Only Daughter: A gripping thriller of deadly deceit. Anna Snoekstra

know. She’s not acting like it, though, is she?”

      “Not really.”

      “And she looks in pretty good nick, considering. If she was kidnapped, he must have been pretty fond of her. That’s all I’m saying. What do you think?”

      “I don’t give a shit honestly,” he says. “But I reckon there might be a commendation in it for us.”

      “I don’t know. Shouldn’t she be in a hospital or something? I don’t know if ass hat was really meant to just let her leave when she clicked her fingers.”

      “What is the protocol, then? I know what we’re meant to do when these kids go missing, but what about when they come back?”

      “Fucked if I know. Must have been hungover that day.”

      They laugh, and then the car is quiet again.

      “You know, I’ve been wondering all day who it is she reminds me of,” the female cop says suddenly. “It just hit me. It was this girl back in high school who told everyone she had a brain tumor and took a week off school for the operation. A bunch of us started a drive to raise money for her. I think we all thought she was going to die. She came back right as rain on Monday, though, and for a few hours she was the most popular girl in school. Then someone noticed that none of her hair was shaved, not even an inch. The whole thing was a crock of shit from start to finish.

      “That girl, she looked at you just like our little princess back there looked at us when we met her. The way she takes you in, surveys you with that cold glint in her eyes like her head is going a million miles a minute trying to figure out the best way to fuck with you.”

      After a while I stop listening to them talk. I remember I have to speak to the detective when I get to Canberra, but I feel too dizzy to try to plan my answers. The car pulls off the main road.

      I wake to the jolt of the brakes and the light going on as the female cop opens her door.

      “Wake up, little lady,” she says.

      I try to sit, but my muscles feel like they’re made of jelly.

      I hear a new voice.

      “You must be Constables Seirs and Thompson. I’m Senior Inspector Andopolis. Thanks for pulling the overtime to bring her down.”

      “No worries, sir.”

      “We better get started. I know her mother is over the moon, but I have a lot of questions for her first.”

      I hear him pull the door next to me open.

      “Rebecca, you can’t imagine how pleased I am to see you,” he says. Then he kneels down beside me. “Are you all right?”

      I try to look at him but his face is swirling.

      “Yes, I’m okay,” I mutter.

      “Why is she so pale?” he calls sharply. “What’s happened to her?”

      “She’s fine. She just gets carsick,” the female cop says.

      “Call an ambulance!” Andopolis snaps at her as he reaches over and undoes my seat belt.

      “Rebecca? Can you hear me? What’s happened?”

      “I hurt my arm when I was escaping,” I hear myself say. “It’s okay, just hurts a bit.”

      He pulls my jacket to the side. There’s dried blood all the way up to my collarbone. Seeing that makes my vision fade even more.

      “You morons! You absolute fucking idiots!” His voice sounds far away now. I can’t see the reaction from the cops; I can’t see their faces paling. But I can imagine.

      I smile as the last of my consciousness fades.

2

      Bec, 10 January 2003

      Bec had decided months ago to live her life as if she was being watched. Just in case there was a film crew hiding behind a corner or her mirror was two-way. It meant no more yawning without covering her mouth or picking her nose on the toilet. She wanted to always look exactly like a happy, pretty sixteen-year-old girl should.

      This felt different, though, this prickling on the back of her neck. This felt like there really was someone watching her. She had been feeling it for a few days now, but every time she whipped her head around there was no one there. Maybe she was going mad.

      It would be scary for your worst fears to be coming real all around you and everyone to just dismiss you as crazy. Their next-door neighbour, Max, used to yell all night. Her mom told her he must just be arguing with someone on the phone, but she’d peered through her curtains when he’d woken her at 4:00 a.m. one morning, and there he was, screaming at no one in the dark. He threw a rock through their kitchen window a few weeks later. Her dad made a call that night, and Max was taken away. When he came back, he didn’t yell anymore. He just sat on his stoop and stared into the middle distance, slowly getting fatter and fatter.

      Would it be better to feel afraid all the time or to feel nothing at all? She hadn’t decided yet.

      The sun glared down at her through a milk skin of clouds. She would probably be burnt if she stayed out here much longer. But she liked this image of herself. Lying on her back in Lizzie’s swimming pool. Green bikini, freckled arms outstretched, belly button filling up with water as she breathed. She wondered if she was being watched right now. The bedrooms of Lizzie’s brother and father looked down onto the pool. She’d caught both of them staring at her a few times over the past year. It should gross her out, but it didn’t.

      The sound of feet slapping against the concrete, a moment of stretched silence and then the surface of the water exploded as Lizzie cannon-bombed. She came up for air giggling madly, her wet hair plastered over her face.

      “I almost got you!”

      “You’re such an idiot.” Bec laughed, trying to dunk her back under the water. Lizzie grabbed her waist and they screeched and cackled as they attempted to wrestle, slippery limbs like eels tangling together. Bec dunked Lizzie hard and she came up spluttering.

      “Truce?”

      Lizzie held out her pinkie finger, still coughing. They gripped pinkies and Bec swam quickly out of the way before Lizzie changed her mind. Bec leaned over the tiled edge of the pool, getting her breath back. She wished this was her house and Lizzie was her sister, although they looked nothing alike. While Bec was lean and relatively flat-chested, Lizzie’s body was all soft and curvy in the right places. Sometimes when Lizzie put on red lipstick Bec thought that her best friend looked just like Marilyn Monroe, but she never told her.

      “Oh, now my head is spinning again.” Droplets of water clung from Lizzie’s eyelashes as she stared intently at Bec.

      “It’s your own fault.” Bec rested her head on her arm. Her hangover was slipping away. The dizziness was gone and her stomach was beginning to calm.

      “Last night was awesome, wasn’t it?” A dangerous little smile crept over Bec’s face as she said it. Lizzie didn’t even know the best bits.

      “We’re so lucky.” Lizzie sighed and pushed herself off the edge. “You’d better go, dude. You’re going to get in the shit with Ellen.”

      “Crap! What time is it?” Bec pulled herself out of the pool, the baked concrete searing her bare feet as she hopped toward the lounge room. She grabbed her phone off the kitchen bench. It was two thirty; she would only just make it if she hurried. She had an SMS. It was from him. Just woke up. Always have the most amazing nights with you.

      Bec was glad Lizzie wasn’t there to see the goofy smile that plastered her face as she ran up the stairs to grab her work clothes. The message ran over and over in her head. It must mean he liked her. She was sure now. She slammed into Lizzie’s brother, Jack, on the landing. His door was open and the grinding sounds