Written In Blood

Chapter Fifty-Four

Tara climbed the stairs slowly, carrying a pile of washing she had just taken from the dryer and folded. The washing had been there since Sunday but she hadn't given it a thought, she was only doing anything with it now because her brother wanted her to empty the laundry bins and put the washing on before she headed off to school.

School was the last place she wanted to go, she couldn't keep her mind on the things she wanted to do, let alone the things she didn't, but Kieran was insistent, and while their dad was away he was in charge.

When she reached the top of the stairs she crossed to the door of her sister's bedroom, or rather the doorway since there was no longer a door, and stopped. A voice in her mind, which sounded a lot like her father's, told her she was being silly, but she couldn't bring herself to enter the room where her sister had been attacked, just the thought of doing so made her shiver uncomfortably.

Standing in the doorway, she threw the pile of laundry. It landed untidily on the bed, at least most of it did, two pairs of socks went astray, they fell off the bed and rolled under the bed. Tara swore, and immediately regretted doing so, if her father had been there to hear, he would have threatened her with his belt. She hesitated in the doorway, undecided about what to do; she was tempted to turn away and forget all about the socks, after all it was going to be a while before her sister was back and in need of her clothes, but her father's voice in her mind kept her from doing so, he would never approve of her not tidying up a mess she had made.

It took her a few moments, but finally she did what her father would have wanted, she entered the room and got on her hands and knees so she could retrieve the socks. She found the socks easily enough, though it was a bit of a stretch to get the second pair, but that was not all she found.

Dropping the socks onto the bed, Tara sat and stared curiously at the pink mobile phone she had discovered; it wasn't her sister's, she knew that, Emily's phone was on the bedside cabinet, which left her wondering whose it was and how it came to be under her sister's bed. She pressed the power button on the top of the phone and watched the screen while she waited for it to turn on.

"What are you doing in here?"

Tara's head whipped around. "Nothing," she said quickly, flushing under her brother's gaze. "I brought Em's clothes in and some of the socks fell under the bed."

"So what are you doing sitting on it, and what's that in your hand?" Kieran went cold when he saw the pink of the object in his sister's hand through her fingers and realised what it was she was holding. "Where did you get that?" he wanted to know.

Tara looked down at her hand. "I found it, it was under the bed. It's not Emily's." Automatically, she pressed the power button again.

"Give it to me." Kieran held out his hand expectantly.

If it hadn't been for the harsh way in which he spoke, Tara probably would have given her brother the phone. It wasn't just his tone that stopped her; for a brief moment, the phone turned on and she saw who it belonged to before the almost completely dead battery cut out again. "This is Georgie's phone," she said in a surprise-filled voice. "How did it get here? We should call the police; tell them we've found it."

Kieran ignored that suggestion. "Give it to me. I'll deal with it." He stepped closer to his sister, his hand outstretched. "I said give me the phone." When Tara continued to hold onto the phone he lunged for her.

Tara was not the brightest kid in her class, let alone her year, but nor was she was a dummy, far from it. When Kieran lunged for the phone in her hand a connection was made in her brain, a connection between Emily being attacked, her finding Georgina's phone under Emily's bed, and Zack Wild, who was suspected of the attacks, being released by the police.