Little Girl Gone: The can’t-put-it-down psychological thriller. Alexandra Burt

Chapter 28

      

       Acknowledgements

      

       About the Author

      

       About the Publisher

       Part One

      

       Chapter 1

      ‘Mrs Paradise?’

      A voice sounds out of nowhere. My thoughts are sluggish, as if I’m running under water. I try and try but I’m not getting anywhere.

      ‘Not stable. Eighty over sixty. And falling.’

       Oh God, I’m still alive.

      I move my legs, they respond, barely, but they respond. Light prowls its way into my eyes. I hear dogs barking, high pitched. They pant, their tags clatter.

      ‘You’ve been in a car accident.’

      My face is numb, my thoughts vague, like dusty boxes in obscure and dark attic spaces. I know immediately something is amiss.

      ‘Oh my God, look at her head.’

      A siren sounds, it stutters for a second, then turns into a steady torment.

      I want to tell them … I open my mouth, my lips begin to form the words, but the burning sensation in my head becomes unbearable. My chest is on fire, and ringing in my left ear numbs the entire side of my face.

      Let me die, I want to tell them. But the only sound I hear is of crude hands tearing fragile fabric.

      ‘Step back. Clear.’

      My body explodes, jerks upward.

      This isn’t part of the plan.

      When I come to, my vision is blurred and hazy. I make out a woman in baby-blue scrubs, a nurse, slipping a plastic tube over my head and immediately two prongs hiss cold air into my nostrils.

      She pumps a lever and the bed yanks upward, then another lever triggers a motor raising the headboard until my upper body is resting almost vertically.

      My world becomes clearer. The nurse’s hair is in a ponytail and the pockets of her cardigan sag. I watch her dispose of tubing and wrappers and the closing of the trashcan’s metal lid sounds final, evoking a feeling I can’t quite place, a vague sense of loss, like a pickpocket making off with my loose change, disappearing into the crowd that is my strange memory.

      A male voice sounds out of nowhere.

      ‘I need to place a central line.’

      The overly gentle voice belongs to a man in a white coat. He talks to me as if I’m a child in need of comfort.

      ‘Just relax, you won’t feel a thing.’

      Relax and I won’t feel a thing? Easy for him to say. I feel lost somehow, as if I’m in the middle of a blizzard, unable to decide which direction to turn. I lift my arms and pain shoots from my shoulder into my neck. I tell myself not to do that again anytime soon.

      The white coat wipes the back of my hand with an alcohol wipe. It leaves an icy trail and pulls me further from my lulled state. I watch the doctor insert a long needle into my vein. A forgotten cotton wipe rests in the folds of the cotton waffle weave blanket, in its center a bright red bloody mark, like a scarlet letter.

      There’s a spark of memory, it ignites but then fizzles, like a wet match. I refuse to be pulled away, I follow the crimson, attach myself to the memory that started out like a creak on the stairs, but then the monsters appear.

      First I remember the darkness.

      Then I remember the blood.

      My baby. Oh God, Mia.

      The blood lingers. There’s flashes of crimson exploding like lightning in the sky, one moment they’re illuminating everything around me, the next they are gone, bathing my world in darkness. Then the bloody images fade and vanish, leaving a black jittering line on the screen.

      Squeaking rubber soles on linoleum circle me and I feel a pat on my shoulder.

       This isn’t real. A random vision, just a vision. It doesn’t mean anything.

      A nurse gently squeezes my shoulder and I open my eyes.

      ‘Mrs Paradise,’ the nurse’s voice is soft, almost apologetic. ‘I’m sorry, but I have orders to wake you every couple of hours.’

      ‘Blood,’ I say, and squint my eyes, attempting to force the image to return to me. ‘I don’t understand where all this blood’s coming from.’ Was that my voice? It can’t be mine, it sounds nothing like me.

      ‘Blood? What blood?’ The nurse looks at my immaculately taped central line. ‘Are you bleeding?’

      I turn towards the window. It’s dark outside. The entire room appears in the window’s reflection, like an imprint, a not-quite true copy of reality.

      ‘Oh God,’ I say and my high-pitched voice sounds like a screeching microphone. ‘Where’s my daughter?’

      She just cocks her head and then busies herself straightening the blanket. ‘Let me get the doctor for you,’ she says and leaves the room.

       Chapter 2

      Voices enter my room like a slow drift of clouds, merging with the scent of pancakes, syrup, toast, and coffee, making my stomach churn. I feel a hand on my arm.

      ‘Mrs Paradise? I’m Dr Baker.’

      I judge only his age − he is young − as if my brain does not allow me to appraise him further. Have I met him before? I don’t know. Everything about me, my body and my senses, is faulty. When did I become so forgetful, so scatterbrained?

      He wears a white coat with his name stitched on the pocket: Dr Jeremy Baker. He retrieves a pen from his coat and shines a light into my eyes. There’s an explosion so painful I clench my eyelids shut. I turn my head away from him, reach up and feel the left side of my head. Now I understand why the world around me is muffled; my entire head is bandaged.

      ‘You’re at County Medical. An ambulance brought you to the emergency room about …’ He pauses and looks at his wristwatch. I wonder why the time matters. Is he counting the hours, does he want to be exact? ‘… on the fifth, three days ago.’

      Three days? And I don’t remember a single minute.

      Ask him, go ahead, ask him. ‘Where’s my daughter?’

      ‘You were in a car accident. You have a head injury and you’ve been in a medically induced coma.’

      Accident? I don’t remember any accident. He didn’t answer my question. He talks to me as if I’m incapable of comprehending more elaborate sentences.

      ‘They found