gone cold.
So Abby had started to investigate, keeping notes in the little books she bought cheaply, trying to duplicate what she put into a second in case the first was taken or lost or something happened, because paranoia was real and became her god.
But in nearly two years all she’d really managed to do was survive, torn between wanting to find out more and fear of being found.
Tilly being missing had taken its toll on her mental health. There hadn’t been any sunshine even in the height of summer. Just work and ways to lose herself, paying for the private investigator and watching everyone who came in and out of Severton, wondering if she’d recognise anyone or anyone would recognise her.
Alex was sitting at the table, the dogs at his feet, turning the pages of a crime novel and frowning.
