LAURA GREENE
A DISAPPEARANCE
Mystery Thriller
WHAT EVERYONE KNEW
Copyright © 2021 Laura Greene – All rights Reserved
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Also by Laura Greene
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About the Author
Chapter 1
Melody waits in a small study. The room is from another era, swathed in wooden oak panelling and leather bound books. It was only yesterday that she discovered her father's note, and yet it is constantly on her mind. He had been to Deacon House. Not only that, but he had been inside the library and left a warning that Melody should turn back and never darken the doorstep of that remote mansion again.
This place is dangerous, Melody thinks to herself as she stares at the books placed on the desk in front of her. They are a collection of school books covering a variety of subjects; everything a young child would need to expand their mind and their abilities, with the right guidance.
It is Melody who is to offer that guidance.
Everything is arranged neatly.
Melody has spent the past day preparing as best she can, but the nerves are still there. It is not simply the nerves of her hidden identity. No one knows, as far as Melody is aware, that she is the daughter of a man who once walked the corridors and rooms of this sprawling house, and recently, too.
No, the nerves Melody feels are also from having to face a young girl and to be a worthwhile guide in the meantime. After all, she's never been a tutor before, even though this is about to be her cover. But little Rebecca requires guidance, and, while Melody's real purpose there is to find out what happened to her father, she would like to be as good a teacher as she can be.
Why should a child suffer because something dark and ominous is going on at Deacon House? Besides, in order to keep the Deacons from knowing her true identity, she has to keep up the act. She has to inhabit the role of a teacher, and a good one at that.
Melody catches her reflection momentarily on a large mirror adorning the opposite wall. I look like a school governess, she thinks. Then she stares at herself, sternly. She is playing the part a little too well — her dress and appearance a far cry from her usual relaxed personality. If I am playing a part, she thinks, might as well dress up for the role. And dress up she has. There is a refinement about her.
Footsteps echo somewhere nearby. She is still not used to how unseen footsteps cause strange echoes which deceive the ear at Deacon House.
Melody is on the second floor of the mansion, with countless rooms around her, but she is comfortable in the small study.
The window looks out across a vast lawn to the rear and then to a dark patch of forest, terminating in a high ridge of evergreen trees. Beyond that, the ferocious mountains rise up like an unstoppable force of nature cutting through the Earth's crust. A force that not even the ominous woods could resist.
As the footsteps grow closer to the door of the study, Melody checks herself in the mirror once more. Her hair is up and pulled back in a high bun. She is wearing a cream blouse and a dark green thick skirt that hangs down to her ankles. A gold necklace and locket an old boyfriend gave her hangs around her neck.
Doubt begins to permeate her mind as she knows the footsteps are about to reveal themselves.
“I look too fierce, I look too fierce,” she whispers to herself as a loud knock sounds on the door.
“Please, enter,” Melody says, clearing her throat.
The door opens a few inches, creaking as all doors seem to at Deacon House, and then ceases to move. For a moment, Melody stares blankly at the door, wondering what or who lies on the other side.
Every knock at a door seems ethereal somehow in this place; almost as though it were a strange dream, caught in the grips of a bygone era. Although being in such a sprawling house on a remote Scottish island, invokes images of ghostly apparitions walking the halls and rooms of a forgotten mansion, it is an entirely different type of pale face that now stares at Melody. One timid and innocent. Not one to fear, but one to cherish.
Poking through the gap in the door, a brown haired little girl stares up at Melody with a shy smile. Her pale cheeks soon blush as Melody looks at her and smiles.
“Hello?” Melody says in an enthusiastic but soothing tone. “Are you Rebecca?”
The girl darts back into the hallway. A whispering conversation is then heard between Rebecca and someone else — low enough that Melody cannot quite make out the words. But they take on an encouraging approach. They are the words of a family member trying to put young Rebecca at ease.
As the whispers diminish,
