“No, but Lucy Kiefler told me what he’s doing. It’s kind of sweet,” she adds, with a concessionary tilt of the head. “So, what’s the play? To get the cat back?”
She hands me back my phone, the blue dot of the GPS blinking at me.
“I’m going to go get him,” I say.
“Okay, and what, like, you need a wing woman?”
I’m surprised by her unquestioning willingness to help, but then she doesn’t quite seem like the average person. But she does sound like she’s been through a lot to get where she is—I have no trouble imagining that she’s been in stranger situations.
“Yeah. I think I need to go in there and see if the signal isdefinitely coming from his basement, but I don’t feel entirely safe doing that,” I say, an idea forming in my mind. “If you could just knock on his door ten minutes or so after I go in?”
“Yes,” Aoife agrees. “I’ll say I need you for something. I do actually need help moving an armchair upstairs.”
I pause, momentarily wondering if Aoife is really the best choice to help in a situation like this. But Arabella and Pam aren’t home, and I realize, with a horrid thump, that the person I would have called is Matt.
Chapter 42
The Plan
I text Matt that I lostan earring last night at the renovation house and need to pop over to find it.
Of course, 3? Be lovely to see you x
His reply sends shivers down my spine. I try not to think about baby Isla in her pram, and the thought that Matt might not have a sister at all. There will be time for all of that after I have pulled my plan together.
All I need is to find that room, or evidence of it, so that when the police check Matt’s basement, they don’t miss it, like I did the first time.
I assume I’ll only get one shot at sending the police there before Matt destroys all of the evidence, and Anna disappears for good.
I check my watch. If I am meeting Matt at 3 p.m., I have two hours until I get in there and find that room or any evidence of it. I could just call the police now and say I can hear screaming coming from there but I have already been down there and there is nothing. I need something: a locked door, a glimpse of the window, anything so they find her.
I Google the nearest pet store, grab my car keys, and head out.
Forty-five minutes later I am back in the house, a small pet store bag in hand as I head up to the spare room to find a still-snoozing Blue.
He wakes as I enter and meows enthusiastically at the sight of thebag and what it may contain. He yawns and stretches, and heads over to me.
“Listen, champ, I need you to put this on for me,” I say, pulling a box from the bag on my lap. I unpack the replacement camera collar, and then a cat treat. His eyes light up and he sits politely; his diet is clearly being thrown by the wayside, much to his excitement. I let him chew while I slip a fresh battery into the camera and pop the collar on him, fastening the strap. “This is for ‘just in case,’ okay?”
He nudges me a few times, and mews mournfully. I give him another treat and he burbles a thanks. I know he’s desperate to go back out.
Timing will be key on this. I want Blue to go back to Anna; I want him out there filming, in case this goes wrong and I end up down there in that room—because this time the footage on his collar is live-streaming onto an app to which there is a shareable link. If everything else goes wrong, people will have access to what has been recorded. Next, I send a very important, very time-sensitive email. Then I delete the cat camera app from my computer and my phone; now that I have paid my full subscription, all my footage will still be stored out there on the app account, but there will be no way to access it from my phone or laptop if they fall into the wrong hands. Just in case. I text Aoife with Matt’s address and the time she needs to get me out of there, and then I am ready.
I dress, fix my hair from the mess of last night, and finally search through a still-unpacked moving box, labeledOld Uni Stuff. At the bottom, I find what I am looking for in a nylon drawstring bag.
The objects clunk together as I lift out the bag. I delicately loosen the drawstring and tip them out onto my lap: a small aerosol can, and a small, chunky, red plastic key fob with a large button on its surface and a grenadelike pin emerging from its main body—a rape alarm and a palm-size canister of anti-attack spray.
It’s not much, but Aoife will be there long before I’ll need these things, I’m certain.
I pop out the alarm’s long-dead batteries and replace them. I have no idea if the rape alarm works, if it ever did. I’ve thankfully never needed to test it, and I can hardly do so now without giving the game away.
I point the canister well away from me and depress the sprayer alittle: a hissing mist hangs in the sunlight for a second before I waft it away.
At least I know that works, though what twenty-year-old attack-spray might do to someone’s face, I have no idea.
I slip both objects into my coat pocket and, nerves jangling, and temples pounding with a headache, I head to my bathroom to get some Tylenol.
In the bathroom, my medicine cabinet door is ajar, and my pill bottle is not inside.
