Lost Souls by Jenny O'Brien (android e book reader txt) 📕

clearly out of bounds. But just like Eve and that apple, Elodie didn’t heed the warning. She was still feeling aggrieved at being told off and it wasn’t as if she intended to do any damage, she thought, taking in the neat line of old garden tools hanging from bright red hooks beside the freezer.

Continuing to hum her little tune, she rummaged along the shelves in vain for something to play with. There were no toys but the possibility of an ice cream had her walking towards the freezer, her mouth starting to water. The sound of the shed door banging against its hinges caused her to quicken her step. She wasn’t doing anything wrong, not really. As she brushed a stray cobweb off her sweatshirt, the hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention, her failsafe warning system finally alerting her to the danger up ahead. She turned and stared, her fingers trembling, closely followed by her arm, her breath heaving as her lungs scrabbled around for enough oxygen to meet the sudden rampant demand placed on it by her galloping heart.

Life paused, then flashed before her in a rapidly blinking strip of images. She couldn’t move when she knew she must. One second passed, then two, before her feet found the will to turn and run, the open door of the shed forgotten in her hurry to escape the very worst of nightmares.

Elodie pulled the straps of her rucksack tightly across her shoulders, taking the time to scan the room for any essentials that she might have forgotten. There’d be no coming back, not now. Her gaze dawdled on the pile of teddies that had grown exponentially over the course of her young life. She’d allowed herself only one, Ted, because he was small and she was able to tuck him down the side of her rucksack at the expense of a pair of socks. She’d also allowed herself a book, again only the one. But suddenly she felt an affinity with Harry Potter and his Philosopher’s Stone, not that there could ever be a happy resolution to her own personal tale of woe. Unlike Harry there was no Dumbledore to guide her, or Hagrid to protect her from what was coming. She’d poked her nose where she shouldn’t and fleeing the security of the only home she’d ever known was the one outcome left to her.

Wiping her sleeve across her eyes, she headed for the door, not bothering to close it behind her. Her mother would know soon enough that she wasn’t in the one place she’d expect – bed. With her hand clenched around the banister, she avoided the creaky first and third stairs as she hurried to the bottom, fearful now that her mother might guess that something was up. She’d certainly questioned her at length over the weekend, but what could Ellie tell her? She wasn’t prepared to lie and she’d never in a million years believe the truth. Ellie had spent the last two days trying to persuade herself that Friday had never happened, but it was no good. She only had to close her eyes and she was back in that shed …

The kitchen was next and this was the place that delayed her the most. She had a few quid, not much but enough for a start. However, she needed food – as much as she could carry but not too heavy to weigh her down. Tins of beans came first, luckily with a ring pull as she didn’t fancy depriving her mum of the only can opener in the overflowing cutlery drawer. A spoon, a fork and a knife. She paused over the knife, an intense look of concentration pulling at her brow. She hadn’t thought of a weapon but what was the likelihood that she might need one? Her hand fingered one of the wooden-handled set of six steak knives that her mother had picked up cheap at some car-boot or other. The knife got placed in the bottom of her bag as did the small wind-up torch that lived in the pot on the kitchen shelf. She also took some matches, bread, cheese and a few other cans before testing the weight of her rucksack and reluctantly pulling the drawstring and lifting it onto her shoulders.

Ellie was small for her age, but wiry. A life spent practising ballet had firmed her muscles and hardened her resolve. She could do this. She had to do this.

There was no note. She wouldn’t have known what to write in any case. A solitary tear tracked down her cheek. Instead she picked up a pink Post-it Note and drew a heart before sticking it to the side of the kettle and heading for the door without a backward look.

Chapter 2

Gaby

Monday 3 August, 7.05 a.m. Rhos-on-Sea

‘Darin speaking.’

Acting DI Gaby Darin glanced down at the screen of her mobile, a frown firmly in place. With Owen Bates, her DC, still on paternity leave until later today, she was the senior officer on the North Wales Major Incident Team and as such available 24/7 whether she liked it or not. She didn’t mind covering but she wondered why they always phoned her when she was about to sit down to eat. Porridge was bad enough but cold it was a thick, unpalatable, paste-like gloop.

‘Ma’am, it’s Jax Williams. We have a runaway girl.’

Gaby leant back in her chair, breakfast forgotten, her mind full of another missing girl, a mystery they’d solved only a short time ago: twenty-four years too late. There couldn’t be a second one surely – not so soon. But, hand resting on her brow, she knew she shouldn’t be surprised at the news, only her reaction. Instead of the adrenalin that usually soared through her veins at the thought of a new case, all she could come up with was a deep sense of disappointment. It suddenly felt as if she was losing her identity with each successive crime,