Page 46 of She’s a Doll

I didn’t move.

“If you come out, I’ll show you a photo I found online. I think you’re gonna want to see it.”

Kyle killed me, I said. Kyle. Did no one even look at him? Was he even a suspect?

“I don’t know, Lu.”

And Grandma wasn’t a hoarder, by the way. Not really. I mean, not as bad as those on TV. There was nothing gross in our house. You could get to every room. There were only a couple of places it was piled up really high. Just . . . I think after my mum died, it became hard letting go and . . .

“I’m sorry,” Nicola said. “I’m sorry about what I said. I’m sorry about what everyone else said. I’m sorry. But I also really, really need you to come out and look at this photo.”

I didn’t want to come out. I wanted to stay tangled in the dusty zigzag of cords and scream some more. But Nicola’s voice was even and coaxing, and the truth was, more than anything else, I didn’t want her to stop talking. It was strange how anchoring conversation was. The simple ping-pong of saying something and having someone else respond. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed that after my murder . . . or how terrified I’d be of losing it. Of losing her. Of being left alone again.

I didn’t want to hurt her anymore . . . and knowing that I had hurt her only a few moments ago made me feel broken and wrong.

“Are you coming out?”

Yeah, I responded. Yeah. I just . . . I . . . Just give me a sec.

Slowly, in jerky movements, I pulled myself free of the cables and crawled out from behind the TV.

Nicola was sitting cross-legged on the floor, phone in her lap. As I emerged, she reached out and wiped a spiderweb from my face, knocking my eye patch askew. “Sorry,” she said as she fixed it. And then, quieter, “And sorry about . . . about your grandma. I know this is all still really new for you.”

It’s OK, I muttered, even though it wasn’t, and pushed her hands away from me.

“Feeling better?” she asked.

I’m dead. I’m not getting better.

A wry smile tugged at her lips. “Right. Of course. How could I forget?”

What photo did you want to show me?

She nodded and turned her phone around.

My Bubble Wrap clenched and my stitches went tight.

Grandma, I whispered.

“So that is your grandma?” she asked. “I wasn’t sure. I didn’t want to say anything, in case it wasn’t.”

That’s her, I said, still shaking. I thought of the dolls at Trash N’ Treasure, of Grandma’s furniture scattered across the store, her books piled up, her favorite chair with a discount sign on it. A fear I hadn’t yet faced, bubbling hot inside me. She’s alive?

“The photo was posted a year ago, so I don’t know. But she was alive then.”

Where’d you find it?

“I looked at your old Insta messages again. There was one from Dawn, which I figured must’ve been your aunt. I did some snooping. She doesn’t post much on Instagram, but she’s pretty active on Facebook. It says she lives in Christchurch now.”

Christchurch? As in . . . New Zealand?

“Do you know any other Christchurch?”

It didn’t make any sense. Auntie Dawn didn’t live in New Zealand. As far as I knew, she’d never even left the country.

“I scrolled back years,” Nicola said. “She posted a whole bunch of stuff around the time you disappeared. That’s when she messaged you too, asking you to come home if you could. She was the one working with the police, organizing the search efforts, until she had to step down. Apparently, the pressure was too much and she had some kind of mental breakdown?”

Why’d they move to New Zealand?