Sister, Missing Read Free Page A

dropped the doll. Maybe she got lost. I muttered under my breath, trying – and failing – to reassure myself. Please, Mo.
    Surely she would appear any second – plaits streaming out behind her as she raced towards me.
    But she didn’t.
    I headed for our two towels, still lined up on the sand, just a few metres from the sea. The whole area was busier than it had been even just a few minutes ago and I knew I was never going to
spot Madison in the crowds. Hoping against hope, I called her again, but her mobile was still switched off. I held my own phone in my hand – in case she called me – as I stopped to work
through my options.
    I knew I had to tell Annie. I didn’t want to, but short of contacting the police I couldn’t see what else to do. I glanced around, forcing myself to focus on every detail.
    Please be here, Mo. Please.
    Up on the promenade a group of teenagers were chatting outside the Boondog Shack. The boy who’d spoken to me earlier was with them. He’d obviously found the girl he’d been looking for.
    Families were still swarming onto the beach. Shrieks and yells filled the air. There were plenty of little kids . . . toddlers in sunhats waving toy plastic spades, a pair of skinny redheads in
matching Bermuda shorts . . . an overweight girl about Madison’s age wearing a bright pink dress.
    I stood, trying to see everything all at once. It was no good. Panic rose inside me, whipping up through my body like a tornado.
    And then my phone beeped. A text from Madison’s phone. Relief surged through me. With trembling hands, I opened the text.
    Stop looking on the beach. Your sister isn’t there. Do NOT contact the police or I will kill her. Go home and wait.

 
3
    The Wait
    I stared at the words, the sun beating down on the back of my head. Madison had been taken. She was missing, just as I had once been. My legs gave way underneath me and I sank
to the sand. I read the text again and again. Trying to make the words sink in.
    I looked up. The world on the beach was carrying on as normal. But everything had changed. I got to my feet and walked, blindly, across the sand. My heart was beating so fast and so loudly I
could barely hear myself think.
    Who could have taken her? Where was she?
    I looked around. The car park was out of sight behind the row of beach huts. If Madison was no longer on the beach maybe she was there. I broke into a run. Then stopped. If Madison had been
bundled into a car she would be well away from the car park by now. I felt numb as I reached the promenade and stopped to slip on my sandals. I’d left the towels, I realised, and turned to go
back for them. Then I stopped. What did it matter if I lost a couple of beach towels? Madison had been in my care and I’d allowed someone to take her.
    I looked at the text message again.
    Do NOT contact the police.
    I needed to tell Annie.
    My stomach twisted into a hard ball of knots as I ran hard up the road, back to the holiday home. Annie was hunched over the kitchen sink, her back towards the door. She was dressed now and
humming to herself as I walked in.
    I stood in the doorway. How on earth could I even begin to explain to her what had happened?
    ‘Is that you, Madison sweetie? Lauren?’
    I said nothing. My legs felt like lead.
    Annie turned round. She blinked as she took in the fact that I was alone. ‘Where’s Madison?’
    I couldn’t find the words to say it, so I just held out my phone. Annie stared at my face and her mouth fell open. In a second she was across the room. She grabbed my mobile and read the
text. Her lips moved as she went over the words. Like me, she read it three times before she looked up. Her face was ghost-white, her eyes filled with horror.
    ‘No,’ she wailed. ‘No, not again!’ She threw the phone onto the kitchen table where, just a few hours before, Madison had sat grinning at me over her cereal bowl.
    I picked up my phone and closed the text.
    ‘What are we going to do?’ I said.
    My