Dad grabs a clump of tissues from a box on the table and divides them between us.
‘I need to do something,’ he says, dashing a tissue across his eyes. ‘Since your mum’s been gone, all I can think is what if we missed something, so we thought we’d head up there.’
‘We?’
He nods. ‘Thomas and Maddie are coming for support.’ He looks away, as though he doesn’t want to see my reaction.
I feel my eyes widen. ‘Maddie is your support?’
‘Not exactly. Thomas is my support, and your brother needs her. You know that.’
My jaw clenches. ‘Bloody Maddie. I curse the day she became Thomas’s carer.’
He shakes his head. ‘Please don’t say that, love.’ He places his hand over mine once more. ‘You sound so bitter.’
I cover my face with my hands. ‘She should never have said those things about me on her vlog, Dad.’
‘I agree, it was thoughtless—’
‘Thoughtless? She made me look—’
‘I know, love, but she’s young. She made a silly mistake, and you needed someone to vent your anger on. She’s sorry, Amelia. The post has gone now. Please let it go.’
But I’m not sure I can let it go.
‘I’ve rented two of the cottages,’ he says. ‘If you feel you’re up to it, there’s room for a small one.’
I look up and shake my head. I’m not sure I can face going back there.
‘No.’ He shakes his head too. ‘I didn’t think so. Although, it could be a chance to talk to Maddie – lay your demons to rest, as they say.’
‘I quite like my demons full of energy, thanks very much.’ It comes out snarky, and I’m not even sure of the point I’m trying to make.
He looks down for a moment, and then up and into my eyes. ‘And we might find something that leads to Lark.’
I so want to embrace his hope.
I have three choices: One, go home to my empty apartment and lose myself down a bottle of wine every night, whilst making desperate calls to William. Two, spend time here alone in this house, regressing into my childhood. Or three, head to Scotland, to Drummondale House with my dad beside me.
Tears burn as I imagine one of us recalling something vital that leads to finding Lark safe and well. Is it really possible?
‘OK,’ I say before I can change my mind, a surge of hope rising inside me. What if the answer to my sister’s disappearance really does lie up there in the Scottish Highlands? What if retracing our steps unearths a vital clue?
I drain my tea. ‘But you’ll need to keep me away from Maddie,’ I say, thumping my mug down. ‘Or I may just kill her.’
*
I watch from the front doorstep, as Dad lifts Thomas into the back seat of his Ford Freedom, and puts my brother’s wheelchair into the boot. Thomas looks different to when I saw him last. His hair’s longer, and it’s tied back in a man-bun, and he’s grown a beard too, which suits him.
‘Robert, could you spare one of those bottles of water? My mouth is so dry,’ Maddie calls out of the rear car window, as he loads a pack of water into the boot along with the bags and other provisions, including a litre bottle of gin, which looks tempting. The wind catches Maddie’s silky black hair and whips it across her face. ‘The weather’s going to be a challenge,’ she says, pulling the strands from her cheeks. ‘Let’s hope it’s better in Scotland.’
‘I hope so too,’ Dad says with a laugh.
I notice the way Thomas still looks at Maddie. I can’t work out if he’s in love with her, and I worry she’ll break his heart. A brief memory of her kissing his teary cheeks at Mum’s funeral flutters in and then evaporates. I’m sure she only sees herself as his carer, and one day she’ll meet someone and fall in love, and then what? Where does that leave my brother? My parents never planned for that.
‘Are you getting in, Amelia?’ Dad slams the car boot, and hands Maddie a bottle of water through the window.
Apprehension and the freezing weather nails me to the spot, and the earlier fluttering of snow is moving into blizzard territory.
‘Amelia?’
‘Uh-huh.’ A deep sigh turns to mist in front of me, as I make my way down the path, almost slipping on an earlier settling of snow. I climb into the passenger seat. Slam the door. Say nothing.
‘Grumpy!’ Thomas says, with a laugh. ‘I can see you’re going to be fun on this trip.’
‘How the bloody hell is this trip going to be fun, Thomas?’ I refuse to look round, sense Maddie’s eyes boring into my back.
‘Oh come on, sis,’ Thomas says. ‘Don’t be like that. We’ve got so much to catch up on.’ My brother seems oblivious to the suffocating tension in the car, or the fact we are heading to where we last saw our sister; that Drummondale House was the last place Mum smiled.
Dad gets into the driver’s seat and closes the door.
I finally snatch a glance over my shoulder, and Thomas grabs the moment to smile my way. He may be twenty-eight, but I still see my little brother sitting there, and recall how we used to run and play together. But that was long before he took off to America – long before his accident.
I return his smile, and turn watery eyes back to the front window.
‘Should we be going in this?’ I ask Dad as he starts the engine. ‘The snow is pretty heavy.’
‘It doesn’t look great, does it?’ Dad agrees, flicking on the wipers. He leans forward and looks up through the window towards the sky.
‘Of course we should go,’ Thomas says. ‘It will be fine. I’m psyched up for it now.’
‘I don’t know, it looks a
