A Person Could Disappear Here Read online

  Google maps did save time, but a fat load of good it did us. We covered a lot of ground, but it was all for nothing. Driveways held plenty of pickups and SUVs, but no convertibles, red or otherwise.

  Alessandro shuts down my laptop just before it gives up the ghost and dies of its own accord. “Well I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. And if we don’t get to the motel soon, they may give our room away.”

  I can’t believe there’s ever such a demand for rooms in a motel in an out of the way place like this that we’re in danger of losing our reservation, but I turn the car around and head into town.

  Now I get the difference. A hotel’s rooms are internal, whereas a motel is more like a low-rise block of flats with an external walkway along the front that looks out onto a car park.

  While I carry his bulging holdall, Alessandro bumps my heavy suitcase up the stairway to our room on the first floor (or second as the girl on reception told us as they don’t have a ground floor like we do).

  After the beige blandness of reception, I’m pleasantly surprised by the room. Along with two generously-sized beds and the usual tea and coffee making facilities and hairdryer I’d expect at a decent hotel, there’s also a small fridge and microwave. All for what I calculate translates to just under seventy pounds. At two-thirds the cost of the hotel room in Denver, it’s a flipping bargain. The only down side is that the window looks out over the walkway, so fresh air and natural daylight is at the expense of privacy.

  As we only plan to be here the one night there’s not much point in unpacking much more than toiletries and a change of clothes for tomorrow before heading out in search of food.

  People driving past look at us like we’re some sort of oddity as we make the fifteen-minute stroll from the motel to the shops on Chestnut Street. Given the size of the car parks outside every commercial building on the road we’re walking down, I get the feeling Americans never walk anywhere if they can help it. But having been stuck in the car for six hours, on the trip here from Denver and then driving around the outskirts of town, I need to stretch my legs.

  Nothing can induce me inside Pizza Hut in the high street at home so the chances of me eating in the one here are less than zero, and I’ve yet to eat a Subway sandwich at home either, so ditto. Apart from a couple of bars offering the usual chicken wings, cheese-smothered nachos or the burgers and fries we had in Denver, there’s only a coffee shop, and its strip lighting and tatty décor looks less than inviting.

  I never used to be a fan, but when Abbey was having a new kitchen fitted at home, rather than eating takeaways for two weeks, I learned how to make all sorts of things in the microwave. So, I’m damn sure I can whip up something that’s tastier, much healthier and cheaper than anything on offer at the small town’s eateries. Assuming there’s a supermarket somewhere round here.

  Once Alessandro locates the town’s only supermarket on his phone, we retrace our steps and then some and, with the exception of asparagus tips that I didn’t really expect it to stock, I find everything else I need to make dinner. And a decent enough bottle of white wine.

  Actually, it’s super easy and twenty-five minutes after our return to the room I hand Alessandro a steaming dish of Risotto Primavera. Although, eating it with a plastic spoon out of pink plastic picnic bowls I also bought at the food store isn’t how I’d normally serve it, but it tastes pretty good, even though I say so myself. Papa would be proud.

  Alessandro shapes his finger and thumb into a circle and nods as he ‘mmms’ around his first mouthful.

  All thoughts of what happens tomorrow are lost as we eat.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ABBEY

  JOURNAL ENTRY NINE

  That door in the hall I thought could just be a cupboard?

  It isn’t!

  He thought I was taking a shower, and I was. Only I was done faster than he anticipated. So he was still down in the basement (because I now know for sure that’s where the door leads) when I was dried and dressed.

  I loitered – yes that’s the right word to describe how I hid behind the kitchen door. Peaking around the edge I had a unobstructed view of the door in the hallway.

  Luckily it opened towards me, so when he emerged from it into the hall, he didn’t see me watching.

  Catching the pre-emptive movement of his head, I ducked out of sight just in time as he turned to look my way. But not before I’d noticed he was holding a plastic carrier bag.

  Out of sight doesn’t mean out of sound, and I clearly heard the tumblers falling into place as he locked the door.

  Failing to hear the tell-tale tinkling of metal jangling on a ring, I risked a peak, just in time to see him put the key on the architrave above the door!

  Much good it does me though, unless I can get down there without him knowing. But seeing as the only time I’m left alone is when I’m locked in my room, how am I ever going to do that?

  Chapter Fifteen

  ABBEY

  JOURNAL ENTRY TEN

  There’s a thin line between sexy and sordid, but then I suppose it’s true of a lot of things: it’s not what you do, but why you do it.

  Despite it being tightly regulated (absolutely no touching allowed) erotic dancing is still stigmatised. Like a lot of people who think a girl taking off her clothes and shaking her bits at blokes in ‘gentlemen’s clubs’ is degrading herself, I admit I was a tad judgemental. I just couldn’t understand why anyone would do it. But that was before I read the memoir of a real-life dancer that had made it past stage one from the slush pile and realised it could be empowering. And lucrative.

  There’s good and bad in everything so of course there are some dodgy clubs, but rather than victims of exploitation as they are often portrayed on screen, according to the ex-dancer author the girls are well looked after, with clubs having plenty of security in case some punter tries to cross the line, and some even provide taxis to take the girls home safely when the club closes in the small hours.

  And then there’s the money. Working at a decent club, the girls make a good living. Some, like the author who stripped at London’s number one club, were raking it in. She may have had to work full-time to earn it, but five-thousand a week gets you a great lifestyle.

  Okay, the book wasn’t going to win any awards, but the author’s conversational style was engaging. It read as if she was telling you about her exploits over a glass of wine. Even so, three chapters in I was intrigued but dubious. It all sounded too good to be true. So, I did a quick bit of online research and discovered the author’s manuscript was indeed an honest reflection of life as an erotic dancer.

  Some girls working in seedy bottom-feeder clubs may well be doing it to feed a drug addiction or because they lack the academic qualifications to do more than flip burgers or stack supermarket shelves, but most are just normal girls wanting more out of life who use erotic dancing as a means to get it. According to a Leeds University report, one in three dancers do it to fund their studies, leaving uni with a debt-free degree.

  So, far from being oppressed, abused and objectified, the girls are go-getting, confident, ballsy young women.

  They don’t all strip off completely – and let’s face it, it takes real confidence to get starkers in front of strangers. True, it’s not the big bucks you can earn going nude, but you can still make a damn good living just taking your top off. And really, when you think about it, what’s the difference between that and going topless at the beach, other than location?

  But that’s in a club, where the men can look but not touch, and the girls are doing it by choice. As I said, thin line between sexy and sordid. What would be a turn on, a bit of naughty fun with a boyfriend, with Jensen just makes me feel violated. But the choice is, play his sick sex games or get another beating. And he’d only force himself on me afterwards anyway. So really there isn’t a choice.

  And I have to play along. Pretend I’m enjoying it. If I don’t, if I complain or cry I get the back of his hand across my face.
Or worse.

  So I play along and pretend. Wouldn’t you?

  They were a present he bought just for me, he said. I was to go to my room and put them on, and to change my sneakers for the black heels he knew were in my suitcase.

  Although they didn’t have price tags, the silky knee length robe, lingerie and lace-top hold-up stockings all had that new unwashed feel to them. So he could have been telling the truth. I mean, how and why else would a bloke have sexy underwear?

  The rule is, wait, then do as I’m told. So when I went back into the living room I awaited instructions.

  He put a CD in the player and turned up the volume, the music’s thumping baseline reverberating around the room.

  I suppose he was trying to replicate the feel of a club – the kind that panders to men’s baser needs – but without the plush interior in deep purples, reds or golds and spot lighting reflecting off mirrored surfaces, the blandness of the boringly brown living room felt more like a working men’s social club.

  After pouring himself another large bourbon he sat in his chair and clicked his middle finger and thumb.

  I stood on the spot he pointed to a couple of feet in front of him.

  It was obvious what he wanted me to do, but I didn’t move.

  He looked me up and down. “What are you waiting for? Take it off. And when I say it, I mean everything.”

  I pulled at the belt tied tightly around my waist, the bow coming undone, the robe gaping enough to show a glimpse of what I had on underneath, about to shrug it off my shoulders when he huffed out a harsh exhale.

  “Slowly. It’s supposed to be sexy. A slut like you knows how to be that, don’t you?”

  I slipped the robe off my shoulders, let it slide down my arms and fall to the floor.

  “Move.”

  The striptease and his taking of me took little more than the length of three songs but seemed so much longer. I feel sick just thinking about it. Sick, dirty and used.

  The way he looked at me… What he made me do…

  You couldn’t really call what I did dancing. I shuffled my feet in the best approximation of sexy I could muster, half-heartedly swaying my hips to the beat of the music and did as he told me.

  “Pull down the bra. Let me see those tits.”

  “Touch yourself.”

  “Turn around.”

  “Bend over.”

  “Take off your panties. Slowly.”

  “Oh yeah. Shake that ass. Make me want it.”

  He grabbed my bottom, stilling my movements.

  My muscles contracted involuntarily at the touch of his fingers exploring between my legs then sliding around to rim my anus.

  “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. In which of her holes should I fuck this hoe?”

  The track changed to Rhianna’s Kiss it Better.

  He spun me around by my hips. “Hmm. Now there’s an idea.”

  Having quickly unzipped his jeans, he lifted his backside allowing him to shove them and his boxers down to his ankles.

  He smirked as he palmed his dick. “I am going to enjoy fucking your ass, but first I think you should kiss this better.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  CRISTINA

  Sheriff Roebuck had the laboured breathing of the overweight. He eased back in his chair; the buttons of his shirt straining to contain his considerable girth. Aren’t sheriffs like police? Supposed to catch criminals. Blimey, I can’t see him pursuing anyone – well not on foot.

  “I don’t know anyone who drives a red convertible, and I know everyone. It’s a small town. So, wherever he lives, it isn’t here.”

  He was sympathetic – at least his eyes didn’t glaze over when I told him how Abbey came to be somewhere in western Nebraska. But apart from putting out the word to neighbouring towns, a lack of manpower meant there was little he could do to help us find Abbey. So, after giving him our mobile numbers, we headed back to the motel.

  With Paris only three hours away by train Abbey and I have spent many weekends there. And as I know from our frequent visits, croissants are best eaten fresh, which is why the boulangeries do a roaring trade in the early morning selling the buttery viennoiserie for breakfast. No self-respecting French person would even consider eating a morning bought croissant in the afternoon much less the next day, which, from the resonant thud as I tap the end of one on the counter, those offered for breakfast at the motel undoubtedly are. So, ignoring them, I sneak some apples and blueberry muffins into my shoulder bag for the drive. Along with strong coffee in a thermos I bought at the town’s solitary supermarket last night they should stop my brother moaning about being hungry for a while.

  As Alessandro puts our luggage in the car, I check us out then we hit the road again to continue our search.

  Road trip!

  Why are people in movies always so enthusiastic at the prospect of being stuck in a car for days, driving hundreds of miles across who knows how many states to get wherever they’re going? I may have driven when Abbey and I have been on holiday in Europe, but I’m damned if I’d rent a car on our side of the Channel and drive all the way there too.

  And it always looks so thrilling in movies, with all sorts of mishaps happening on the way, but the reality of searching for Abbey is far from exciting. Endless hours behind the wheel staring at the interstate stretching ahead and driving up and down roads around the small towns in our search area is downright boring.

  And leaves plenty of time for thought.

  Even as a child I was never backwards in coming forwards. Which means I’ve never had a problem making friends.

  There was a gang of us at school. No. Gang is the wrong word, it has connotations. A group, a band of us. Six little five-year olds who sat together in class and played together in breaks. But I was always closest to Abbey.

  I remember that first day. Indulging mum as she kissed me goodbye at the gate before rushing towards a new experience without a backward glance. I didn’t know the word for it of course, I was only five after all, but I knew it was the start of something new and exciting, and I was keen to get going.

  We weren’t in the same class that first year, Abbey and me, but I spotted her in the playground during the mid-morning break. Standing alone under the shade of one of the trees, kicking absent-mindedly at leaves that were already starting to fall. I felt a stab of something I was too young to name as I stared at her. She looked nervous, standing there apart from the crowd, like she wanted to join in and belong, but was too shy to take the leap.

  I can’t explain it. Call it cosmic, the planets in alignment or just plain old right place right time, I don’t know what it was, but, sort of like they say you know when you meet The One, I knew from the moment I saw her we were destined to be forever friends. So, I marched right up to her and told her so. She laughed as I held out my little finger before crooking hers around it. We shook, and the deal was done.

  Split into different classes, there was a parting of the ways with the other girls, but all through senior school Abbey and I stuck together. Mum and dad had moved us just before the autumn term started. We were closer to the school than Abbey, so she’d come back with me after the day of learning was done. With Alessandro playing football at a friend’s we’d have the house to ourselves. We’d sit in the kitchen eating the sandwiches mum had left wrapped in cling film, doing our homework and chatting about things that twelve-year old girls talk of: boys, fashion, pop stars, boys, teachers we liked, teachers we didn’t like, our hopes and dreams for the future, and boys. Until my mum or her mum got back from work and took Abbey home.

  The only thing that changed at Uni was the location, and that we didn’t need one of our mums to take one of us home because we were home. Even though I was doing Computer Science way on the other side of campus to where Abbey studied English, the faculty agreed we could be roommates. They understood her need to share with a friend. It was only a little more than a year since her parents had been killed.

  They’d been out late
at a party to celebrate their friends’ twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, so Abbey had stayed over. Any excuse really, she practically lived at our house in the holidays anyway.

  That summer before our last year at school had been glorious; long days of endless sunshine spent lazing in the back garden, having water fights, making plans and topping up our tans.

  Then everything went to hell.

  God it was awful. One day we were having fun, the whole rest of the summer stretching ahead, the next the police were knocking on the door at eight in the morning.

  They tried to be kind, to break the news as gently as they could, but I’ll never forget how Abbey just sort of crumpled when they told her.

  Dad identified their bodies. There was no way he or mum would make Abbey go through that, and the police just needed someone who knew them well to formally confirm who they were.

  Really both my parents were absolute stars. Dad sorted out the legalities about the house, convincing Abbey to rent it out to pay the inheritance tax. Thank God he did, because I know how much it means to Abbey to be able to live in her childhood home now.

  It broke her heart to do it, but mum arranged the funeral because no seventeen-year-old should have to organise their parents’ burial. Although Abbey did insist on their being interred together, side by side in one grave rather than the usual one coffin on top of the other. Actually, she got rather hysterical about it. Who can blame her?