Grace Is Gone Page 11

  Welcome, StillSearching to the Wishmakers forum for teens!

  CONNECT, CREATE, SHARE

  I click on the CONNECT tab and type “GoodSam” into the search bar. It comes back with one result. GoodSam is still registered; I recognize his avatar immediately. The cartoon boy with floppy hair grins out from the screen in primary colors. His profile is hidden; he has to approve me before I can see anything more about him. All I can see is the date he was last active on the site. My mouth dries, my heart fizzes. The last day GoodSam was on the website was the third of June, the day Meg was murdered, the day Grace was stolen. It could be a coincidence of course, or perhaps he’s too upset to go back on the forum, knowing that Grace is missing. But what if it’s not? Grace never had a boyfriend, never really had any male role models in her life—what if this GoodSam knew how to manipulate that? What if he has her now? The thought makes me grab my phone, scroll through my contacts until I get to Upton’s number. But it doesn’t ring, immediately clicking through to her voicemail instead.

  “DCI Upton, it’s Cara Dorman. Can you call me back when you get this? Thanks.”

  I slip my phone into my pocket as I hear Mum’s key in the door and then her call: “Car?”

  I come out to the hall to meet her. Her hair, although thick with spray, hangs defeated and limp around her face, wet from the rain. She hates it when her hair isn’t right, but she won’t care once I tell her about GoodSam. I rush towards her.

  “Mum, you remember Grace used to chat with other kids on the Wishmakers forum?”

  She looks up at me slowly. I can tell from the dark circles under her eyes and the lack of makeup that she’s been crying again.

  “Just let me take my shoes off, Car.” Her voice is whispery, all the energy drained out of it. She uses my hand to balance as she slips her heels off her feet. I follow her as she pads into the sitting room and flicks on the TV; the news is always playing somewhere in our house now. “As well as intensifying the searches, the police are scouring hundreds of hours of CCTV footage in the hope it will help them find Grace Nichols. The public are reminded that if anyone has any information on the whereabouts of Simon Davis to please—” Mum mutes the news anchor.

  “Did you get my message about picking us up something to eat?”

  I remember now: she texted in the car but I was too busy at the time trying to remember anything else Grace might have said about GoodSam to register.

  “You forgot, didn’t you?” She rolls her eyes at me as her shoulders drop even further towards the ground and her hand lifts to squeeze her temples. “I haven’t had anything since breakfast. I can’t think straight I’m so starving.” She walks past me as she pulls her phone out of her pocket and lifts it to her ear.

  “Hello. Yes, can I get a large ham and mushroom please.” She looks round at me to see if I want a pizza too but I shake my head. I can’t think about food until I’ve talked to someone about what I’ve found. Now Mum’s here, the urge to tell her fades, it doesn’t feel right somehow. We’ve never been close in the way she wishes we were—best friends sharing secrets and confiding in each other. We’re no Meg and Grace. I know she thinks it’s because I’m too like my dad, independent, a lone-wolf type. Besides, this thing with GoodSam could be nothing and I can see Mum’s exhausted, she’s got enough on her plate. I realize with a flash of guilt that I’d rather talk it through with Jon. After all, he’s a journalist, he’d be able to think about it rationally rather than emotionally, know whether it’s something worth pursuing or not. I go back to my room, take the photocopied diary out from under my bed, and slide it into a large brown envelope. Putting it in my backpack, I walk quickly down the corridor and say, “Just popping out, Mum, won’t be long.”

  I quickly pull the door shut behind me and pretend I don’t hear her calling back, “Where are you going, Car?”

  The shingle grinds together like broken teeth as Jon walks up to where I’m sitting on the beach at Angel’s Bay, just below the spot where Grace and I used to fly our kites. It’s stopped raining but the downpour has softened the vivid summer colors, the early-evening sky like a vast watercolor above us.

  Jon didn’t sound particularly surprised when I called him. I told him I had to tell him something. He didn’t ask what it was over the phone, he just said, “Where shall I meet you?”

  It was a relief to know he was coming. GoodSam might be nothing, but if it wasn’t? I needed Jon’s years of experience to help me figure out what to do next.

  “You OK, Cara?” he asks, looking at me carefully before sitting tentatively on the still-damp shingle next to me.

  I can’t wait anymore. I breathe out and tell him about seeing GoodSam on Grace’s computer, that I think she liked him. I tell him about the last time he’d logged on to the forum. Could GoodSam have helped Simon find Grace? Or, even worse, could GoodSam be Simon himself? He listens to it all without interrupting, just raising a single eyebrow. It feels good to be listened to, really listened to, and now I’ve started talking I find I don’t want to stop.

  “There’s something else as well.”

  I reach for my backpack and Jon shifts uncomfortably next to me against the cold, sharp shingle, but he doesn’t complain, he just waits as I pull out the brown envelope and pass it to him. Slowly he slips the carefully photocopied pages out of their envelope. He inhales sharply, his gaze leaps as he sees the word Private followed by Grace’s name on the front. He runs a hand across the cover and doesn’t take his eyes off it, as though worried it’ll disappear if he stops staring at it.

  “Where did you . . . ?”

  “It was at their place. It had fallen by her chair that day I found Meg. I made a photocopy before I handed the original over to Upton.”

  Jon is slowly shaking his head, his whole face breaking into a wide smile. “You’re a bloody genius, Cara.” His voice is raised in excitement. I let out a little laugh. I don’t think anyone’s called me clever, let alone a genius, before.

  “Seriously, picking up the diary and making a copy is—” but he stops talking because my phone is ringing. The screen says it’s Upton. I show Jon, he frowns, and asks, “You know why she’s calling?”

  “I left her a message. I was going to tell her about GoodSam, just before I called you.”

  For a second Jon’s face darkens, before he says, “Don’t answer, not yet. We need to think this through before we speak to her.” I like the sound of the “we” more than I like the idea of speaking to Upton, so I nod and mute my phone before dropping it back into my pocket. I can call her later. Jon looks back at the diary in his hands; the pages quiver with his excitement. He opens the first page, his big hand strange next to the love hearts Grace doodled in the margin. He allows himself to read the first couple of lines before forcing himself to stop. The shingle crunches underneath him as he stands, being careful not to bend the photocopied pages he’s holding.

  “OK, I think we need to think carefully about what’s best for Grace here. What’s most likely to help her. For all we know, Upton might already know about GoodSam, we don’t know, but what we do know is that GoodSam has no idea who you are, who StillSearching is. That’s a huge advantage and one that might help us find Grace. You’ve handled this well, Cara. You really have.”

  He smiles down at me, and I look at my lap so he can’t see how I want to cry and laugh at the same time. I know he’s being a bit patronizing, but I don’t care. I’m helping, that’s important. Jon keeps talking, and I don’t stop him, I want to hear more good things. I want to believe everything he says about me, want to believe I’m the clever, shrewd person he sees, not destined to live the same life as Molly and Mum and everyone else in Summervale.

  “Setting up that profile was a smart move, really smart. If we tell the police about this they’ll get straight on the forum to find GoodSam, and you know what’ll happen? First they’ll shut down StillSearching and won’t let you anywhere near it, then there’ll be ten middle-aged policemen all suddenly trying t
o chat with GoodSam. He’ll spook immediately and I guarantee, I guarantee”—he repeats for emphasis, holding my gaze—“he’ll disappear.”

  “But what about—”

  “Cara, I’ve seen it before, trust me. Remember that boy, Adam Rufton, who went missing from Southampton? The family is suing the police for negligence and I hate to say it, but they have a point. Adam might still be alive if they hadn’t been so heavy-handed. They knew Todd Mather, the bloke who took him, was unwell. All Todd’s doctors, everyone who knew Todd, all the mental-health experts, told the police the way to deal with him was to be gentle, to talk to him, reassure him. They told the police that it was when Todd felt threatened, vulnerable, that he was likely to lash out and become violent. But what did the police do when they found that old farm where Todd was holding Adam? They organized a raid, went in with their battering rams and guns. They scared Todd shitless. That’s why he killed Adam and then himself, and that’s exactly why I think we should be the ones to contact GoodSam, find out who he is and what, if anything, was going on between him and Grace before we tell the police.”

  He doesn’t take his eyes off me but starts nodding his head slowly, and even though I’ve never had any reason to doubt the police I find myself nodding along with him.

  “What should I say to Upton?”

  Jon looks back out to sea, as though the water might have an answer.

  “Why don’t you just say you were calling for an update, that you wanted to know if they had any new information, that’s all.” Jon must see the uncertainty I feel flicker across my face.

  “Remember, Cara, we don’t know who GoodSam is. He might not have anything to do with Grace’s kidnapping. We shouldn’t waste Upton’s time until we know more about him. What does Grace say about him in the diary?”

  He carefully flicks through a few of the pages before he looks at me. I’m embarrassed. I’ve read the diary so many times now but I hadn’t noticed—Grace doesn’t mention GoodSam anywhere.

  Jon only needs to glance at me before he says, “What, she didn’t say anything about him at all?” He fans the diary in front of him, making Grace’s small secrets wink out at me from the pages. I nod and he looks straight ahead towards the horizon for a moment. He scratches his beard before turning back to me. “That’s strange. Did the two of you talk about boys much?”

  I shake my head. Meg talked more about boys than Grace. It never really occurred to me to talk about that stuff with Grace. After all, she’d never even been kissed. Or so I had always thought. But I want to give him something else. I want, I realize, to impress him again.

  “She does talk about someone calling the house phone, though. Look.” I reach up and take the photocopied diary from Jon, leaf through the pages until I find the entry, point to it. “Here. She says Meg got really pissed off with whoever it was who kept ringing. There was one time when we were at Meg’s house, having cake for my mum’s birthday, when the landline started ringing. I remember thinking it was weird that Meg went into the kitchen to answer. Everyone was chatting, so I didn’t hear what it was about, but Meg hung up quickly. When she came back, her cheeks had gone red, like she was embarrassed or pissed off. I remember Grace smiling up at Meg from her chair. Meg saw, but she didn’t smile back, which was odd because everyone was always smiling at Grace. Maybe it was GoodSam trying to reach Grace and she knew it was him? That’s why Meg looked weird but Grace was pleased—he’d been trying to get in touch with her?”

  Jon raises his eyebrows, nods, and sort of shakes his head at the same time.

  “Could have been him, or it could have been her dad of course. Can’t imagine Megan would have been happy about Simon calling.”

  Jon sits back down next to me. We sit in silence for a few minutes before I ask, “So what now?”

  “Well, I’d like to take the diary away with me, just for a little while, so I can read it carefully—if that’s OK with you?”

  I don’t like the thought of being separated from it, from this last piece of Grace, and I hate the thought of someone else reading her secrets, but I remind myself Jon might see something that I missed. Finding Grace is more important than her privacy.

  “OK. What about GoodSam?”

  “Keep checking the forum, see if he comes online, and, if he does, call me before you do anything, OK?”

  I nod agreement and I can see he’s twitching to leave, desperate to read her diary. I can’t blame him. I was the same.

  “I’ll give you a call, yeah?” he says as he stands, causing a small avalanche of pebbles to fall into each other. I nod again and he tucks Grace’s diary under his arm, lifting his hand in a small wave before turning and walking quickly away. I keep my eye on the pages under his arm until both disappear from view.

  30th November 2018

  Today it all went wrong again. I could hear Mum coming into my room to get me an hour after my first syringe of food and drugs. I could hear her but I couldn’t see her because my eyes wouldn’t open.

  “Come on, sleepyhead,” she said and pulled the covers back. Behind my eyelids everything became a bit brighter. I heard her suck in her breath. “OK, Gracie darling, you’re OK,” she said, and then I heard her pressing keys on her phone to call an ambulance. I felt the foam around my mouth, felt my mind unclip itself from my body. I seemed to float up to the ceiling like a balloon.

  “Not now! Not this today!” I wanted to scream but I couldn’t because my tongue was dead in my mouth.

  Today was meant to be a big day. I was going to meet the other kids going to Hawaii. I was going to have a whole day with them, maybe make friends. Mum and I had planned it all. I was going to wear my new jeans and a sweater that used to be Cara’s, with the stars and stripes flag embroidered on the front. Today I was going to be funny and friendly and kind, like a normal teenager. But instead I’m on another hospital ward with two old women who frown and chew their mouths when they see me, because there’s no space for me on the kids’ ward. Today all my muscles ache from the seizure and a tooth in the back of my mouth has crumbled because I was grinding my teeth so hard. Today another doctor is scratching her head and saying “More tests?” like I’m a crossword she can’t figure out.

  They thought the epilepsy was a hangover from the bacterial meningitis I had when I was little but now they reckon, with my arrhythmia, it could mean something else is going on with my heart. I didn’t recognize the doctor but Mum did. She’s good like that, she says it helps to make a connection with the doctors and nurses. I pretended to be asleep, worried that if I tried to talk I’d only cry and that would make Mum cry, which is worse than anything. She’s better at talking about what’s going on anyway.

  “Are you OK, Megan?” The doctor had a quiet, posh voice.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me, Sarah, I’m just devastated for Gracie. She was supposed to go to Hawaii in a week’s time with the Wishmakers. She’s never been abroad, never been anywhere. It’s all she’s talked about. I’m sad for her, that’s all.”

  “I’m so sorry, Meg, really I am. You know it could be her heart causing these new seizures, but until we know for sure we just can’t risk her traveling. It must be a long flight to Hawaii.”

  “I was worried you were going to say that.” Mum sniffed. She tries hard not to cry in front of doctors but sometimes she can’t help it.

  “She’ll be devastated, but you’re right. It’s not worth the risk. I’ll call the charity now to get it over with.”

  “Perhaps they could put her on the list for the trip next year?”

  Behind my eyelids I could see Mum shaking her head. My stomach felt like a ball of stale chewing gum. Of course they won’t change the rules just for me. I’ll be eighteen next year, this year was my last chance and my stupid, broken body has messed it up for me again. When I was on my own for a moment I made my hand into a fist under the covers and thumped my chest to show my idiot heart how it should beat, slow and regular like everyone else’s. The movement pulled the cannula in
my hand and made me out of breath. I let myself imagine the dolphins, picture how it would feel to be with new friends in the sunshine just one more time before I closed the door on them for good. I won’t let them back. Like Mum always says, we’re not hippos, we don’t wallow. Besides, there are so many other people worse off than me. I might not be able to move my legs and the seizures are painful and my heart hurts but I have more love in my life than most people. I have Mum.

  “They’ll be along with something to help you sleep in a moment, love.” Mum shuffled the visitor chair close to my bed, careful to avoid the tubes that ran in and out of me. She had been picking at her nail varnish, which always means she’s been worrying.

  “Mouse, listen to me, I just spoke to Maggie.” But I kept my head turned away from her. Squeezed my jaw to make it sing with pain so I couldn’t hear properly. But Mum saw what I was doing. She squeezed my hand, to tell me to listen.

  “Maggie spoke to David, who runs the charity. They had an idea. There’s a reporter, a really well-known one, Jon something, who wants to write an article, I don’t know what it is exactly but if it’s through the Wishmakers it’ll be something about brave kids like you living good lives even when really tough things happen to them. David reckons this Jon would love to interview you. Isn’t that great, darling? There’ll be a photographer and everything apparently.”

  I didn’t move and I didn’t say anything. So Mum kept talking, her face hopeful as she tried to make me feel better, just like she always does.

  “Just think of all the people you could help, Mouse, so many more than any trip abroad. You’ll be an inspiration to hundreds, maybe thousands, of kids and their parents. Imagine, a kid who’s just been diagnosed with MD or epilepsy might read it and feel a bit better—wouldn’t that be great?”

  I should try to be more like Mum, try to think about others before myself. But I still wish I was going to Hawaii instead of having an article written about us. That’s another secret: I’m not as selfless or as good as Mum.