The Girls Who Disappeared by Claire Douglas

Author:Claire Douglas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-11-14T00:00:00+00:00

28

Suspicion

WHEN STACE WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING SHE FOUND SHE was alone in the huge bed. The French windows were ajar, the white voile curtains fluttering in the slight breeze, and voices rose from below. She grabbed the dress she’d discarded on the chair last night and pulled it over her head before stepping onto the veranda. The impressive wrought-iron gates were open and John-Paul and Derreck were heading out of them, with Trevor, Griff and Martin following, nattering away like excitable kids off on a school trip. What was going on? She didn’t even know what time it was. She must have overslept. And where were the girls? She felt disoriented and a little irritated that John-Paul hadn’t woken her. Their first day in a strange country and he was already off gallivanting with this Derreck and the other lads. She was tempted to call after them but didn’t want to look like some possessive girlfriend in front of Derreck. Instead she watched as they headed onto the busy street and hailed a couple of tuk-tuks.

After she’d changed into a pair of frayed denim shorts and a strappy vest, making sure to slather her skin in sunscreen, she headed downstairs, the marble tiles cool against the soles of her feet. The villa felt like a sanctuary, their own little oasis, but she knew that just outside stood a bustling, smelly, sweaty metropolis and John-Paul had just been swallowed into it. She didn’t feel ready to face it.

‘Hey, there she is,’ called Hannah, as Stace wandered into the huge kitchen. The doors were flung open onto the garden and she could see Maggie perched at the edge of the pool in a bright cerise bikini, her legs immersed in the water, a glass of juice to her lips and large purple sunglasses pushed back onto her dark hair. She looked back at them over her shoulder and waved. Leonie was making herself at home in the kitchen in a garish floral one-piece, her deep cleavage already red. Hannah was standing in the doorway in a green bikini, her towel draped over the sun-lounger. She was tall and androgynous and her light brown curls were pulled back in a ponytail. She turned her freckled face to Stace. ‘Why haven’t you got your suit on?’

Stace looked down at her shorts and top. ‘I wasn’t sure of the plan. Why are you all so chirpy? My body feels like it’s made of lead.’ They didn’t seem affected by jetlag in the slightest but that was probably because they’d gone to sleep at a sensible hour last night, unlike Stace, who was drooling over Derreck until three o’clock in the morning. It served her right. What would the others say if she told them he’d taken his clothes off and jumped into the swimming-pool naked? That he’d invited her to join him and that a part of her had wanted to?

‘Iced coffee?’ asked Leonie, proffering a tall glass. Stace grimaced. She’d never tasted iced coffee in her life and she wasn’t about to start now.

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