Maybe it isn’t her hair. Maybe it was an accident. Lucy hurrying to – to where? Back into the bedroom, and she starts to go through their family WhatsApp, set up by Damien, who sends earnest memes Lucy ignores but that Simone likes. She makes notes of anybody Lucy’s mentioned this summer. Within moments, she has a set of names scrawled in shaky handwriting on a piece of paper she found on the kitchen table. People’s names, but no numbers. They exist on Lucy’s locked phone. They’re strangers to her; Lucy’s summer friends. Gone are the days of play dates and parents’ contact details.
And then she hears it: a beep. Simone bolts upright, grabbing for Lucy’s phone, but it isn’t that one. That one is still and dark, and this one is making a different sound. Tinny. Old-fashioned, a Nokia-type noise.
It beeps again, ringing, and her hand finds it instinctively, sliding underneath the pillow, the other going to her mouth, and there it is, buzzing softly in her palm like an insect.
Simone goes completely still as she holds it. A basic but modern flip phone with apps, its display contained in a window on the front showingCALLER UNKNOWN.
Simone breathes out.Please be a boy. Drug dealing. Anything. Please just come back, and be as bad as you like, she thinks, as she opens the phone like a clamshell.
‘Hello?’ she answers. Pulse racing.
‘Check messages,’ says a distorted voice.
‘Check messages?’ Simone repeats. ‘What messages?’
A pause – distinct, human breathing – then they hang up.
Simone stares at the phone.
‘What the fuck is this?’ she whispers to nobody.
Sure enough, a new noise.1 message received, the phone says, again fromUNKNOWN.Simone knows this is the moment that is going to change her life forever, and she presses Open and holds her breath. It takes a few seconds to load, two, three, four, and there it is.
CHAPTER 3
UNKNOWN: We have your daughter.
Simone is going to faint. She can’t breathe. She forces herself to read the rest of the message.Do not tell the police. Lucy is safe for now. If you go to the police, we will kill her. Meet outside Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic Church, Shafter, TX 79843. 9:00 tonight CDT. Be prepared to do adeal.
Simone gapes at it. This cannot be … She is half aware she is clutching at her chest. ‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ she is saying, over and over. The hair. The hair.
This must be a nightmare. She’s still asleep, jet-lagged. She stands up, looks down at her body. Another technique she learned years ago, when the restaurant was ailing and the stress dreams began. Stare hard at your surroundings, observe them and their logical place in the world. A clock on the wall that says ten past eight. Her bare feet on the wooden floor with its uneven joins. The door to the bedroom, its angular edge. Everything is so clear.
This is no dream.
This is real.
Read it again. Just read it again.
Her hands shake, the text dancing and blurring into surreality. Her mouth goes wet and she keeps swallowing; she might be sick.
No, think, she tells herself in the stern voice.Think. If anyone is equipped to deal with this, it’s you.
Fingers sweaty, she tries to call the unknown number, but the option is greyed out.
‘I can’t work this fucking phone!’ she shouts, even though there is no one around to hear her.
This must be a prank. She’s on a reality TV show. Lucy’s lost her head, has faked a kidnap. No! Maybe it’s part of some method acting. Simone’s shoulders sag. That’ll be it. But the reassurance is false, gossamer-thin. Simone is no idiot, so it doesn’t last even a few seconds.
Maybe it’s deep-faked. Designed to elicit money, after which Lucy will be revealed to be just outside, where she’s been waiting all along.
Another message comes in, destroying the gossamer entirely.
It’s a video. The message accompanying it reads:Proof of life.
Simone presses Play.
CHAPTER 4
