Eighty-Six
It was almost midnight and the house was creaking in silence when she returned home. She automatically sorted the laundry, then put on a wash and placed the damp clothes in the dryer. Upstairs was chilly. She pulled Adam’s old fishing jumper out of a drawer and dragged it on over her pyjamas.
Before getting into bed, she checked on Chloe, who was fast asleep. Sean was in bed, headphones on, watching a movie on his laptop. He winked at her when she blew him a kiss and her heart leaped with love as she closed the door.
She fell into bed. She needed sleep to extinguish all thoughts of the problems she now faced with Boyd and her job. She’d worry about murders, missing girls and McMahon tomorrow.
Boyd had finished the bottle of wine by the time his mother rang him wondering if Grace needed a new anxiety pill prescription for next week.
Grace? His stomach lurched.
His mother thought Grace was with him. He thought Grace was with his mother. But it turned out she was in neither place. And she wasn’t answering her phone. Where the hell was she?
He’d last seen her yesterday morning when he’d dropped her at the train station. Images of Elizabeth Byrne’s naked body in the pit of a grave surfaced, and his heart pounded a triple beat in his chest. As he went into the bedroom, his breathing accelerated and he clutched his chest. He fell back on the bed, his arm dangling. His fingers touched something. Grace’s phone, on the floor, her little bottle of anxiety pills lying beside it.
Lottie. He should ring Lottie.
Pain shot up his arm and flew to his chest, and his breath died in his lungs as darkness washed over his eyes.
Smoke. She could smell smoke. Fuck!
Lottie threw back the duvet and sat bolt upright. Flicking on the lamp, she jumped out of bed and opened the door. The landing was filled with thick black smoke. Beyond it, at the bottom of the stairs, flames licked upwards. She grabbed her phone and ran into Chloe’s room, hauling the girl out of bed, then did the same to Sean.
‘What’s going on, Mum?’ Sean was bleary-eyed, headphones around his neck.
‘Oh God. No! The house is on fire,’ Chloe screamed at the top of the stairs.
Lottie pushed her children behind her, her body convulsing in shakes, and with her arm across her nose and mouth placed one foot on the top step.
‘No, Mum!’ Chloe shouted. ‘The smoke. It’ll kill you.’
‘What are we going to do?’ Sean cried.
She descended two steps before smoke threatened to overwhelm her. She ran back up. ‘We need to get out of a window.’
‘My room.’ Chloe turned and ran, Sean behind her. ‘I’ve got out this way before.’
‘Wait!’ Lottie cried. ‘Wet towels. We need wet towels.’ All her composure and training evaporated as her lungs clogged with fumes. Was this how Bridie McWard had felt in her dying moments? No, Lottie wasn’t going to let that happen to her family. She quickly followed them into Chloe’s room and punched the door shut behind her.
Chloe had opened the window and was sitting out on the ledge. ‘You need to jump onto the shed roof. It’s not far.’
Staring out, Lottie saw the garden lit up with bright orange flames, smoke billowing from her kitchen. Had some bastard torched the house? She had no time to worry about her possessions burning before her eyes. She had to get her family to safety.
Sean had his phone to his ear, shouting out their address. She hadn’t even thought of ringing the emergency services. Focus, Lottie, focus.
‘Come on!’ Chloe cried, holding out her hand.
Lottie didn’t need to give her tall son a leg-up onto the windowsill, but she did anyway, then watched as Chloe jumped onto the shed roof, quickly followed by Sean.
The white paint on the bedroom door was peeling from the heat. Tendrils of black smoke eased through the cracks in the jamb and the bottom of the door. Her breath was almost spent by the time she escaped out the window. Without even worrying about falling and breaking her neck, she leaped down to the roof of the shed. The children had already shimmied down the grassy bank behind it and were huddled together when she joined them.
Arms wrapped around each other, they stared up at their burning home. The wail of sirens pierced the night sky, competing with the crackling and whistling of the flames.
Gone. Lost.
She had lost everything.
And then she heard the soft sobs of her children.
The cold and wet had eaten into her bones. She couldn’t open her eyes, no matter how she tried. The voices in her head came and went, trickling away like froth on a wave.
Her body shook incessantly, her lips trembled and her teeth ground against each other. Who was she?
Grace. That was her name. What had happened? The man on the train. Had he brought her here? Where?
And a name flitted into her consciousness. Mollie. She hadn’t found Mollie. Would anyone find her?
Wrapping the thin blanket around her shoulders, Mollie lay back on the bed and wished she had the means to turn off the light. It was blinding her. Keeping her awake. There was no night or day in this place. Only long, unending hours.
She had no notion of when he had last been with her. It seemed like an eternity. Had he forgotten about her? Had he left her here to die? Would she end up like the bones on the table? Rotted bare of all flesh. Unburied and unblessed.
Surely someone had missed her by now?
Her throat was raw from screaming and her eyes had dried up like gravel had taken root behind them. And she was hungry and thirsty. She had nothing left.
She turned onto her side.
No one was coming.
She was alone.
She would never be found.
There was nothing she could do.
She was going to die.
Alone.