Only Child: A completely gripping psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists by Casey Kelleher

Author:Casey Kelleher [Kelleher, Casey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781803144238
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2022-10-06T16:00:00+00:00

30

‘We need to talk,’ Amelia resolves, tight-lipped as she walks into the lounge.

‘I thought that you’d already left,’ Tessa says, trying to hide the look of surprise she feels as she scrambles for the remote control, her fingers hitting frantically at the buttons. Only instead of switching it over she turns the volume up blaring loud.

The detective’s voice fills the room.

Fifteen-year-old Kayla Goldman is missing.

Tessa presses pause. Flustered then.

‘Yes, we do!’ she says, deflecting, purposely diverting her gaze away from the screen. Hoping that talking looked like her real motive as to why she’d tried to turn the TV off, and eventually the volume down. Hoping that Amelia would be too distracted, too caught up in fixing this mess they were both in to notice the TV. That instead, she’d keep her eyes on her.

Though just the sight of Amelia’s face, a thick layer of foundation painted over the jagged red scratches in a failed attempt to cover up the injuries that Tessa had inflicted on her, only fills her with more guilt.

Yesterday’s panic attack had been her worst one yet.

‘What were you watching?’ Amelia asks. She isn’t stupid. She knows Tessa. She knows when she’s trying to hide something from her. And instantly she’s suspicious. Her eyes going right to it. To the frame that is now paused on the television screen, where a woman is sobbing. The man, he is holding her up. A distraught look on his face. Amelia narrows her eyes as she realises that Tessa is watching the local news, a press conference. She reads the words at the bottom of the screen.

Fifteen-year-old Kayla Goldman is missing.

‘Shit!’ Amelia says, understanding.

Or at least thinking that she understands. Because cases like this have always set Tessa’s anxiety off. They’d always brought her worst fears to the surface. She always becomes fixated with them. Watching and listening to every newspaper, every TV report, reading every bit of online information she can find. Obsessed with the case for days or weeks or months. Until the girl is found. Dead or alive.

That’s what she thinks this is.

‘This is why you’ve been so on edge the past few days? This is what has triggered you off, Tessa. You’ve been worrying about her? This missing girl on the news?’ Amelia says, treading lightly because she knows how fragile Tessa is right now.

Tessa knows it too. How Amelia is of course right, how this is a pattern of hers. How she can sometimes work herself up so much it is as if she is possessed. As if she is no longer present inside her own head; as if something else has taken over.

And sometimes she’d stay that way for hours. Other times, the breakdowns could last for days at a time, and they were the worst. Those long, drawn-out panic attacks and hallucinations where Amelia would try and do her best to be patient, as Tessa slowly found her way back out of them again.

‘She’s only fifteen,’ Tessa says quietly. Taking Amelia’s lead and pretending that’s exactly what this is.

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