Little Boy Missing: A BRAND NEW absolutely gripping psychological thriller by LIZZIE FRY

Author:LIZZIE FRY [FRY, LIZZIE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Joffe Books psychological thrillers, suspense and crime
Published: 2024-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty

I blinked to find I’d let yet another cup of tea Charlie had made me go cold. I stood at home, hovering next to the landline in the living room, like I didn’t belong there. In my other hand: my phone. I knew I should put it down, yet I couldn’t stop doom-scrolling. Headline after headline loomed out at me, all variants of:

SEARCH CONTINUES IN WOODLAND FOR MISSING BOY, 8

A full twenty-four hours had passed since you disappeared. Anxiety coursed non-stop through my veins, making my stomach clench and nausea rise back up my throat like acid. I scanned the articles, noting familiar names all lining up to get their five minutes of fame:

Tori Harper, 28 and her parents Clive and Gillian, both 60, run the Moreley Café at the start of the Snake Woods hiking trail. Tori told Reuters:

‘I’m just so shocked this has happened. Missing children is something you think always happens somewhere else, not your own backyard.

‘I just hope Kyle is okay. He and his mum and his little brothers were only in here on Saturday morning, buying crisps and pop for their bike ride.’

Gillian, who knows the Westcott family well, adds: ‘There had been some problems at home lately with the father moving out, but the boys were all smiles when they came in. They looked so happy . . . Now this. It’s just so awful.’

Clive Bulmer, a local estate agent, agrees: ‘Nothing will be the same again. This is a little market town, we picked it way back because we thought our kids would be safe here.’

I’d snorted at Clive getting involved. Gillian loved gossip, but at least she and Tori had tried to do something that day, giving statements to the police and handing out free hot drinks to searchers and police. Clive hadn’t so much as shown his face on the woodland trail.

I shut down this uncharitable inner tirade. It didn’t matter what I thought of Clive and his ilk; if you were fresh in his mind, he might spot you out in the world somewhere. We needed as many people looking as possible.

My home cleaning session the previous week had been rendered obsolete. The whole place was a mess again. The police had searched our home thoroughly for signs of you, including the tiny shed in the garden. They’d searched Charlie’s too.

I knew it was protocol: infamous cases of parents kidnapping or hiding their own children for publicity, profit or worse had stuck in my memory. Even so, it still stung that any of us could be under suspicion at such an awful time in our lives.

Worse, a small contingent of press had set up outside the house. They were local media and press agencies for the most part, though Charlie had mentioned he’d seen one big network hanging back at the trail, video cameras at the ready.

For the first two or three hours of your disappearance, I had comforted myself with the idea you would be returned, shivering and upset, by nightfall.

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