It's been five years since the sudden disappearance of Cora Cadigan's mother. Five years since the case was closed before it even began.
In the final summer before the end of high school, Cora knows it's her last opportunity to find the answers she...
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"Oh my god."
I make it outside just in time to throw up all over the grass. It had clearly been mowed today, the gardeners shearing the green hedges and landscaping the flower gardens that line the driveway.
I don't think I'm breathing. I know I'm still alive because I can feel my heart thumping in my chest, breaking in half and fighting to rip through my flesh. I may as well have left it back in the lounge room, along with Dale's words.
The note found in your mum's case file.
I sway down the driveway, my legs shaking so badly that I have to place my hands on my knees. I watch the concrete below me, my mouth wide open as I gasp for air.
The one Rhys wrote.
"No," my voice breaks with realisation. Realisation that I had let myself fall for another boy who had promised he wouldn't hurt me. Yet he's broken me more than anyone ever has.
The one Rhys wrote.
Rhys.
I reach again, the last of the contents of my stomach emptying onto the driveway.
The note found in your mum's case file.
The note.
The note.
Rhys had written the note we had found in mum's file. He had gone to the effort of staging the picture in someone's car, printing it off and sticking it in my mother's file before bringing me to the police station and pretending it had been there all along. Pretending that he hadn't written it.
And that day at Rebecca's office. Oh my god. He had asked who had written it like he didn't already know. Like he hadn't been in her office that very day, taking calls for her. Like he hadn't written it himself.
Why? Whywould he do this to me?
I wipe my mouth with the back of my shaky hand, standing up straight. I walk numbly down the driveway, my eyes trained straight ahead on the house opposite. I won't allow myself to cry yet. I won't allow myself to break.
