Missing Me (25 page)

‘Right.’ Baxter snorted. ‘You and Faraday were just
investigating
me – which justified stealing from me and lying to my daughter – but
I’m
somehow the bad guy? Don’t you understand? I’m not any kind of villain in this.’

‘Yes, you are,’ Jam said, his voice shaking with fury. ‘Whatever happened in the past, you still took our baby.’

Baxter turned his steely gaze on Jam. ‘I had a customer – a childless woman – lined up for Natalia’s baby. What d’you want me to tell her? That after months of
waiting and hoping, there
is
no baby?’

‘It’s still not right to take ours,’ Jam insisted. Beside him, Lauren’s mouth trembled. Tears trickled down her face.

‘You don’t have a choice about it.’ Baxter spoke with an air of finality. ‘As I already told Madison, it’s “an eye for an eye”. She
owes
me. And
don’t think there’s any way out of this – I’ve been one step ahead of you all the way.’

‘You mean the hidden mike?’ I said.

‘And the door to the hut.’ Baxter laughed – a dry, ironic chuckle. ‘You and that stupid boy didn’t think you’d actually worked out the code, did you? We were
listening to everything the pair of you said. I opened the door remotely.’

I bit my lip, remembering Wolf trying out various Baxter family birthdates. Jeez, he’d pointed out the number 3 on the keypad had been more worn than the others, yet the number that
apparently opened the door didn’t feature a 3. I should have seen the whole thing was a trap right then.

‘Anyway, I’m afraid I can’t let any of you go now,’ Baxter went on. ‘It was just supposed to be your sister and her baby. I was planning that Lauren would meet with
an accident . . .’ Beside me, Jam clenched his fists. ‘But now you’ve dragged the baby’s father into it too, not to mention young Wolf.’

I stared at him. He was talking as if Wolf was part of the forces ranged against him. Did he really mean that? Or was everything he said about Wolf just a bluff? I couldn’t be sure; I just
knew that I desperately wanted Wolf to be on our side.

‘Wolf will go to the police,’ I said defiantly.

Baxter shook his head. ‘My men will catch up with him long before he can do that.’

My heart leaped. If Baxter was telling the truth and Wolf was loyal to us, at least he hadn’t been captured yet. I focused on Baxter again. ‘There are other people who know what
you’re doing,’ I said.

‘You mean Allan Faraday?’ Baxter raised his eyebrows contemptuously. ‘I don’t know how you came into contact with that man, but whatever he thinks he knows about me, he
has no proof. That’s what you haven’t yet realised, Madison. I don’t leave a trail. And I always get what I want. You mentioned Lana earlier. She was Miriam 20. She tried to defy
me too, but in the end she paid the ultimate price
and
I took her baby.’

I gasped.
The ultimate price.
Baxter meant that he had killed her. And now he was planning on killing us.

Baxter smiled nastily at the look of horror on my face. Then he turned and walked out, locking the door after him.

Lauren sank back to the floor. She put her head in her hands. ‘He’s really doing it . . . he’s really taking Ellie away,’ she breathed. She wasn’t crying, but her
agonised whisper was worse than tears.

‘We’re not going to let that happen,’ Jam said, sitting down beside her. ‘We’re going to save ourselves so we can save her.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. But as I looked around the bare attic room, I could see no way that we could prevent Baxter from selling Ellie to another family – or from killing the three of
us whenever he chose. And from what he’d said about Lauren, I was sure he’d make our deaths look like an accident.

The next hour passed unbearably slowly. Lauren told Jam the whole story of Ellie’s birth – how she’d had pains all day, but hadn’t thought they were contractions until
near the end, when the baby had come so suddenly.

‘Like she knew it was time – and wasn’t prepared to wait any longer,’ Lauren said. She turned to me. Jam followed her gaze. ‘Mo was amazing,’ she said,
explaining how I’d sat with her, encouraging her, helping . . . ‘I honestly don’t think I could have done it without her.’

‘Thank you, Mo.’ Jam looked up at me, his eyes glistening. ‘I can’t tell you how much that means to me . . . that Lauren wasn’t totally alone . . .’

I shrugged, feeling embarrassed. ‘I didn’t have a clue what I was doing,’ I said.

‘But you did it anyway,’ Jam said firmly. ‘
That’s
the point.’ He pulled me and Lauren into a hug then the two of them sat back, talking in low voices for a
while.

I wandered across the room. Had I been brave? It hadn’t felt like it. I’d just done what, surely, anyone would have done in the circumstances. Anyway, it had all ended in disaster.
If I hadn’t got involved with Allan Faraday and tried to help Natalia, Lauren and Jam and their baby would be safe right now.

My mind drifted to Wolf. Now I had time to think, I couldn’t believe he had really betrayed us. Baxter had referred to him as ‘that stupid boy’ earlier and said his men would
soon catch up with him. Surely that couldn’t be part of a cover story? No. It didn’t add up. Wolf had helped get me to Appleton Cross. That couldn’t have been in Baxter’s
plan. If Baxter had wanted me down in that basement prison, he’d have kidnapped me along with Lauren, wouldn’t he?

My thoughts skittered about, one minute convinced of Wolf’s innocence, the next wondering if he was guilty after all. His dad did own the Appleton Cross house. And then there was the
hidden microphone. In the time between Baxter finding out I was responsible for rescuing Natalia and her baby and my arrival at Appleton Cross, the only people who could possibly have placed a tiny
pin microphone on my top were Annie – who clearly hadn’t done it, and who was probably worried sick about where I was right now – and Wolf. He’d come to my house with Esme,
pretending to want to make up with me and . . .

Esme.

Wolf wasn’t the only person who’d been close enough to me earlier to hide a microphone on my clothing. Esme had been there too. She’d been the one, in fact, who’d
insisted on coming round in person to visit. I remembered the goodbye hug she had given me. Plenty of opportunity for her to put the mike on my collar.

Of course.
Her father must have got her to plant the microphone on me after he’d made that threatening phone call. In fact, Esme could easily have given him my phone number
and
told him that I had a sister.

Would she really have done all that?

I thought of how I had lied to her, taking advantage of our newfound friendship to find out about Baxter’s illegal operations. I hadn’t
meant
to use Esme, but Baxter would, no
doubt, have said that I had, making me out to be calculating, cruel and manipulative, presenting my actions in the worst possible light.

In which case it was no wonder Esme had betrayed me.

I groaned, letting my head sink into my hands.

‘What’s the matter, Mo?’ Lauren asked. I looked up. Her face was drained of all colour and there were dark shadows under her eyes. I had never seen her look so pale or so
drawn.

Jam was gazing at her, his face creased with concern.

I shook my head. ‘Nothing.’ They didn’t need to hear my anxieties about Wolf and Esme.

‘How’s your eyesight?’ I asked Jam. ‘Less blurry?’

‘Much better, thanks,’ he said. He looked around the bleak attic room. ‘Any thoughts on how we get out of here?’

‘D’you think Wolf will have gone to the police?’ Lauren asked anxiously.

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But Allan must have called them by now so—’

‘Allan Faraday?’ Lauren’s head shot up.

I nodded. ‘He called me while you were climbing out of that chute,’ I explained. ‘He said he wanted to help.’

Lauren rolled her eyes.

‘I’m not saying he’s any kind of superhero,’ I said. ‘You were right about him being a bit of a loser. But he knew . . . useful stuff about Baxter . . .’ I
told Jam and Lauren about the hidden mike then said, ‘Allan
promised
he would call the police.’

‘Do you think we can trust him?’ Lauren asked.

‘Even if we can, he doesn’t know where Baxter has taken us,’ Jam said. ‘
We
don’t know.’

‘I think we’re by the sea,’ I said. ‘I could smell it earlier.’

‘Me too,’ Jam said.

‘Sssh.’ Lauren put her finger to her lips. ‘What was that noise?’

Jam and I fell silent.

‘I don’t—’ Jam stopped as a faint shuffling sound rose from outside the door.

I rushed over and tried to peer through the keyhole. It was an old-fashioned lock, nothing state-of-the-art like the electronic lock from the hut door. I couldn’t make out anything on the
other side. Was that because it was dark? Or because someone was standing there?

As I opened my mouth to speak, the distinct sound of a key sliding into the lock met my ears.

I took a step back away from the door. ‘Someone’s there,’ I hissed.

Jam leaped to his feet. He balled his hands into fists. ‘If there’s only one, I’m taking him, gun or no gun.’

Lauren’s eyes widened. The door opened . . . slowly, carefully . . .

A face peered into the room. It was Wolf.

He looked right at me – a powerful, meaningful look full of emotion that said better than words that he had not betrayed me.

Would
never
betray me.

My heart flipped over in my chest.

‘Mo,’ he said. ‘Are you all right? Did they hurt you?’

I shook my head, too overwhelmed to speak. He was here. For us. For me.

Wolf glanced at Jam and Lauren, then back to me. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘There’s not much time.’

I scurried to the door. Wolf pointed to the top of the narrow steps we had climbed up earlier.

‘Down there,’ he mouthed. ‘Follow me.’

‘Wait a sec,’ Jam whispered suspiciously, pulling him back into the attic room. ‘How do we know this isn’t another trap? Why didn’t you just call the
police?’

Wolf put his finger to his lips. ‘Sssh, my phone fell out of my pocket when I was running through the woods so I couldn’t call anyone, but I knew that even if I got through to the
police, they wouldn’t know where Baxter’s men were going to take you so I got into the boot of their car.’

‘You were already inside the car that they made
us
get into?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ Wolf whispered. ‘Come on, let’s go.’

‘Wait.’ Jam grabbed his arm again. ‘So why didn’t you fetch the police when you got here?’

‘We’re in the middle of nowhere,’ Wolf hissed. ‘There aren’t any phones. Plus, I overheard Baxter talking to that Leather Jacket guy. They’re going to kill
you and dump your bodies way out to sea. They’re just waiting for the boat. I heard them say it was almost here so I crept into the hall and stole the key to this room from where they’d
left it on a table. They could see that it’s missing any second.’

Jam’s face blanched. Lauren and I both gasped.

‘Now come on, we have to hurry,’ Wolf said.

Jam still looked sceptical.

‘I trust Wolf,’ I said, absolutely sure now that he was totally loyal. ‘We should do what he says.’

‘All right,’ Jam said. ‘If you trust him, Madison.’

Wolf squeezed my hand.

‘What about the baby?’ Lauren asked. ‘D’you know where she is?’

Wolf shook his head. He led us down the narrow steps. We crept, single file, into a small corridor. Voices drifted up from the stairs at one end. Wolf turned and led us the other way, past a
series of closed doors, to the fire door at the far end.

He pressed down on the bar, then lifted it gently up. It released with a metallic click. The four of us froze. I held my breath, listening to see if anyone had heard us. No, the voices
downstairs rumbled on.

Wolf carefully pushed open the door. It scraped along the floor. Cold, sea air swept over us. Again, we all stood stock-still, listening hard in case anyone had heard. This time the voices
stopped. A beat passed. My heart thudded loudly against my ribs.

Footsteps sounded across the hall below us. Then a male voice – not Baxter – called out.

‘Boat will be here in five.’ It was Leather Jacket. ‘Tell Mr Baxter.’

There wasn’t much time. I caught Wolf’s eye. He pointed outside. It was totally dark beyond the house, the electric lights casting a murky glow just a few metres into the surrounding
grass. I could hear the swish and sway of the sea in the near distance and a shiver of terror shot down my spine. I focused on the sight immediately in front of me: an iron fire escape that led
down to the ground floor.

‘Turn right when you get to the bottom of the steps,’ Wolf whispered. ‘Run away from the house as fast as you can. There’s a shed about ten metres away. I saw it when I
was sneaking in. The main road must be along from that.’

We crept down the fire escape, single file. Jam led the way, followed by Lauren, then me, with Wolf bringing up the rear. The wind whistled in my ears. None of us made a sound. As Jam reached
the bottom step, a light went on at the ground-floor window right next to where he was standing. A yellow glow stretched out across the grass around us.

I shrank back into the shadows. Behind me, Wolf swore under his breath. If anyone looked out of the window, they’d be able to see us as soon as we stepped into the light. Despite the chill
night air, sweat trickled down the back of my neck.

Jam came back up the steps. ‘We’ll be too easy to spot if we all go at the same time,’ he whispered. ‘Let’s head for the shed, one by one. I’ll go first and
check it’s safe.’

I peered into the gloom. I could just make out the outline of the shed Wolf had mentioned. It looked a long way away.

‘Follow right after me.’ Jam gave Lauren a quick squeeze of the hand, then raced off.

I held my breath. Was anyone watching from the window? Surely, any second, someone would realise we were gone. Then all hell would break loose. Lights would come on everywhere. Men would start
shouting. I shivered as Jam disappeared out of sight and into the gloom behind the shed.