Sister, Missing (11 page)

Jam arrived first. He skidded to a halt beside me, then gazed doubtfully from the doll’s shoe to the back of the beach hut.

‘Do you really think Madison could be in here?’ he whispered. ‘I can’t believe Holtwood and Frank would dare to keep her so close to the beach.’

‘I know, but we have to check.’ I pointed to the thin wooden slats that made up the beach hut wall. ‘Sound could travel through that.’

I leaned against the wood. It was warm against my cheek. No noises came from inside. ‘I can’t hear anything,’ I whispered.

I turned round as Shelby ran up. I showed her the doll’s shoe.

‘What are you going to do, Lauren?’ she whispered.

‘Find a way in,’ I said.

I ran my palm along the weather-beaten wooden boards. I pressed each one as I passed by, but none of them were loose.

‘That lock looks brand new,’ Shelby whispered.

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Which is weird on such a shabby old hut.’

Jam examined the door carefully. ‘The lock might be new, but the wood around it is rotten,’ he said.

I followed his gaze across the promenade. No-one was watching us. We looked at each other. Jam raised his eyebrows.

I checked my watch. We had ten minutes until Holtwood called again. And nothing to offer her.

This was our best option for finding Madison.

‘Let’s do it,’ I said.

‘Do what?’ Shelby squeaked.

‘Oh, man,’ Jam breathed. He braced himself.

I stood beside him. ‘On three,’ I said. ‘One.’

‘You can’t break the door down,’ Shelby hissed.

‘Yes, we can,’ I said firmly. ‘Two.’

‘But—’

‘Three.’ Together, Jam and I aimed our kicks squarely at the door. It flew open, revealing an apparently empty hut. I glanced quickly round. No-one had seen us.

‘Oh, Lauren, you
can’t
go in there.’ Shelby hopped from foot to foot, clearly hugely agitated.

For a second I felt irritated with her anxiety. Then I thought about the bombshell news hidden in the letter we’d found earlier. I knew Jam was looking at me. My face burned with
guilt.

‘We have to. There might be more clues to where Madison is,’ I said.

‘But—’

‘Wait here, then, Shelby,’ I said, and I led the way into the hut.

The Hut

I could see immediately that there was nothing and no-one inside. The hut was totally empty.

Jam followed me in. ‘We must have been wrong,’ he whispered. ‘There’s no sign that anyone’s been here.’

‘And, by the way, you’re now breaking into someone else’s property,’ Shelby added, peering through the open door. ‘We shouldn’t be here.’

‘Wanna call the police again, Shelbs?’ I hissed.

She scowled at me, her face all shadowy and spooky-looking in the dim light.

I looked round. I was sure we were close to Madison now, but Jam was right. There was absolutely no sign that anyone else had ever been here. Treading carefully, I edged round the room, peering
into the dusty corners. In the distance, the carousel music rose above the shrieks of excited children. It felt like it belonged to a different world.

‘There’s nothing here, Lauren,’ Shelby whispered. ‘We need to go.’

‘Wait.’ Jam’s voice echoed across the hut. He was standing in the far corner, peering down at something. ‘Look at this.’

I scurried over. A scrap of blue cloth was caught between two of the floorboards. It looked like it had been torn off a larger garment.

‘That’s Madison’s,’ I gasped. ‘It’s from the top she was wearing when they took her.’ I examined the ground. ‘Look at the floorboards.
There’re gaps between the planks here.’

Jam sank to his knees and ran the tips of his fingers around the side of one of the boards.

‘There won’t be anything underneath,’ Shelby insisted. ‘Beach huts don’t have cellars or—’

‘Help me, Lauren,’ Jam said.

I squatted beside him and inched my fingers around the opposite side of the board.

‘Ready?’ he whispered.

I nodded.

‘Pull.’

With a creak, the floorboard came away from the floor. Shelby gasped. Jam reached for the next board. I leaned over, helping him move it out of the way.

Beneath us a man-sized hole in the earth below was clearly visible. A rope ladder hung from a metal bar at the top. I peered into the hole. The rope ladder vanished into shadows.

‘Do you have a torch?’ I whispered.

‘Funnily enough, what with it being the middle of the day I didn’t think we’d be needing one,’ Jam hissed back. He prodded the side of my jeans. ‘Use your
phone.’

Hands shaking, I shone my phone into the hole. I could just make out the concrete floor of the room below, a couple of metres down.

Jam leaned closer to the hole, peering down into the darkness, then straightened up again.

‘I can’t hear or see anything,’ he said quietly.

‘D’you think this is an old smuggler’s cave, like the one Mom was trying to take us to the other day?’ Shelby whispered.

‘Not with all that concrete,’ Jam said softly. ‘It’s not a natural cave . . . it’s more likely part of an old mine or an air raid shelter.’

I checked the time. ‘Holtwood will be calling soon,’ I whispered. ‘This is a chance to find Madison before she realises we don’t have anything apart from the money to
give her.’

‘But we don’t know for sure if Madison’s down there,’ Shelby protested.

Jam frowned. ‘She’s right, Lauren. Maybe we should—’

‘We
have
to take a look,’ I insisted. ‘If Mo’s down here we can go back and get help.’

‘No way,’ Shelby said. ‘We should just tell Mom and Rick like we said. They’ll know what to do.’

‘Will they?’ I met Shelby’s gaze. ‘Even if they do there’s no time. We have to look down there before Holtwood rings me again.’

‘Well,
I’m
not going.’ Shelby backed away. ‘I’m gonna call Mom, tell her what’s going on.’

‘Fine,’ I whispered. I sat down at the edge of the hole and eased my legs through.

‘Wait, Lauren.’ Jam held out the backpack containing the money. ‘Here, Shelbs, you can look after that.’

I found the rope ladder with my feet, letting it take my weight. Jam was just giving Shelby something to do so she didn’t feel bad about being scared. Personally I didn’t much care
about her feelings. Let’s face it . . . when had she ever cared about mine?

I climbed down the rope ladder. Keeping it steady was tricky, but it got easier as I neared the bottom of the hole. I reached the ground and stepped softly onto the concrete floor. Using my
phone as a light, I could see I was standing in an empty room about the same size as the beach hut above. A dug-out tunnel led off on one side.

Shrieks from small children sounded outside, as the carousel music floated towards us.

‘If you go down to the woods today . . .’

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, as Jam slid silently down the rope ladder after me. ‘I thought you said this was a bad idea?’ I hissed.

‘It is.’ Jam landed beside me with a soft thud. ‘But I can’t let you do it on your own.’

‘I’m fine,’ I muttered.

But Jam wasn’t listening. ‘This must have been the room Holtwood called you from,’ he whispered.

I looked round. There were definitely signs that people had been here: burger wrappers and drink cans were scattered across the floor and a length of rope was loosely coiled in one corner. I
tiptoed across the room to the tunnel opposite. It was low-ceilinged with rough, concrete walls and led away from us into pitch black. I stood, listening, at the entrance. Apart from the noises
that filtered through from outside, the whole place was eerily silent.

‘Let’s try through here,’ I whispered.

We walked along a few metres. As we rounded a corner, a dim glow appeared in the distance, casting shadows across the concrete.

There
. That had to be Holtwood and Madison. With trembling fingers, I pointed towards the light. Jam nodded to show he’d seen it too.

Silently we crept on.

Another few metres, and my phone vibrated in my pocket.

No
. It was Sonia Holtwood calling. Had twenty minutes passed already?

Jam clutched my arm, horrified. I hesitated a second.

‘I have to bluff her,’ I whispered. ‘Buy some time.’

‘No—’ Jam started.

But I’d already brought the phone to my mouth. I shrank back against the cold, concrete wall, trying hard to minimise the sound of my voice as I spoke. The dim light we were following was
still a long way in the distance, but I couldn’t tell how well sound would travel along the tunnel.

‘Hello?’ I whispered.

‘Did you find the things Sam hid?’ the filtered voice snarled.

‘Yes,’ I lied.

‘What was there?’

I thought of my grandmother – Sam’s mum. I’d always got on well with her and my Gramps. They were both living in a nursing home now in the States. Life there seemed a million
miles away.

‘A diamond necklace and matching earrings,’ I lied. ‘For me and Shelby. They . . . they belonged to Sam’s mother. She wants us to have them. And they’re worth,
like, over a million dollars.’

Jam shook my arm, his hand open in a gesture of dismay.

Why are you telling her that?
he mouthed.

I turned away.

‘Right.’ A pause on the other end of the line. ‘You’ve got two hours to get back here. I’ll text the place for the next exchange.’

She rang off.

‘What the hell, Lauren?’ Jam hissed.

I pointed in the direction of the glimmering light. ‘We just needed a bit of time,’ I whispered. ‘We’ve got two more hours.’

‘Then let’s go back and get help,’ Jam whispered.

‘But Holtwood and Madison are right here.’ I started walking, but Jam grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

‘Wait,’ he hissed into my ear. ‘I came down here with you because Holtwood hadn’t called yet and there was a bit of time to see if Madison was down here, without doing
anything stupid – but now you’ve made things worse by inventing jewellery that doesn’t even exist and—’

‘I
had
to.’

‘If we go any further Holtwood will see us,’ Jam said. ‘That guy, Frank, is probably here too, and—’

‘It’s a chance to rescue Mo.’

‘Rescue her?’ Jam hissed. ‘From people with guns? Anyway, what are you going to say when Holtwood realises you don’t have any diamonds?’

‘Go back then.’ I crept off, my heart pounding. Couldn’t Jam see we
had
to find Madison? This might be her last chance.

I could feel Jam still behind me, but I didn’t look round. We rounded another curve in the tunnel. Now the low mumble of voices drifted towards us. I squinted into the gloom as the source
of both the light and the voices became clear. A dim glow was shining out through a door, halfway along the tunnel ahead.

Trembling, I tiptoed closer.

Closer.

Sweat beaded on my forehead. The back of my neck prickled as we reached the door.

Low voices drifted towards us again. The door was open a fraction. A man and a woman were talking inside, but so quietly I couldn’t make out what they were saying or even if they were, as
I suspected, Frank and Sonia.

Footsteps sounded inside the room. Jam and I exchanged a terrified look. They were coming towards the door.

We sprang back, against the wall behind the door. It opened, slamming back against us. Jam caught the handle, holding it steady so it didn’t fly shut again.

More footsteps.

‘Come on.’ That was definitely Frank.

I heard a sniff and a stumble. I peered round the edge of the door. Frank had Madison by the arm. He hauled her along the tunnel away from us . . . in the opposite direction from the room that
led up to the beach hut.

Madison was bound at the wrists with rope. Strips of cloth had been wound round her eyes and her mouth.

Anger like I’d never known filled me. How could anyone do that to a little girl? It was inhuman.

Jam yanked me back, behind the cover of the door, as a woman appeared. I froze, my anger transforming into terror. Was that Sonia Holtwood? I could only see her from behind and she was wearing a
long jacket that concealed her body shape, but it had to be her.

Out of nowhere my legs started shaking. Panic gripped me. I couldn’t move. Everything that had happened to me nearly two years ago flooded back. Being left for dead in the freezing wood .
. . nearly drowning on that boat . . .

‘We can’t help Madison like this.’ Jam was shaking my arm, hissing in my ear. ‘We should go back.’

‘No.’ I couldn’t leave my baby sister. I
couldn’t
.

I darted out from Jam’s hold, creeping after Holtwood along the tunnel. She disappeared into the shadows ahead.

Jam caught up with me. He grabbed my arm again. ‘Come
on
,’ he whispered.

I wrenched my arm away and with that sudden movement, my mobile clattered to the floor.

‘What was that?’ Frank’s voice echoed out of the shadows along the tunnel ahead.

A second later footsteps sounded, heading towards us.

Oh no
. I froze. Jam snatched up my phone, shoved it into my hands. We turned and tore back along the tunnel towards the room below the beach hut.

I glanced over my shoulder. Frank was chasing after us.

‘Hey!’ His shout echoed off the concrete.

Jam sped up. I ran faster too, my breath now coming in gasps. On we ran. Through the tunnel. Into the room where the rope ladder still dangled in the corner.

Shouts echoed behind us.

‘Stop!’ Frank yelled.

Jam grabbed the rope ladder, holding it steady. ‘Climb!’ he ordered.

There was no time to argue with him, to make him go first. I scrambled up, up. I reached the hole in the beach hut above. I hauled myself through. Jam was climbing up behind me. Frank skidded to
a halt at his feet. Grabbed Jam’s leg.

‘Come on,’ I urged.

Jam kicked Frank away. Climbed up another step.

Come on. Come on.

Jam was almost at the top of the rope ladder. I reached out my hand to help him out. But Frank grabbed his leg and yanked him down to the floor.

No.