Chapter Eight

21 December, 9 a.m.

They’d moved inside the cottage. Lark had inspected the narrow hall and stairs suspiciously, apparently still not entirely convinced that her daughter was not somewhere on the premises. Now she was sitting on the window-sill, staring around her with a disgruntled expression. ‘Darling, what have you done with the furniture?’

‘Storage.’ Lori leaned against the wall, arms folded. Both her panic and horror had subsided in the face of practical necessity. Discovering where her sister had left her niece. ‘We need to find Misty. Is she with Dan?’

Lark waved a dismissive hand. ‘Dan’s in L.A. with his latest woman.’ Lori sighed. Dan, Lark’s ex husband and Misty’s father, had been happily married to ‘his latest woman’ for nearly two years, but Lori let it go. More important stuff to deal with.

Lark was fidgeting, looking disconsolately around the room. ‘Honestly, I don’t know why you didn’t stay up at the Court, instead of moving into this pokey little place. There would be so much more room for Misty to run about and play.’

And to live with me on a permanent basis?

Lori had given up explaining to her sister that their parents had used the proceeds of the sale of their former home to set up their holistic retreat in Santorini – unexpectedly giving her the deposit for the ‘pokey little place’ as part of the deal. Under the urging of the local solicitor, who had known Skylark from childhood, her sister’s share was safely tucked up in a savings account for her daughter. Their younger brother, Merlin, would eventually take over the retreat, where he worked as chief yoga instructor. Somehow Lark’s selective thought processes hadn’t grasped that the family didn’t actually own the Court any more. But Lori didn’t have time for that. Right now the selective thoughts had to be focused on Misty. ‘Come on, Lark, when did you last see Misty? Or talk to her?’

Lark thought for a moment. ‘On my birthday?’ Oh God, that was in October. ‘Yes.’ Lark smiled. ‘It was so sweet, she sang Happy Birthday over the phone and Gilly said—’ Lark snapped her fingers. ‘That’s where she is. I knew it was in Wales, that’s why I thought she was with you.’

‘Hereford isn’t in Wales.’ Fleetingly Lori wondered what the mitigating circumstances might be for strangling your sister. Misplacing her four-year-old daughter surely had to come high on the list? But if Misty was with Gilly, Lark’s former hairdresser, who had babysat her when she was tiny, that wasn’t so bad. Except – ‘Wait a minute. I ran into Gilly in Cardiff at the end of the summer. I’m sure she said she was pregnant.’

‘How should I know?’ Lark pushed out her lower lip, looking more like a discontented four-year-old than Misty ever did. ‘I noticed that she’d put on a lot of weight when I dropped Misty off, so maybe that was it.’

Lori covered her eyes with one hand. The thought of a heavily pregnant woman or maybe, even worse, a woman with a newborn, lumbered with a precociously lively little girl who wasn’t even a relative … She dropped her hand and held on to her temper. ‘Has Gilly tried to contact you, at all?’

Lark looked shifty, if fairy princess hair and doe eyes could look shifty. ‘She might have …’ She shrugged. ‘Bruno has people to take care of fans and those sorts of people.’ Including babysitters, enquiring when your new muse and favourite leading lady might be coming back to retrieve her daughter?

‘Ring her.’ Lori settled her features into her most scary office manager look. ‘Now.’

‘Couldn’t you …?’ Lark took in the set jaw and hard eyes and scrabbled in her bag for her phone.

Lori couldn’t fully hear the other side of the conversation, but the tones of relief in the responses from Gilly were distinguishable, even if the words weren’t.

Lark ended the call, giving her phone an angry stare, before dropping it back in her bag. ‘She tried to ring you a couple of times,’ she said accusingly.

‘My old phone died.’ Another casualty of the flood. She’d got a new number with an upgraded phone, conveniently putting paid to irritating calls in the middle of the night from Frazer, when he’d had too many beers and decided he regretted his decision to break up.

And as I had no reason to think that my niece’s supposedly former babysitter would (a) have my number or (b) need to contact me on it, I refuse to feel guilty about it.

Quite how Lark had managed to dump Misty on Gilly was something she wasn’t going into now. And probably not worth asking what had happened to Misty’s latest nanny either. Her sister was unlikely to remember. This whole thing would have to be sorted out with Dan.

After Christmas.

‘Gilly wants me to collect Misty.’ Lark’s voice was perilously close to a whine.

‘Off you go then.’ Lori made a shooing gesture. ‘You said you had a plane to catch.’

‘Oh yes.’ Skylark brightened. ‘The Seychelles. Bruno has bought this wonderful villa—’

‘Then the sooner you collect your daughter, the sooner you can be on your way. Misty will love the Seychelles. All those long sandy beaches.’ That last part wasn’t malicious. Well, not much.

‘Oh!’ Realisation widened the blue eyes. ‘Could you—?’

‘No,’ Lori said firmly. ‘I’ll be leaving straight after you.’ She hardened her heart. She had to, in the circumstances. ‘The sooner you get going, the sooner you can be on that plane.’ She knew Bruno had his own jet. It would wait for Lark.

‘Lori …’ Lark’s voice had gone low and husky. Her wheedling voice. ‘Do you think—?’

‘No!’ The panic was rising again. Laced with guilt. It wasn’t Misty’s fault that she had the most self-absorbed mother on the planet. Do not weaken.

Lark waved her hand at the bare room, wincing at the sound of hammering from somewhere above. ‘Can’t you get these people to come back later?’

‘I can’t, Lark. They’re doing me a special deal because no one else wants them just before Christmas. Now you go and fetch your daughter. It would be lovely for you to spend Christmas together.’ And possibly the first Christmas since Misty started to walk. Her heart tripped a little. Guilt again. But there would be someone in Bruno’s entourage capable of taking care of a child. And if there wasn’t, he’d undoubtedly hire someone. The relationship was fairly new, but from the photos in the gossip magazines the man was besotted. He already had teenage children from a previous relationship who appeared healthy and well-adjusted, so he’d probably make a suitable step-father. If Skylark manages to put a ring on it. But that wasn’t going to turn Lark into celebrity mother of the year. Dan will have to sort this out.

‘I really don’t want …’ Lark pouted ‘She’s growing so … big.’

Clarity hit Lori like a blast from next door’s massive array of fairy-lights. It had been fine when Misty was a very cute and pretty baby. There had been a spate of celebrity pregnancies and newborns around that time. Lark had been thrilled to be part of the fashionable trend, posing for photos and showing off her svelte post-baby figure and her charming bundle with the rest. She’d even given interviews on her top ten tips for the new mother. Wonder who wrote them for her?

Lori stifled the burst of cynicism. Not the issue here. Misty was still pretty, cute and bright as a button, but the older she got the greater the reminder that Lark too was getting older. Lori did some quick mental calculations – just past twenty-eight, with the big three zero looming, ever closer, on the horizon.

Lori took a good look at her younger sister. There were three years between them. Despite the immaculately applied make-up and no doubt phenomenally expensive skincare products, applied with religious zeal, Lark’s currency as a fresh-faced beauty might be starting to slide, just a fraction. There were tiny expression lines at the corners of her eyes, and slight indentations around the deep pink pout, which were no doubt magnified to monumental proportions in her sister’s mind. For Lark, the fact that she was an excellent actress, with an Oscar nomination to her credit, wasn’t going to make up for that. In Lark’s mind her face was her fortune.

And it’s not going to get any better. But you can’t fix that today.

Lori detached herself from the wall and crossed the room to kiss her sister’s cheek, while pulling her to her feet. ‘Go to Gilly’s and collect Misty. She’ll be thrilled to see you,’ she said encouragingly, watching Lark’s face brighten. Admiration always got to her, even from a four-year-old. Should that be especially from a four-year-old, when she was your daughter? ‘Collect her, and catch the plane. Everything will be fine.’ Slowly she steered her sister out of the front room and out of the cottage. The driver had emerged from the limo, and was leaning against the bonnet. From the resigned expression on his face, he was Lark’s regular chauffeur. Lori shepherded her sister into the car, prompting her to give the driver Gilly’s address.

‘It’s okay Miss France, I remember taking the little one there. I’ve got the car seat in the boot.’

‘Oh good. Thanks.’ She turned to Skylark, who had removed her coat and was settling herself in the back of the car.

If we’d just thought to ask the chauffeur.

The driver had slid smoothly behind the wheel.

Lori put a hand on the open back door of the car. ‘You’ll soon be seeing Misty and off on holiday together. You will have a lovely time, an absolutely super Christmas,’ Lori added encouragingly, as she closed the door and stepped away.

The car backed carefully out into the main road.

With a shaky sigh Lori crossed to the cottage. Her own car was packed. All she had to do was put Griff in his basket, and they too could be on their way

Except that the cat was nowhere to be found.