

DEAD GIRL WALKING

FANNY COX
Copyright © 2018 Fanny Cox

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1548-940380

ISBN-13: 978-1548940386

DEDICATION

for

BRADLEY, BUG, LALA, CORBY, OOPS, and AMANDA
CONTENTS

 | Acknowledgments | i

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1 | SUNDAY AFTERNOON | 1

2 | LATE AFTERNOON | Pg #

3 | EVENING | Pg #

4 | MONDAY SUNRISE | Pg #

5 | MORNING | Pg #

6 | MID MORNING | Pg #

7 | MIDDAY | Pg #

8 | AFTERNOON | Pg #

9 | EVENING | Pg #

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68 | NIGHT

MIDNIGHT

TUESDAY DAWN

MORNING

MIDDAY

EVENING

NIGHT

WEDNESDAY MORNING

MIDDAY

AFTERNOON

LATE AFTERNOON

EARLY EVENING

LATE EVENING

NIGHT

THURSDAY MORNING

AFTERNOON

EVENING

FRIDAY MORNING

MIDDAY

AFTERNOON

EVENING

NIGHT

MIDNIGHT

SATURDAY DAWN

MORNING

MIDDAY

AFTERNOON

EVENING

SUNDAY

WEDNESDAY MORNING

AFTERNOON

EVENING

NIGHT

THURSDAY MORNING

MIDDAY

AFTERNOON

FRIDAY MORNING

MID MORNING

AFTERNOON

EVENING

SATURDAY MORNING

SUNDAY MORNING

MID MORNING

NIGHT

MONDAY MORNING

MIDDAY

AFTERNOON

LATE AFTERNOON

TUESDAY

FRIDAY

SATURDAY MORNING

MID MORNING

MIDDAY

MID AFTERNOON

EVENING

LATE EVENING

NIGHT

NIGHT

NIGHT | Pg #

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Cover Art by Rocking Book Covers
CHAPTER ONE

SUNDAY - AFTERNOON

NEVE SAT IN HER RUSTY, beat-up, yellow VW Beetle looking through the cracked windscreen at a run-down, two-story, old wooden house. An ice-cold shock ran down her spine. She shivered violently as goosebumps erupted all over her body.

She rubbed her arms and watched in mild satisfaction as the bumps receded into her flesh and warmth began to return to her body. She hated that feeling, what was it called? When somebody walks over your grave or something like that, she thought. She tried to shake it off as she picked up the newspaper to double check the address she had written down.

This was definitely where she was supposed to be. 11 Genesis Close. She sighed loudly.

The house was in a desperate state of disrepair. The rusted-out guttering hung loose and was collapsed entirely on one side of the house. The yard – if you could even call it that – was a disaster. It was mostly dirt, with clumps of long thick untameable grass growing here and there amongst the miscellaneous broken and discarded objects that were laying around. There was a boarded-up window beside the front door covered in graffiti. Black scorch mark stained the wall from behind them.

'Ah good' she mused to herself out loud, 'it's probably a drug lab.' Drug den or not, it was close enough to the college that she wouldn't have to miss her classes if her car didn't want to work and cheap enough for her to live in until she could hopefully land a job.

The other houses in the Cul-de-sac were a bit run down, but none so bad as this place. A loud bang against Neve's car made her jerk in her seat and look around in surprise.

"Sorry!" a kid called out, as he raced over and collected the ball rolling quickly across the road back to him. They were playing cricket. Neve exhaled and gave him a quick wave in his direction to address that she had heard him and turned her attention back to the house.

A decaying wooden porch seemed to sit haphazardly on the front of the house as if it was added as an afterthought. Three steps were leading up to the porch. On the top step sat a bright, happy, little frog ornament holding a welcome sign. It was a dumb little thing that looked very out of place against the decrepit looking meth den behind it. It had a bright rainbow coloured pinwheel that was spinning with increasing urgency above its little head.

Neve watched as a strong breeze rustled the low hanging branches of the tree in the front yard, plucking the leaves off one by one, swirling them up, up, up and away in dusty, dirty pirouettes as a dark shadow softly blanketed the house.

Neve leaned forward in her seat and peered up at the sky through the top of the windshield. Soft white clouds were being swept away quickly, as heavier, darker storm clouds rolled in, ominously blocking the afternoon suns warmth and light. She pulled her blazer up closer to her neck as she shivered. The kids outside abandoned their game and headed inside one of the houses.

She lifted the well-worn newspaper to her steering wheel and squinted at the house and room rental section one last time, for an alternative. Anything else would do, she thought, but nothing else within her price range had magically appeared. Again.

She sighed again, her shoulders dropped. Neve had imagined something better for her new start, but where else could she go? As if the universe was reminding her what she was running away from, her phone pinged. Message received. She opened it. It was from Morris asking her to please contact him so that they could talk. Yeah right, like that's going to happen, she thought bitterly. Should she reply? What would she say? 'Go choke on your tongue and die,' maybe? She decided to ignore him. That was the plan. Move away, go to school and live a normal, ordinary life for once.

She decided it was time to make a move. It was now – or never, and she wasn't going back. Going back wasn't even an option.

Neve glanced into her rear-view mirror to check for potential hazards before getting out of the car and got caught by her own reflection. She held the mirror in her hand, moving it around as she assessed herself. Her skin looked paler than usual making the small spattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose seem bolder. Her dark hair was loose but neat, and it sat nicely over her shoulders in layers.

She tidied her hair and primped herself, adding colour to her cheeks with a quick few pinches, the way she remembered somebody showing her when she was younger. Snapping the mirror back into place, she stared directly into her own dark eyes, which were wide with concern at that moment. They pleaded with her to take caution.

"Oh, come on!" she scolded at her reflection, "I'm just going to look." Her reflection remained unconvinced, so she tried to control her expression, but failed. "I AM just going to look," She said again, more loudly and more sternly.

Oh God, Neve thought, suddenly overcome with a bout of self-conscious chagrin. She was talking to herself out loud in a place where people might see her.

What if somebody had seen her? Oh! Good, she thought, I'm out here thinking that this house looks like it's full of drug dealers and they're probably in there looking at me going 'This chick is talking to herself. That's crazy! She's crazy – she can't come and live with us!' Neve was frozen momentarily, internalising, not daring to look around or give away that she was now self-aware, scrambling subconsciously for a believable way to play off her mentally ill faux pas.

She pressed her lips together and started to kind of bop her head and shoulders as though she was dancing. She rifled through her bag with one hand and pulled out her favourite cranberry coloured lip-gloss, applied a fresh coat while still carrying out her dancing charade then positioned the lip-gloss in front of her mouth like a microphone. She lip-synced some words and hoped desperately that from the outside of her car, at least, that it looked like she was really into the song on the radio. Normal people sing and dance to their favourite songs on the radio in their cars all the time, she thought, – surely!

Of course, really, Neve knew that she was sitting inside a silent car, squirming around in her seat like she had worms in her butt while throwing her arms around like an inflatable flailing arm tube man, mouthing silent nonsense words into a stick of lip-gloss. The irony that she had resorted to acting like an actual crazy person, in an attempt to look like a sane person, who doesn't talk to themselves out loud when they are alone wasn't lost on her. She cringed internally.

At the end of her 'performance,' Neve pretended to turn the radio off, to really sell 'it,' and marvelled at her ability to include even the smallest of details in her crazy charade. If this had been a different situation, she might have even been a little bit proud of herself, but this was her life, and she was barely toeing the line between being sane enough to be allowed in public independently and crazy enough to be institutionalised.

She popped open the door handle, in a rush to distance herself from what had just happened. The rusty yellow door opened with a long, loud, grating creak. There, on the sidewalk perched on top of a bike that still had training wheels attached to it was a young boy staring at her quizzically. Her eyes locked onto his in alarm. So, she had been seen after all – she pondered the idea that when you feel like someone's watching you, that it usually means they are – had some truth to it.

She slowly lowered her foot to the bitumen, without breaking eye contact. What was he thinking? Did he even live around here? Would she have to see this kid every day? She took a deep breath through her nose and decided to play it cool. There's no way he knows I was faking it she told herself, maybe... the radio was too low for him to hear outside of my car? She smiled at the thought. That'll do. The little lie comforted her enough to let it go. She swung the car door closed with a slam and did the obligatory car key search. Shoot. She'd left them in the ignition, so, she leaned in through the open window and tossed them into her purse.

"Oh. Dear. God" she muttered quietly as she withdrew her upper torso from the car and rested her forehead against the roof of the car. Her window had been down the entire time, and this kid had witnessed the whole crazy show for exactly what it was. A crazy person shenanigan.

She could have stayed there wallowing in heated embarrassment forever, but luckily the first warning drops of rain had begun to fall and splashed across the roof of the car with big heavy splats. The kid rung the bell on his handlebars twice and pedalled away squeakily as if nothing had happened. Neve was half relieved, and half mortified. She did stupid stuff like that a lot because clinically she was a mentally ill person, overcompensating for a lifetime of Therapy and abandonment issues.

Snapping out of her inner dialogue she opened the noisy car door again, wound the window up and closed it with a hard slam. That's it! She decided once and for all, No more procrastinating. She headed up the remnants of an old broken cement path toward the house, mentally recalling the contents of her purse as she did. She double checked the pepper spray inside the bag with her hand. There it was. She felt calmer immediately.
chapter two

sunday - LATE AFTERNOON

NEVE CREPT UP TO THE OPEN DOORWAY and peeked inside. The house was tidy and bare – but nice. The walls were bright yellow and freshly painted, the unpleasant chemical smell of the paint lingered stagnantly inside, offset probably, by the impending storm. The furnishings were simple; the floorboards were exposed and unfinished except for a long grey hallway runner that ran down toward the back of the house beside the staircase. To the left of the staircase and hallway, sticking out like a sore thumb was a boarded-up door. It was attached to the same room as the boarded-up window. She guessed it was the drug room, and noted that it appeared to be well out of order.

Soft music floated up from somewhere in the back of the house drawing her attention away from the door, it was an eclectic tribal melody of drums and horns. It was rhythmic and beautiful, almost hypnotic in a way. Neve swayed to-and-fro from it slightly, without realising.

The house was so ordinary on the inside. A stark contrast to how it looked from outside on the curb. Neve wasn't sure what she had expected. Okay, she knew what she had expected. Meth heads, drug users and slum city central. But this was nice. It was clean. It could really work out for her. Somebody had been working with a modest budget to make this place look homely, and Neve was starting to imagine herself living there.

She knocked on the door frame, too quietly. Crap. She wondered if she should knock again, but louder? But, then what if they heard the first knock and the second knock annoys them, she countered. Ugh... how long between knocks is even reasonable?

Neve adjusted her outfit while she stalled for time. She was wearing a navy-blue blazer over a white rose printed halter neck dress. She wiped an imaginary smudge off her glossy red Mary-jane heels.

When neve stood back up a tall black girl with a full natural afro was standing in the doorway smiling vibrantly.

"Hello!' she said enthusiastically, offering her hand to Neve to shake.

"Oh," Neve said in surprise. She hadn't heard the girl approach.

"Uh, hi" she replied shaking the girl's hand with what she hoped was a friendly and confident smile. Meeting new people had always been challenging, and she was hoping to make a good impression.

Too much time had passed between the hello's, she realised in horror as they both stood to look at each other.

The other girl was watching Neve's face in joyous amusement, while unbeknownst to Neve, her facial expressions were betraying what she had hoped were guarded anxious thoughts.

"You must be... Claudia?" the girl asked, guessing.

"Oh? Uh, no. I'm Neve. Neve Moore. I called about the room last week."

"So, you're Neve!" She said excitedly, giving Neve a quick once over with her eyes, her smile turned up higher on one side of her cheek.

Neve looked at herself and wondered what the other girl was thinking of her.

"Come in. Come in" The girl beckoned. Neve leaned into the door frame protectively, biting her lip nervously. The other girl seemed not to notice. Instead, she continued talking without missing a beat.

"Claudia is one of the other girls that's moving in. There's going to be four of us in here – together." She said pulling a dramatically grim face, but it quickly bounced back into her vibrant smile.

"You're the first one here actually," she said, placing her hand gently around Neve's arm and snaking it in, so they were linked together. "Oh, well" she added, seemingly as an afterthought, "Besides little old me." She leaned backward fanning her face with her free hand dramatically. Neve couldn't help but smile a little, this girl was confident and expressive. She liked her already. "But- this is my place, so, of course, I'm here first." She laughed. "I'm Nikita Raymone by the way but just call me Nikki."

Nikki was tall and lean, dressed in a simple white tank top and blue tasselled jean shorts. Her hands moved expressively when she talked, and her demeanour was cheerful, open and inviting. Neve watched Nikki admiringly.

"So, let me give you the grand tour," She said, gently easing Neve through the doorway by the arm. Neve hesitated. Her feet felt like lead. Nikki pulled Neve gently into the house. She'd done it. She'd taken the first step. Okay, Nikki had helped her along, she hadn't done it on her own, but she was doing it- without Morris' so-called 'help.'

They turned right at the bottom of the stairs and walked through an open archway into a large white room. "Lounge room," Nikki said simply with a turn of her wrist in passing. The room was extremely bare. There was a small two-seater couch pushed up against the wall, draped in a clean sheet and covered with brightly coloured scatter cushions. There was a small matching teak coloured side table, and the coffee table next to the couch and on the other side of the room, above the simple fireplace, was a wall mounted flat screen television. "If you have any furniture you want to add, there's plenty of room."

"I didn't bring anything with me really, just a few things. Clothes mostly" Neve said.

Nikki smiled and nodded. "Well, maybe if you buy something later on then?"

They walked through the lounge room into a smaller room. Which appeared to be a study. It had a desk, a chair and a computer plus a bright green shag pile rug in the middle of the floor. "This is the study. It's not much yet, but it's a start. The computer has an internet connection, and it's communal so feel free to use it. There's even room for your own desk and computer if you would prefer"

Taking a left turn out of the study brought them into the dining and kitchen room at the end of the hallway. The linoleum was a hideous faded pink and cream checkerboard print. It was worn through to the floorboards in front of the sink. Nikki had tried to cover it up with a small mat but the worn through hole was larger than that. The cream coloured cupboards were vintage with plastic handles like you so often find in old houses, and the benches were laminated to match.

"It's all a bit old, as you can see," Nikki said apologetically "But I've ripped out a lot of the really gross stuff that was in here and I'm going to upgrade it, someday." At the bench was four brightly reupholstered retro kitchen stools, which lent themselves to creating a kind-of breakfast bar, and in the corner of the room beside the double windowed glass sliding doors was a little round dining table with four mismatched chairs. The fridge and the stove were glaringly new and stood out. The refrigerator was covered in positive affirmation picture magnets which seemed fitting to Nikki's personality. Nikki showed Neve which shelf was hers alone and what areas of the fridge were communal. She'd even hung some cute little tags on the shelves with everyone's names on them.

They left that room by heading up the hallway beside the stairs, which was bringing them back to the front door. "Oh!" Nikki said pulling Neve up, in the middle of the hallway. She opened a door underneath the staircase to reveal a small guest toilet. "Downstairs toilet. So..." she said waiting, "Do you like it?"

Neve smiled. "Uh, can I see the bedroom?" She asked.

Nikki smiled brightly. "Of course! Silly me, getting ahead of myself." She started to lead Neve toward the stairs when Neve stopped dead in her tracks. The floorboards creaked under her feet as she stopped. Beside her was the boarded-up doorway.

Neve looked at it. She'd forgotten it was there. Nikki's smile dimmed, and she nodded understandably. "Yeah... There was a fire here before I got the house. It's been boarded up until the repairs get done. It's perfectly safe. It was just cosmetic damage really. One day it's going to be another bedroom. I hope it doesn't make you change your mind."

Change her mind? Neve thought. Did she even have the luxury? This house was fine, in fact, the longer she was inside, the more the memory of her first impression of the house faded, and she really liked Nikki. She could learn a thing or two from her, she hoped.

"You wanted the small room, didn't you?" Nikki asked.

"Yes," said Neve.

"Okay awesome!" Nikki said with a clap of her hands. "Your room is the first door at the top of the stairs."

There were three bedrooms on the top floor, the furthest away from the staircase was Nikki's. It was medium sized, and like the rest of the house, it was pretty bare when it came to furniture. Neve saw that under the window was a table that had been covered with a small cloth. She could see shapes and objects underneath the cloth, but couldn't figure out what they were. The room next to Nikki's was the bathroom. Beside the bathroom was a large room with two single beds. Neve figured the other girls were sharing, and then behind the last door at the top of the stairs was Neve's room. It was a small room like Neve had asked for, with a single bed inside. The bed took up most of the space, but Neve wasn't bothered by it. She had an inbuilt wardrobe and two large windows that, when it wasn't storming should let in a lot of light.

Nikki stood beside her and offered an apologetic lip shrug. "It's a lot smaller than the others."

"It's great!" Neve said relieved.

"Do you want a hand bringing your stuff in?" Nikki asked.

"Sure," Neve said happily.

The girls went down the stairs with a skip in their steps. There footfalls echoing like a stampede of buffalo on the hard-dry plains throughout the empty house.
CHAPTER THREE

SUNDAY - EVENING

THEY REACHED THE LANDING JUST as another girl had arrived lugging a massive purple suitcase in front of her. The corners were caught in the door, and she appeared to be struggling with it when it suddenly gave way, sending her toppling over the top of it and sprawling head and hands first onto the unfinished floors. She groaned and rolled onto her back covering her face with both of her hands.

"Are you okay?" Nikki asked helping the girl up into a seated position. The girl was short and petite, with long blonde hair, blue eyes, and pixie-like features. She was dressed in denim cut off shorts and a long-sleeved grey and black fitted jersey top with the number 95 on the back. Her hair was pulled up into a bun.

"Yes," she said blushing, "I'm just a horrifically clumsy human being." She brushed off her scraped palms on her shorts inadvertently drawing attention to the little bruises and bumps that covered her shins from past incidents.

A boisterous laugh from outside drew everyone's attention to another girl who had arrived. She walked in and leaned against the door frame, hoisting a full duffle bag almost effortlessly onto her muscular shoulder. Her bright green eyes sparkled mischievously against her tanned skin and long dark hair. "Claudia! Girl! Are. You. Serious? You're on your butt already, and you've been here, what? All of five seconds? I can't keep up with your accident-prone ass. You tell your mother that from me, cause I'm not explaining your next broken bone. Mm-mm not my fault, not my problem. I'm clearly not qualified to look out for you." The dark-haired girl lifted her friend up to her feet with a well-manicured hand and giggled as the blonde girl, whose name was Claudia McClain, blushed a deep crimson red.

"Shut up Sophie," Claudia said playfully and tried to push her friend away. Sophie didn't budge a bit, in fact, if anybody was thrown even the slightest bit off balance, it was Claudia who took a step sideways on her still too wobbly legs.

Nikki, Neve, Claudia, and Sophie Lopez introduced themselves to each other while they were carrying in everybody's bags and boxes from the cars. Claudia seemed meek and mild-mannered, which Neve liked, whereas Sophie appeared quite dominating and loud which challenged Neve's anxieties.

They were carrying in the last of the boxes from their cars when the lightning began to flash. The bellies of the clouds were swollen and dark grey. They hung low and almost seemed to scrape themselves on the tops of the weather vanes of the houses on the hill in the distance. A loud clap of thunder boomed above their heads making the girls scream in surprise. It rumbled menacingly, long and low as the sound travelled toward the hill, where the girls could see a heavy shower of rain cascading toward them swiftly.

Claudia squealed. She lifted the box in her hands above her head and started running across the yard, lifting her knees high in an effort not to trip over anything. The end result of this maneuver was that she appeared to be prancing like an Ostrich as she dodged the clumps of grass and discarded furniture laying around.

Sophie cackled. She seemed to find a never-ending source of amusement in the clumsy and awkward antics of her lifelong best friend.

Neve stood watching everyone in the doorway of the house, she stepped sideways to let Claudia in, who had successfully managed to reach the door without sustaining an injury. The rain, which was chasing her had reached the porch steps just as Claudia had run through the door.

The two girls stood together, sheltered in the doorway watching Nikki and Sophie stand around in the rain. Nikki was twirling slowly around on the spot, arms outstretched toward the sky opening herself up to the rain and receiving it gladly. Sophie was just standing with her arms out at her sides, palms up catching the rain and seemingly enjoying the weather.

"Don't you just love the rain?" Nikki called loudly to Sophie.

"Yes," she screamed back. Their shoes and feet were now standing in muddy pools where before it had just been dusty dirt.

Neve considered for a moment, joining them. She toed at the back of her right shoe with her left foot until it became loose and slipped off. She was one bare foot convinced it was a good idea to race out there. It looked like they were having so much fun.

"Look how crazy they look, out there in the freaking rain!" Claudia said in disbelief. Neves resolve wilted. Crazy.

"Come on out Girls, it's so much fun!" Nikki called spinning around and around. Sophie stormed straight up to the house and hoisted her tiny little friend onto her shoulder without invitation and carried her straight out into the weather. Claudia screamed and kicked in protest, but it was of no use. Within seconds she was as soaked as the others. Sophie twirled her around once and lowered her to the ground, which was a terrible mistake on her part, as Claudia ended up bum first in the mud immediately. Sophie laughed so hard, it was hard to tell if she had actual tears streaming from her eyes or if it was just the rain.

Neve stood alone, watching the three girls laughing and playing in the rain and smiled. These people were exactly what she needed right now.

Nikki stopped twirling and looked Neve straight in the eye. She held out one inviting hand. With her other hand, she pointed at Neve and coaxed her forward. "Come on" she mouthed.

Oh god. Here we go, Neve thought.

She had to join them, to be a part of them. She wanted to fit in, and she didn't want to think about it. She ran forward and leapt off the porch splashing her pretty Mary-janes into a filthy puddle. Nikki caught her and pulled her into a close embrace. The rain was cool, and she could feel it hitting her skin all over gently but firmly. It was relaxing and stimulating at the same time. Nikki spun Neve around, and they screamed when she almost lost her footing. The four of them were laughing giddily, splashing in the mud, kicking it at each other and twirling around. It was a freedom of self-consciousness that Neve had not experienced before. Nikki grabbed Neve by the hand, Neve grabbed Claudia's hand who already had Sophie's. Sophie raced around to Nikki's side to bring them full circle.

Sophie's hand reached out toward Nikki's. As Sophie and Nikki's fingertips touched a lightning bolt struck the power transformer on the other side of the street outside of their neighbour's house. A bang louder than anything any of them had ever heard rang out. They screamed and dropped to the ground immediately, their ears ringing, their hearts racing and their hearing muted. The rain seemed to pour harder and heavier than before, and they retreated to the safety of the porch. The street was getting too dark to see with the power gone out. Across the road in the last light of the setting sun in the distance, they saw steam or smoke pouring out of the power box. It sizzled electrically.

Slowly but surely their hearing returned, the ringing remained.

"Did that really just happen? Holy crap! We could have died" Somebody said.

"It was so close to us!" Said an excited voice, Neve recognised as Nikki's.

"I can still smell it, we were so close I can tell you what it smelt like" The other voice replied, it was a sweet voice, and Neve suspected it was Claudia's.

She couldn't tear her eyes away from the power pole which had just now started to catch fire.

"Guys, seriously," said the first voice, which must have been Sophie's, "Did anybody else crap themselves?"

The four of them silently exchanged nervous glances and burst into laughter.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Somebody somewhere had called the fire brigade.

Nikki sat down next to Neve and sighed happily. "That was pretty intense, huh?" she asked. Neve nodded and tried to smile. She felt really ill and weak but didn't want anybody to know. Nikki's eyes sparkled. "Almost seemed...I don't know... mystical or something? Don't you think?"

"Oh God," Sophie exclaimed, "You're not one of those people, are you? Who believe in that kind of thing?"

"Yes, I am actually," Nikki said. "You don't?"

"No way!" Sophie said. "I'm a sane person. I believe what I know is true."

Nikki smiled.

Neve stood up. Her knees trembled from the cold and the adrenaline.

"Are you okay?" Nikki asked supporting her as she stood up.

"Yeah," she said, "I just want to go and put some dry clothes on."

Sophie laughed loudly "you mean you want to go change your jocks? Yeah, me too!" she said standing up.

Nikki laughed, and with a shake of her head helped Neve inside followed by the others. The house was too dark to navigate for the new tenants, so Nikki left them at the base of the stairs as she lit candles for them to use.

"Isn't the power going to come back on?" Claudia asked.

"Not likely," Sophie scoffed. "the power box was on fire, Claudia."

Claudia sulked and leaned against her friend's broad shoulders. Nikki came back into the room and handed everybody their own candle. In true fashion, Claudia exhaled on her flame, accidentally extinguishing her candle immediately after it was handed to her. Neve giggled as Sophie re-lit it for her with her own candle. Sophie really looked out for her friend. Poor Claudia really seemed to have a hard time just existing.

"What are we going to eat tonight?" Sophie asked disappointedly.

Neve took the opportunity to slip away unnoticed while everyone else was talking about dinner. When she was upstairs in her room, safely, with the door closed, she pulled her Journal out of her handbag and by candlelight, wrote about her day like she always did. Then she put on some dry clothes and hopped into her bed, pulling her nightgown over herself for warmth. Her bedding was packed up in some garbage bag, somewhere in the room and she was suddenly too tired to find it. She crawled onto the bed while she checked her phone. She'd missed a call from Morris again. She deleted the voicemail without listening. Tomorrow after she finished orientation at Crawford University, she'd change her number. Or block his.

Neve closed her eyes and somewhere in the house echoing through the walls she could hear the sound of scratching against wood. Her eyes opened, and the sound stopped. Outside in the dark, she could hear the low growl of a dog. She sighed as her eyelids grew heavy again and she fell to sleep.
CHAPTER FOUR

MONDAY - morning

NEVE WOKE TO THE SOUND OF A DOG barking savagely outside. Her eyes popped open in alarm. "Ugh," she groaned. Her eyes watered from the glare of the sun as she instinctively curled into a foetal position, shading her eyes from the blinding headache that was daylight. Her bedroom was saturated in the sunlight that poured mercilessly into the room through her uncovered windows. Her eyes struggled to open and adjust to the brightness in the room. She blinked hard. Once. Twice. Stinging tears rolled down her cheeks in protest.

She sat up slowly, stretching and yawning as she tried to get her bearings. The room started to come into view. Blurry colours focused into brown boxes and black garbage bags piled up around the room. Her eyelids fluttered as she wiped the crunchy sleep deposits from her eyes, she blanched, her eyes felt shrivelled and abused.

She looked around the room and wondered briefly, where she was. Her vision had sharpened, finally, but her brain was still playing catch-up.

She was in her new room. Boxes remained piled high beside the bed and bags of clothes were dumped in the corners. She counter-navigated them in her half-blind groggy state and crossed the floor over to the window. The sound of the dog barking and growling aggressively outside was somewhat muted through the glass paned window.

Outside, the sky was bright blue without a single cloud in sight. Kids were playing in their backyards yelling carelessly. There, on the ground in her own backyard stood a massive black dog barking incessantly at the house. The dog stared at Neve, growling and drooling between barks.

Neve tore herself away from the window and ducked out of sight smacking her head against the wall in haste. "argh" she hissed quietly, trying to breathe out the pain without waking anybody. Neve wondered briefly what to do in her half-asleep state when she realised the dog had stopped barking.

Neve slowly crept back up to the windowsill and dared to peek through the bottom of the window, hoping to keep out of the dogs' view. Kids were playing outside in the neighbour's yard. Which seemed odd in her manic, half asleep state. You should warn them about the dog, her brain told her. She quickly pulled the window open to call out to them. It slid so easily it banged hard against the frame. Neve ducked and listened quietly to hear if anybody had been woken by the slam. The house seemed silent. She stood back up and looked out the window. The dog was gone. Had it left? Where did it go? Neve blinked a few times trying to get her bearings. Maybe it was a dream? Had she started doing that again? Dreaming while she was awake? She dared to consider the possibility that she wasn't cut out for this, pretending to be "normal" thing.

She checked the time on her phone. 8.58 a.m. and put it down. Then picked it back up again, in alarm, realising she was running very late for her first day at Crawford University.

She raced down the hall to the bathroom. The door was closed. Locked too. She listened and could hear the water going inside. "Crap!" She muttered. There was no time to waste waiting for whoever was in there to finish up. She hurried downstairs to the guest toilet to pee. It took longer than she wanted it to take. She must have held her bladder too long.

Her stomach rumbled, but she didn't have any time to eat. She stared down at her feet. She needed to get dressed. She raced up the stairs loudly taking the steps two at a time. What am I going to wear? Where are my clothes? Why did I just throw everything into garbage bags and run? What was I thinking?

She dug through her bags of clothes spilling everything out onto the floor. The room was a mess, she thought, chastising herself, and made a mental note to keep her bedroom door shut until she had time to clean up. She started searching for her blue denim knee length Levi jeans. They were tight fitting, comfortable and would accessorise easily with the plain blue blouse she pulled out of the bag with them.

There was no way she was going to get her hair sorted out the way she wanted it. There simply wasn't enough time. She teased brushed it, leaving it loose and checked her phone. It was 9.22.

Already? Neve thought, But I haven't even done anything yet! Her eyes burned, tears threatened to form at any moment. Neve sat on the bed and put her head into her hands. It was over. She was going to be late on the first day- what was the point? She glanced t the mirror and saw herself sitting on the bed looking pitiful. No! She told her reflection standing up, straightening her back and squaring her shoulders. Keep moving. Ignore that stupid thought that says you can't. You know what you 'Can't' do? You can't give up before you have started, you have to keep going.

Nikki was walking out on the landing as Neve barrelled out of her bedroom. She stopped short, merely preventing a collision of their two bodies.

"You look nice," Nikki said nicely. Neve flushed slightly. She wasn't used to compliments. She figured Nikki gave them in spades.

"Thank you," she said. Nikki's eyes drifted across to Neves bedroom. Neve slammed the door closed quickly behind her.

"I'm running super late," Neve said apologetically stepping toward the staircase.

"Oh? You're going to the University too then?" Nikki asked, making Neve pause at the top step.

"Yeah?' Neve replied.

"Really? Were you a student there last year? I didn't see you?"

"No. I transferred from the City."

"Oh, that's cool. Can I get a ride with you?" Nikki asked.

Neve hesitated and looked Nikki up and down. She was dressed in a floaty off the shoulder t-shirt, leather sandals and the same blue shorts from the day before. Her hair looked nice, and she wasn't wearing any makeup.

"Are you ready?" Neve asked anxiously.

"Yup," Nikki said with a shrug of her shoulders. "I just got to grab my bag from downstairs, and I'm good."

"Okay!" Neve said in relief. "Let's go."
chapter five

monday - morning

THEY ARRIVED AT THE UNIVERSITY, and Neve realised the car parks were full. "Of course, all the carparks are taken, Because I'm an Idiot," she muttered to herself and then pressed her lips together into a hard line to prevent herself thinking out loud in front of Nikki again. She would have to drive back out and find a park somewhere else and jog to class. Ugh. Jogging. She hated it.

Neve stopped the car. "I'll drop you off here Okay?" she said to Nikki. "There's no point in us both being late on the first day."

Nikki jumped out of the car yanking her bag with her as she swung the door closed. "Thanks, Neve, I'll owe you one!" She promised as she walked briskly towards the main square.

"Yeah" Neve agreed quietly as she pulled away. She eventually found a parking spot two whole blocks away. She put her backpack on and sprinted back to the university.

She ran across the quad and into a big brown building. 'Perfect start to the semester. I'm late!' She thought bitterly. She raced up a flight of stairs, 'If the professor picks on me when I walk into the class, I swear to god I'm just gonna take it on the chin'! Jogged down a long corridor. 'Oh no. What if I'm the only person whose late? And they call me 'late girl' for the rest of my life? Hey, there's Neve, she's never on time. What if there are no seats left and I have to stand up?' Neve turned left onto another corridor and stopped at the third door. She exhaled and tried to calm her breathing. She looked at the door. J101. 'Huh. Weird. How did I know where I was going?' she muttered to herself.

She looked at the door. Should she knock? Or should she try and sneak in? On the other side of this door was a confrontation. She froze. The door was morphing in front of her eyes from a plain timber lecture hall door into a cryptic tomb booby trap worthy of Indiana Jones' expertise. She placed her hand gingerly on the door handle, closed her eyes and breathed slowly. She gently put pressure on the handle, lower, lower, lower, until she felt, rather than heard a little click as the door gave and she slowly eked it open. It creaked slightly. She paused, holding the door ajar, imagining everyone in the room turning to look at her, glaring at her for interrupting. She inhaled deeply and quickly pushed the door open the rest of the way.

Neve stood there momentarily and double checked the time on her phone. The room was empty. She walked inside. Down the aisles between the seats and sat down. She rifled through the contents of her bag hoping to find a copy of the campus map inside.

"Hey, Girl!" A voice called from the doorway. Neve jumped. She suddenly felt like she was doing something wrong. She stood up and turned around.

Two guys stood at the doorway watching her. She walked up the aisle toward them. One of the guys was medium height with sandy blonde hair and brown eyes. He was dressed in a black singlet and maroon coloured skinny jeans. He leaned against the door with his head cocked to the side casually. The other guy was tall and skinny with long dark hair that was pushed back off his face. He was standing behind the first guy, off to the side, looking down at his feet. He was dressed in layers of black clothes with chains and studs all over.

"You look lost," Said the shorter blonde one.

"Oh, yeah I think I might be. I thought this was Professor Cunningham's Journalism?"

He laughed at her casually.

"No, not anymore. Well not for at least the last ten years actually. And yet people still end up in here. It's the practical joke that never ends. They are doing renovations on this part of the building. You must have seen the signs when you passed them?" He paused for a second and then continued before Neve could reply. "Anyway, You 'newbies' are always the ones to get burned. Cunningham's is now downstairs-"

"-Downstairs? Oh, okay" she said, interrupting him.

The blonde guys' eyebrows arched in surprise. His lips pursed slightly. The tall guy looked at Neve, Neve looked back at him, shifting uncomfortably underneath his too big almost glowing green eyes.

The short blonde guy bit his lip and smiled revealing a set of beautifully natural straight white teeth.

"My name's Jimmy," he said taking Neve's hand in his, "And this big shy teddy bear is Owen." He added, ruffling a hand through Owens' hair. Owen moved away and brushed his hair back into place with his hand. "Don't let the packaging fool you, honey, he's just a big old pussy... cat" He added with a smile.

Neve nodded her head at Owen in response and found herself shifting uncomfortably under Owens gaze.

"So, who are you?" Jimmy asked, diverting Neve's attention back to that big gorgeous smile of his again.

"Oh, right. Me. Well, my name is Neve, Not Hey, Girl" She said smiling.

"A rose by any other name," Jimmy said simply. "Neve. That's different, I've not heard it before. Let's go to class then, shall we?" He said.

Owen followed, walking behind them, silently. His chains clinking against his legs as he walked.

"So, is it just Neve?" Jimmy asked. "Are you the new Madonna?".

"No," said Neve. "It's Neve Moore"

"Uh, well Miss Moore, I'm Jimmy Cunningham Jnr, Jnr."

Neve paused.

"Cunningham?"

Jimmy nodded emphatically. "Yup," he said, almost sadly.

"Any relation to the teacher?" Neve asked.

Jimmy snorted and laughed. "Which one? I guess it depends on who you ask. I'm his son." He winked at Neve suddenly and pulled her to a stop in front of a new door on the first floor. J101A.

"Ah, of course!" Neve said looking at the door. "How could anyone possibly make a mistake between J101 and J101A?"

Jimmy opened the door and walked inside. Neve glanced back at Owen. He looked sideways at her as he passed her.
CHAPTER SIX

monday - mid morning

THE CLASSROOM WAS THREE-QUARTERS FULL, and the Professor was talking about the Syllabus and his expectations for his students for the semester when they arrived. Jimmy had already seated himself in the middle of the room and was waving emphatically at Neve to get her attention.

As Owen and Neve walked down the aisle between the students' seats, they both noticed there was only one spare seat beside Jimmy.

"come on," Jimmy said impatiently.

The professor cleared his throat "If everybody could please take their seats" he said, before continuing on with his speech.

It wasn't clear to either of them who Jimmy was motioning to. Neve watched as Owen decided his friend was motioning to her and found a seat two rows down and took a seat alone. Neve looked at Owen apologetically and started to make her way toward the seat beside Jimmy.

She pushed past the other students in the row as carefully as she could manage and sat in the seat beside Jimmy, returning his smile with one of her own. Neve settled herself into her seat next to Jimmy, as he sat resting his chin on his hand listening to the teachers' speech. Neve studied Jimmy's face for a moment. His skin was pale and smooth, he had long soft eyelashes that framed his dark eyes beautifully. Neve noticed that his eyes seemed glazed over, almost as though he was daydreaming.

She turned her gaze away from him, almost smiling to herself and saw Owen staring back at her from his new seat. His face was contorted into a look of some kind of mixture of incredulity and horror. Her smile faded instantly as a sense of guilt washed over her.

Looking around at all the other students in the room, Neve noticed that people were taking notes. At the front of the room, the professor strolled casually from left to right and then sat on his desk and sipped from his coffee mug between answering questions and delivering course outlines in detail. The professor was wearing a pair of old black and white converse sneakers, dark blue jeans and a faded ACDC t-shirt underneath an open suit jacket. Surprisingly he looked really young, especially considering he was supposed to be Jimmy's father. Although unlike Jimmy, the professors' hair was Dark and wavy.

He had another sip of Coffee as Neve watched him. Somebody asked him another question. He answered it while stroking his stubbly chin with his thumb and forefinger. Neve wondered briefly what that stubble would feel like against her own face, at that moment the professor smiled, and he looked up, staring straight into Neves' eyes for a moment.

Neve flushed. Wondering if somehow, he had known she had been checking him out at that exact moment. She pretended to drop something and leaned down to collect herself and her imaginary Biro. When she finally sat back up, Professor Cunningham had moved on and was looking at somebody else.

When the class ended Jimmy applauded and hollered obnoxiously, but he was the only one clapping in a bustling room of people busily heading off to their next appointments. Neve realised she hadn't taken a single note and saw that Owen still seemed to be writing. She decided to ask him if she could take copies and climbed over the empty seats until she was directly behind him.

Owen was sketching a drawing that looked a lot like Neve.

"Is that me?" She asked.

Owen stiffened and covered the drawing with his arm.

Neve looked at him, he wouldn't look at her.

"You're really good at drawing people." She said.

Owen sighed, "Not really." He said quietly.

There was a slight kerfuffle behind them, as Jimmy climbed over the seats to sit down next to Neve.

"Sorry, I thought you were taking notes, and I thought I might ask you for copies. Can I see the drawing?" Neve asked. Owen moved his hand off the piece of paper which was now slightly crumpled.

"No, that is really good. I can't believe how much it looks just like me, you could do something with this, it's talent." She said.

"He's not that good," Jimmy said. "I mean he's alright at it, but I've seen other people do way better at it."

Owens gaze lowered to his drawing and he scrunched it into a ball and stuffed it into his backpack.

Neve looked at Jimmy and wondered why he would be so mean.

Jimmy noticed Neve's glare. "Don't get me wrong, Buddy!" Jimmy said. "You're good. But you need more practice if you want to do something with it. A lot more."

Neve stood up to leave.

"Hey, Neve? Why don't you come to meet my father?" Jimmy said linking Neve's arm in his and leading her down to the front of the room. Neve planted her feet. She didn't want to go with him. He felt her resist and stopped.

"Please?" He asked sweetly. She looked into his eager eyes and wondered briefly why she should. Neve shot a glance backward to Owen, but he still hadn't looked up.

"My Dad might have notes he could give you," Jimmy said.

Neve saw an older couple, in about their late fifties or early sixties talking to the professor. Their hair was greying, and they had dark eyes and were dressed nicely. Neve and Jimmy stood just far enough away from them to keep a polite distance, and close enough to overhear their conversation.

"I think you did really well today." The older lady said giving the professor a complimentary squeeze on the arm. She looked happy and proud.

"I feel like you could have been a bit harsher on them, make sure they know you mean business, assert your dominance so that they don't walk all over you, and show them you will not take their excuses lightly." The old man said enthusiastically. Professor Cunningham listened passively, sipping his Coffee. The old mans' wife tutted in disagreement.

"These kids need to be pushed, not just told what to do. Don't ask them nicely. Sometimes, you really have to ride them."

The wife cleared her throat and stared daggers at her husband.

"You know what I mean," he said to her quietly.

"Well it's only my first year teaching here, and I'm sure I have a lot to learn Dad." The professor started, "But we all have our own teaching styles, our own signatures which tell other people, this is who I am, and this is how I do it. Kids have changed - "

"I was only head Professor here last year, son. It's not like they changed so much in a year!" The old man interrupted angrily.

"I know." The professor says, putting his hand up in retreat.

"James," The old lady said sharply to her husband. "Let him be, he has to find his own way." She tugged her husband by the sleeve to show him that it was time to go.

"I love you, honey," she said to the professor. "And I know you will do wonderfully in your fathers' old position. You do the Cunningham name proud. Don't listen to your father." She glares at the old man pointedly. "His teaching methods weren't always... suitable."

The professor stepped forward and planted a kiss on his mothers' frail cheek. "I love you too, Mother. Thank you for visiting" The old lady smiled softly and with her husband at heel turned to leave.

They stopped short when they saw Jimmy standing there.

"Jimmy!" The old man said. "I hope you're not taking your fathers class for an easy pass." He chuckled.

"Of course, I am," Jimmy said.

"Where's your friend, Owen?" The old lady asked glancing at Neve. "I've always liked that-."

Neve glanced up at where Owen had been seated before, but he was gone.

Jimmy shrugged. "I don't know where he is, I'm not his keeper."

The old man glared at Jimmy. "There's no need for the attitude Jimmy, your grandmother was just asking."

Neve looked at the old woman.

She was standing beside her husband silently, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at Neve. She wasn't even blinking. Just standing there like a statue. Neve locked eyes with her and tried to smile politely. The colour had drained from her face, and she was reaching out for her husband with her spare hand, and tapping his arm for attention. She tried to speak, but she merely stuttered silently. Neve began to suspect that something was very wrong with her.

"Excuse me," Neve asked, reaching out to touch the old ladies arm, "Are you okay?" Her husband, oblivious to his wife's condition finally seemed to snap out of his trance, noticing, at last, his wife had become suddenly ill.

"Olive?" He said in alarm.

The professor stepped in and waved his hands in front of his mothers' face. "Mom?" She didn't react at all. "Jesus! Dad, call an ambulance."

"N-n-n-... No!" Olive shrieked loudly, drawing noise up from some low guttural place inside her body. Neves blood curdled, and she stepped backward.

The professor put an arm around his mother's back to help steady her. "Have you eaten today, Mum?" The professor asked.

Olive shook her head. "James," She said meekly tugging against his arm. "We have to go. I need to lay down. Now!" They hurried out of the room leaving everybody in the room wondering if Olive was going to be okay or not.

Jimmy stood there watching with disinterest, and Neve turned to him for an explanation. He merely sighed heavily and shrugged while checking his nails for filth. The professor looked at his son, and his shoulders dropped. He exhaled sharply.

"Jimmy," he said sadly, "Why do you have to goad them with this behaviour?"

"What behaviour?" Jimmy asked. The professor glared at his son and then shook his head sadly.

"Dad. Meet my new friend, Neve" he said.

The professor looked at Neve finally and offered a polite smile.

"How do you do, Neve?" He asked.

"Good, thank you" she replied realising her mouth was now cotton dry.

He reached out and shook her hand. "Have I seen you somewhere before?" he asked, cocking his head slightly to the side.

Neve shook her head. She cleared her throat to talk. "I don't think so; I've only just moved here."

"Oh," the professor replied thoughtfully, "So you're one of the new transfers. Where did you come from?" he asked.

"The city," Neve said.

"Are you sure you haven't been here before?" The professor asked. "For some reason, you kind of make me feel like I have seen you before."

Neve flushed.

"Okay," Jimmy said. It seemed he was almost disappointed with how the meeting had played out. "well we'd better be going now." Jimmy said and led Neve out of the room by the arm. Owen was waiting for them at the door.

Neve looked back into the classroom and saw that professor Cunningham was watching her. Neve glanced away, embarrassed that he'd seen her look back and tried to listen in on what Jimmy and Owen were whispering about together.

Her gaze lifted toward the Professor again a few moments later and they locked eyes. He was still looking at her. She smiled and waved nervously. His face dropped.

Neve's stomach somersaulted at his reaction. She hurried out of his line of sight and ended up closer to Owen who was standing there watching her.

"Hey," Neve said.

"Hey" Owen replied.

Jimmy huffed.

"I'm off! I've got another class to attend. Later, Losers" he said bitterly, briskly stalking off.

"What is his deal?" Neve wondered out loud.

She glanced at Owen for an explanation. He just shrugged and looked at the floor.

"It's hard to say. So, what are you doing now?" Owen asked.

"Well," Neve said thinking, "I really need to start looking for a job, or else I'm going to be broke and homeless by this months end."

Owen regarded her situation carefully before he spoke again.

"There might be something open down at the Stagg, where I work. If you wanted me to talk to someone for you, I could?"

"The Stagg?" Neve asked.

"The coffee shop on campus." He said. "I don't mind asking for you."

"Yeah, of course," Neve said. "I'd take anything at this point."
chapter seven

MONDAY - MIDDAY

THE STAGG WAS A CUBE SHAPED, glass building in the middle of the main quad. Students were gathered in small groups of three and four or more, sitting either on the grass in the sun or at the stainless-steel bistro tables and chairs outside, catching up over Coffee.

Owen walked through the door first, holding it open for Neve. He stared at her shyly, beckoning silently for her to follow him inside. As the door closed a little bell jingled. He paused and stood in the middle of the room looking around for somebody. Neve inhaled deeply, savouring the aromas of the room.

The café was filled with natural light from the glass ceilings. It filtered down and was softened through an eloquently designed wooden labyrinth that held ceiling panels and lights in some places and revealed a clear view of the sky through the clear glass in others.

The room smelled like roasted coffee beans and cake. Neve walked around slowly absorbing the finer details, passing a small deli counter filled with sandwiches, wraps, and quiches. Neve's stomach rumbled.

"Hey Pete" Owen called over the counter, waving down an older guy with red hair and freckles. He was holding a cordless phone to his ear, but he acknowledged Owen with a wave.

Pete slammed the phone back into its cradle and came over lifting his hat with one hand and brushing his hair back with the other before fitting his cap back into place.

"Owen, glad you could make it. Have you seen Kate by any chance? She was supposed to be here for her shift, but she hasn't made it, and I can't seem to reach her."

Owen shrugged. "Nope sorry, but Pete, my friend here, Neve, she really needs a job. Do you think you can help her out?"

Pete looked at Neve.

"Do you know how to work a cash register?" he asked.

"Sure." She lied.

"Any experience making coffees?" he asked.

"A little" Neve answered honestly.

Pete nodded. "Well, we are about to get slammed by the lunchtime crowd, and we are an employee down so how about you get behind the counter and Owen can help you out. Just do the best you can, and we will talk about maybe giving you a position here afterwards if you do well. Okay?"

Neve was so happy her face split into a massive grin.

"Yes, Thank you." She said, reaching out to shake his hand. "I won't let you down, sir." His handshake was mediocre at best, but he was already distracted by the line forming at the counter. He went behind the counter and started taking orders at the register.

Owen tapped Neve on the shoulder and gave her a knowing look before he led her out back to a small room where the employees had lockers. Then he walked across the room and took a taupe coloured apron from the wall and tossed it to her.

"Put this on," he said.

As Neve put the apron over her head and adjusted the strap, she could read the embroidered name tag. Kate. Owen came over with some masking tape and a marker and wrote Neve in large letters, tore the tape off the roll with his teeth and plastered it over the old name, brushing the tape over and over firmly with his fingers to make sure it would stick. Neve stiffened. Owen suddenly and immediately pulled his hand away and stepped backward. His cheeks reddened, and his eyes darted to the floor. He didn't look her in the eye, he just turned and retreated quietly.

Owen opened his locker and pulled out a white button-up shirt. Neve stood there tying up her apron strings watching him as he took off his shirt, balled it up and threw it into his locker. His skin was pale and soft, yet defined in places that showed he had good muscle tone. She spied a few scars on his shoulders and wondered briefly if they were self-inflicted. Her eyes lowered as she looked down his body and lingered on his more defined lower abs.

He pulled the white shirt on and looked at her as he popped the collar out and started doing up the buttons. She looked away, embarrassed, and from the corner of his eye, she could see what she thought was a smile on his face.

"Okay," he said, breaking the tension. "How much do you really know about being using a cash register?"

Neve stared at him and shrugged apologetically.

"Like, literally, nothing" She whimpered quietly.

Owen stared at her, his eyebrows furrowing in the middle slightly, his big green eyes almost sparkling. His lips twitched upward until he couldn't control them anymore and he smiled. She hadn't really seen him smile once today before this, she realised. Neve smiled back at him and shrugged.

"Only nothing?" Owen said. "Okay, well just do what I tell you to do until you figure it out," He said shaking his head with a smile.

Owen put Neve on the counter to take orders, write names on cups as they came in and take food orders while he and Pete filled the drink orders and sent them out. As the lunch rush died down and the café became less busy, Pete left the counter to wipe down tables, and Owen gave Neve a quick run through on the machines.

"Hot water here, push the cup against this to start and move it away to stop it. Here are the main blends, there are handy little titles on them so you can give the customer what they ask for. Pumps over here, again, labelled, so you know what you are getting out of them. Push the pump right down, so they get a good squirt of whatever they like. Milk is in this fridge over here, all different types, refill from the back, or just ask Pete or myself to do it. Sugars and spoons are over here, always make sure this bench is stocked and you can refill them from under the counter where you were standing." He passed Neve a box of sugars and watched as she restocked the counter. Then she followed him back behind the counter.

"Um, so yeah, take the order, read the order, follow the order, " He trailed off, probably thinking about what else to tell her. He shrugged. "I need to go to the bathroom, so man the station and I'll be right back. Oh, and Neve, just, fake it, and you'll make it" he added, disappearing into the back room.

She could not help but smile. Owen had gone from not being able to look her in the eye to Mr Confident and talkative since they arrived. She liked Coffee shop Owen.

Neve faced the register and took a deep breath. Running through the list, she'd been given when a middle-aged woman in a nurse dress and beige cardigan walked up to the counter. She hummed and hawed quietly while she looked at the menu board as she thought about her options.

Neve waited patiently observing the woman standing in front of her. The woman's skin was slightly wrinkled, she was on the cusp of youth and old age. Her hair was dyed red and pulled back into a bun. On the woman's cardigan was a big plastic name tag with the name Jo written on in marker between two smiley face stickers. Neve was reminded of when Owen had put her name tag on her at the beginning of the shift and reddened.

"I'll have a Grande single shot 4 pumps sugar free peppermint, non-fat, no foam light whip stirred white Mocha please."

Crap, Neve thought.

Neve typed the order into the register slowly and started praying that Owen would show up that second or god help her. But he didn't appear suddenly, so she had to at least try to make the coffee.

"Where are you?" The nurse asked into her phone, while Neve tried to make her cup of coffee. "Is she okay? I'll be right out" She said.

Neve quickly frothed the milk to give the drink a slightly whipped appearance and popped a to-go lid on top and handed the Nurse her order.

"Thank you," the nurse said handing over the money and walking away.

Neve watched her walk out the door and look around outside, willing the nurse to disappear before she realised her order wasn't right. Owen came back in drying his hands on a tea towel.

"All good?" He asked.

Neve nodded quietly, trying not to look too suspicious and decided to busy herself wiping the counter down while keeping an eye on the nurse. The nurse walked towards a man outside the coffee shop. Neve moved around the counter strategically to keep the nurse in her sight, as she approached Jimmy's grandfather by the outdoor tables. They looked serious as the nurse reached out and touched his arm nodding. She rubbed his arm as she talked to him. At that moment, Jimmy's grandfather turned and looked through the window spotting Neve, spying on them.

Neve dropped her gaze and darted across to the coffee machine, cleaning the machine hastily before retreating to the other side of the café to wipe down more tables. She dared to peek over at them again to find them both staring at her and talking to each other. The nurse squinted at Neve as she was shaking her head and shrugging as they walked away together.

By the end of the shift, Owen had talked Neve through the different types of Coffee's they make and made her make a few for him, quizzing her on their differences and procedures. Thankfully Neve had a real knack for remembering things, thanks to a lifetime of devoted daily journaling.

By late afternoon the café had slowed down considerably, and it gave Neve a moment to sit down by the window and enjoy a fresh cup of coffee for herself. The sun was beginning to set, and the light in the room had changed. Rays of Oranges and Pinks shined through the windows across the ceiling labyrinth, throwing ever-changing shades of light onto the walls and floors of the café like a kaleidoscope. She looked outside the window. Most of the students had finished their day time classes and were heading home. The nighttime classes wouldn't begin for another hour or so.

The quadrant grew respectfully peaceful all of a sudden, after a day of bustling activity. A few people were still scattered here and there on the grounds, walking, enjoying books in the last rays of natural light, waiting for friends or taking in the afternoon sun on the beautifully manicured lawns. Neve smiled at the idea of the life she was going to lead here as a shadow fell across her face. Outside the window, a woman was suddenly blocking her view. Neve looked up and stared into the face of the nurse she served earlier. She was staring straight back into Neve's eyes accusingly.

Oh no. Neve thought, feeling her hopes crumbling away.

The nurse casually strolled around the outside of the café before coming in. The door opened and closed with the ring of the bell. Neve retreated behind the register dutifully and waited. The nurse didn't come up to the counter; instead, she looked around and upon spotting Pete walked straight over to him. She was facing him, with her back toward Neve so Neve could only see the back of her head, shaking from side to side as Pete nodded and talked to her.

"Excuse me?" A tall blonde girl said interrupting. "Can I get a black espresso please?"

Neve nodded quietly, feeling slightly dejected. She probably wouldn't have this job in five more minutes. By the time she was finished making the girls order the Nurse was leaving and Pete was walking over. His face was blank, and he offered Neve a small smile as he approached.

"Here you go, Have a nice afternoon," Neve said as she handed the girl her black espresso.

Pete walked behind the counter throwing a tea towel over his shoulder. "Neve, I want to thank you for everything you've done today. We were short staffed and really needed the help."

Neve tried to smile, but her lip trembled slightly, and the sensation immediately made her eyes prick.

"I don't know what I would have done without you today." He said.

"But?" Neve asked, hoping to get it over and done with quickly.

Pete looked surprised.

"But?" he asked.

"But that lady that came in before, just now. I served her. She wasn't happy?"

"Oh, you mean Jo, the nurse?" he said.

Neve nodded.

"But nothing. Jo's one of our fussiest customers. She really likes her drinks to be done a specific way, which never seems to be done right by anybody." He said with a shake of his head. "But she drinks here every day, still, and has done so for years I think, even before I started working here. I'm sure she's been haunting and tormenting the bistro workers here for ages" He laughed.

"Oh," Neve said, relaxing a little.

"I wasn't sure at first, about giving you a job here. Like, I'm not sure we have the room, but Kate is so unreliable. She hardly shows up for the shifts she gets so I thought you could take her shifts, for now."

"Really?" Neve asked.

"Yes. Besides, how could I not hire you when Jo says you are a magician at making her orders exactly how she likes them. We need at least one person on staff that can satisfy her..." he pauses trying to think of the right word. "Needs." He says politely. "Plus, It would give the complaint box a much-needed relief."

Neve stared at Pete. Her mouth hanging open.

"So, tell me, Neve, what did you do exactly that was different?" Pete asked.

"I have no idea." She said, shrugging apologetically.

Pete smiled as he handed her a slip of paper. It was a shift roster. Kate's name was crossed out, and Neve's name was scribbled in the spaces instead. She'd be working with Owen. Where was he? Neve suddenly wondered realising she had not seen him for a while.

"Are these shifts going to be okay for you?" Pete asked.

"yes!" Neve shouted a bit too enthusiastically snapping out of her stupor. "Sorry, yes. Yes. These should be fine. Thank you." She giggled nervously.

"Okay, get me your tax and bank details and bring them with you next shift okay? I'll See you then."
CHAPTER EIGHT

MONDAY - AFTERNOON

NEVE WALKED BACK TO HER CAR unable to believe how lucky she was. She'd gotten the job at The Stagg thanks to Owen. And she wanted to thank him, but he'd disappeared.

Her stomach rumbled as she reached her car. She hadn't stopped to eat at all today. She climbed into her car and plugged her phone into the charger. It was dead. She drove around the neighbourhood for a good half hour, looking at all the houses and buildings and parks, hoping to stumble upon a convenience store. It all seemed so familiar, these could easily be the streets she had grown up on, she thought. Giving up her search, at last, she pulled a U-turn in a quiet cul-de-sac and headed back toward her house. She was a few blocks away when she spotted a road sign grocery store advertisement for Al Johnson's Produce. It was only three blocks away from her house in the other direction of the university.

Neve walked through the aisles of the independently owned grocery, shopping basket in hand wondering what she should buy, especially considering the power might not be back on at home yet. She browsed at the deli section and picked up a cooked BBQ chicken. Hit the produce aisle and grabbed some salad stuff, some muesli and fruit for tomorrow mornings breakfast, then hit the bakery section for some bread rolls. What else? She wondered as she reviewed the contents of the basket.

She headed over to the sauce aisle and grabbed some tomato and BBQ sauce, French salad dressing and some mayonnaise.

"Get off of me! – I can, I can walk by myself" someone slurred gruffly from the next aisle over.

"Dad, you're drunk, and you're making a scene," somebody else said, quietly. Neve tried to peek through the shelves at them, but she could only see their clothes.

"A scene? I? Me! I'M making a scene? You're worried about me making a scene, while you're running around like that, all of that get up you have on with chains and, boots and stuff. I'M MAKING A SCENE?" He yelled loudly.

Neve crept down the aisle eavesdropping through the shelves. She paused at the end of the aisle and pretended to browse the packets of pasta.

Regardless of the scenario playing out in her head between the right and wrong side of her brain she slinked curiously across the end of the aisle in a cat-like manner and peeked around the corner so that she could see the people that were making such an interesting commotion. There was a big, staunch man with greasy, unkempt, greying hair swaying heavily on his legs. His body occasionally lurching to counteract his loss of balance as he clumsily square-danced on the spot as he tried to remain upright.

"I have never loved anybody like I loved her." The drunk one said in a lower more sombre tone, "She left me. But she was crazy. but I loved her!" He said swaying hard to the left and balancing himself on the other shelf. As the drunk moved aside, Neve saw Owen standing there concentrating on his own two feet. "I just got to know what happened to her Owen. But I can't! I can't know, because it hurts."

"Dad, it's okay," he said.

"It's not okay, it's my fault." His father said.

"Dad, we should go home." Owen pleaded.

A tall, burly black man walked toward Owen and his father with long, confident strides. He looked unhappy and had a clipboard tucked under his arm. He sighed heavily when he reached Owen. The drunk staggered back and forth, still trying to stand upright, glaring at them.

"Thanks for coming, Owen. I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have to ask you to escort your father off the premises."

"I'm sorry Al, I'm trying," Owen said.

Al looked at Owen almost apologetically. "Just get him out of here before he breaks something." He said continuing to walk down the aisle.

Al stopped dead in his tracks and turned around. "I mean it, Dobson, before I have to call your buddies at the precinct to come and get you. I'm not helping you clean up one of your messes again." He said sternly and walked away without another word. He raised an eyebrow at Neve who was peeking around the shelves, as he passed her.

Neve grabbed a bag of pasta off the shelf and placed it into her basket, as he walked past her. She checked to make sure he was gone and placed the bag of pasta back onto the shelf.

Owen was looking at the ground, shaking his head and running his hands through his hair. His jaw was tense. Neve knew what it was to suffer under a drunk father. It was a long time ago, but somewhere in her memory, he lingered. Mean, drunk and with a strong backhand. How old was she then? She couldn't remember. She remembered the way it felt though. She still flinched if somebody even raised their arm around her.

Neve stepped forward. Owen still hadn't seen her yet. Neither had his drunk father; although Neve doubted he could see anything clearly right now anyway.

"Owen?" she said, feigning surprise as she stepped into the aisle.

Owen spun around on the spot.

"Neve? What are you d- doing here?" He stammered in surprise looking down at her basket which was filled with groceries. Then his gaze shifted across to his father and back to Neve. He swallowed hard, sighing heavily.

Neve walked right past the drunk, who was trying to pick up his wallet off the ground and knocking cans off the shelves whenever he reached forward to pick it up. He was fumbling the cans, trying to stack them up, but they kept falling down. Owen stood up straight, his jaw was still tense, his hands were fisted against his sides.

"Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for helping me get that job with you at The Stagg today. You left early so I couldn't say it before. Pete gave me Kate's shifts, so I guess I'll be seeing you a lot then" She said.

Owen nodded quietly. His eyes shifted from Neve to his father. Neve stared straight at Owen, ignoring the drunk. She could hear him though. From the sounds of it, he'd abandoned the cans at last.

"Owen?" He drawled. "Who is, who is the girl?"

He stepped towards her, she could hear his unbalanced footsteps as he staggered backwards and to the side, and she could smell him, pungent sweat and booze permeated the air all around him.

"Introduce us, I didn't know you had a girl hic-"

He stopped mid-sentence. Neve had spun around at that moment to look right at him.

The drunk stared at her, blinking hard, his grin slowly melted into a frown as he stood there silent, swaying, his face turning green, then turning white. He reached out and swatted at the air in front of her face, any closer, and he'd have touched her face. His face was shifting back to green.

The drunk lunged forward suddenly, pushing her left shoulder away. Hard. She spun around and flew into Owens' chest, dropping her shopping basket on the floor. The contents spilled. Owen gasped as his back hit the shelves behind him. The drunk toppled backwards from his own force into the shelf, falling down and sending all the cans toppling down onto the floor. He screamed at them angrily.

Now it's a scene, Neve thought as she was standing suddenly acutely aware that she was wrapped in Owens' arms. She peeked up at him. He was looking at her, eyes all bright green and wide in surprise.

"Are you okay?" She asked, breathlessly. He'd lost his balance when Neve had slammed into him, but he'd protected Neve entirely from any harm. Owen slowly let go of her and pushed her upright, away from him. Neve bit her lip and looked around.

The drunk had regained his feet, and he lurched towards them again. Owen pushed her out of the way. She almost lost her footing as she miss-stepped to catch herself from tripping. "Dad, what are you doing? You are going to hurt her" Owen said, trying to grab his dads' drunk swaying body. The drunk grabbed onto his son and yanked him away from Neve.

"Keep away from us!" He warned angrily, his spittle flying into her face. "Keep away from my son! You!" He screamed as he pulled Owen forcefully away from her. Neve stood there dumbfounded. Owen turned back to look at her, as his father lugged him unceremoniously up the aisle. "I'm sorry!" he called back to her as his father yanked him out of her view. She heard the doors automatically open and close with an automated chime as they left the store. Then they were gone.

Neve was still standing in the aisle trying to wrap her head around what had happened when Al and a young worker appeared beside her to re-stack cans and box the dinted ones. Al looked at Neve and stood up, reaching out and placing a hand on her shoulder. She snapped out of it.

"Are you alright miss?" He asked.

"Yeah, I think so." She said, not looking into his eyes.

He nodded understandingly offering a small smile, although he didn't seem to buy it.

"Try not to think about it too much, the old man's got a lot of problems, he's been through a lot, seen a lot of bad things. He's never good this time of year and when he gets on the drink... well... you saw what just happened."

Neve looked at Als' face, he had a gentle face, with nice brown eyes and a soft, comforting smile.

"So, you know Owen huh?' He asked. His voice was deep and soothing. Neve suspected he was changing the subject.

"Yeah, he helped me get a job at the University today" She answered.

"What kind of job did you get?"

"Uh, I work at the coffee shop on campus."

Al looked surprised.

"No kidding? Huh. So, you live around here then?" He asked.

"Yeah, I just moved here. A couple of blocks away actually."

Al nodded quietly, probably hoping she had something else to say.

"No kidding," he mused, "Owen used to work here, for me, shame he still doesn't I could use another good worker. He could have hooked you up with a job here instead."

Neve smiled at his kindness.

"He's a good kid, even with all he's been through," Al said nodding bending down to pick up Neves groceries from the floor.

Neve nodded her head and helped pick up her groceries, but her mind was wondering what Owen had been through.

"I'd call the police for you, but-" Al said apologetically.

"But he's your friend, isn't he?" Neve answered remembering how Owen and Al had greeted one another.

"Yes," Al said sadly, He looked at Neves basket and took it from her hand. "Let me get these for you, I'll ring you up, and I'll even give you a discount."

"You don't have to do that," Neve said.

"It's really the least I can do," He said with a small smile.

When Neve left the store, there was no sight of Owen or his father anywhere. She got into her car and drove home her head swimming with everything that had happened. It had been a weird day with awkward encounters with new people, she thought. Maybe she was just projecting her own awkwardness on them?

Her mind drifted to the moment when the old drunk Dobson had pushed her into Owens' arms, Owen had caught her and held her so gently and protectively. Her body ached; she couldn't remember the last time she was physically held by someone else, and it had felt so good. He'd pushed her away though, gently, but too soon. A bittersweet longing feeling inside her had been awoken, and it lingered. Hot tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked them away as she turned the car into her street and pulled up at the house.

She wiped the tears off her cheeks with the back of her hands and took a deep breath before getting out of the car and going into the house.
CHAPTER NINE

MONDAY - EVENING

THE GIRLS WERE SITTING in the living room talking when Neve walked in.

"What's that smell?" Sophie called out as Neve swung the door closed behind her. It closed with a satisfying click. "Oh my god! Did you buy food?"

Neve was slightly astonished.

"Yeah, I brought a hot BBQ chicken for dinner." She called back.

Sophie came running out of the lounge room and skidded to a stop at the bottom of the stairs.

"Just for you, or for everybody?" She asked tentatively.

"For everybody?" Neve said.

Sophie squealed happily and scooped up the bags and headed toward the kitchen. "You sit down; I'll serve up the food." She called back to her.

Neve walked into the living room and plopped herself down on the couch beside Nikki.

Claudia was laying out on the carpet reading a textbook with a nice new bandage wrapped around her wrist.

"Hey," she said looking up with a smile, before returning to her book.

"Hey," Neve said glumly.

Nikki looked up from her novel and studied Neves' face.

"Are you alright?" Nikki asked reaching over to tuck a stray bit of her hair behind Neves' ear.

"I've had a really long, really weird day." She said.

"Oh?" Nikki asked.

Neve just shook her head. "I just want to forget about it now that I'm home."

Nikki smiled as she reached over and cuddled Neve. A lump quickly formed in Neves' throat and it ached as she tried to remain stoic and not burst into tears. Nikki seemed to sense that Neve was on the verge of falling apart and held her tighter.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" Nikki asked looking directly into Neves' eyes.

Neve shook her head and swallowed down the lump, blinking away the stinging sensation that was pricking her eyes again. She didn't want to talk about it, did she? Nikki leaned back a little bit watching as Neve processed her thoughts and feelings silently and gave her arm a tight squeeze before letting her go and returning to the book that she had been reading.

Neve shook her head in an attempt to derail the train of thought she was on. She wanted to empty her head of the thoughts she was having, like clearing an etch-a-sketch of the scribble and focus on something or someone else.

"Um...Did the electricity people come and sort out the power yet?" she asked.

"Yeah, well kind of, they were out there working on it before. Are they gone? Did you see them?" Nikki asked.

"No I didn't, but I didn't look. How was your day? Did you end up getting to class on time?"

Nikki smiled brightly, as always.

"I did. Thank you so much. I didn't even realise I was late. You know, my watch stopped." She said sadly shaking her wrist and looking at a small old leather watch. Neve reached over and took Nikki's arm so she could look at the watch face. It was stopped at six minutes past six still.

"Battery go flat?" Neve asked.

"Probably," Nikki said. "Although I swear I only had it replaced about a month ago."

Neve popped the watch winder button out and in to check if it had been bumped or come loose. But the time stayed frozen in place. Then after a few seconds of staring at it, the second hand began to tick, tick, tick along.

"There! I fixed it." Neve said.

"What? How did you do that? I've tried to get it going a hundred times today" Nikki said winding the watch up to the correct time.

Neve shrugged.

The hallway creaked as Sophie approached the living room.

"Who's hungry?" Sophie said excitedly from the doorway beside the stairs, clicking her fingers and doing a little dance with her shoulders.

"Me!" they all said, jumping up and following her into the kitchen and taking a seat at the dining table.

Sophie had served up the chicken and salads on the plates and put the bread rolls in the centre with the condiments for anyone who wanted to make themselves a sub.

Nikki looked at her plate. "oh, I don't eat coleslaw. Who wants it?"

"Me!" Sophie said with a mouth full of chicken and bread, almost before Nikki had even asked. She quickly scraped the coleslaw off Nikki's plate onto her own offering a bow of her head as a gesture of Thanks. Neve was putting all of her salad and chicken into a bread roll as she was watching Claudia gingerly lift her fork with her bandaged hand. Claudia winced.

Nikki's brow furrowed. "Claudia what did you do to your hand? Here let me help you with that."

'Thanks" Claudia said apologetically. Sophie reached out for another bread roll and continued feasting.

"I tripped on the Quad today and jarred my hand. The nurse said it was a little bit sprained and bruised, but I'd be right as rain in no time."

"Oh," Neve said surprised. The sound had escaped her mouth before she could stop it and Nikki and Claudia looked at her expectantly to explain.

"The nurse? As in nurse 'Jo'?" Neve asked.

Claudia nodded. "Yeah, do you know her?"

"Not really."

"Oh, well she was really nice and understanding about the whole thing anyway, I guess I'll be seeing a lot of her."

Sophie giggled.

'I swear to god your mother dropped you on your head as a baby, Clo. Seriously."

Claudia's mouth fell open, and she tossed a bit of bread playfully at her friend with her good hand. It missed her completely, flying off in the other direction between Neve and Nikki's heads.

Sophie's face was frozen in a comedic mix of surprise and disbelief, her mouth hung open with half-chewed food on display. She snorted trying to hold in the oncoming deluge of laughter.

Everyone laughed at Claudia's ridiculous throw. Claudia's was light-hearted and embarrassed, and she tried to wrap it up saying, "okay, okay I get it. I get it now that's enough guys. You're going to give me a complex."

Sophie had her head down beside her plate, tears were welling in her eyes as she tried to fight the urge to keep giggling. Neve and Nikki were laughing in amusement, at the throw and at the way Sophie and Claudia acted about it.

Claudia sat red-faced, covering her face with her hands, peeking at her friend Sophie through her fingers.

"Sophie...." She beckoned quietly. Sophie's giggling died down but not altogether, she still giggled a little too much every now and then which threatened to erupt into another onslaught of over enjoyment.

"Wait, wait, wait," Nikki said, finally and the girls finally found some composure in themselves. "You met the nurse, Neve? Why? What's wrong with you, did you get hurt too?" She asked.

"No, I just served her a cup of Coffee. I got a job today at the Coffee shop on campus."

"Dude, that's awesome!" Sophie said. "Do you get discounts, you know like for food and stuff? Buddy Ol' pal?" She said with a sweet smile and a playful nudge on Neve's shoulder.

Neve laughed.

"No, well kind of, I get to drink the coffees I don't make right or make just for practice."

Sophie looked a little bit disappointed.

"But you know, I usually make more than one of those a day, and I might just happen to be practising my coffee making when you show up. Sometimes." She offered.

Sophie winked at her.

"So, Nikki told us you transferred to Crawford. What are you studying Neve?" Claudia asked.

"Yeah, I did. I'm studying Journalism. What about you?"

"Psychology."

"Oh," Neve said, her voice dropping.

Claudia raised an eyebrow.

"What's wrong with Psychology, you don't believe in it?"

"It's not that I don't believe in it," Neve said. "Nikki, what are you studying?"

"Me? I'm doing a Bachelor of Sciences."

"A bachelor's degree? Already?" Claudia asked.

Nikki nodded. "I'm smart."

"Sophie, what about you? What are you doing?"

Sophie was eyeing off Claudia's plate, she seemed to be done with her food.

"Sophie?"

She looked up. "Yeah?" she asked, oblivious to the conversation that had been taking place apparently.

Neve lifted her plate and offered it to Sophie. Her appetite had bailed between the avenues of knotted up and anxiety avenue. "Do you want my leftovers?"

"Sure," she said taking the plate.

Claudia was watching Neve. Studying her perhaps, she thought. She was starting to shift uncomfortably under the weight of her gaze.

"So, what are you studying Soph? You're going to Crawford too right?"

"Yeah, I am. Ah, social work mostly, I'm looking to get into the type of job that helps people. I haven't decided what part yet but I'll figure it out. Like, kids, homeless people, prisoners, just you know that sort of thing."

"That's pretty cool."

Claudia was still watching Neve silently.

Sophie got up and flicked the light switches on the walls. Nothing happened.

"It's getting dark. I'll go get some more candles. Nikki?" she said.

"I'll do it, they're in my room," Nikki said drying her hands on her shirt as she walked out of the kitchen and down the hallway.

There was a knock at the door as Nikki started to turn up the stairs. She went over and opened the door.

Neve glanced at the clock on the wall. It was six minutes past six.
CHAPTER TEN

MONDAY - NIGHT

A TALL MAN WAS STANDING OUTSIDE THE DOOR on the porch in a dark suit and tie, underneath a tan trench coat. He was handsome but much older and looked quite out of place in the neighbourhood. Nikki spotted a silver Mercedes on the curb behind him.

"Hello? How can I help you?" she asked kindly.

He looked at Nikki for a moment and then said.

"I'm looking for Neve Moore?" he said in a clean British accent.

"Neve!" Nikki called down the hallway.

She smiled at the man, taking in his dark eyes and hair. He looked like he'd walked out of a suit catalogue for men.

In the kitchen, Neve's heart fluttered. Who could possibly be calling on her? Who else knew where she was.

She turned down the hall, and her feelings immediately changed from fear and uncertainty into resentment and anger.

Morris stood in the doorway.

Nikki took one look at Neves' face, left them alone and went upstairs to get the candles.

"Neve," he said relieved and reached out to her.

Neve stopped short of his reach, and he was left hand hovering for a moment before he dropped it back at his side.

"What are you doing here?" she said as quietly as possible without taking another step closer.

"I haven't heard from you. I was worried something had happened to you or that you had been hurt, somehow."

"I have been." She said tartly.

His shoulders dropped.

"Neve..." he started, but she cut him off before he could say anything.

"How did you find me?" she asked, wondering out loud. It was impossible for her to imagine how he could have tracked her down to an actual address.

"I tracked your phone." He said honestly.

"What?" she said grabbing it out of her pocket and staring at it. "How?"

"The phone is in my name, I told the phone company it was lost, and they used the GPS to locate it. Neve, I've been trying to reach you since you left. Nobody knows where you are. People are worried about you."

"People?" Neve asked.

"Me. I'm worried about you. You need help, Neve."

Neve pushed past him to get outside and closed the front door behind him. She didn't want the others to hear what was being said.

"What I need is some space. From you. From everything in my life up until this point."

"Neve, what you're doing is not safe. You shouldn't have disappeared like that. You have isolated yourself from all the people who care about you. What if something happens to you? How will anyone know if you are okay? Who will look after you?"

Neve scoffed. "Who will look after me? I've been doing fine without you. I'm not sure if I've ever needed you."

Morris leaned in and grabbed Neve by both the shoulders and spun her towards him roughly. He stared deeply into her eyes.

He was scary calm, as he leaned forward and whispered, "You've barely been without me for a day, Neve. You're not only putting yourself in danger, but you are also putting others in danger too, and you know it."

Goosebumps exploded across her body. The ice-cold chill running down her spine had nothing to do with the sun disappearing into the horizon.

"Of all the places for you to end up, you end up here." He said disapprovingly, gesturing toward the rundown house.

"I'm not your problem anymore," Neve said sharply.

"Are you taking your meds?" he asked, still gripping onto her arms tightly.

She didn't respond.

"Are you?"

"No."

He pushed her away and started pacing around the yard rubbing his hands down his face in disbelief.

"Neve!" he yelled angrily. "You stupid, stupid girl! How can you do this?"

The door opened quietly, and Nikki, Sophie, and Claudia came out onto the porch.

"Go back inside" Neve whispered sternly. But they ignored her.

Morris spun around on his heels and walked toward Neve without looking at her. He stopped short at the porch and looked up. Thrown, somewhat by the arrival of the new girls. He balked.

"You should come with me, Neve." He said offering his hand shakily to her. "it's not safe here for you, here in this place." His eyes pleaded with hers.

"You should go Morris." She said.

"Neve, you are not listening to me. You aren't safe here. You need your-"

"GET OUT!" Neve screamed as loudly as she could before he could say anything else.

"GET AWAY FROM ME! AND STAY AWAY FROM ME!"

Morris took two steps back from the outburst but remained undeterred he tried again to change her mind.

"Neve, please- you aren't being reasonable."

A man's voice called from across the street. "Hey!" Everyone looked over and saw the silhouette of a couple of men standing beside a small cherry picker. They had been working on the power box. One stepped forward.

"Are you girls okay?" he asked.

"They're fine," Morris said gruffly.

"I wasn't talking to you." He said. His friends stepped up beside him, but he made no sign that he was going to come any closer.

"They asked you to leave." He said.

Morris looked at Neve, but whatever he was hoping would happen tonight, didn't. He retreated back to his car and looked wistfully back at Neve as he got into his car.

"You have my number if you need me, Neve. I will come."

"Just go." She said.

He slammed his car door and started the car.

Neve looked down at the phone in her hand angrily.

Morris pulled away from the curb. Neve raced forward onto the street and pegged her phone at his car as he drove away.

"And you can take this with you!" She yelled as a final act of defiance. It smashed on the road without making contact with the pristine Mercedes, but she felt like she'd made a point.

The lights came back on in the houses on the street as his car was disappearing from view.

Neve started to hyperventilate. She'd somehow managed to hold it together the entire time he was yelling at her, but he was gone, and she was alone. Her head was spinning, her legs were wobbly, she wanted to throw up, and her vision was going black and hazy around the edges. Weakness was taking her. What a mess she thought as she collapsed in the street.

Neve had only lost consciousness once or twice before, during a panic attack, that she could remember and both times hadn't been as dramatic as losing consciousness in the middle of the street.

When she came to, she was laying on the sofa. Nikki was sitting beside her anxiously as Neve's eyes started to flutter open.

"Oh, Good. There you are," Nikki said happily. Claudia and Sophie peeked over the top of the couch to see for themselves. Neve looked up at them and blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light.

"How did I get here?" she asked confused.

"Dude. You fainted." Sophie said.

"yeah and then the electrician guy carried you in for us." Claudia said, "Good thing they were out there. Who was that guy that was yelling at you?"

"Was he your dad?" Sophie asked.

Neve bit her lip. She couldn't answer that. She sat up and the room spun, which almost sent her face first onto the carpet.

"No, don't get up yet," Nikki said. "Let me make you a cup of tea or something?"

"Okay," Neve said. Sophie and Claudia went upstairs before Nikki came back with a pot of tea.

Neve nestled the cup in her hands and breathed in the warmth and aroma of the tea. "The lights are back on?" Neve said looking around.

"Yeah, they turned the power back as that guy carried you inside," Nikki said. "So.... That guy?" Nikki said sitting back against the arm of the couch comfortably, and cocking an eyebrow at Neve with a slight grin "was he your Boyfriend?".

Neve just looked at her. How could she explain herself without telling them everything?

Neve smiled.

"I'm sorry about that, I have no idea how he tracked me down. I'm not listed anywhere. I haven't even got around to changing my address on my ID yet."

"Is he dangerous?" Nikki asked, sipping her tea gingerly.

"No, just... controlling?"

Nikki just nodded.

"Are you going to be okay?"

"Yeah. It's been a big day. I just need a good night's sleep."

Neve leant forward with her cup of tea in hand and kissed Nikki on the cheek before heading up to bed.

She crawled beneath the covers and put her cup of tea on the bedside table and slipped into a dream almost right away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN

MONDAY - MIDNIGHT

Neve was walking in a swampy area. The ground was slippery and wet, so her feet were sinking into the ground as she walked, slowing her, wearing her out.

She grew tired quickly and looked around for somewhere to rest. The trees all around her were twisted up and around with long, complex root systems. But they were so close together she figured she could climb across the swampy ground on their branches. She pulled herself out of the dank earth onto the tree, and the landscape changed.

Neve was outside the house suddenly, in the tree outside looking in. She could see Nikki, Sophie, and Claudia looking out of Nikki's bedroom. She climbed a little higher to see better and to get their attention. As she climbed the tree, the branches seemed to stretch all the way to the house. She realised she could climb into the window if she wanted to. She called out to the girls, but she found that she didn't have a voice. She banged against the window to get their attention, but they didn't react. They stared right at her, motionless as if they were statues.

Neve stopped banging to think and noticed the room was growing darker, as some kind of menacing shadow appeared in the room behind them. Neve banged against the window with more urgency, harder and her hand passed through the surface, and she realised it wasn't glass, but liquid. The liquid became muddy as she moved her hand around in the cool liquid, obscuring her view of the girls inside, and she could no longer see through it.

Neve felt her hand brush against someone. She entwined her fingers in the fabric of their clothing and pulled as hard as she could. She pulled again, but she couldn't bring them through. She braced herself and pushed her feet against the wall of the house, using two hands to pull with all of her strength. She felt the person give. It was working, and with one final yank, she pulled Nikki through the window, and they fell to the ground. They landed in the muddy swamp where her dream had started.

Nikki sat up in the mud looked at Neve and tucked a dried rose behind Neve's ear. She opened her mouth to speak, but Jimmy's voice came out instead. "A rose by any other name," she said.

They stood up together and held each other's hand, as the flower fell into the mud and sank. The swamp was becoming darker, and Neve suddenly felt the need to find somewhere safe and dry. As she looked around, she saw there was a light floating through the trees. A lantern on a post being carried by a shadow. They started to follow it, but they couldn't keep up. A drum started to sound through the trees as they walked, and as they hurried faster, the drumbeat quickened until they found themselves in a clearing and it stopped.

A small old lady with weathered brown skin and long white frizzy hair sat in front of a small fire. Her eyes were milky white and yellowing. Her mouth was thin, with deep dry cracks spreading up her face like a dry arid desert.

"TA-BA-TAAAAAA" She croaked slowly into the fire. "TA-BA-TAAAAAAA".

Nikki looked at Neve. "It's time to go back." She said with a small smile before walking straight into the fire in front of the old lady. The flames shot up, and she, the light from the fire and the old woman disappeared.

Neve opened her eyes in the dark. She was in her bed, in her room, covered in a dewy sweat. She kicked off the blankets and laid in the soothing cooler air. The meds were wearing off, and the nightmares were back.
CHAPTER twelve

tuesDAY - DAWN

NEVE WOKE UP BEFORE SUNRISE and couldn't get back to sleep. She lay awake, snuggled in her blankets as the grey light slowly extinguished the darkness in her room. The dreams had always taken a toll on her, and she considered briefly taking her medication, after all. Morris would bring her prescriptions if she asked him to.

She groggily sat up in bed and turned down the covers, slipping her feet into some flat shoes to protect them from the cold wood floors, she slipped out of her room quietly to use the bathroom. When she returned to her room and flicked on the light. The first rays of the sun were only now kissing the horizon.

Slumping back onto her comfy mattress and pulling her blankets around her shoulders, she watched as the glowing red sun peeked its head over the tops of the mountains and rose slowly into the sky. She pulled out her journal and wrote about the day she had yesterday and the dreams she had the night before. Somehow the dreams felt important.

Neve busied herself, making her bed and putting clothes away into the closet with the free time her nightmares had given her.

A light knock sounded at the door.

Neve opened the door slowly. Nikki was standing in the hallway wrapped in a blanket.

"Hey," she said quietly with a smile. "Can I come in?"

"Sure" Neve replied opening the door wider.

Nikki crawled onto the end Neves bed and crossed her legs. "Your room is looking good." She said.

"Thanks. Sorry, did I wake you up? I was trying to be quiet" Neve asked picking up some cushions from a plastic bag and started placing them onto the bed.

"No, I was awake. How come you're up so early today?"

"I'm not sure what time it is. My phone is my alarm."

"was." Nikki reminded.

"Right. It _was_ my alarm. I guess I better remember to buy a new one."

Nikki grabbed the pillow Neve had just sat down. It was a plain canvas cushion with a large old key applique on it and rubbed her fingers across the embroidery.

"Did you do this yourself?" she asked.

"Yeah," Neve said

"It's nice." She said placing it back on the bed. Nikki looked around the room at Neve's few belongings. She had a small desk at the end of the room with a light green computer chair and a nice laptop placed on the table with some stationary Knick Knacks. Beside the desk, leaning against the wall, she had a framed motivational poster waiting to be hung up.

"Memories are the key not to the past, but to the future. Corrie Ten Boom." Nikki read aloud. "I like it."

Neve smiled and sat down on the computer chair. "Yeah, me too."

"You like keys, huh?" Nikki asked, with a smile creeping across her lips.

Neve looked around the room at her belongings and picked up an old-fashioned, heavy, metal key-shaped paperweight off of her desk and studied it.

"Yeah, I do. There's just something about them. I guess I think they are beautiful or something. Especially the older ones. I'm not even sure when I started collecting them, to be honest." She said with a slight smile, casting another quick glance around her room, "But I guess it's getting a bit obsessive."

"They look cool. There are worse things to collect. Body parts for instance..." Nikki said, admiring Neves necklace board and tracing her fingers down a long silver chain toward an eloquent silver key pendant. "You know keys are very symbolic. Have you ever thought you surround yourself with them because you subconsciously wish to be free or protected?"

Neve considered how Nikki's words specifically related to her life.

"Maybe it just means I'm secretive?" Neve offered.

Nikki smiled and leant forward, taking Neve's hand gently in front of herself palm up. "I have something for you," she said, dropping a small item into Neve's open hand. "One more key for your collection. A key to your home."

Neve turned the key over in her hand; it was attached to a lucky rabbit foot key ring.

"That's for luck," Nikki explained. "And protection."

"Thank you," Neve said stroking the rabbit's foot.

Nikki stood up and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.

"I better go and start getting ready."

"Me too," Neve replied. "Thanks, Nikki. For everything."
CHAPTER tHIRTEEN

tuesDAY - MORNING

NEVE WALKED INTO THE CLASSROOM EARLY. About two other students had arrived earlier than her and taken the seats in the middle of the room. They were sipping coffees and chatting to each other quietly.

Neve scanned the room looking for a good place to sit and decided to sit in the exact centre seat of the front row. She would be right in front of Mr Cunningham for the entire lecture and wouldn't miss a thing.

Neve pulled out her notebook and pens and wished momentarily that she still had her phone if only to keep herself occupied at this exact moment.

The hall slowly began to fill up with students, and sure enough, Mr Cunningham finally appeared with his canvas side satchel bag and started setting up his desk. He was wearing blue jeans and a white 'Ramones' t-shirt, with his converse sneakers and even some leather and beaded bracelets.

Mr Cunningham turned his head and surveyed the room briefly before turning back around and booting up his laptop. He hadn't seen her yet, she thought dejectedly. He busied himself further by connecting cables and USB drives to his computer as Neve watched quietly.

"Hey." Someone said from her side. Neve drew her attention away from Cunningham's backside bent over in jeans with a bit of a dazed smile. It was Owen.

"Do you mind if I sit here, with you?" he asked pointing at Neve's belongings which she had propped up on the seat beside her.

"Of course not." She said tossing her bag off the seat beside her. "How are you?" she asked.

"I'm good." He said, fidgeting with his fingers. "Sorry about yesterday."

"Yesterday?" Neve wondered aloud.

"Yeah," Owen said, ejecting her from her inner dialogue. "I said I would help you figure some stuff out at The Stagg, after work, but I had to leave early. When's your next shift? I could teach you some stuff then."

"Oh. Yeah. Thursday. But I was going to drop off some bank and tax details to Pete this afternoon."

Owen studied her face quietly.

"What? What is it?" Neve asked, flushing slightly.

Owen glanced away embarrassed.

"You look nice, today." He said, "I like your dress."

Neve looked down at herself. She was wearing a powder blue button-up summery fifties style dress and had curled her long brown hair today.

"Thanks. I uh, actually showered today. Which does wonders apparently." She joked. Owen turned in his seat and opened up a sketchbook. Neves' eyes returned to Mr Cunningham before she witnessed from the corner of her eye, Owen turning his head down toward his chest and trying to catch a whiff of himself.

Neve bit her bottom lip hard to keep from smiling.

Neve studied Owen for a change. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before. His sneakers were holey, but that wasn't obvious unless you looked closely. Maybe they weren't the same clothes, but they were definitely the same colour.

Books were dropped with a loud slap on the spare seat beside Neve.

"Why are we sitting in the front row like losers?" Jimmy asked annoyed.

"We're not," Neve said pointedly as Jimmy got comfortable beside her.

"Are we _not_ in the front row?" Jimmy asked them with a display of his hand and arched eyebrows.

"This is where Neve was sitting when I got here," Owen said quietly.

"Pft. Whatever. Next time let's sit closer to the middle of the room or the back of the room. It's too obvious when I don't pay attention in class from here."

Owen shook his head absentmindedly and continued doodling in his notebook as Mr Cunningham did a roll call and started the class.

It was about halfway through the class when Jimmy's mobile phone buzzed loudly against his plastic chair. Cunningham shot him a warning look without stopping his presentation. Jimmy read the text message while his father watched and responded with no regard to his father's cursory attention. When he placed his phone back into his pocket, Cunningham started pacing the floor again.

Jimmy leant behind Neve's back as soon as Cunningham turned around and whispered to Owen.

"Psst. Hey!"

"What?" Owen asked quietly.

"Can you hold some weed for me till later?"

"What? No." Owen hissed back.

Neve leant back in her seat pretending to be really interested in what Cunningham was saying, forcing Jimmy to move back into his own space. Jimmy stared at her. She could sense it more than she could see it. She wasn't going to look at him. She rubbed her bottom lip thoughtfully and took some notes.

"Hey, Neve?' Jimmy said.

Neve turned slowly to look at him, pretending to be focused intently on the new slide that had just been put up.

"Yeah?' she asked innocently.

He seemed to study her for a moment.

"Quick! Just give it to me." Owen said reaching his hand over to collect it when it appeared.

"Yeah, baby. That's what he said to me last night, too." He said to Neve as he leant in front of her. "That's what they all say." He added with a wink as he casually dropped a scrunched-up piece of notebook paper in Owens' hand.

"Oh? Are they so keen for it to be over with, then?" Neve retorted.

Owen rested his arm casually around Neves seat without breaking eye contact with her, until his gaze briefly shifted to Owens. "Don't lose it." He said sharply.

Owen sighed loudly as he stuffed it deep into his trouser pocket.

Cunningham shot a warning glance at Jimmy, Owen, and Neve. Neve was mortified and started taking more notes.

When class ended, Jimmy was gone in a flash. Neve double checked her notes were in order. Owen lingered.

Neve looked up at him.

She smiled.

Cunningham approached clearing his throat slightly, Owen pretended to check his watch. "Uh, I'll see you at The Stagg?" He said to Neve.

She nodded, and he left.

Neve looked around the room, there were still a few students lagging behind with her. She turned back to her notes. Cunningham was right in front of her.

He pointed at her, "You're...?" he asked

"Neve." She replied.

"Neve. Yes, that's right." He repeated. "So... uh, you are Jimmy's new friend?" he asked. His cologne wafted toward her. It smelt good. Subtle, not too strong. Familiar.

"Um..." she said, nervously. "Does Jimmy have friends?" she said before she could bite her own tongue.

He almost laughed and nodded.

"Well, he and Owen have been friends since they were little kids."

Neve digested the idea that Owen had been suffering underneath Jimmy's controlling nature for that long. It was 'The good kid' with Elijah Wood and Macaulay Culkin, but in real life, and hopefully with fewer casualties.

"They both seem to like you." He said.

"Excuse me?" Neve said.

"Jimmy and Owen. They both seem to like you and I just, I don't want to see anybody get hurt."

"Hurt?" Neve said.

Cunningham nodded quietly.

Neve started slipping her books into her bag quietly.

"It's just that Jimmy is so... he's so... sensitive _."_ He said carefully.

"You know, he's just really not my type," Neve said.

"Oh," Cunningham said surprised. "Oh. Okay. And Owen?"

Neve stood up, which was a bit awkward at that moment as her legs had fallen half asleep.

"Owen? He's less not-my-type than Jimmy is, I guess." She replied walking toward the door. The room was empty.

"What's your 'type'?" Cunningham asked.

Neve looked at the Professor and gave him a once over with her eyes before she left.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

tuesDAY - MIDDAY

"What was that about?" Owen asked jogging to catch up to Neve in the hallway.

"Huh?" Neve asked

"With Mr Cunningham- what did he want?"

"I'm not sure. I guess he just wanted to make sure I'm not going to date, Jimmy?"

"Oh. Woah, really? Are you?" He asked.

Neve looked around carefully to make sure Jimmy wasn't lurking anywhere within earshot. "No! He's just not right-" She looked at Owen, unable to read his expression.

Owen waited with bated breath as Neve backtracked and considered her next words carefully.

"He's, not right?" He asked, waiting for her to explain.

"Yeah!" she responded emphatically. "He's not right for me. I mean actually, maybe I'm not right for him. Yeah, that's it. It's me."

Owen seemed to consider what that meant as they approached The Stagg and walked through the doors. The Stagg was bustling with people and nervous energy. Something wasn't quite right.

"Stay?" Owen asked Neve. "I'll teach you some stuff between customers. It looks like Pete's busy anyway. He would probably appreciate the help." He gestured over to Pete who seemed to be engaged in a tense conversation with a suited gentleman at a table in the corner.

"Yeah, Okay. I don't have anything better to do."

They walked into the back room to get ready for the shift. There were three other people in the room. Two guys who were discussing a football video on one of their phones and a girl with long blonde, naturally curly hair.

"Tracey?" Owen said as he entered the room. "Why are you guys still here? What's going on?"

Tracey shrugged. "I have no idea. There's a guy out there in a suit who isn't letting us leave until he's talked to us all, apparently. IRS maybe?" she speculated. "Who's she?" she asked nodding her head toward Neve.

"I'm Neve. I started yesterday."

"Was Pete hiring?" Tracey asked looking over to the boys that were watching a video on the iPhone in front of them. They shrugged disinterestedly and went back to discussing football.

"She's replacing Kate," Owen said.

"Oh, good. I'm sick of picking up her shifts. It would be nice to have some free time again." She walked over and offered her hand to Neve to shake. "I'm Tracey, it's nice to meet you."

The counter dinged. Owen looked at Tracey. "Are you working?" He asked.

Tracey shook her head. "Not if I don't have to. I opened and did the morning shift. I'm pooped."

"Alright. Neve let's get to work." He said walking out to the register.

"Are you sure I should? I'm not scheduled to work today, and everyone's here."

"Not everyone." Owen said. "anyway, they've already done their hours. It'll be fine. You need the practice anyway. Pete is not going to mind you working for free."

"True" Neve agreed.

Neve took the register and Owen did the orders. He joined Neve at the register and leant on the counter looking around the room. It was busier than usual for a Tuesday afternoon.

"Oh, crap," Owen said standing up and looking over at Pete and the suited man.

"What is it?" Neve asked looking around.

"It's my Dad," Owen said concerned.

Neve looked around the café expecting to see some drunkard ambling around making a nuisance, but there was nobody out of the ordinary to be seen.

"Where?" she said checking the door.

"Over there with Pete." He said pointing.

Neve looked. Sure enough, the suited man had his long hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. It was almost night and day to the man she'd seen at Al's produce store yesterday.

"Why would your dad be here talking to Pete?" Neve asked.

Owen shrugged. "I don't know. But it can't be good."

Neve was confused.

"Your dad is a cop right?"

"A detective actually," Owen said. "How did you know-?"

"- Al told me at the grocery store after you both left."

"Oh," Owen said.

"A detective _?_ " Neve hissed conspiratorially. "Really? Is that worse than their being a cop in here?" She watched transfixed as Pete talked to Owens father and his partner in depth. They wrote down notes as he spoke and nodded a lot. Perhaps yesterday was some kind of act, she considered. Like an undercover cop operation. This couldn't be the same man from the day before. It couldn't be!

"Woah," Owen said suddenly standing up and stepping back. His hand flew to his trouser pocket. "I'll be right back! Stay here" he said disappearing into the back room.

"It's tragic, right?" Some guy said, drawing Neve's attention back to the register. She recognised him from her class.

"What's tragic?" Neve asked.

"Woah!" He said in disbelief. His eyes were wide as saucers. "You don't know? Everybody is talking about it man, some girl's gone missing."

"What?" she said.

"Yeah. They're handing out fliers outside and everything." He said pointing out the window at people on the quad handing out pieces of paper to passersby. "She's been missing for a few days."

"Oh my god. Really? Who's been missing? I thought those were invitations to some massive college party!"

"Nope." He said shaking his head. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slightly crumpled piece of paper and handed it to her. She un-crumpled it and flattened it against the countertop. It was a missing poster for Kate Sharp.

Neve did a double take. Was this the same Kate whose shift she was replacing? They looked alike. Both of them brunettes with long hair and dark eyes.

"So yeah, you can have that if you want. Hang it up somewhere. It's insane, right?" He said throwing his arms up in the air. "So, can I get some cake or something?" His mouth turned upward into an impish shy grin. "I got the munchies."

"Of course!" Neve said sliding the missing poster into her apron pocket. She served the guy a cake and a free brownie and stood dutifully at the register as a couple more orders went through. Owen returned getting the orders out more quickly.

When the queue was clear Neve pulled Owen aside and showed him the poster. "Did you know about this?" she asked him.

Owen took the poster out of Neve's hand and looked at it.

"Where did you get this?" he asked.

"They're handing them out, outside, someone just brought it in."

"What's that?" Tracey asked, appearing at Owens side. She looked at the poster in Owens' hand. "Are you serious?" She said snatching the poster out of his hand. Her hand flew to her mouth. "No. Way! No way! She can't be. Jesus what am I saying, of course, she's missing. She's probably strung out somewhere or Overdosed."

"She wasn't on drugs," Owen said defensively.

"Oh, wasn't she? Are you sure?" Tracey asked.

"Yeah, I am. I worked with her. She was depressed, that's all."

"So, what? You think she committed suicide maybe?" Tracey said. "Or maybe she ran away for attention?"

"customer" Neve said excusing herself from their conversation.

"No. I don't think that. Neve!" Owen said. She turned around to face him. "You should get out of here before he comes to talk to us. You didn't know her anyway."

"Nobody's going anywhere," Pete said walking behind the counter with the detective in tow. "Detective Dobson would like to ask you guys some questions about Kate Sharp."

"Even me?" Neve asked.

"Neve? what are you doing here?" Pete asked, "You're not scheduled until Thursday?"

"Yeah, I know, but I came in, and the place was busy, and you were busy, so I figured I'd lend a hand and get some practice in, pro bono until you were done. Plus I just came in to give you these." She said handing over printout copies of her bank and tax details.

"Thanks, Neve. No, you can go."

"Hang on," Detective Dobson said. "I'll decide who can go and who can't go. Who are you?" He said flipping open his notebook and getting his pen ready.

"I'm Neve. I just started working here yesterday."

Detective Dobson stepped forward and leant closer to Neves' face, looking at her features close up. Surprisingly he didn't smell of booze today but then he was on the clock, apparently. Neve stepped backward for some space.

"Did you know Kate Sharp?"

"I never met her, I actually got the job because she didn't show up for her shift."

"I see. Neve what? What's your last name?"

"Moore." She said. He scribbled it down in his notebook.

"Okay, you can go. But if I need to ask you any more questions...?"

"You won't," Owen said decisively. "They never even met each other."

Neve grabbed her stuff and headed out the door. She looked back at Owen who was joining Pete at the register while the others, presumably, were being interviewed in the back, they both looked tense.

"There you are!" Jimmy said as he sidled up beside Neve and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. "Did you hear the news?" He said shoving a missing poster four inches away from Neves' face.

"Yeah" she replied taking the poster from Jimmy's hand and looking at it again.

Jimmy shook his head sadly.

"Owen must be really, really upset." He said looking through the window of the Stagg as they walked passed.

Neve looked at Owens' face. His jaw was really tense.

"Why?" she asked stopping in her tracks.

"Well, they were a thing. He was done with her though, Neve, so you don't have to worry about that. I mean he was trying to figure out how to break it off without having to deal with her spiralling into a black mood and killing herself. Kind of a lucky break for him wouldn't you say? Unless, he did break up with her, and she did top herself."

Neve stood dumbstruck. Her jaw was literally hanging off her face in disbelief. Was this true? She was Owens girlfriend? She glanced through the window of The Stagg and saw Owen watching her intently. A cold chill crept down her spine.

"Hey, you!" Claudia called out to Neve as she approached off the grassy knoll. Neve glanced over. "Hey, Clo- uh- be careful!" She warned, too late, as Claudia's ankle bent sideways in a pothole in the grass and sent her sprawling right into Jimmy's open arms.

"Oh my gosh! I am so sorry." She said embarrassed.

"That's okay," Jimmy said, dazzling her with his smile. "One way or another, you were going to fall for me." He winked, and Claudia bit her lip before it split into a cheesy grin. Jimmy placed her gently and carefully back onto her feet.

"What are you doing here?" Neve asked, trying to draw Claudia's intense gaze away from Jimmy's charming face. She glanced at her feet and inhaled before turning her attention back to Neve.

"Did you hear the news? Some girl went missing off campus?" she said.

"Yeah," Neve replied, "I did just a minute ago actually."

Claudia nodded and slowly turned her head back to look at Jimmy. He was watching her; he hadn't taken his eyes off her since she'd bumbled her way into his arms.

"I'm Jimmy." He said to her, extending his hand to shake. Claudia's cheeks burned bright red.

"Hi Jimmy," she said taking his hand with a smile. "I'm Claudia. I live with Neve."

"Claudia" he restated. Tasting the word. Claudia giggled.

Neve watched in annoyance as Claudia and Jimmy exchanged flirtatious looks. She wanted to get out of there, and she wanted Claudia to get away from Jimmy. He was looking at her with definite interest, and Neve imagined all kinds of horrible scenarios inside her head.

"Where's Sophie?" She asked, suddenly aware that Claudia's bodyguard was absent.

"here I am!" She said, appearing from behind them, having just exited The Stagg with a mouthful of cake. "What?" She said as Neve stared. "I was hungry, and man I wish you had been in there. Do you know how much this cake cost? I want a discount next time."

With Sophie there, Neve considered leaving them alone, safety in numbers, she hoped.

"I got to go," She said, checking her watch and hoisting her bag up onto her shoulder.

"Can we get a ride with you?" Sophie asked.

"Uh- no actually. Because I walked into campus this morning. I'm about to catch a bus to the mall to buy a new phone. You guys could come if you want?" she said, hopefully implying that the invitation was extended to the girls only.

"Oh, no. We'll see you at home then okay?" she replied.

Neve nodded.

"I could give you both a ride home if you like?" Jimmy offered helpfully.

"No, Thanks" Sophie replied promptly. At least someone was practising stranger danger etiquette.

"What, Soph?" Claudia exclaimed limping over to Jimmy. "Yes, please, Jimmy. That would be awesome. Thank you"

Neve looked at them. Jimmy was smiling, dazzlingly at Claudia, Claudia was smiling back at him shyly, and Sophie was watching them both sceptically. Neve almost didn't want to leave.

"Fine." Sophie agreed.

Neve turned around and spotted the bus approaching, so she raced across the grass toward it and got to the bus stop just in time as the last student in line got onto the bus.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

tuesDAY - EVENING

Neve got off the bus a corner away from her house just as the sun was going down. The street lights were on already, but there was still a lot of light in the sky. She walked slowly along the footpaths as she passed the houses thinking about what Jimmy had told her about Kate and Owen.

She turned the corner to her street and glanced up. Something had caught her eye. A flickering light. Candles. As she walked closer to her house, she saw lit candles in small votive glasses placed around the letterbox. Four dry roses were propped against the pole and sticking out of the mailbox was a piece of paper.

She wondered if it was some kind of romantic gesture. But from who?

Her mind immediately flashed to Jimmy and Claudia's behaviour this afternoon.

Neve pulled out the piece of paper and unrolled it. It was a 'missing' poster. 'DEAD GIRL WALKING' was scrawled thickly across the top of the page in dark reddish-brown ink. Underneath that was a grainy portrait picture of Neve, but with no information on it. No name, no description. A phone number was written across the bottom but had been torn off, leaving only the very tips of the numbers. Not enough to easily decipher.

Neve stood still. Looking at the poster. Her hand trembled. What was this? Was this a threat? Was somebody threatening her? The sun was fading fast, and she realised she was about to be alone in the darkness. Or was she alone? She thought. Neve glanced around nervously. She couldn't see anybody. Her heart was racing and beating hard. She could feel it in her skull and hear it in her ears. She stumbled forward on the broken cement, her legs were threatening to give, and her stomach was threatening to expel its contents. She managed to get to the door, holding the poster in one hand and her key shakily in the other. She missed the keyhole twice and inhaled deeply trying to gather herself. Just a few more steps to go. Get through the door. Get up the stairs and find her anxiety medication. She would be okay. The key slid into the lock. She ambled through the door.

"Hey!" she screamed hoarsely as she raced inside slamming the door behind her. Nikki was the first to appear, hastily, Claudia and Sophie appeared on the landing upstairs to see what was going on. Neve was pale white, as she leant against the closed front door sliding down into a seated position. Her breath was rapid and uncontrolled.

"Are you okay?" Nikki asked anxiously.

Neve shook her head from side to side repeatedly.

"I need help... I need... my pills... Upstairs... In my closet! In the box! at the bottom! Please!"

Nikki didn't hesitate she raced up the stairs, passing Sophie and Claudia, who were walking down. Neve looked at them as they crept around her keeping a distance.

"Should we call an ambulance?" Sophie asked.

Neve shook her head. She tried to focus on textures and noises. Started trying to make lists in her head but she couldn't. Her head was spinning. Nikki came thumping down the stairs with a small wooden jewellery box and passed it to Neve. She opened it and pulled out a small pill bottle. She put one pill in her mouth and swallowed it dry without water and closed her eyes. After a few minutes her breathing slowed down, her shoulders slumped as the medicine took effect, her head rolled back against the door, and she opened her heavy eyelids and looked at Nikki who was sitting beside her waiting.

"What happened?" She asked gently.

"Did you guys see this?" Neve asked tearfully, handing Nikki the sweaty scrunched up threatening letter. Nikki looked at it.

"No.," she said. She passed the poster to Sophie who passed it to Claudia who both shook their heads.

"Where did you get this?" Claudia asked.

Neve slowly stood up and opened the front door. Outside the letterbox was still illuminated by the candlelight.

"Are you serious?" She asked.

Neve nodded.

"That's creepy right, especially after today," Sophie said.

"What happened today?" Nikki asked.

"Didn't you go to campus today?" Sophie said.

"I don't have classes on Tuesday," Nikki said.

"Some girl named Kate Sharp has gone missing off campus. They were passing out missing posters of her today."

Nikki balked. "Are you serious? Like this poster?' she said pointing to the poster which was still in Claudia's hand.

"No, this poster has a picture of Neve on it," Claudia said.

Nikki looked at the poster again.

"That's not good, right?" Sophie asked.

"I'm calling the police, okay." She said.

Neve nodded lazily and walked over to the couch. She sat down, resting her head in her hands and closed her eyes for what seemed only a short moment. When she opened them again, Detective Dobson was staring at her from across the room, standing at the fireplace with a cup of hot coffee in his hand.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

tuesDAY - NIGHT

NIKKI JOINED NEVE ON THE COUCH and held her hand in a comforting way.

"Detective Dobson is here." She said softly. Neve blinked a few times. He really was there.

"Hello again, Neve," Dobson said as he stepped forward.

"Detective Dobson," Neve said.

He sat down in front of Neve on one of the kitchen dining chairs, which presumably Nikki had brought in for him as Claudia and Sophia were notably absent, with only a small coffee table containing a threatening poster in an evidence bag between them.

"So, do you want to tell me what happened?" he asked, gesturing to the offending object in front of them.

"When I got home, it was in the mailbox. It has a picture of me on it."

"Out the front?" he asked.

"Yes," Neve said. "Out the front. In the mailbox." He nodded to show he understood.

"What time did you get home?"

"I'm not sure. The sun was going down."

"Okay, so about five thirty?" he said writing it down in his notebook. "Neve, I have to ask, before we go any further, you didn't do this yourself?"

"What?" Neve said. "Are you joking? Why would I do that?"

Nikki squeezed Neves hand supportively.

"Detective, if I may, whoever left this for Neve to find, scared the crap out of her. When she came in she was white as a sheet, - in fact, the first thing she did when she came inside was to ask us if we knew where it had come from."

Dobson nodded and flipped open his notebook.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm Nikki." She said. He jotted down her name.

"You live here too?"

"Yes," she said, "We're housemates."

"How long have you lived here together?" he asked.

"I've lived here for about a little over a week, and Neve moved in a few days ago," Nikki said.

"Really?" Dobson asked.

"Yes," Neve said. "I moved in last weekend."

"Okay." He said.

"So, what are we dealing with here girls? You came home and found this in the letterbox, and you called the police. Was it in an envelope?"

"No, it was just rolled up," Neve said.

"Okay." He said taking down another note in his book.

"Is that...?" Neve trailed off looking down at the message scrawled across the top of the paper. "Is that blood?" she asked.

"It might be," Dobson answered plainly. "We will run tests on it and find out for sure though. Is there anything else that you can or want to tell me? You haven't lived here long, so, have you met anybody new that you think might have done this"

"No, I don't think so," Neve said with a shake of her head.

Dobson inhaled deeply and squared his shoulders, looking right into Neve's eyes.

"Did you know or ever meet Kate Sharp?" he asked.

"No. Never." She answered, "What does Kate have to do with this? Do you think it's connected somehow?" she asked pointing to the poster on the table.

Dobson leant back in his chair and pulled an evidence bag from the inner jacket pocket. He placed it on the coffee table beside the poster. The evidence bag contained a single die, dried rose.

"It may be nothing," he answered with a shrug. "But, there's a possibility that there is a connection to Kate Sharp's case, as there was a dried rose found at her apartment. I'm going to take this now, forensics are outside taking any prints off the letterbox, so if there's anything out there, we will get it."

He stood up, taking the evidence on the table in one hand and slipped his other hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a card. "Until then, here's my number. Call me if anything else happens. Or if you think of anything that might be important." He opened the front door to let himself out.

"Is that it?" Neve asked. "I mean, you just said there may be a connection to Kate's disappearance, and you're just going to leave?"

"At the moment, there's no real proof. As far as we know, this could just be a prank. You know" he said holding up the missing poster one last time. "This actually isn't a picture of you."

"What?" Nikki said. "Yes, it is. Look at it."

"Is it?" Dobson said, showing Neve and Nikki the poster again.

"It looks like me," Neve said.

"But it's not you. She just looks like you. You look a lot like her. It's actually a picture of a girl who went missing from Crawford university about twenty years ago, it was a really big case back then, a few other girls went missing too. They got the guy though. So somebody may have noticed how similar you both look and just left it for you, as a joke."

"So..." Neve said. "You think this is a joke?"

Dobson shrugged apologetically. "It is a real possibility that it's just a prank. However, I will organise for a squad car to do a drive by every couple of hours, and check in on you." He said before he walked away leaving Neve and Nikki standing dumbfounded in the doorway looking at each other. Nikki swung the door closed slowly, and Neve picked up her bag, her new mobile phone box, and her medicine box and sauntered slowly up the stairs as she considered what the detective had just said.

She plugged her new phone in to charge and set up her new sim card online before pulling out her journal to fill in the day's entry.

Nikki walking quietly into the room with a cup of hot tea for Neve and placed it gently beside her on the desk.

"Thanks," Neve said gratefully, gently scooping the mug up into her hands and swivelling around on her seat to face Nikki.

"It's chamomile," she said taking a seat on the bed. "How are you feeling?"

Neve considered her emotional state. There wasn't a word in her vocabulary that could define the chaos she was experiencing right now. "Fine?" she offered, taking a small sip of tea but offering nothing more. "The pills help."

"Okay," Nikki said softly getting up. "Get some rest, okay. I double checked all the locks."

Neve smiled. "Thank you, Nikki."

Nikki smiled back as she pulled the bedroom door closed behind her. "That's okay," she said as the door closed. Neve was alone in the room again, with her thoughts.

Neve lay in bed for what seemed to be hours trying to get to sleep. Every sound the house made was cause for alarm. Every creak was potentially someone creeping through the house who wanted to hurt her. Every scratching noise was a play to drive her insane. Every unidentifiable noise was someone turning locked doorknobs or trying to pick the locks. Everything was putting her on edge. The house was always creaking and groaning. Mostly downstairs. She tried to muffle the sounds by covering her ears with her pillow, but then it was the shadows moving against the walls and ceiling that disturbed her. If only sleep would finally come, she wished.

In order to put her mind to rest she decided to go downstairs and check out the noises herself. She walked through the house double checking the windows and doors were locked, and she stopped at the bottom of the stairs and listened to the house.

There was a scratching noise coming from the wall. She held her breath and listened more intently trying to locate where the scratching was coming from.

She crept silently toward the loungeroom and found the noises were getting quieter. She retreated back to the stair and let her breath relax back into its natural rhythm. Before she listened again. Someone moved upstairs, and the floorboards creaked across the house.

There was a small thump from behind the wall in the closed off room.

Neve walked toward the door and listened. The quiet scratching noise was on the other side of the wall. She placed her hand on the doorknob and tried to turn it. But it was locked. Neve exhaled deeply and headed back to her bed, reassured by her own evaluation of the security of the house.

She slumped heavily onto the mattress in her bedroom eventually drifting into some kind of unconscious state, unaware if she was actually awake or dreaming. She experienced the sensation of falling gently and seemingly eternally until she woke in the morning with a jerk. Reality. Impact.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WEDNesDAY - MORNING

NEVE WAS EXHAUSTED and tense when she walked out the front door to leave for campus. Crime scene tape was tied around the letterbox and attached all the way over to her car bumper. She sighed heavily and trudged along the footpath begrudgingly. The exercise was supposed to be good for you; she reasoned to herself. And she'd probably sleep well tonight for it.

She couldn't help but notice it was a beautiful day. She started to take in her surroundings in detail. The sun was warm against her skin, the breeze was soft and not too cool, there was a hint of freshly cut grass in the air. The leaves on the evergreen shrubs seemed more vibrant than usual, she brushed her hand against them as she passed and it tickled her palms. The birds were chirping happily above in the trees going about their birdy business. The walk had rejuvenated her, and she walked the rest of the way to class in a state of bliss.

She was late for class. She spotted Owen and Jimmy sitting in the middle of the room, one vacant seat between them. She walked past their row and continued to the front of the room taking a vacant seat by herself.

Neve looked back and saw Jimmy talking to Owen. Owens big green eyes darted toward her, and she looked away.

When the class was nearly finished Neve stood up and walked briskly out of the room before Cunningham had even wrapped up his final slide. She wanted to be long gone before Jimmy or Owen had a chance to catch up with her. She turned down the opposite end of the hallway to which she usually came and went from and hoped that she would be out of sight before either of them emerged from class. She walked out into a small private square with a large shady tree in the middle and wondered what else she could discover while exploring the campus.

By midafternoon she'd found a nice tree on the main quad to sit underneath and watch as volunteer students handed out missing posters for Kate around campus.

"Are you avoiding me?" Owen asked, suddenly appearing beside Neve.

"Jesus!" She exclaimed in surprise holding a hand to her heart in shock. She glanced behind him and all around for Jimmy.

"He's not with me," he said knowingly.

"Good," Neve said.

Owen dropped his bag and sat down on the grass in front of her.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Are you?" she sniped.

"What do you mean?" he asked carefully.

"Well... your girlfriend is missing, and it seems like you don't even care."

"What? Girlfriend? Kate's not my girlfriend, and I am worried about her, but I know her and she has a habit of disappearing sometimes. Why do you think she's my girlfriend?" he asked.

"Jimmy said..."

"Oh! God... of course. Is that what he said to you yesterday outside The Stagg?" Owen shook his head in amused disbelief. "Figures..."

"What does?" Neve asked.

"Nothing. Don't worry about it. Kate and I were just friends. We had the same shifts at work, and we hung out sometimes. She didn't like Jimmy, so I guess he just assumed she was into me, which she wasn't, nor would she ever be."

"Why is that?" Neve asked.

Owen clammed up. "It's complicated, and it's not for me to say." He said trailing off.

"Because she was depressed?" Neve asked.

Owen looked at her, his large green eyes wide with sincerity.

"No, that wasn't it. But she was depressed, and she had some serious problems. I was trying to help her."

"How? How could you help her?"

Owen chuckled nervously. "Therapy." He offered.

"You were giving her Therapy?" Neve asked in shock.

"No, God, no, I'm not qualified to do that. I'm also probably not sane enough to do it either." He said with a breezy laugh. "No, I was helping her get it, and pay for it."

"Really?" Neve said taken aback.

"Yeah. Therapy can be really helpful; you know?"

Neve considered her experience with Therapy to date.

"Yeah, I don't know. I guess it depends on the Therapist." She said.

"You've been in Therapy before?" He asked interestedly.

"Yeah." She admitted. "You?"

"Yeah," he said with a small smile.

"So," Neve said, "What were you in Therapy for?"

Owen leaned forward and rested his arm on his knee.

"Why were you in Therapy?" he asked.

Neve smiled and bit her lip.

"You know I asked you first, So..." She said.

Owen looked down and ripped some grass out of the ground and started tearing it into smaller and smaller pieces of confetti.

"My mother committed suicide," he said, "and my Therapist has helped me work through not having her around."

"Jesus!" Neve said in shock throwing her hands up to cover her mouth.

"I'm so sorry." She said.

Owen half smiled at her, but there was still pain in his eyes.

"It's okay. She killed herself when I was a baby so I never really knew her. The Therapy was more for dealing with the absence of her. Of a mother figure. A lot of people in my family have committed suicide or died, actually, so I'm just really trying to keep on top of the darkness that seems to breed and fester inside my family." He contemplated his shoes for a moment, tearing the grass between his fingers again and again.

"I feel really bad Owen," Neve said.

"Why?" he asked.

"I was just in Therapy for alcoholism." She said.

He snorted and tossed the grass confetti at her.

"Liar!" he said.

"Yeah," she admitted, "Sorry. That was some heavy stuff you just dropped, and I am a bad person who makes really bad jokes."

"Ha," he said.

"Uh, it's kind of hard for me to talk about why I had it..." Neve said.

"I won't tell anybody." He said, looking into her eyes.

"When I was little I thought, I was someone else. Somebody other than who I was. Like, I was born, and I grew up with these people, but I was adamant that they weren't my family and I wasn't Neve."

"Who did you think you were?"

"Uh, well... I thought I was a girl named Rose. I was obsessed with Roses. Like it was out of control how much they meant to me, and I was persistent about it apparently. I just kept pushing and pushing, telling my parents that I wasn't their daughter, that I needed to go home, wherever that was. They thought I would grow out of it, but I never did, so they tried putting me in Therapy. I started Therapy before I was six years old. I was supposed to stop believing I was somebody else. I was diagnosed with a dissociative personality disorder, and he started giving me exercises to do, and medicines to take, trying to train me to 'forget' this other persona and accept my own one. Trying to figure out what happened to break my psyche, if there was anything. But I couldn't. I wouldn't, maybe, and when I was ten, they gave up on me. My parents, I mean. They just took off one day. They'd had enough! I was put into care, and I haven't seen them since. My therapist was the only person who didn't abandon me, and he continued treating me until I moved out."

Owen just sat there quietly.

"So yeah, I'm actually crazy."

Owen shook his head. "No, you're not."

"I just told you I have believed I am somebody else my entire life and you're telling me I'm not crazy?"

"Are you sure you have a personality disorder though? You seem so normal compared to..."

"Jimmy?" Neve offered.

Owen exhaled through his nose and tossed his head back. "Yeah, don't even go there." He said shaking his head.

A student handing out fliers walked over and passed Neve and Owen another one of Kate's 'missing' posters each. Neve stared at her picture.

"Does your dad know Kate was in therapy?" She asked.

Owen inhaled and exhaled deeply. "No. I was going to try to tell him last night, but he didn't get home until late and when he did, well... he was already drinking."

"Oh?" she said. "I saw your dad last night."

"Really? Where? Cause I know, it wasn't at Alcoholics anonymous."

"I'm sorry," Neve said.

Owen sighed, "It's not all the time, just this time of year, he loses it a little."

"How come?" Neve asked.

"It's the anniversary," Owen said.

Neve's brow furrowed and then she realised.

"Oh, of your mother?"

Owen nodded, "So you saw him last night?"

"He came to my house."

"He went to your house? Why?"

"Yeah. Something weird happened yesterday." Neve said quietly.

Owen leant forward.

"What was it?" he asked.

"When I got home last night... somebody had left me a 'missing' poster of a girl who looked just like me in my letterbox. I actually thought it was me."

"was it?" he asked

"I thought so. And there was writing on it, which looked like it could have been done in blood."

"What did it say?" he asked

"It said... dead girl walking."

"What does it mean?"

Neve shrugged. "I don't know? We called the police, and your dad came to investigate. He actually said the girl in the picture wasn't me. That it was a girl, who went missing from this campus twenty years ago. But I mean, it looked exactly like me."

"Who was she?" he said.

Neve shrugged. "I don't know. He didn't say. There was no name on the poster. No information actually."

Owen stood up and offered his hand to Neve. She took it, and he pulled her onto her feet.

"Come on." He said.

"Where are we going?"

"To the library." He said. "If a girl who looks just like you went missing from this school twenty years ago there's going to be a record of it on the microfiche. We should check it out."

"Can't we just search online?" she said pulling her new phone out of her bag and opening up a search engine app.

"Fine," he said.

"Okay. Missing girl. Crawford University." She said hitting enter. Immediately there were multiple hits relating to Kate Sharpe's disappearance. "Oh. Of course."

"Missing girl, Crawford University, 19XX". Again, the results showed hits relating to nineteen-year-old Kate Sharp.

"Microfiche?" Owen asked hopefully.

"Fine," Neve said.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

WEDNesDAY - MIDDAY

THREE-QUARTERS OF AN HOUR LATER, after a long, painstaking search through old campus paper articles Owen finally stumbled upon the article he was looking for.

"I found it." He said.

Neve stopped searching on the other microfiche machine and rolled her computer chair over beside him to see.

There, in black and white was a picture of Neve underneath the title Missing Girl.

"That's the picture that was on the poster, yesterday," Neve said.

Owen enlarged the picture and stared at it, then turned and stared at Neve. "Woah, you weren't kidding. You look exactly the same. The resemblance is uncanny." He said.

Neve swallowed. Hard.

"What's the article say?" she asked shakily.

"Rosemary Watts, missing since September 15th. Wait-"

"Oh my god," Neve said, suddenly feeling as if the air had been knocked out of her. She looked closer at the article.

"Didn't you just say that you thought you were actually a girl named Rose?" he asked.

Neve reached over and hit the print button. She looked at Owen, shaking her head and shrugging her shoulders.

"This is... insane?" she said.

Owen leant back in his chair and ran his hands through his hair. The printer came to life beside him, buzzing and whirring as the article printed out. He exhaled and dragged his palms down his cheeks before collecting the warm piece of paper out of the tray and looked over it again.

"Crawford University Student Rosemary Watts was reported missing on Monday by her parents when she didn't come home over the weekend." He read, "Watts, 19, was believed to have attended a college party on Friday night and hasn't been seen since. If you have any information on her whereabouts or movements in the last week, please report it to the Crawford city police or Detective R. Hadley who is handling the case."

Owen sat quietly, and after a long pause, he quietly muttered a simple "huh. Hadley." As the information settled into his brain.

Neve sat beside him, twisting on the chair and chewing her fingernail nervously. What did this mean? She wondered. Was she crazy? Was she not crazy? Was this just an insane coincidence?

"Excuse me," an elderly man said from the doorway. "Will you be much longer?"

"No," Owen said hitting the print button again and tidying up. Neve stood up in autopilot and lifted her bag onto her shoulder. The world wasn't real to her right now, she was swimming in a sensation that was void of emotion, thought or feeling. She'd been told a million times in her life that she was 'sick,' that she suffered from a dissociative personality disorder all her life, and now, suddenly she was looking at an article, maybe about the person she had always claimed to be, who looked exactly like her.

She felt Owen gently guiding her out of the room. She moved automatically as he led her through the library, out the door, and into the sunlight.

The sun shone brightly, piercing her right in the eyeballs with its concentrated glare, blinding her instantly. She covered her eyes with one hand and blinked away the forming tears.

"Do you want this?" Owen asked holding out a copy of the article as her vision returned.

"Yes!" She said, snatching it quickly. She folded it carefully. "Owen, I...." she began to say dumbly, but nothing else came out.

"It's okay." He said wrapping an arm around her shoulder and guide-walking her across the campus lawns. "Let's get you home."

Neve nodded mutely, slipping the article carefully into her bag as she was nudged along.

"uh," Owen said pausing. "Which way?"

"That way," Neve said pointing to their right.

They turned and walked silently out into the street and followed along slowly until Neve signalled this way or that. Twenty minutes later they came upon Neve's street and stopped on the corner underneath the street sign.

"Genesis Avenue," Owen said, reading the sign out loud. "Where it all begins."

"What?" Neve asked, drifting out of her stupor.

"Nothing," he said, "It's just a dumb observation. So which house is yours?" He asked.

Neve balked. Her home was embarrassing, and she imagined Owen thinking less of her for the way it looked for some reason.

"You know what, this is fine. You could just leave me here if you want." She said.

Owen smirked. "You know, I would" he offered, "but I really need to use your bathroom."

Neve sighed.

"Okay," she said leading him across the street to the house that looked like a meth den, with crime scene tape strewn across the front lawn. If Owen was appalled or surprised he hid it well, but Neve still felt embarrassed.

Neve slid her key into the front door and opened the door. Her bag dropped, and her belongings fell out. "There's a toilet under the staircase," she said pointing down the hallway, and Owen rushed inside and disappeared into the lavatory.

Neve knelt down and picked up her things. A car door slammed behind her, and somebody walked toward her with heavy determined footsteps. Neve wasn't paying attention as she fiddled with the clasp on her bag. It had broken.

"Neve," a man said sternly. She looked across to the man who was standing at the edge of her porch with a thick folder underneath his arm.

"Detective Dobson?" she said surprised. Oh boy, she thought, she didn't have the mental capacity left to deal with him right now.

"Can I speak with you?" he asked.

"Of course," she said, standing up, "Come in."
CHAPTER NINETEEN

WEDNesDAY - AFTERNOON

Detective Dobson took a seat on the couch in the lounge room and put the folder onto the table in front of him.

"Please?" he said gesturing to the seat on the couch beside him.

Neve walked forward and sat down. Dobson rested his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together, his lips were set in a grim line.

"So, the writing on the poster you found in your mailbox was written in blood. Type A, actually which matches Kate Sharp's blood type."

"What?" She said.

"That's not all they found." He said opening the folder.

"On the same piece of paper were the fingerprints of three missing girls and an unknown source, which I believe is you. You touched the poster, right?"

"Oh my god. There are more missing girls? Is this... is there a serial killer out there? Should I be worried?"

"Well, that's the thing," he said, rifling through the papers in the file. He pulled out three pieces of paper. The first one Neve recognised. It was a missing poster with a picture of herself on it. Only it wasn't her. It was Rosemary Watts.

"The fingerprints of the three other missing girls found on the paper," he said, laying out the missing posters one by one in front of Neve, "have been missing for twenty years."

Neve's stomach plummeted as she stared at their faces.

She looked at Dobson, mouth agape.

"This can't be real." She said.

"What can't be real?" Owen said walking into the room.

"Owen!?" Dobson said sternly. "What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here?" Owen asked back, as he looked at the table in front of Neve at the posters. Rosemary's poster was placed in front of her.

"What is this?" Owen asked pointing to the contents on the table. "Neve? Are you okay?"

Neve shook her head.

"Owen" Dobson said sternly, "It's police business, I'm going to need you to go."

"No," Neve said meekly. "Please don't." She turned to him, begging with her eyes.

Owen looked at his father, and at Neve, and he slowly, rebelliously sat down on the arm of the couch next to Neve and placed one hand on her shoulder.

Dobson sighed.

"So, Neve, I need to know everything you can tell me about this."

Neve looked at Dobson pathetically and shrugged her shoulders.

The front door flung open as Sophie and Claudia walked into the house giggling.

"Helloooo" Sophie called out enthusiastically into the house. Then seemingly she spied Owen sitting on the edge of the couch through the doorway. "Oh, hello." She said.

Claudia waved shyly from beside her friend. Owen looked at them and spun around to Neve. He fixed her with his eyes.

The girls walked into the lounge room and stopped. Everyone in the room was staring at them.

"What's with everyone?" Sophie asked. "Did someone die?" she asked. Her eyes filtered down from Neve, Detective Dobson and Owens' faces to the table.

"Jesus! What is this?" she demanded. "Are these more threats?"

Detective Dobson stood up pulling on the lapels of his suit jacket uncomfortably he paced across the room for good measure.

Sophie pushed in front of Neve and picked up the papers in front of her.

"Who the hell are Rosemary Watts, Penelope Langdon, and Maria Santiago?" She demanded angrily, her green eyes blazing, "and why are our faces on these posters?"
CHAPTER TWENTY

WEDNesDAY – LATE AFTERNOON

DOBSON PACED AGGRESIVELY across the room in front of the fireplace. Sophie stepped in his way bringing him abruptly to a halt.

"What is this?" She demanded, waving the poster in his face. "This is sick. Who is making these?"

"What?" Dobson asked astonished. "This doesn't make any sense. These posters are from twenty years ago! I was practically your age when these were made. This" he said pointing wildly around the room in all three of the girl's directions. "This is what is messed up! The three of you, in the same house, looking exactly the same as them. What is this? How did you pull this off? What is this? What's the point of it?" He stared at them all, daring just one of them to admit it was some kind of sick hoax. "Are you their... daughters?" he guessed.

"Whose daughters? What are you guys talking about?" Claudia asked, stumbling clumsily over Neve's feet as she took the seat beside her on the couch. She held up the Penelope Langdon poster and studied it. Apart from their hairstyles, she couldn't distinguish any difference between herself and the girl in the picture.

"Woah." She muttered.

"Theirs!" Dobson yelled pointing at the posters.

"My mother looks nothing like me, and she's definitely not Maria Santiago," Sophie said loudly.

A thump echoed on the floorboards upstairs, and footsteps thumped across the floorboards as someone descended from the second story of the house.

"You were adopted then!" He accused.

Nikki appeared sleepily at the door frame, one side of her afro was flat and askew to the side. She stood there watching for a moment and began to process the situation that was unfolding in front of her in the lounge room. People were yelling at each other. Well, Sophie was yelling at a man who was angrily pacing the floor.

"Pft!" Sophie said, rolling one shoulder back and throwing some serious shade in his direction. "I was not! I've seen my own birth on videotape, and unless they managed to get a stand-in baby, with the exact same birthmark as me, and shove her inside of my mother so that she could expel her on film, then I'm the real deal baby. You can even call her and ask for the tape. She'll show you! She shows everyone."

"Why is everyone yelling?" Nikki asked wiping the sleep from her eyes.

"Look at these" Sophie said, throwing the poster she was holding onto the table next to the others. Nikki glanced down.

"Oh no," she said. "Are these more threats?"

"No, no," Dobson said. "These are from a case from Twenty years ago."

Nikki looked at the posters.

"How?" Nikki asked. "These can't be from twenty years ago; these girls aren't even twenty years old."

Dobson leant against the mantle rubbing his temples. Beads of sweat were beginning to drop down his forehead.

"I don't know 'how, but I do know these are from Twenty years ago. One of those girls was my friend." He said. "I followed the case, these posters are those girls."

Sophie was finally quiet and still for a moment. Her mouth which hung open quietly closed slowly, and she looked away from him as she recovered herself.

"Well, what about you two?" Dobson said directing the question at Claudia and Neve. "Were either of you adopted?" he asked.

"My parents didn't film my birth, but if I had been adopted, they'd have told me. My mother has pics of me growing up my whole life" Claudia said.

Neve just shrugged. Owen rubbed her back supportively and squeezed her into his side.

Dobson groaned loudly in aggravation.

"Hang on," Nikki said struggling to catch up with what was going on. She walked around the coffee table, picked up the poster of Rosemary and took the poster of Penelope from Claudia and looked at all three of them.

"Well somebody needs to explain to me how this is happening!" Dobson said angrily.

"You're the one who needs to explain," Sophie said pointing an accusatory finger at him. Her eyes were fire.

"What? Me? I didn't do this" Dobson yelled back.

"Everybody!" Nikki said loudly.

"Yes, you did! You brought these things into our home!" Sophie said.

"EVERYBODY STOP TALKING! _"_ Nikki bellowed holding one finger up in the air above her head signalling silence across the room. Everybody stared at Nikki who stood waiting in the middle of the room silently.

"Firs. I need some coffee" she said

"- I don't have time for -" Sophie tried to say, but Nikki turned and looked at her directly.

"NO! Nobody talk. Not one more word. I'm sick of the yelling. We're all going to go into the kitchen to sit down and discuss this properly. Nobody is going to figure anything out by arguing."

"The only thing to figure out-" Sophie started to say

Nikki exhaled deeply.

"EVERYBODY. KITCHEN. NOW!!!!!!!" she bellowed.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

WEDNesDAY – EARLY EVENING

Nikki calmly poured boiling hot water from the kettle into several mugs on the kitchen bench as everybody in the room waited quietly for permission to speak. Dobson was leaning against the edge of the bench, staring in disbelief at everybody. He was frustrated but wanted answers, so he was waiting as patiently as he could. He changed position for the tenth time in two minutes and fiddled with the open file of police reports in front of him.

Sophie was watching from the Computer room doorway, sitting in a computer chair nestled protectively inside the other room with her arms crossed in front of her. She didn't dare step one foot over the invisible line between the study and the madness that was occurring in the kitchen.

Neve, Owen, and Claudia had seated themselves at the dining table, facing toward the rest of the room.

Nikki handed out cups of tea and coffee to everyone and took a seat on one of the stools at the breakfast bar near Dobson.

"Okay," she said calmly. "Let's start from the beginning, shall we?"

Everybody looked at each other silently. Owen nudged Neves leg under the table.

"Okay," Neve said. "When I got home this afternoon, Detective Dobson wanted to talk to me. So, I let him inside, and we sat down in the lounge room. He told me that the poster – the threatening one – that I found in the letterbox, well the writing on it was blood and the blood matches Kates" Owen inhaled sharply. "The girl who went missing from the university."

"I said the blood type matched Kate's, I didn't say it was her blood. DNA testing hasn't confirmed that yet." Dobson added carefully.

Sophie moved her chair forward slightly to see everyone better. Neve nodded at Dobson and looked at Nikki.

"Go on," she said.

Neve inhaled deeply. "Then he said that they had found four sets of fingerprints on the poster from yesterday. Three of those sets of fingerprints matched other missing girls."

Nikki lowered her coffee cup, her hand shook slightly.

"But those fingerprints belong to girls who went missing from Crawford university twenty years ago, and he laid the posters out in front of me. When I saw them... and then Claudia and Sophie came home and saw them too."

The room was silent. You could hear a pin drop.

"Whose did the fourth set belong to?" Nikki asked.

Dobson cleared his throat. "Neve. Probably" he said. "We'd have to get a sample."

"So, there were only four sets of fingerprints on the poster that Neve found in the letterbox?" she asked.

Dobson nodded.

"But we all touched it," Nikki said looking around. "So why aren't our fingerprints on it too?"

"What?" Dobson asked.

"That's right!" Claudia said. "We did touch the poster. We passed it around to each other when Neve brought it in."

"No, that can't be. They only found four sets, and they matched three of them. Are you sure you all touched it?" Dobson asked.

"Yes!" Claudia said. "Neve had a panic attack, and we took it off her. I'm certain."

"Did you touch the poster?" He said, directing the question at Sophie. She glared at him silently. He waited patiently staring her down.

Sophie kicked the door frame. "Yes. I touched it too!" She said.

"I'm going to need to take all of your fingerprints to rule them out against the others," Dobson said pulling an ink pad out and some fingerprint boards. The girls gave up their fingerprints one by one.

"But what if those are our fingerprints on the poster?" Neve asked.

"They're not!" Dobson and Sophie said in unison.

"But what if they are?" Claudia asked agreeing with Neve.

"Claudia!" Sophie said with an astonished gasp. "They can't be ours. It's a trick or something! Police pull this shit all the time, to frame people."

"So, you think the police are framing you, to say you were missing from twenty years ago?" Owen said. "Doesn't make any sense."

"Let's just say for a moment..." Claudia began.

"No, let's not!" Sophie said loudly. "This is crazy."

"I agree," Claudia said. "It's crazy. What are the chances that we look like three missing, probably dead, girls from twenty years ago... well; it's reasonable to look like someone else, we each have about six doppelgangers in the world at any given time, give or take BUT..." she said pausing for effect, "What are the odds that we look like three missing girls from Crawford University from twenty years ago, from the same case file and live in the same house together today? That's crazy."

Nikki turned to face Dobson. "Is this a trick?" she said pointing to the posters.

He shook his head. "It's not a trick. These were high profile cases. But we got the guy who did it"

"Did you?" Nikki asked. "Who was he?"

Dobson lifted a piece of paper in the file and put it back down.

"Joey Santiago."

"Santiago?" Nikki said pushing Maria Santiago's poster across the bench toward Dobson, tapping it.

Dobson nodded.

"Yeah. He was her brother."

"Why would he kill his own sister?" Nikki asked.

"We don't know that he killed them. They were never found, and Santiago never admitted that he did it" Dobson said.

"I think we can presume they are if they haven't been found in the last twenty years detective," Nikki said.

"Well," Dobson said looking through the file and quickly scanned through a report, "I think they reasoned that Maria Santiago discovered what her brother had done to the two other girls and he got rid of her to cover his own tracks. Maria was close friends with Penelope, who Santiago claimed he was seeing."

"They were close friends, Just like us!" Claudia said excitedly to Sophie. Sophie glared at her, crossing her arms tighter.

"Is he dead?" Nikki asked.

"No. He's in jail. Serving three life sentences."

"So, who would leave this note for Neve then?"

"It has to be a copycat," Dobson said.

"Twenty years later?" Neve said. "Who waits that long?"

"People do. It's been twenty years, it's a big number, somebody obviously admires his work." Dobson grabbed one of the stools and pulled it around to where he stood and sat down. He stared at Neve.

"Dad," Owen said. "You said we caught the guy? Did you work on this case?"

"I meant we as in the police. The police caught him. I was a student at Crawford university when this happened. I knew Rosemary Watts."

Neve gasped.

He looked at her sideways. "And you're not her. You can't be. She was your age when she disappeared."

"You knew Rosemary?" Owen said in disbelief. "How?"

Dobson swallowed hard.

"She was..." he said, loosening his tie and unbuttoning his top shirt buttons. "She was close to your mother. Rosie disappeared just before your mother did..." His eyes narrowed at his son. "What she did." He added.

"Who worked the case if you didn't?" Nikki asked.

Owen fished inside his jacket and pulled the article that he and Neve had printed out and neatly unfolded it on the table.

"Detective R. Hadley" He read out loud.

Dobson walked across the room and snatched the paper off the table looking at it. "Where did you get this?" he demanded.

"The library" Owen answered smartly. "How did Rosemary know my mother?" he asked.

Dobson shook his head. "Look, I can't tell you right now, Okay? This is just... too weird. I need to think." He picked up the file and started binding it together.

"You're leaving?" Neve said. "But what about the person who left the note? What are we supposed to do?"

Dobson faltered, thinking.

"Just call the police if anything suspicious happens. Get some friends to stay with you, Go home to your parents' houses. I don't know, right now. Lock your doors" he said exasperatedly. He rubbed his brow. "Owen. You better be home before dinner." He said as he tucked the file under his arm and walked out of the room.

They sat in silence as he walked down the creaky hallway. He slammed the door as he left.

Sophie followed suit and walked out of the room. She stomped up the stairs and went to her bedroom. Slamming the door.

"I better go make sure she's okay," Claudia said following Sophie.

Neve, Owen, and Nikki remained in the kitchen looking at each other.

"What was that piece of paper that your Dad took?" Nikki asked.

"An article we printed out from an old, school newsletter," Owen said.

"One second," Neve said leaving the room. She rifled through her backpack returning with her copy of the printout and handed it to Nikki. She read the article.

"So, this is real?" She said finally.

"We got that off the microfiche machine in the school library," Owen said.

"Were there articles about the others?" she asked.

Owen shrugged. "Well we weren't looking for them; we were looking for the girl who looked like Neve who went missing twenty years ago. That blonde girl is right."

"Claudia?" Neve said.

"Yeah, Claudia. One of you looking like a missing girl from twenty years ago is reasonable, even possible, but all three of you, and living together. It's weird."

"What are you thinking?" Nikki asked. She moved toward the table and took a seat next to Neve.

"I don't know?" Owen said. "That's the point. I mean have they been cryogenically frozen and cloned maybe?'

Neve shook her head. "I have a whole lifetime of memories. And then some." She added quietly.

"Aliens?" Owen said.

Neve started laughing. Nikki seemed unperturbed by the idea.

"Probably not, but let's not rule it out," Nikki said.

"Wait. What?" Neve said falling silent. "Okay, That's crazy. And I know crazy. We've been cellmates for a long time."

Nikki didn't respond. Owen was thinking.

"We need more information about those girls," Nikki said. Owen agreed. "Do you think you could get a look at that folder your dad was carrying around today?" she asked.

"I can try," Owen said. "I don't doubt that my Dad has gone to a bar somewhere to drink about it, so it shouldn't be too hard for me to get a look at it when he passes out later. If he brings it home."

Owen stood up and tossed his bag up onto his shoulder.

Neve walked with him out of the kitchen and down the hall feeling confused. Owen stopped before the boarded-up doorway. He raised an eyebrow at it, and Neve tried to hide an embarrassed smile as she looked down to her feet shaking her head. "Don't ask." She said. Her cheeks flushed. She could feel his eyes on her.

"Okay," he said. He stood there, staring at Neve as she blushed sweetly, with her eyes turned to her feet. He reached forward and tipped the bottom of her chin upward. "Whatever this is, we will figure it out, okay," He said.

Neve nodded, looking into his eyes.

Owen leant forward stopping short of kissing her on the lips. He exhaled nervously. Neve closed her eyes as she was consumed by the sensation of butterflies swimming in her stomach. He pulled her body closer to his with one hand and brushed the other along her jaw, across her cheek and brushed her hair behind her ear.

"Sorry." He said quietly.

Neve looked at him, her eyelashes fluttered open as the feelings inside her pulled her into a heavy, relaxed trance.

"Don't be," Neve said, slightly breathless, she was barely holding herself up at this point, she learnt more heavily into his body and raised her mouth slightly hoping to encourage him to actually kiss her. Instead, Owen rested his forehead against hers, ran his hands down from her shoulders to her hands and embraced them in his own. He exhaled deeply and closed his eyes resting there for a moment longer.

He said nothing as he released her entirely, pushing himself away from her. The floorboards creaked under his foot as he stepped backward, turned and headed out the front door. Neve was left standing in the hallway, wanting. But Owen was gone, and she was left feeling confused and a little dejected. But as much as she had wanted him to kiss her, she couldn't ignore the more pressing matter at hand. She needed to know more about Rosemary Watts.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

WEDNesDAY – LATE EVENING

NIKKI WAS SITTING IN THE COMPUTER ROOM clicking away at the keys on the keyboard and scrolling up and down on the mouse when Neve came back to the kitchen.

"Okay, I searched Joey Santiago, Crawford University and a whole bunch of stuff about the cases came up." She said

"You're kidding," Neve said. "I tried finding stuff about it today and got nothing except news about Kate."

"What did you search?"

"Missing girl Crawford university."

"Well, of course, you got results about Kate then." She said. She clicked the mouse and scrolled down a page on the computer as Neve carried a stool in and sat down beside her.

"Okay." Nikki said, "Joey Santiago was tried and plead not guilty, but they found him guilty anyway."

"Based on what?"

Nikki scrolled up and down searching. "I don't know it doesn't say."

"They had to have some kind of evidence."

"Okay, so it says that Rosemary Watts went missing first, and was missing for a week before Penelope and Maria disappeared. A week apart, apparently. Oh, that's interesting..."

"What?" Neve asked.

"They speculated that the case was rushed because Penelope was the daughter of the mayor."

"Why did they think the cases were connected? How do they know that it was the same person?"

"It looks like they tied Joey Santiago to the case because he was Maria's brother, he allegedly had feelings for her best friend Penelope, and he'd done work on Rosemary's car the day before she had gone missing."

"So, he knew all three girls."

"Looks like it," Nikki said.

"What prison is he in?" Neve asked.

"Rydensac," Nikki said.

"Where is that?"

"Are you serious? It's not far from here," She said pulling up another tab and bringing up a map on the screen. "about forty-five minutes' drive on the highway actually. Why? Do you want to go see him?

"Maybe. Maybe he could tell us something."

"Like how he killed them?"

"What if he didn't do it? There was no real evidence. Someone out there knows what happened, what if he was just..."

"A patsy?" Nikki offered. Neve nodded.

"Okay," Nikki said. "But I should probably go first okay. I don't look like any of the girls he might have- maybe- killed. He might actually talk more if he doesn't see three 'ghosts' walking in there."

"sounds like a good idea."

"Okay. Cool. Maybe we could convince him that we need to interview him for class and want to do an expose on how he was possibly mistreated in his court case."

"Are you serious?" Neve said.

"Yeah, because, all prisoners want someone to believe they're innocent. He will probably agree to talk to me because of it."

Neve nodded.

"Alright," she said decidedly, turning to the computer screen and pulling up a word document. She began to type out a letter to Joey. "we're going with an Interview based on his incarceration and the new case. How could he be the original guy when Kate's being linked to the cases from twenty years ago. If he is innocent..."

"I can't even think about how horrible his life has been for the last twenty years..." Neve said.

Nikki exhaled.

Neve stood up to leave the room. She carried the stool back to the kitchen, stepping with the rhythmic clackity-clack of the keyboard keys as Nikki excitedly wrote out the letter.

"Goodnight," Neve said as she walked through the lounge room to head up the stairs to bed.

As she went to turn the corner between the lounge room and the front entrance a cold blast of wind blew into Neve's face. She stopped still as the breeze swept her loose hair back over her shoulders and chilled her skin. She shuddered. The front door was wide open swaying back and forth, in the breeze. Neve stepped forward to close it and paused, standing just inside the doorframe of the living room.

She stood stock-still trying to remember exactly; if it had been closed after Owen had left. He had closed it. Hadn't he? She wondered.

The sound of the stairs creaking behind her brought Neve's mind to a still.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

WEDNesDAY – NIGHT

The stairs creaked again, and Neve realised somebody was creeping up them. She listened again. Had she really heard anything or was her imagination going wild? Nothing. Silence. She knew she should simply take one more step forward and look up the stairs and see for herself what – or who – was there.

Yell out. She thought. Yell out to the others and run out the door. Everyone would have a fighting chance then, and she wouldn't be in any danger. Unless they followed her outside into the dark, she thought tactfully. But maybe you just imagine someone's there because the door is open.

Another breath of breeze flowed into the room, and with it, the stairs slowly creaked again. Higher. Her breath held, Neve stood silently at the entrance to the lounge room trying to speak or move. A dry lump had formed in her throat, intrusively blocking her ability to speak. She couldn't swallow it; it was choking her. Her legs were heavy as if she stood in wet cement, she tried to lift them, but they had grown weary and weak. It felt like she was trying to move through the muddy swamp in one of her nightmares. But she was awake? Wasn't she?

And then it lifted away. The fear exited her body like a butterfly flutters away from a flower. What if this was just a dream? That meant she was safe. Suddenly she found the strength to step forward and turn to face the stairs.

Nothing. They were empty and bare. Nobody lurked on the stairs after all. She exhaled heavily, and her head spun slightly. She'd held her breath almost the entire time.

Sophie appeared at the top of the stairs and plopped down the steps heavily. Neve opened her mouth to speak, and Sophie stopped her immediately.

"We're not talking about it." She said simply. Her face was stone, and she still looked annoyed as she pulled her sleeves down over her hands and balled them into her fists before crossing her arms. "Why is the door wide open? It's freezing."

Neve simply shrugged. What could she say?

Sophie passed her at the foot of the stairs and closed the door. She exhaled heavily.

"Claudia has really bought into the whole 'thing,' you know?" She said bitterly.

Neve just stared back at her silently.

"It can't be real though?" Sophie said.

"Well, actually..." Neve began to say.

Sophie's eyes narrowed angrily.

The wind howled outside, and the door clicked open and swung open, connecting to Sophie's back and head with a loud thunk!

"Ouch!" she said angrily closing it again with a hard slam and turning the deadlock. She rubbed the back of her head with her hand. "Jesus, how are we going to keep the big bad wolf out with this shitty lock?"

Neve relaxed. The wind had probably been responsible for the front door opening. Sophie pulled on the handle to check that the door was going to stick this time, then she looked at Neve and huffed before walking toward the kitchen.

Neve pulled up the floorboard up in her bedroom quietly and pulled her journal out from underneath. She had so much to write about even though she was so tired.

As she put the journal back into her secret place, she suddenly felt uneasy. Yawning, she realised she was unbelievably tired. She crawled into bed at half past ten and slipped effortlessly into sleep for a change, into another dream. She was being thrown around this way and that. She couldn't breathe until suddenly she surfaced for air. She felt like sh,e had been underwater struggling against the weight of something above her. She inhaled deeply, half awake, half disturbed by the dream but still so tired that she drifted back again into a deep dark sleep without any effort.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

THURsDAY – MORNING

NEVE ARRIVED AT THE CLASSROOM a few minutes later than she would have liked. The crime scene tape was still attached to the back of her car, and she had left it where it was respectfully, even though it was inconvenient. She'd had to walk. She stopped in the walkway between the seats, and Mr Cunningham acknowledged her. She smiled briefly and looked around. Jimmy was sitting in the middle of the room waiting for her to join him. But Owen wasn't there.

She reluctantly walked toward Jimmy and sat down.

"Where's Owen?" She whispered.

Jimmy shrugged.

Neve figured he was running late and waited, watching the doorway for him to arrive but it became apparent fifteen minutes into the class that he wasn't coming in.

"Don't bother," Jimmy said.

"What?" Neve asked turning her attention away from the door again.

"He's not coming in. His Dad probably found out he was dating Kate and is running him out of state right now to avoid any kind of drama. That's what they do. That's what they did when he was little too"

Neve remembered that Owen had said he'd wanted to tell his dad about Kate's therapy. Maybe he had.

"Kate wasn't his girlfriend," she said scribbling absentmindedly on her notepad.

Jimmy snorted. "Sure, she wasn't. Is that what he told you? Claudia told me he was hanging around your house yesterday."

Neve's mind fluttered back to the almost kiss her and Owen had shared in the hallway of her house.

"You probably write about him in your diary," Jimmy said, then putting on a mock squeaky voice he fluttered his eyes and held his hands together against his cheek. "like, Mrs Neve Dobson," he said dreamily.

"I do not!" Neve said. "It's not like that. We're just friends, Okay."

Jimmy smirked.

"Just friends? Apples and trees." He said cryptically.

"What?"

Jimmy didn't answer. He just seemed to ignore her and Neve decided it was best that way.

Neve happily turned her attention to Mr Cunningham and began taking notes and joining in on the discussion they were having. Yet she still found herself turning toward the door, hoping to catch Owen walking through the door apologetically late, but he never arrived. Class ended, and Neve headed toward the Stagg for her shift. He'd have to be there, she thought. He'd just have to be.

But he wasn't. She walked into the café and found Pete waiting behind the counter. "Owen's out sick, so it's just us today." He told her as she arrived.

Neve sighed heavily. How was she going to pretend like she knew what she was doing with the boss breathing down her back today?

Neve walked into the back room and tossed her bag into her locker. A new apron was hanging inside it with her name neatly embroidered on the front. Great, she thought. There's no running away from this job now. She glanced at Owens locker sadly as she left the room.

Pete was in a funny mood it seemed. He was quiet and spoke only when it was necessary. No small talk today. Which suited Neve, as she had so much on her mind. Like why Owen hadn't come to school today, and how she wished she had his number so she could call him and find out.

"Excuse me?" Said a woman's voice, snapping Neve out of her own head. The nurse, Jo stood at the counter waiting.

"Yes," Neve said too quickly trying to compensate for her oblivion.

The nurse smiled kindly. "Just a cup of black coffee, if you can manage it, please."

Black coffee? Neve thought. What a relief she wasn't asking for one of those triple double mocha backflip thingies she'd wanted last time.

Neve did Jo's order and slid it across the counter to her.

"Neve," Jo said, reading her embroidered name tag.

"Jo." Said Neve, in the exact same manner.

Nurse Jo's lip turned upward in a slight smirk. She sipped the coffee and tasted it. Then reached into her purse and pulled out the money to pay.

"I believe I'm becoming very well acquainted with your roommate." She said.

Neve was momentarily confused.

"Oh!" she said, "You mean Claudia?"

The nurse nodded and looked behind her. Nobody else was lined up or waiting for coffee. "Between you and I, I think she's going to ruin the good thing I've got going for myself here. She's had me doing my job almost every day that she's been here. Has she always been so 'clumsy'?"

"I'm not sure." Neve said honestly, "I suppose so, we've only just met. You'd have to ask Sophie."

"Sophie?" The nurse said with an arched eyebrow.

"Yes."

"Sophie who?"

"Lopez. She's Claudia's best friend."

"Oh." She said.

"How did you two become roommates, if you don't mind my asking?" Neve's eyes were transfixed on Jo's bright red lips.

"We just moved into the same house." She said. What was Nurse Jo's deal? Was she trying to be friendly? Neve couldn't tell.

"House? So, you aren't here on campus?"

"Nope," Neve answered.

Nurse Jo seemed to consider this information as somewhat interesting and left.

When Neve's shift was over, she went into the back room and clocked out. There above her sign in sign out sheet was Owens one. It had his name and number written on it. Neve glanced around to make sure nobody could see her and quickly typed his number into her phone. She dialled it and let it ring once so that it was saved in her recent calls list. She'd save it and call him later she thought. But her phone rang only a few minutes later as she walked out the front door of The Stagg. It was Owen. She answered.

"Hello?" he asked on the other end of the line.

"Hey. Owen. It's Me, Neve."

"Neve?" he said in surprise, he didn't sound sick at all. "How did you get my number?"

Neve wasn't sure she could tell him that.

"Why weren't you at school or work today?" she said cutting straight to the chase.

Owen exhaled deeply on the other end of the line.

"I was busy. I found something."

"Did you get to look at the file?"

"Yes." He said.

"Great. Nikki's asking Joey Santiago if she can meet him for an interview." She blurted out.

"What? Really?" He asked.

"Yeah. What did you find out?"

"A lot. And a little. My Dad almost caught me, so I didn't get to see much of it but what I did see..."

"What did you see?"

"Well, I saw where Rosemary lived." He said.

Neves' heart started to beat faster. Tears pricked her eyes uncontrollably.

"Where?"

"Pick me up. I'll show you." He offered.

"But aren't you sick?"

"No, not quite." His voice trailed off. "Meet me at Al's produce in twenty minutes?"

"Okay."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

THURsDAY – AFTERNOON

NEVE PULLED UP OUTSIDE AL JOHNSONS PRODUCE in her rusted yellow VW Beetle. She'd gone straight home after talking to Owen and torn the crime scene tape of her back bumper. Owen was standing on the roadside curb looking in the other direction than she'd arrived. She honked the horn, which made him jump slightly and he turned to face her. He was wearing a large hooded sweatshirt and glasses. He climbed into the passenger seat and stared ahead.

"You drive a Beetle?" was the first thing he said.

"Shut up. Don't be that guy." She replied.

He shook his head quietly.

"No that's not what I meant."

Neve stared at him.

"What's with the glasses?" Neve teased. "Is this you going undercover or something? Should I be in disguise too?"

Owen pulled the glasses away from his face and looked at her. He had a gash across his eyebrow. Neve's hands instinctively flew out to his cheeks, and she looked closer at the wound. He had placed two white bandages over it.

"What happened?" she asked. "Did your Dad-?"

"What?" he said. "No. I saw Jimmy last night when I was leaving yours. He thought it would be funny to wrestle me in your front yard, but I tripped and hit my head on some of the junk you guys have laying around."

A car horn honked behind them as someone waited impatiently to pull up in the same spot. Neve indicated and drove out onto the street.

"Jimmy? He was outside my house yesterday?"

"Yeah, he went in almost straight after I walked out. Almost." He said quietly.

Neve was in shock. She hadn't seen him.

"Why was he at my house?" Neve asked.

"To see Claudi," Owen said.

They drove around for fifteen minutes when Owen told her to slow down.

"Okay," he said quietly. "This is the street."

Neve slowed the car right down and looked at the houses.

"Which one?" she asked.

Owen stared at her.

"You tell me." He said.

Neve smiled. She slowly drove down the street looking at all the houses until she reached the end of the street. She turned to him and shrugged. He smiled.

"Turn left here, you can probably turn around in this street." He said. Neve turned the car onto Borden Avenue. She glanced at Owen questioningly but kept the car going forward slowly. Owen watched Neve's face as she studied the houses in the street. Then she saw it. Number 11 Borden Avenue. She stopped the car and stared at the little wooden house nestled amongst the overgrown grass and weeds. At the front of the yard by the road was a large oak tree. An old rope hung from one of the branches.

Neve remembered swinging and climbing in that tree as a little girl. She pulled the clutch and turned off the car and sat for a moment. It was familiar and unfamiliar. So much had changed, and yet so much of it was the same. She knew this place like the back of her hand. Her shoulders, slowly, slumped. A part of her ached. She had searched for this place her entire life, and now she lived maybe twenty minutes away from it.

"So, you do remember it?" Owen asked.

Neve looked at him quietly. "You tested me before." She said.

"Yeah."

"You see that tree?" She said pointing to it. He leant forward and peered at it through her cracked windshield and nodded.

"If I am, who I think I am. I carved my name into it, above that branch that the rope is tied to."

Owen's eyebrow arched. He got out of the car before she could stop him and he raced over to the tree. She wound down her window and started to protest, but she didn't want to draw any unwanted attention. Owen looked around the tree trying to find a good way to climb up. Neve watched him from the car, ducking down so as not to be seen by anyone. There were bits of wood nailed into the side of the tree like a sort of ladder and Owen used them to push himself up onto the branch. He hoisted himself up onto the branch with the swinging rope and held onto the branches above his head. Neve could only half see him because he was on the side of the tree closest to the house. He knelt down and looked at the tree.

Neve's phone buzzed, and she pulled it out of her skirt pocket. It was a picture message from Owen. She opened it. There, carved deeply and untidily into the wood was the name Rose.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY YARD?"

Neve's blood turned ice cold as the man yelled out to Owen from the window. Owen dropped to the ground onto his feet with a loud thud and raced to the car, almost tripping over from the momentum he'd used from bouncing back up onto the balls of his feet. Neve turned the key, and the car struggled to start.

"Hey!" The man yelled. A screen door slammed, and she realised he was following Owen to the car!

"Go! Go! Go, go, go!" Owen screamed impatiently.

"I'm trying!" She hissed back aggravatedly.

Neve was still hunched down so she wouldn't be spotted. She turned the key in the ignition again, and it turned over. She put her foot down, and the car moved forward as she slid up in her seat properly to see. She saw the man in the rearview mirror as she drove away. A short, bald, overweight old man with a red face.

Owen and Neve were both breathing heavily as they turned the corner and drove away. She drove until they came to a park nearby where she pulled up and stopped the car.

She looked at Owen. He was staring at her. He'd been staring at her the whole time.

"This is insane." He said.

Neve shook her head and pulled out her phone and looked at the picture again. "I almost can't believe it." She said sadly.

They sat quietly, Neve staring at her phone looking at the picture and Owen staring at Neve, who wasn't just the spitting image of Rosemary Watts, but may actually be her, somehow.

"What else do you remember? I mean you knew about the tree?" He asked. He turned in his seat and faced her.

"I didn't know that I knew that. I just kind of recalled it when I saw the tree. I broke my arm falling out of it when I was young. And I fell out of it because I was carving my name. I used to remember things, but I don't anymore. Dr Morris kind of fixed that for me."

Owen shifted uncomfortably. "Dr Morris?"

"Yeah, He's my Therapist. From the city."

"Yeah," Owen said. "No kidding. He's mine too."

"What?"

Owen nodded.

"You're kidding?" Neve said, "But you live all the way out here, I mean it's like an hour away."

"I know, I mean I had a different therapist in the beginning, but I ended up with Morris. My Therapist thought it would be better."

Neve stared out at the playground in front of them. Children were starting to leave the park because the sun was going down.

"So, you told him about the stuff you remember?" Owen asked.

"Yeah, I told him everything. He knows everything that I know."

"Can you call him?"

Neve scoffed. "No way!" she exclaimed. "I don't want to talk to him."

"Really? But, he'd have records, right? Of all the things that you've said. They do that. They write things down."

"Yeah, years ago Owen, I told you I've been in Therapy for almost 15 years. Even if there were files on my sessions, then I doubt we would be able to find them."

He stared at her, he wasn't backing down.

"But..." Neve said.

"But what?" he asked impatiently.

"I used to keep journals. He keeps them in his house. Maybe I wrote something about the sessions in them."

"Would he still have them?"

"Yes," Neve said bitterly. "He confiscated them. I had to get really creative on where I would keep them."

Owen smiled.

"So, when are we going?"

"What?" Neve said "No! We can't. He wants me to go back. I can't do that."

"Can't or won't?" he challenged.

"Both," Neve answered. "I hate him, Owen. I don't want to see him anymore. He made me think I was crazy."

"To be fair, how could he have known that there was any truth to what you were telling him? We are looking at proof with our own eyes, and we are struggling to believe it."

Neve tapped angrily at the steering wheel, the sun was going down, and it was getting too dark to see without lights. She turned on her headlights and started the car.

"How do we get home from here?" she said. Owen pointed down the road to where the road was lit up by traffic lights, and she followed them until she was in familiar territory again.

She dropped Owen at Al's produce, and he hopped out.

"Hey." He said leaning back in through the door. "I forgot to tell you. Rosemary's – I mean your-? –" he shook his head in the confusion. "Rosemary's parents still live there."

"Are you serious?" She said. "So that man?"

"Step-dad. Probably."

"What else did you find out?"

Owen's face kind of split into a grin. "Rosemary drove a VW beetle too."

Neve smiled.

"I'll try and find out more information tonight if I can. But you should consider seeing Dr Morris. Even just to get your things back. You know it's weird..."

"What is?"

Owen looked down at his feet. "You know he graduated from Crawford, right?"

"No. Are you serious? How do you know that?"

"Yeah," he said nodding. "He's got a Crawford University diploma on his wall in his office. I thought it was cool that he was from here. You'd think he would have heard about Rosemary and the others, and then seeing you, knowing what he knows about you..."

"Maybe it was before his time. Or after?" she said. "It's possible that you were right and he really didn't know."

"Yeah, Maybe." He said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

THURsDAY – EVENING

Neve walked into the house and was immediately swept up in the aroma of taco night. Her stomach rumbled as she walked down the hallway into the kitchen. Sophie and Claudia were making dinner together. Sophie was cooking the meat, and Claudia was preparing the salad.

"Mm, smells good," Neve said taking a seat at the breakfast bar. She grabbed some sliced cucumber off the bench and popped it into her mouth. It was cold and crunchy.

"It smells alright," Sophie admitted, "But you have got to let me make taco's the way my Momma makes them sometime. Not this sissy version that you like to eat. I'm talking spicy! With homemade salsa and chillies."

Neve shuddered at the idea. Spicy food was not her friend. There were only two toilets in this house. She could destroy both of them with the right number of chillies.

Claudia chopped the rest of the cucumber, barely missing her own finger with each slice. Neve watched her uncomfortably. Claudia looked up from the chopping board at Neve and continued slicing. Neve held her breath anxiously waiting for Claudia to slip and cut herself. She considered reaching out and confiscating the knife off her.

"How was your day Neve?" She asked.

"Interesting," Neve said, cryptically. "Hey did Jimmy come over last night?"

Claudia stopped chopping. Neve relaxed a little bit. Claudia's cheeks began to redden.

"Yes, he did. Why is that? Did he tell you about it?"

"No reason, and No, I just heard he visited."

"Yeah?" Claudia added, raising an eyebrow questioningly at Neve. "Is that a problem? I mean you're not into him, are you?"

Neve balked. "Uh, no."

"Because I know he liked you first, but he likes me better," Claudia said going back to chopping the vegetables. There was a slight bitterness to the way she said it that registered on Neve's nerves.

"Yes well, you can keep him, I don't think he's as sweet as he seems, he split open Owens head out the front right before he came in apparently." It had slipped out of her mouth bitterly and angrily before she could stop it.

Claudia stared at Neve, which made her feel uncomfortable, but she didn't move.

Sophie stirred the mince slowly, as Nikki came in and sat down next to Neve.

"Are you okay?" Nikki asked as she sat down. Claudia continued chopping the rest of the veggies slowly.

Neve rested her elbows on the bench and put her face between her hands. "Not really," she admitted glumly.

"What's wrong?" Claudia asked, interested.

Neve looked up at Claudia. She was waiting patiently with a softened expression on her face. She didn't care about what Neve had just said or why she was trying to help her friend feel better.

"I talked to Owen today."

"Oh good!" Nikki exclaimed. "What did he say? Did he find anything out about the case?"

Sophie hit the wooden spoon against the side of the stove angrily with a loud thwack. Everyone looked. But she pretended almost like nothing had happened. Except there was sauce splashed up the wall from her little outburst.

"Yeah, he did. But first, there's something I have to tell you guys. It's going to sound... crazy."

Nikki and Claudia's eyebrows shot up, and they remained quiet and attentive, ready to listen. Sophie continued to face the stove, stirring the meat but it seemed that she had one ear cocked toward the conversation.

"The man that came here the other day, the one in the nice suit, and fancy car... he's not my boyfriend or my Father. He's my Therapist. He was my therapist."

Claudia's eyebrows shot up again. But she didn't speak.

"He's been treating me since I was about six for a dissociative personality disorder. I've thought I was somebody else my entire life. I thought my name was really..." she paused, not knowing how to say the next part. At this point, she wondered if they could really believe her. "I thought my name was Rosie."

Sophie threw her head back and stared at the ceiling quietly, seething.

"You thought your name was Rosie?" Nikki said.

"Since when?" Claudia asked.

"Since always. My parents sent me to Dr Morris because I talked about it all the time. I told them they weren't my real parents and that I was not Neve."

Neve's voice faltered. "They left me when I was ten. Because I wouldn't get better."

"The girl, that you look like... her name is Rosemary, right?" Claudia asked.

Neve nodded. "So today I talked to Owen, who already knows this about me and he said he knew where Rosemary lived. So, we drove out there. At first, he told me to guess which house it was, and I didn't know. But we were on the wrong street. He was testing me. We turned onto the next street, and I drove down a few houses when I saw it. I knew it was the house. Because I remembered it."

"Jesus Christ," Sophie muttered quietly balling her hands into fists. She was shaking her head from side to side angrily.

"You remembered it? How?" Claudia asked.

"I don't know. I just knew it was the place. There's a tree in the front yard, and I told Owen if I was Rosie that my name would be carved into the tree up high above the branch that had the swing on it."

"Was it there?" Nikki asked.

Neve pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened the message from Owen and slid it across the bench to Nikki. Nikki looked at it and handed the phone to Claudia.

"And this is up in the tree? At Rosemary's house?" Claudia asked.

"Yeah," Neve said.

"You 'remembered' this?" Claudia said. "You remember being Rosemary Watts?"

Neve nodded.

Sophie unclenched her hands and shook her arms out a bit, trying to shake away the anger.

"How come I don't remember being Penelope Langdon?"

Sophie spun around on her foot angrily. "Are you serious! It's not real Claudia! You just heard her say she's been in Therapy her whole life for being crazy! I'm getting really sick of this. You aren't Penelope, and I'm not Maria Santi-whatever her name is and You!" She said pointing at Neve. "You need to shut up!" She threw the wooden spoon down hard, and it landed on the bench splashing red pasta sauce across the benchtop before she turned and stormed out of the room with an exasperated scream.

Claudia looked at Neve sadly and shook her head of the notion. Nikki was looking at Neve and squeezed her hand in encouragement. But the room felt stuffy now. Nikki went over to the stove and attended the meat, and the girls served four plates of tacos and ate quietly. Neve Nikki and Claudia ate in the kitchen and Claudia took a plate to Sophie upstairs.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

FRIDAY – morning

NEVE HAD LEFT THE HOUSE FIRST THING IN THE MORNING and driven to 11 Borden Avenue. She sat, crouched down out of sight, inside of her car just watching the house. She'd known as soon as Owen had told her that Rosemary's parents still lived there that this was where she was going to spend her day off. It was early in the morning. The street was beginning to come to life as kids were leaving their houses to walk to school and adults were heading off to work.

A knocking sound against the passenger window startled Neve, and she flinched, embarrassed to be caught spying as she acknowledged the person standing outside.

Owen stood there, with an amused expression on his face. Neve leant over and popped open the door handle from the inside.

"What are you doing here?" Neve asked.

Owen climbed into the car, dropping a backpack onto the floor in front of him and passed Neve a steaming hot travel mug.

"How did I know you were going to be here?" He asked with an amused grin.

"Me?" she asked flushing, "How did you get here?" she asked looking around for a mode of transport.

"Bus." He said simply. He crouched down in the seat and rested his knees against the dashboard in an attempt to mirror what Neve was doing.

She was tempted to say something else, but the front screen door of 11 Borden Avenue creaked open loudly drawing their attention, Neve sat up a little higher to see what was happening. The old man who had yelled out at Owen from yesterday stood leaning against the open screen door fiddling with the clasp on his bag. He was flustered and annoyed and threw the bag to the ground angrily.

"Look out," Owen said quietly to nobody in particular. He shook his head. "Mustn't have had his morning coffee? Or his morning bowel movement probably."

Neve giggled, and almost spat the sip of coffee she'd just taken and shushed him with a wave of her hand. He smirked and took the coffee so that he could take a sip himself. The man kicked the bag across the lawn after he'd finished muttering curses under his breath. The screen door swung closed behind him as he went to retrieve it. He picked it up and tried the clasp again. It didn't seem to want to work. He carried it over to the old blue pick-up truck parked in the driveway and chucked it into the passenger seat roughly before hopping inside. He reversed out of the driveway and sped down the street angrily.

Owen silently raised his eyebrows at Neve. Nothing needed to be said. They wriggled up their seats and stared at the house.

"Do you think anybody else is home?" Neve asked.

Owen shrugged.

"It's early, even if someone is home, they are probably still asleep," he said.

"What if I hadn't have been here this morning?" Neve asked Owen. "what were you going to do?"

He shrugged again.

"I knew you would be" he replied

"How?" she asked.

"Just did. How did you know that Rose would be carved into the tree?" he said.

"Just did," Neve answered quietly.

"So?" Owen said.

"What?" Neve said.

"Are we going over?"

"What? Over there to the house?"

"Yes," Owen said nodding his head enthusiastically. "That's why we are here, isn't it?"

"Now?" Neve asked shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

"Why not?" he asked with his hand on the door ready to pop it open.

"What if someone sees us?" she said.

Owen looked at Neve. She was dressed in a small cotton dress with leggings underneath. He leant forward taking off the open button up shirt he was wearing over his clothes and pulled his long-sleeved grey hoody shirt off and tossed it to her.

"Put this on." He said retrieving his button-down shirt and putting it on. Neve tried not to stare at his abs. "If anybody comes out, use the hood to hide your face."

Neve lifted the shirt gingerly to her face. It smelt sweaty. Her nose crinkled.

"It smells like you," she said with a turned up nose.

"Bite me," Owen said opening the car door and getting out of the car.

"Wait!" Neve said excitedly throwing the long sleeve hoody on over her dress. She checked herself in the mirror and popped the hoody over her head tucking her long brown hair into the back of the hood. She hopped out of the car and checking the road for cars first, followed Owen across the street to the end of the driveway of Rosemary's parents' house.

The small wooden house was old, and the white paint was peeling up on the surface. The front door was closed, and the lace curtains were drawn. Neve looked around the street as they carefully and quietly walked down the driveway toward the back of the house. Owen walked over to the house and pushed his face against the window covering his eyes with his hands to block out the light.

"I can't see anything" He whispered loudly.

"Oh shit!" he said ducking down out of sight. Neve raced to his side and ducked down next to him.

"What? What was it?" Neve asked in a whisper.

Owen smirked and stood up.

"Nothing. The house is dark and empty." He said hopping back up and walking toward the back yard. He opened the gate and motioned for Neve to follow him.

She hurried before anybody saw her.

The backyard was overgrown too, and they stood in itchy knee-high grass looking around. There was an old tree in the back yard much like the one in the front yard. At some point, it had a tree house in it, but there were only bits of broken framing left there now. The yard was long and narrow and stretched quite a long way back. In the Furthest corner of the yard was a rusted out car body half covered by an old blue tarp. It was a VW Beetle.

"Look," Neve said, still whispering and pointing at it. Owen nodded and crept around the back of the house. He tried budging the windows with the sides of his fists.

"What are you doing?" Neve hissed.

"Going in, if we can." He said simply.

"Well..." Neve said. "You won't get in there."

She walked passed Owen purposefully, looking around for anybody who might see her and climbed the old rickety wooden steps up onto the back porch. She knelt down at the balustrade and budged the bottom piece of wood with her hands. Owen stood beside her and watched. Suddenly a small wedge of wood gave way, revealing a little hiding hole and Neve tipped the wood out on to her hand. A small key fell into her open palm.

"Woah," Owen said.

"Yeah," Neve said. "I didn't even know I knew that. I just thought I need to check this spot."

"So you don't remember anything really?"

"No. It's not like it's right there. It is, but it's not... I can't just retrieve the information I want. I need reminding."

Owen nodded and reached out to the screen door. It was a metal screen door with no fly screen left and two large open rectangular spaces on the top and bottom. He turned the handle, and it made a slight grinding noise. He let go of the handle, then he used his shirt to rub away his fingerprints.

"Let's just go through it maybe?" Neve whispered. She stood up and pushed the key into the lock. It stuck half way. She tried to push it forward or wriggle it back out, but it wouldn't budge.

"Oh no!" Neve said, yanking on the key urgently.

"What?" Owen asked as he looked around.

"It's stuck!" Neve said exasperatedly.

"Maybe they changed the locks," he said with a shrug. "It has been twenty years."

Neve looked at him and realised he must be right. She yanked on the key again.

"Let me see." He said wriggling the key around in the lock. It gave the tiniest bit for him but stayed stuck inside the door. He wriggled it noisily around in the lock again, and the key slid into the lock the rest of the way.

They stared at each other. Owen turned the key, and the lock turned with it. The door popped open and sprung ajar several inches from the relief of being opened after such a long time. Owen reached through the screen door and pushed the door open. It slowly swung on gritty hinges, and the wood creaked. The room inside was dark with only a little bit of natural light coming in from the curtained window next to the door. In the dusty shadows, Neve made out a wash sink and washing machine. It was the laundry.

Owen stopped and listened for sounds that indicated someone had heard them or was coming to see what the noise was. The house was silent.

He knelt down slowly and his knee's cracked. He looked up at Neve apologetically and crawled through the bottom half of the screen door on his hands and knees. Neve followed. They walked to the door of the Laundry and looked into the next room. The house smelled musty and kind of damp. In the corner of the laundry, a long black mouldy smudge spread itself across the corner of the ceiling and down the walls where the Watts had a leak. The room beside the laundry was the dining area. It was dark in there as well. The thick lace curtains weren't letting much light into the room. They crept into the room and looked around. The walls were covered in dusty picture frames, and a large six seater dining table sat in the middle of the room, covered in cluttered objects.

Owen stared closely at the photo on the wall, trying to see past the dust.

Neve stopped suddenly.

Standing in the kitchenette adjoining the dining room was a small woman, with knotted ratty matted dark greying hair. She was facing in the other direction staring out of the kitchen curtains at the house next door. She was wearing an old grubby dressing gown. Owen hadn't spotted her yet, and Neve reached out, without taking her eyes off the woman, trying to find him and make him stop and see what she saw. But her hand brushed against something on the table, and it toppled to the ground with a loud plonk.

Owen spun around and saw that Neve had bumped off a large cat figurine. He went to reach down to the ground and pick it up when he spotted the woman in the kitchenette. She hadn't moved. He stopped frozen in that position, half reaching toward the floor. Neve stood in front of him.

"Who's there?" She asked in a deep disinterested voice. She didn't turn around or move. She didn't seem to care. She sighed heavily and reached out to the kettle and poured herself a cup, keeping one finger inside the mug as she did so.

She turned her head to the side without turning around. "Josephine?"

Neve exchanged silent glances with Owen.

Her eyes lowered to the floor, and she returned to the process of making her cup of coffee.

"I've nothing worth stealing." She said glumly.

"And don't you worry about me giving the police no damned description of you." She turned around and stared blankly ahead. "I'm blind as a bat." She lifted her cup to her face and took a sip. The old woman waited quietly then she seemed to consider that she'd been mistaken. She carefully slid her feet across the linoleum, arms outstretched in front of herself, so she wouldn't cut her feet and walked down the hallway.

Neve spotted a door on the other end of the Dining room. Next to the laundry. It was ajar. She walked over to it and pushed it open.

"What are you doing?" Owen whispered.

"One second." She said darting quickly into the room. Owen followed her. The room was small. It was likely that it had never been intended to be a bedroom in the first place. A small metal bed with a bare, stained yellow coloured mattress on top of it was pushed against the wall. The bed head and bend end rested against the corners of the room. The mouldy black smudge from the laundry was worse on this side of the wall. It loomed menacingly across the entire wall and over the ceiling like an ominous shadow. Neve looked around the room. It was stripped bare. She was surprised actually that her bed was still there. She peeked into the closet. Empty. The drawers beside the bed. Empty. It was the only room in the house that hadn't been entirely overtaken by clutter. The ceiling was sinking in from the weight of the mouldy ceiling.

Neve knelt onto the floor and tapped across the floorboards, looking for one that would give. Maybe she had kept things there in her previous life as well. Owen watched as one of the boards moved, and she tried desperately to pick it up with her fingernails. She pried at it. It slipped and landed back into place. She tried again, patiently. The sound of a car engine sounded outside the house as it pulled into the driveway.

Neve's stomach flipped. She tried again using both hands to get into the piece of wood. It came up, and she slipped her fingers around the plank and pulled it up with a snap. A car door slammed. The space under the floor was filled with lots of wisp-like pieces of garbage, and fabric collected by the vermin. She peered inside the hole and moved her hand around quickly until it brushed against a large hard, cold metal object. She pulled it out to reveal a large rusty rectangle biscuit tin. She grabbed it out as fast as she could and put the plank back in its place.

The front door opened with a thud and Jed called out to Edith. He was in a bad mood.

Owen and Neve slipped quietly into the laundry and climbed out of the broken screen door frame. Neve leant in and pulled the door closed behind them. It creaked.

"What was that?" Neve heard Jed ask suspiciously.

"I don't know," Edith said.

Owen turned the key in the lock and yanked it hard. It came halfway out and stuck. He looked at Neve.

"Just pull it out." She whispered impatiently.

He pulled on it again.

They could hear footstep thumping through the house. Neve clutched the biscuit tin protectively underneath her arm.

Owen pulled again and fell backwards off the porch with the key in his hand.

Neve jumped off the porch and grabbed him by the arm swinging him around besides her against the side of the house out of sight. They leant against the wooden slats, the flaky dried paint scratching at their skin. They heard the window slide open and waited quietly to be found out or not, Owen slipped the key into his pocket.

"It's nothing!" Jed called back to Edith.

The window slid back into place with a slam, and he walked back inside the house.

Neve looked at Owen for the next move, and he nodded at her silently. She pulled up the hood of the shirt.

Owen opened the back gate as quietly as he could, and the two ducked down and darted behind the old pick-up truck in the hope that they would be able to keep out of sight.

As Neve passed the old pick up, she got a strange feeling in her stomach. It lurched and threatened to upchuck the minimal contents.

She sat by the tire trying to recover herself as Owen darted out into the street. He didn't look back until he was at the car and spotted Neve sitting pale-faced against the truck.

He waved at her and signalled his confusion. Neve's stomach lurched again, and she lowered herself to the ground. She was nauseated and dizzy.

The front door of the house slammed, and Owen ducked out of sight behind the car.

Neve watched underneath the truck as Jed's shoes walked forward.

"What is this crap?" he said under his breath. The smell of peanut butter wafted in the air and sent another bought of nausea through Neve's body.

Owen watched in alarm from behind Neve's car. The pick-up truck roared to life spurting black sooty exhaust into the air. She tried not to cough. Neve clutched the biscuit tin to her chest and prayed she wouldn't be caught out.

The car began to reverse, and Neve scrambled beside it to keep up. She darted quickly behind the shrubbery at the end of the driveway and hid in the neighbours' front yard. She suddenly had the overwhelming feeling it wasn't the first time she had done this maneuver with Jed's truck.

Jed drove away, and she waited a moment before she crossed the street.

Owen stood by the car waiting. He was flipping the key between his hands like a hot potato. Neve sidled up beside him and unlocked the car.

"What just happened?"

"I think I remembered something about Jed."

Owen glanced down.

"Yeah, I read about him in your file." He said guiltily.

"What did it say?"

"The cops had been called on him a few times for domestic abuse."

He rested his arm along the roof of the car and held the key out for Neve to take.

"Hadley added a note to your file, that he'd suspected the abuse might be more... physical than that"

He looked at Neve softly.

She looked away.

"I don't know about that," she said with a shrug.

She got into the car, and Owen walked around the front to join her.

"So what is that?" he asked, pointing to the biscuit box.

Neve loosened the rusty lid off at the corners a bit and popped it open.

Inside the tin box were some notebooks.

"Journals," Neve said with a small smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-eight

FRIDAY – midday

"How did you know they were... you know what, never mind. Dumb question" Owen said reaching over and taking the box from Neves lap. He placed it carefully on his thighs, and Neve started the car and pulled gently out onto the street.

He opened the cover of the first journal.

"What does it say?" Neve asked.

Owen glanced at her sideways. "I literally just opened it."

Neve laughed.

"Yeah, read it to me. Flip to the last entries. See if there's any from before October seventh."

Owen carefully turned to the back of the book. There was a dampness to the texture of the pages that threatened to come undone in his hands if he wasn't careful.

The last entry was dated October sixth and was marked with a dried rose. He placed the flower gently in the tin.

"It's been one week tomorrow since Curly Sue disappeared. They are still saying she's just a run-away, but I've seen her blind Grandmother in town begging the police to take it seriously. They are afraid of Curly Sue's Grandmother, they think she's a witch or something, and won't give her the time of day, superstitious racist idiots.

I know Curly Sue, and I fought the day she disappeared, but I still don't think she'd just up and leave without telling a soul. Besides, a whole week? My gut is telling me that something Is really wrong, and if the police aren't going to take it seriously, then I'm going to start looking for answers myself.

Doc's invited me... Doc? Curly Sue?"

Owen looked at Neve for an explanation.

"I use code names in my journals, I guess I always have," Neve said pulling the car up to an empty parking spot at the same park they'd sat at yesterday. She turned off the car and got comfortable.

"Keep reading," she said.

Owen looked down at the page to find his place. "Wait," he said glancing up. "What's my code name?"

Neve smiled but didn't say anything.

"Okay. Fine." He said and continued reading. "Doc's invited me to go with him to one of the parties that get thrown off Campus. Curly went to one of these parties the night she disappeared. I was supposed to go with her, but she went without me. I wish I hadn't opened my mouth about M.J. Maybe she would have made it home that night if I'd kept things to myself.

I get my car back from Zuko in the morning, I think I'll drive out of town and see Curly's grandmother before I go to the party. I don't know, maybe it will help her to know that at least somebody gives a damn enough to look for her granddaughter. Even if it is just me. I've only been out there once before to help Curly sneak out to one of Goof and MJ's parties, but I'm sure I remember exactly where to go.

It's lucky Lucifer's new job keeps him away so much, he's never around to cause trouble. I think even Judas is enjoying peace and quiet in the mornings.

Speaking of peace and quiet. He just got home. Curly sue, wherever you are. Forgive me.

Rosie."

Neve leant her head back against the glass and tried to think about who the journal entry was about. The names weren't triggering anything. She was drawing a blank.

"That's weird," Owen said.

"What is?" Neve said leaning forward and looking at the contents of the box.

"Oh, no not anything in particular," he said gesturing to the box. "Neve was the first person to go missing in the Santiago case. But It says right here it's been almost a week to the day that "Curly sue" went missing. All three girls went missing a week apart. There's nothing in the file about any other girls who went missing before you."

"Oh my god, I completely missed that. I was thinking too hard about who the code names were supposed to be."

"Who are they?"

"I don't know" Neve admitted taking the journal and re-reading the entry. "It's weird, I remember things without thinking about them, but I do not recall anything off the top of my head from this."

Owen pulled the release lever beside his seat and dropped his seat back, so he was laying down.

"There's got to be a way we can figure out who the people in the journal are." He said

"Well I think I know who Lucifer and Judas are, off the top of my head," she said.

Owen smirked. "Yeah, I figured those ones out myself too actually. You don't need to be some kind of back-from-the-dead genius to figure those ones out."

Neve smiled without looking up. "you think I'm a genius?" she said.

Owen poked his tongue out at her.

"Is the library at school open today?" Neve asked closing the journal and placing it back into the box.

"Everyday" Owen answered. "Why?"

"Maybe there's a yearbook there that we could look at. Maybe I'll see a face I recognise."

"That's a good idea," he said, pulling his seat back up. He tossed the open tin box onto the back seat and put his seat belt on. Neve started the car.
CHAPTER TWENTY-nine

FRIDAY – afternoon

The library was busy. A lot of students were sitting at the study desks and browsing the aisles. Neve and Owen had been directed to the back wall to the yearbook archives. There were about fifty books at least. Neve traced her fingers across the years written across the spines counted and was surprised to find that there was a book missing between 1994 and 1996. There was no space in the books, they had all been pushed together so that it wasn't immediately obvious. One of the librarians who was pushing a book cart around returning books to their proper places was passing by.

"Excuse me," Owen said waving her down.

"How can I help you?" she asked.

"One of the yearbooks seems to be missing?" He said pointing to the discrepancy in the numbers.

The librarians' brow furrowed as she squinted through her thin bifocal reading glasses. She double checked all of the books herself with shrewd concentration.

"You're right." She said. "Somebody must have it out," she said pointing to the study desks. "They aren't for borrowing. It would have to be here somewhere. Let me know if you can't find it" she said and went back to her cart.

Owen started walking around the room glancing over students' shoulders at their books. Neve followed, doing the same. They exchanged glances and shook heads at each other after they'd passed through the first student desk aisle. Owen went left, and Neve went right into the next aisle. They acknowledged each other again. No luck. The other desks in the library were scattered around the edges near the windows, and there were even a few upstairs on the second floor.

Owen climbed up the stairs quietly in a few quick jumps and walked around the floor. Neve stayed on the ground floor and passed by the desks. A student looked up at her and covered his work. She kept going. He was doing the math. She came upon some empty desks but checked them as she passed. She stopped.

On one of the tables tucked into a cozy corner nook right before the front desk was an open book left on the table next to a half-empty cup of coffee.

Neve walked toward it curiously. Where did the person reading this book go? She looked around thinking she'd see somebody returning from one of the shelves right away, but nobody seemed to be moving around. She crept closer. One of the pages rested over the top in a high arch. She could see small grey squares on the page, and as she walked closer, she was certain that she had found the yearbook. She looked up to the second floor. Owen appeared and shook his head. She waved him down.

Owen came down the stairs quickly, and the librarian gave him a stern look over the top of her glasses. He apologised with a silent nod of his head and hurriedly walked over to Neve. She pointed to the table but didn't take another step closer.

"Who was looking at it?" he asked.

Neve shook her head.

"I don't know. They were gone when I found it."

They glanced around the room suspiciously but saw nothing of any interest.

Owen walked over to the table and placing his hand inside the page that the book was open to, saved the place and picked the book up to check the spine.

"This is it." He said putting it back down as it was when they'd arrived. He pulled the chair out and sat down. Neve grabbed the chair beside it and pulled herself in to sit close next to him.

"I wonder who was looking at it?" Neve said.

Owen looked at the cup of coffee sitting on the desk near the book. It was from The Stagg. He turned the paper mug around. On the side of the cup in green marker was a single letter. 'J'

"J?" he said reading it aloud. It didn't give them much to go on.

Owen looked down at the book. It was open to pictures of students that had been there that year.

"Recognize anybody?" He asked. Neve looked at all of their pictures and shook her head.

"Nope."

Owen started to lift the page.

"Wait," Neve said and reached across the book. She turned the page back toward her.

On the page that she'd just opened was a memoriam entry for the Three girls who had gone missing from Crawford university. Neve's, Claudia's and Sophie's faces stared back at her. Owen glanced at her.

"It looked like this page had been turned when I got here." She said explaining.

"You think 'J' was looking at this?"

Neve suddenly felt uneasy. She looked around the room carefully.

Owen noticed her discomfort and reached an arm out over her shoulder. He pulled her closer to him.

"Let's go through the whole book together." He said.

Neve nestled into his arm and turned her attention back to the book.

They turned to the front of the book and turned the pages slowly.

"Oh my god!" Owen said almost laughing.

"What?" Neve said.

Owen pointed to a black and white picture of a young man with an impressive Mullet.

"It's my Dad."

Neve looked at him. "Wow. He doesn't look like that anymore." She said.

Owen shook his head with a smile. "No, he doesn't" he chuckled, and his face dropped a little.

"Wasn't one of the code names in your journal Goof?" He asked.

Neve nodded.

"My Dad has an old jersey in his closet with 'GOOF' written on the back. Do you think he could be...?"

"Maybe..." Neve said looking up into Owens' face. She could see the beginning of the stubble growing on his chin. "He did say he knew me and that we were friends." She said moving away and hopping up.

"Where are you going?" He asked.

She walked over to the front desk and came back with a piece of paper and a pencil.

She put it on the desk and wrote. Detective Dobson; Goof.

"Who else was there?" she asked.

"Lucifer, Judas."

Neve nodded and filled it in along with Edith and Jed's' names.

"Um, Curly Sue." He said. She noted it down.

"M.J... They snuck out to Goof and MJ's party."

Neve kept writing down their names.

"I feel like there were other names that I am forgetting about..." Neve said thoughtfully tapping the pencil against the table.

Owen shrugged, and Neve looked down at the picture of young Detective Dobson. "You don't really look like him." She said.

"Thanks," Owen said gladly. He turned earnestly toward Neve.

"I wonder if there's a picture of my Mother in here?" he said.

He turned the page quickly and scanned the faces and names on the next page.

"What was her name?" Neve asked trying to help.

"Cassandra..." he said.

They turned the pages quickly, and then Neve pointed at a picture close to the bottom of the page on the corner closest to her.

She didn't say anything, she just watched Owen's expression. He picked the book up and looked at it. A pretty blonde woman with thick wavy hair and large light-coloured eyes smiled back from the book.

"I think that's her," Owen said.

"Does it look like her?" Neve asked.

Owen shrugged without taking his eyes off the book. "I've never seen her before."

"What?" Neve asked, taken aback.

"I don't have a picture of her." He said sadly. "My Dad can't stand to look at them, I think. He took them down when I was little."

Neve put her hand out to take the book, and Owen handed it to her. She looked at the picture and then at Owen comparing the two.

"You have her eyes." She said. He smiled sadly.

"If you knew my Dad, maybe you knew my mother too?" he said hopefully.

Neve shrugged. "Her hairs kind of wavy, I mean, maybe she is Curly Sue."

"Where you born yet?" she asked lifting up the book so that he was reminded of the year. His shoulders dropped.

"Barely"

"Oh?" Neve said.

"So, you don't remember her?" he asked.

"I'm not getting anything, sorry." She said.

Owen nodded glumly. He took the book back from Neve and stared at the picture again. Then he pulled out his phone and tried to take a good clear picture of her.

"Well, this should make Therapy more interesting tomorrow." He said.

"Tomorrow?" Neve asked. "But it's a Saturday?"

"Yeah," Owen said. "His office is about an hour away. I usually have class or work, so he lets me come in on Saturday mornings."

"Oh," Neve said remembering that Dr Morris often had appointments on Saturdays.

Owen turned the page, and they looked again. Nothing. Then the next. Neve spotted a familiar face on the page. It was a young John Cunningham, Jimmy's father. He had long brown hair underneath a bandana. Underneath his picture was a long list of clubs that he was a member of.

"Nerd" Owen said mockingly. They giggled quietly and looked on the next page.

"Hey wow!" Owen said sitting upright. "It's Dr Morris!"

"Are you serious?" Neve said looking at the page but not finding him.

Owen pointed at a picture of a bifocals and bow tie wearing skinny guy.

"What! No way!" Neve exclaimed in another burst of giggles. She stared at young Dr Morris, he didn't look anything like himself at all. He had filled out a lot more muscularly since then. And gotten more stylish.

"So, he was there when Rosemary went missing. Maybe I should go and see him" she said softly.

Owen listened.

"I mean; I have Roses journals. He will have to believe me about it now. He went to school with her. He has to know about her."

"Yeah, he must."

"I have so many questions."

"Well, come with me tomorrow."

"I don't know," Neve said, "Maybe that's not a good idea."

"What's the worst that could happen?" he asked.

Neve looked up and sighed. If only he could understand she thought bitterly.

"Okay." She said. Maybe she could get some answers off him, or her old journals.

She flipped through the pages again but felt too distracted.

"This isn't working. Maybe your Dad or Dr Morris can help me piece together who the other people are."

Owen closed the book and carried it to the front desk where he left it on the returns counter as they left.

They walked outside, and Neve watched as Owen emptied the cup of coffee from the table into the bushes.

Neve's stomach rumbled.

"Want to go to The Stagg for lunch?" He asked.

"Your shout?" she asked.

"On my employee's discount," he said with a cheeky wink.
CHAPTER thirty

FRIDAY – evening

The Stagg was busy, but Neve managed to secure a two-seater.

"What do you want?" Owen asked.

"Buy me a Chicken salad or a sandwich. Or" Neve said, looking Owen's outfit up and down. "if you want to save some money, we could go out and sacrifice a lamb? Whatever, I'm not fussed" she said.

Owen mockingly laughed at her dig at his style.

She sat down at the table and put her feet on the other chair to make sure nobody thought it was free.

Owen went to the counter and chatted to Tracey. Neve watched him pull out the cup from the library. Tracey shook her head and waved at the other guy working. Owen nodded, scrunching the cup in his hand and tossing it into the wastebasket behind the counter. He came back over to the table with two chicken salad sandwiches and some bottled water.

"What did they say?" she asked.

"Nothing. They didn't remember making a coffee for anybody named J, and shifts just changed an hour ago. So, I've got nothing. It was a weak lead anyway."

Neve hooked into her sandwich hungrily, devouring it in little time. She washed it down with the water.

"I'm tired." She said.

"Me too. Want to call it a day and meet me tomorrow morning?"

"Yeah." She said. "What time?"

"Let's say about eight? If you are driving?" he asked hopefully.

"Yeah okay. Want me to pick you up from your house?" she asked.

"No." Owen said, "Just meet me at Al's."

"Okay." She said brushing crumbs off her face and lap onto the floor.

"Want a ride home?" she offered.

"Yeah," he said.

Owen and Neve walked over to the yellow VW parked all the way across the car park under a shady tree. Neve hopped in and tossed her bag into the back seat. She sat in her seat and pulled the seatbelt across stopping short of clicking it in. She glanced back in the back seat.

"Where are the journals?" she said.

Owen climbed in and looked in the backseat.

"They were on the back seat," Owen said, lifting her bag. The backseat was empty. Neve reached around and felt in the space underneath Owens seat. Empty. She looked all over the car and paused. Resting against the window was a dried flower pinned down by the windshield wiper.

"What is that?" Neve said as she jumped out of the car.

"It looks like the dried flower from the journal."

"What flower?"

"It was marked on the last page, for the last entry. Was the car locked" he asked.

Neve shook her head. "No, there's nothing in my car to take. Who would want some musty old journals in a rusty..." her voice trailed away.

Owens green eyes were wide.

Neve's shoulders fell away.

"I needed them." She said quietly. "How will he believe me without them?"

"I'll vouch for you." Owen offered.

"Sure, two crazy people backing each other up on a story crazier than we are. That will work."

Owen slumped down in his seat.

Neve carefully plied the dried rose out of the windshield wiper and examined it.

"This is kind of like the one that was left at the letterbox with the missing poster." She said.

"Do you want me to call my Dad?" he asked.

Neve shook her head.

"No. I'm not sure that's a good Idea." She carefully placed the dried rose in her glove box compartment. "I think we should find Detective Hadley and ask him some questions about the original case."

"Today?" Owen asked tiredly.

"No," Neve said, suddenly feeling a yawn creeping up on her. "Are you ready to go?" She asked. Owen nodded and fastened his seatbelt.

She dropped him off outside Al's produce and headed home.
CHAPTER thirty one

FRIDAY – night

Neve paced the wooden floor in her bedroom with bare feet staring at the phone in her hand. She glanced at the phonebook open on her desk and looked at the number. Then she turned and paced again. This was it. She was going to be the one to call him. He couldn't call her now if he wanted to anyway. How do you make a call so that your mobile number stays private she wondered?

She stopped at her desk and found the phone number again. She dialled it. It rang out without an answer, the answering service picked up, and she hung up the phone.

She was cranky. How dare he not answer when she called him she thought. Maybe he has a patient right now she conceded. It was late in the afternoon. A little after Five pm. She'd hoped he'd be free by now.

She pressed redial on her phone impatiently.

He answered on the third ring.

"Dr Morris speaking." He said in his dry British accent.

Neve froze. What was she going to say? Suddenly her mind was drawing a blank.

"Hello?" he said into the phone.

"It's me." She said.

He paused on the other end of the line for a brief moment.

"Neve?" he said.

"No. Yes." Crap. She thought. "It is, but it isn't," she said Way to go, not sounding crazy. Her inner self chided.

"Neve." He said in a stern tone.

"Somethings happened." She said.

"What is it?" he asked unable to hide the alarm in his voice. "Do you need me to come to you?" he asked.

"No," Neve answered. "I'm coming to you, tomorrow." She said.

She heard him fumble around with something.

"I have an appointment in the morning," he said, "But I can cancel it."

"I know you do; I'm coming with Owen."

"With Owen?" he said quietly. "Owen Dobson?"

"Yes." She replied. "I want my journals back." She said. "I know you kept them."

"I didn't," Morris said.

"I've seen them. In your safe." She said. "I need them."

"Neve," he said. His voice was tired. "You need to stop this."

"Joel." She said sternly. She seldom used his first name. "You need to stop this. I know now."

"You know?" He asked cautiously.

"I know about Rosemary Watts, and I have proof now."

She heard a sharp intake of breath on the other side of the line. A car door creaked and echoed in what Neve imagined was the underground car park at his office. She had caught him on his way out of his workplace.

"You have to understand" he started. "But wait, how did you find out?" he asked.

"I came home one day, and somebody had left a message for me."

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Like on the telephone?"

"No. It was in the letterbox."

"What was?" he asked.

"A missing poster. It had my picture on it. It said, dead girl, walking. Written in blood."

"Whose blood? Did you call the police?" he asked hoarsely.

"Yes, and the Detective said the type matches Kate Sharp's."

"Who is she?"

"She's the girl from the university who has gone missing."

"Shit." She heard him say quietly. "Was there anything else?"

"Are we going to talk about the fact that you've been lying to me?" she asked angrily.

"We will get to that," he promised. "Was there anything else?"

"The fingerprints on the poster that was left for me, matched Rosemary, Penelope, and Maria."

She heard him gulp audibly on the other side of the line.

"There were some dry roses too."

"What colour?" he asked.

"Red maybe, they were dead. And there was another one on my car today" she said.

"Another dry rose was left for you?"

"No, it was moved. You see it was in my- it was inside Rosie's journal."

"Rosemary's journal?" he repeated.

"Yes."

"You have Rosemary's journal?" he asked. "How did you get it? Where did you find it?"

"I had it. I went to the house."

"What house? Rosemary's house." He asked angrily.

"Yes." She whispered, suddenly losing her voice. She cleared her throat. "Yes." She said again.

"Neve!" he yelled angrily into the phone.

"Don't yell at me!" she said tearfully.

"Tell me everything." He said calmly. "Everything."

"Okay. Neve said wondering where to begin. We went to the house..."

"We?"

"Owen and I"

"Owen? Owen knows about this?"

"Yes. We went to the house yesterday, he found the address, and we just went to look. I remembered it as soon as I saw it."

Dr Morris muttered quietly under his breath. "Remembered it," she heard him say quietly.

"I told Owen if I was who I said I was, who I've told you I am, that my name would be carved into the tree in the front yard."

"Was it?" he asked.

"Yes, it was." She stated with an annoyed tone. "Are you going to keep interrupting?"

"No," he replied "Go on."

Neve inhaled deeply and continued. "I didn't know they still lived in the house, and Owen told me after we left, so I went back this morning. Just to see it again. Jed left to go to work and Owen, and I figured we'd just have a little look around. I found the key that we kept hidden and I used it on the back door. I went inside."

"Did anybody see you?" he asked.

"No, I don't think so," Neve said, recalling the mornings' events. "I saw Edith though. I found the journals, and I left"

"Then what happened?"

"Well, we read some of it, but I didn't write anybody's names in my journal. I used code names, which is funny because I still do that. But we couldn't figure out who I was talking about so we decided to check the yearbook to see if I could remember anybody, and this is where things get a bit weird."

"Okay," he said, listening intently.

"The yearbook was already out. Somebody had been looking at it."

"Who?"

"I don't know."

"Okay," he said.

"I figured out a few of the code names, but I'm still trying to figure out the rest. When I went back out to my car..."

Neve inhaled, her stomach fluttered suddenly. The hairs on the back of her neck started to rise. She glanced out of her bedroom window into the dark outside. She couldn't see anything.

"Neve?" Dr Morris said through the phone. "What happened when you went back to your car?"

Neve glanced out into the dark distractedly and replied, "the flower that had been inside the journal was left on my windshield."

"The same kind of flower that was left for you when you found the message in the mailbox?" he clarified.

She tore her eyes away from the darkness outside.

"I think so. Yes." She answered.

He was silent on the other end of the line.

"Do you believe me?" She asked.

Dr Morris sighed into the phone.

"Neve... Rose." He corrected "I always believed you."

A hot lumped formed in Neve's throat as he said her true name. A heavy tear rolled down her face and dropped off her cheek onto her arm as a deluge of tears began to surface one after the other.

"But you said I was sick." She said hoarsely. The lump refused to budge.

"Rosie. I did what I thought was best. I was trying to protect you."

"Protect me?"

"I lost you, Rosie. I lost you, and then you came back to me. I don't know how, or why. It was some kind of miracle. You walked into my office, and I saw the resemblance right away, even then when you were so young. You knew things, you knew me. You trusted me. Don't you remember Rosie? We tried to figure out what happened to you that first year, but your parents threatened to take you away from me if you didn't start getting better. So... I tried to help you forget. We tried pretending that you were improving, which worked for a while. At least until they found your journals. That was when they demanded you start the drugs, or they would take you to someone who would make you take them. I didn't have a choice, and it seemed to work. You started to forget, and you seemed happy and normal. I thought that's what you deserve. No more nightmares, no more pain, no more constantly trying to figure out who you were or what it meant."

"But you kept me on the meds, even after they left." She said.

"I did. I did it because you were safe Rosie. You were safe, and I was terrified that if you remembered anything you'd go looking for answers and I'd lose you all over again."

Neve sat on the edge of her bed.

"I didn't go looking for it, Joel. It found me. I think it was always going to."

"You weren't supposed to go to Crawford." He said sadly.

"But I did. And I live with Penny and Maria. That's got to be the most amazing coincidence in the whole Universe. You always said there's no such thing as Coincidences."

"I did." He lamented.

"Did I ever tell you what happened?" she asked.

"You couldn't remember exactly. You held on so tightly to who you were when you came back; however you came back so you would not forget who you were, you lost so much of yourself in the process. But you always seemed to remember more in your dreams."

"My dreams?"

"Yes. Your dreams. We used to discuss them and figure out what parts made sense and what parts didn't."

"The trouble is I don't know how to make sense of my dreams. I've forgotten so much, I'm not sure how to relate it to my life, before."

"What do you remember?"

"Not a lot, things come to me sometimes. Like when I was at the house, I just knew where to go, what to do. Where things were hidden."

"Maybe I can help you. What are you trying to figure out?"

"What happened to me. To us? Who the codenames relate to from my journal."

"Which codenames?" He asked.

"Well, in the entry I read, I was looking for Curly Sue, who went missing a week before I did."

"Curly Sue?" He repeated. "I know who that is."

"Who?" Neve asked.

"Tabitha."

Neve repeated the name aloud. But it didn't ring any bells.

"She was your best friend." He said with a cough.

"Best friend? The journal said we'd a fight right before she'd disappeared, do you know anything about it?" Neve said.

"I'm not sure. I only really saw you at the coffee shop, and you didn't talk much about your private life."

"At the coffee shop?"

"Where we worked. At Crawford. I think."

"I worked at the Coffee shop at the university? That's crazy. I work there now."

"Really?"

"I went to a party with someone I called Doc, that night."

"You went to the party with me, the night you disappeared."

"Wait, you think you are Doc?"

"Yes." He said with a sigh.

"What happened? Did we find anything out about what happened to Tabitha?"

Joel was quiet on the other end of the line.

"I don't know."

Neve could hear Joel breathing into the phone.

"Dr Morris?" she said.

He didn't answer, but she could hear his breathing quicken on the other side of the phone.

"Joel?" she said.

Suddenly as if in a dream, she was standing in a dark room full of people dancing to the extremely loud music. A tall young man was standing beside her, wearing a bow tie and a button-down plaid print shirt. He pushed his glasses up onto his nose with a shy smile and handed her a plastic cup with alcohol in it.

"Is this beer?" she yelled.

Joel shrugged and sculled his cup. He looked nervous. He grabbed another one and sculled it too. Rosemary held her cup in her hand and glanced around the room. She wasn't sure where to start.

She turned to Joel who was sculling another cup of beer. He tossed his head back with a little shake before turning to face Rosie.

"We should dance" he yelled. Rosie leaned in, she couldn't hear him. "DANCE!" he said moving his arms up in the air and waving them about. She laughed at how silly he looked moving around like that and decided it was a good idea to blend in, at least for the time being. She walked out into the middle of the room and swayed. Her pink taffeta party dress sparkled under the stage lights. The room was so dark around the edges, but Rosemary focused into the silhouettes and figured that they were in a warehouse.

Joel followed her into the crowd and started dancing, and she danced with him and laughed. They danced like that for several songs and Rosemary almost forgot the purpose of her being at the party. The beer and the dancing was making her head swim. Joel stared at her. He'd stopped dancing. He took his glasses off and blinked a few times. He slipped them carefully into his shirt pocket. Rosie swayed to the music and took big gulps of her beer. Her face turned up in disgust at the taste, but she took another gulp. It tasted awful.

Joel stepped forward and held Rosie's face in his hand. He leant toward her, and she broke away.

"What are you doing?" she asked, eyes wide.

He couldn't hear her, but he understood what she was saying. He said nothing.

"Joel?"

He stared at her sadly.

"Joel?" she demanded. Joel looked down at the floor then turned and left. Rosie watched him disappear in the crowd of people, but she didn't follow him. She couldn't. She still needed to find out what had happened to Tabitha.
CHAPTER thirty-two

FRIDAY – midnight

Neve sat frozen on one end of the phone. Dr Morris sat quietly on the other.

"I was in love with you." He said, his voice almost a whisper.

Neve didn't know what to say. Things made sense now. It made sense that Dr Morris had tried to kiss her that night when they were sitting together on the couch at home watching a movie late at night. Neve had thought, well she had thought it wasn't right. He wasn't just her doctor, but he was the person who she lived with and looked after her. She realised how he always loved her. He'd always been there, with a smile and a warm hug. He'd been the one to hold her and soothe her when the nightmares were unbearable. He'd heard her scream in the middle of the night and come running to help her. He'd raised her, watched her grow up, he'd waited till the time was right.

Neve felt awful. She had run away from him. She'd felt betrayed by his affections. He'd rejected her attempts to discuss how she felt about being Rosemary in those later years, but he had encouraged her to find out what happened. She remembered the early days. It had seemed like a dream, after all, he'd changed his position on her. He believed her and then he didn't. He wouldn't.

"I left you there." He said sadly. "I regretted it. Every. Single. Day. But you came back to me. I just wanted you to stay." He said sadly.

"I'm sorry I left. I just, I didn't understand." She said.

"It's okay. I needed to let you go. God knows I have tried."

They sat silently for a moment. Neve wiped her tears off her cheeks, and she heard Joel sniff on the other end of the line. She imagined the look of dejected sadness on his face, and another tear rolled down her cheek.

"I need your help. I need to figure this out." She whispered hoarsely into the phone.

"Okay." He agreed. "I'll do anything I can. I'll get your journals out of the safe and bring them with me to the office. Maybe we could go through them together? I might be able to help you figure out some things with what I know."

"Yeah" she agreed. "Maybe you could tell me what you remember too. It might help me remember."

"Ha," he said with amusement. "Maybe. I can't wait to see you tomorrow." He added.

She reached over to her desk and pulled a tissue out and quietly wiped her nose.

"Me too." She said. "I have to go."

He cleared his throat.

"Okay. Stay safe, Rosie."

"I will. I'll see you tomorrow."

Neve hung up the phone first and laid back on the bed. She was so tired that she almost felt peaceful. Her eyes dropped heavily over her tired crying eyes, and she was asleep before she knew it.

She stood at the cash register at the coffee shop. Joel walked into the room. He was tall and gangly. He'd had a growth spurt, and suddenly his pants were too short at the ankles. She smiled at his awkwardness affectionately. Joel was a nice guy. She really liked working with him. He waved as he spotted her watching and went into the back room. She watched him go and waited.

Owen came out of the back room. Instead, only Owen was dressed in Joel's clothing.

"What are you doing? Where is he?" she asked.

Owen looked at her like she was mad.

"What are you talking about?"

She stepped forward and peered into the back room. It was a long hallway, and as she turned back to return to the register, she found the hallway stretched long behind her. There were no doors.

Was she alone in here? Was she trapped? She turned around and saw Owen standing beside her. Dressed like his normal self. He leaned toward her, holding her face to kiss her.

"No!" she said. "I've got to find her! Nobody is looking for her! I have to find her!"

Owen walked backward, stepping away from her and she watched him become smaller and smaller in the distance as the room seemed to expand with his going away until he disappeared altogether. The floor suddenly fell out from underneath her feet. She fell into the darkness, gripping the floorboards, where she was just standing a moment ago with her fingers. She looked down into the darkness her legs swinging wildly. There was nothing to catch them on, no foothold to be found. She screamed helplessly.

The low rumble of a dog's growl sounded below her, and something nipped ferociously at her feet. Looking down into the darkness she could suddenly see the reflective glinting of eyeballs in the darkness below her. She tried with urgency to pull herself up out of the floor.

"Owen!" she screamed again and again until her voice was hoarse and her arms were tired. But he was gone, and she was alone. The black dog continued to nip at her feet, and she knew that she wasn't going to climb out of the hole.

She watched, regretfully, with eyes wide open as her fingers slipped away from the floorboards above her and as each digit slipped away, one by one the door in the floor began to close over her.

She was resigned to her fate. She would fall into the clutches of the black dog in the darkness.

Neve's eyes popped open in fear as she was about to hit the ground. Her heart was racing and her arms still tingled with a weak falling sensation. It was fading, and her breathing slowed down.

A hand brushed against her forehead in the darkness, it was soothing, and she was slightly aware of the beads of sweat that had formed.

The darkness silenced her, shushing comfortingly. Neve felt herself relax and grow heavy as the hands pulled her down into the softness of her pillows and blankets.

"Tabitha" she whispered.

"Dat's right. Find Tabita" a voice whispered.

Neve's eyes popped open again, and she sat upright in her bed in alarm, looking around. She was alone. It must have been a dream, she thought. A dream within a dream.

Neve's head sunk deeper and deeper into her pillow as she calmed down. Her eyes were heavy. Sleep was pulling her back into its grasp, and she wasn't fighting it.
CHAPTER thirty-three

saturday – morning

Owen was waiting outside Al's produce wearing a black hooded jacket in the drizzly rain when Neve pulled up. He got into the car and was shocked to find her wearing an ordinary t-shirt and jeans.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"I talked to him last night." She said

"Who? Dr Morris?"

"Yup. Or, Doc, as I used to know him."

"Dr Morris is Doc?"

"He thinks so."

"So, what did you talk about?" Owen asked.

"He was with me the night I disappeared. He blames himself. He took me to the party, and he tried to kiss me, and I rejected him. So, he left."

"Ouch. You rejected him?" Owen pictured the geeky young guy in the yearbook. It was hard to imagine they were the same person.

"Yeah."

Owen brushed his wet hair back and pulled off his damp jumper.

"Curly sue was my best friend."

"Really?" he said raising one eyebrow at her.

Neve half smiled. "That's what Doc tells me."

"And he still tried to make a move on you, even though he knew you were there looking for her?" He asked.

"Seems that way."

"And you rejected him the night you disappeared," Owen added.

"Huh, yeah I guess."

Neve pulled out into traffic and sped along the main road toward the highway.

"So, does Curly Sue have a real name?" he asked.

Neve looked over to him as she indicated to change lanes.

"Tabitha."

"Is it ringing any bells for you?"

"No. But there's more."

"What?"

"Guess where I worked with Doc?"

Owen shrugged.

"Don't give up! Guess!" she said excitedly.

"I don't know, just tell me!" he said.

"At the coffee shop, on Campus."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes! It's crazy right. And I drive a VW just like before! I'm starting to think my new life is drawing parallels to the old one on purpose."

"Like a design?"

Neve nodded and continued.

"We came back from the dead. If that can happen, it could totally be possible. Okay so get this, I was supposed to go to a University up North. I wasn't supposed to come to Crawford. I've never been out of the city in my life. But when Joel tried to kiss me" she said trying to skip over that part quickly.

"Wait," Owen said throwing a hand up to signal a need to pause.

"I moved out!" Neve said, hoping to snowball the conversation past the point about kissing. "And I found this place in the newspaper..."

"No! No, no, no Go back! Dr Morris tried to kiss you?" He stared out the windshield. "Isn't that, you know, unethical?" he said.

"Yes, but you have to understand he's been in love with me for a long time."

"I suppose, but it's still creepy," Owen said, conceding, "he's a lot older than you."

"That age thing doesn't creep me out as much as it should," Neve said with a wry smile.

"Yuck," Owen said.

Neve giggled.

"He's giving me my journals back today, and there's more."

"Go on," Owen said with less interest, staring out the window.

"He said, when I started Therapy with him, we were really trying to figure out what had happened to me, but my parents didn't think I was getting any better. They were going to find somebody else to treat me. So, I think, if there's anything at all to know, then he knows it."

"But if you don't know it how is he going to?" Owen asked.

"Because I remembered more then than I do now." She said.

Owen rested his head against the cool glass window and looked thoughtfully out at the cars on the highway and the grey, drizzly sky. The windshield wipers made a relaxing back and forward sound against the glass as he considered what Neve had said. She looked happy today. Lighter almost. Her face would turn thoughtful for a moment and then she'd go back to looking refreshed and hopeful.

He pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket and stared at the picture of Cassandra for the millionth time. Maybe Dr Morris could tell him more about her. Maybe he even knew her.

He imagined the look of surprise on his face when he revealed to him that they had gone to school together. He almost laughed as he drew a comparison to himself and Neve at this moment. Both driving hopefully toward the same person for more insight into who they both really were. He closed his eyes sleepily. The car was nice and warm.
CHAPTER thirty-four

saturday – mid morning

"Wake up, sleepy head" Neve said.

Owen opened his eyes sleepily. They were parked on a tree-lined street outside a tall building with lots of windows, in the city. It was the building that Dr Morris worked out of.

Owen stretched himself out as Neve got out of the car. The sun was out, but there was a bit of a breeze blowing outside. The trees swayed enthusiastically. She hurried toward the main door of the building.

"Miss Moore," The doorman said happily. "How nice to see you again."

Neve smiled and skipped through the lobby toward the elevators. Owen walked slowly and reached her side just as the elevator made the ping sound, and the doors opened.

Neve walked in and pressed the button for the 7th floor. Owen rubbed his face tiredly trying to invigorate himself. The car had been so comfortable.

The elevator stopped on the seventh floor, and they stepped out. A man was sitting in the waiting room flipping through a magazine disinterestedly. He glanced at Owen and Neve as they entered and checked his watch. He tossed the magazine down with a flop on the chair beside him.

Owen walked over to the admin desk and talked to the secretary.

"What do you mean he's not come in yet?" Neve overheard him say to her. She walked over to find out what was going on.

The small woman behind the desk looked at them and talked in a low voice.

"Dr Morris hasn't arrived for his sessions yet, and he's not been answering any calls. It's not like him to be late. You're welcome to wait, I'm sure it's nothing."

Neve was concerned. It wasn't like him to be late, or not answer his phones. He never neglected his patients. A pit began to form in her belly, what if something had happened to him? She pulled out her phone and pressed dial on his phone number. It rang out, and she tried it again and again. She pressed the button on the elevator repeatedly.

Owen joined her by her side.

"He's probably just late."

"Owen, he's never missed a session. This man would come to work in a coma. I know him. Something must be wrong."

"So, what can we do about it?" he asked as the lift doors opened. Neve pressed the lobby button as they entered.

"We can go to his house and see if he's there, if not, we'll come back here." She said.

Neve pulled her car up the driveway of a nice modern square shaped concrete house ten minutes later.

Owen whistled. "Fancy," he said.

"Shut up" Neve snapped quietly.

She pressed a button on the roof of her car above the rear-view mirror, and the garage opened.

Her face fell as she spotted Joel's car parked in its usual spot. She pulled into the garage beside it.

She glanced nervously at Owen. Something didn't feel right about this.

"Are you sure he won't mind us being here?" Owen said as they got out of the car.

"This was my home." She said. "It's fine."

She walked over to the doorway in the garage and turned the handle. Dr Morris' house was a large open planned tiled home. A lot of natural light filtered in through the big glass windows. The kitchen was empty.

"Joel?" she called

There was no reply. She walked around the kitchen counter island, there was a single glass of bourbon sitting on the bench, and they stopped short of the mess.

There was blood. Not a lot of blood, but some. A lot of smashed glass and large broken bottle bits were scattered across the tiles. There was a brown liquid spread out across the floor.

She inhaled sharply. The room reeked of bourbon. She crept past the glass toward the lounge room. The wind blew in through the open glass doors.

"Joel?" She called again.

Something fell in one of the rooms at the end of the hallway. It landed with a loud thud.

Owen grabbed Neves hand to stop her from walking toward the sound.

"What are you doing?" He whispered.

Neve shrugged her hand away from his grip. Slowly, carefully she made her way up the hallway, A thin line of blood trailed across the ground. Her bedroom door was open.

Her room was a mess. Well, she'd left it that way, but it seemed odd that it hadn't been cleaned up. Blood was smeared across the posters and pictures on her bedroom walls. Somebody had been in here. She looked at the high school prom picture of herself on the shelf by the door. A bloody handprint dried across the face.

She crept passed the room, following the drops of blood and stopped in front of the door at the end of the hallway.

She pressed lightly on the door, and it began to swing slowly open. It creaked as it moved, echoing throughout the silent house. The room was darker than most. The curtains were drawn. Neve peered through the widening crack in the door as it opened and immediately saw the faint outline of someone's body strewn across the bed in the dark grey room.

Neve's heart was beating hard and fast. She could hear it in her own ears and feel it thumping away in her chest.

Something moved in the shadows of the room drawing her attention with a quick jerk of her head. Owen peered into the room over Neve's shoulder to see what it was.

Something small and grey walked swiftly around the base of the door. It meowed and rubbed itself against Neve's legs.

Owen jumped.

Neve looked at him, and he tried to play it off. He leant down and picked up the cat. The cat purred and rubbed the back of his head against Owens shirt.

Neve's eyes widened. The cat's chin and face was caked in dried blood. She started to move toward the bed where Dr Morris body lay strewn face down across the covers.

"Jesus!" Owen exclaimed in a whisper. "Neve, No. Don't go in there. Let's just call the police."

She walked forward, edging closer and closer until she was standing beside him.

She was right beside his body now and was reaching out to touch his back. Her fingers lowered slowly, nervously, flinching away as she almost touched him.

His mobile phone started ringing loudly at that second. Neve jumped backwards in shock and Looked at Owen.

Owen was watching her intently, stroking the cats head nervously. Neve could only watch as he dropped the cat and Owen's eyes grew as wide as saucers.

She heard a noise behind her. A groaning. She turned. Dr Morris was moving. Slightly but he was moving. His fingers twitched and his arms pushed outward. He was looking for his phone.

"He's alive!" Neve exclaimed.
CHAPTER thirty-five

saturday – midday

The paramedics arrived and bundled a semi-conscious Dr Morris onto the stretcher. He groaned as they lifted him onto the portable bed.

The paramedic was asking him questions as they wheeled him out of the house. Neve followed watching anxiously.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he said.

"I was drunk; I fell... hit...head on counter" Dr Morris answered groggily.

"These cuts on your hands, how did that happen?" He asked, shining a small flashlight into the Dr's pupils.

"Bottle. Dropped it. Cut my hands."

"Were you alone?"

"Yes." He said.

"Why didn't you call for help?"

"Passed out." He said. His eyes fluttered, and he slumped down into the bed asleep.

The paramedics bundled him into the back of the Ambulance with two heavy clunks as the wheels retracted under the bed and slid into position.

"Are you coming with us, Miss?" The paramedic asked, holding the back door open with one hand.

Neve glanced at Owen. He nodded at her.

She tossed him the keys to The VW and climbed into the ambulance with the unconscious doctor.
CHAPTER thirty-six

saturday – afternoon

"How is he?" Owen asked. The phone line crackled slightly. Neve stood up from beside Dr Morris' bed and walked out into the hallway for better reception.

"He's hopped up on medication, saying all kinds of loopy stuff."." She said.

"Is he going to be okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, I think so. Would you believe the nurse actually gave me a lecture about the dangers of drinking alone?" Neve laughed.

"Neve, I don't think he was alone."

"What? Of course, he was. He said he was."

"Yeah, I heard him say that too, but there are two glasses here."

"What? Are you still at the house?"

"Yeah. I thought I would clean up the smashed glass and stuff. I thought it would be nice."

"Oh," Neve said. "Yeah, that is a nice thing to do."

"But then I saw there were two glasses, and I thought, if he was drinking alone why are there two dirty glasses?"

"Where was the other one? Maybe they're both his?"

"Not unless he wears lipstick," Owen answered smartly.

"Lipstick?" Neve whispered conspiratorially into the phone.

"Yeah. It was in the sink."

"What colour was it?"

"Red."

"That's weird. I wonder why he said he was alone?" Neve said.

"Who knows, maybe he hired a prostitute?"

A tall, athletic-looking older nurse stopped short in front of Neve with her hands on her hips. She glared at Neve. Neve stopped talking. The nurse pointed at the sign on the wall.

No mobile phones. Please turn off all mobile phones and electronic devices.

Owen began to say something.

"I'll call you back." She said quickly, hanging up and turning the phone off before shoving it into her jeans pocket. The nurse strutted away, and Neve glanced into Dr Morris room. He was asleep. She didn't know when he would wake up. She walked down the hallway to the complimentary coffee and tea station for patient's family members. She was waiting for the kettle to boil when she heard someone asking about Joel Morris at the nurse's desk.

Neve turned her head to see who was asking for him, but there was an indoor plant obscuring her view of the person asking. She stepped away from the bench in time to spot the back of a black man's bald head disappearing being led by one of the nurses into Dr Morris room.

Neve walked over to the nurses' station, loitering for a moment before stealing a glance inside the room. The curtain around the bed was being drawn, all she could see was a large pair of brown work boots standing beside the bed.

Neve dared to creep even closer. As she got closer, she could just make out a whispered conversation between Morris and the man who was visiting.

"She's alive" Morris whispered hoarsely. "She's alive." He said again. The heart monitor machine he was attached to beeped faster as he moved around in his bed.

The stranger shushed him and told him to calm down in a deep soft voice. Then something else was being said in a hushed whisper. Neve inched closer to the curtain to hear better.

"Ahem" came a voice behind Neve which made her jump almost entirely out of her skin. The nurse stood behind her, cocking an eyebrow judgingly.

Neve followed the nurse back to the nurse's station.

"Your Dad's scans came back, and the Dr said everything looks okay. He has a mild concussion, but he should be fine to go home."
CHAPTER thirty-seven

saturday – evening

Neve opened the front door with one hand, grunting, and walked inside awkwardly assisting a semi-drugged Morris through the door.

"Home sweet home" he slurred as Neve helped him over to the couch.

"Yes, we are," she said, a little breathlessly. "Can I get you anything, to make you more comfortable?"

"No" Morris replied. "I've got everything I want."

"Oh, you do, do you?" Neve said.

Morris nodded and cringed, laying down on the couch and cradling his head in his hands.

"You're home." He said.

"I'm only staying for the night." She said. "You are going to feel a lot better in the morning, and you won't need me anymore."

"I don't need you," Morris said. "I just like keeping you around. You should move back in."

Neve shook her head, and Morris looked at her and pouted.

"If you were here Neve, I wouldn't have been drinking alone. Who knows if I would have gotten help, and what if it had been worse? I need you here, Neve." He said.

Neve poured a glass of water and placed it on the coffee table in front of him.

"Drink some water." She said.

"Move home" he countered.

Neve sighed.

"I'll help you transfer back to your old school, I'll sort everything out. Everything is just how you left it, here, you're bedrooms exactly the same."

"Joel," Neve said. "I'm not staying. You know the only reason I'm here is to get my journals."

Morris' brow creased angrily, and he moved around on the couch to get comfortable.

"Hey, so who was that guy who visited you in the hospital?" Neve asked, trying to change the subject.

"I don't know who you're talking about," Morris answered.

"The man who visited you," Neve said trying to jog his memory.

Morris shook his head. "I don't remember anyone visiting me. Maybe my concussion is worse than they thought. Maybe you should stay a few nights?"

Neve sighed. "Maybe it was just the pain medication they put you on. You were a bit loopy at the hospital, but you seem fine now."

"Did I say anything weird?" Morris asked.

Neve shook her head.

Morris moved one of the couch cushions under his head and rested his head on it. His lip was pushed against the pillow so that his mouth hung open, askew upon his face. He started to drool as he fell asleep.

Neve left him on the couch as she collected a few more belongings together from her bedroom to take home with her. She searched in her room for any of her old journals, maybe one that Joel had missed, but found none.

Neve left her bedroom and walked into the lounge room to make sure Morris was still asleep on the couch before she slipped quietly into his bedroom.

She walked into the wardrobe and slid his suits and shirts aside on the hangers to reveal a wall set digitally locked safe.

She tried typing his birthday into the keypad but was denied access. She then tried the house number, the last four digits of his phone number and the alphabetical keypad numeration of his first name Joel which was 5635. But none of those numbers opened the safe.

Neve tapped her fingernails against the safe door as she thought of another number combination to try. Her own birthday crossed her mind. She typed it into the keypad and the safe unlocked and opened.

Neve opened the door and looked inside. She couldn't see her journals, but there were passports and papers inside. She reached into the safe and moved the papers around to check if one of her journals was underneath them.

She gasped as she pulled her hand out of the safe quickly. The tip of her finger was bleeding. She sucked her finger into her mouth and looked into the safe to see what she'd cut herself on. There in the back of the safe was the pair of glasses Joel wore in College. They were old, and the glass was smashed, and there was now, fresh and dried blood on one of the lenses.

"What are you doing in here?" Morris said, making Neve jump backwards in surprise.

"Oh, Um, I'm sorry, you were asleep, and I was looking for my journals." She said.

"Well, they're not in there. I told you I don't have them anymore." He said coldly. He showed Neve his phone. There was an alert in his messages that told him that someone had tried to access his safe.

"I'm sorry." She said.

Morris glared at her, his hand still rested on the protectively against the safe door.

"I think you should go to your room, Neve. I'm feeling very tired."

Neve nodded and ducking under his arm to get past him, hurried into her bedroom and closed the door behind herself.

She listened as Morris closed his bedroom door and stumbled across the floor into his bed.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket and texted Owen, shakily.

"where are you?"

" _At home, why?"_

"I need you to come and get me."

"I can't."

"what do you mean you can't? why not?"

" _I just can't right now."_

" _Please."_

Neve dialled his phone, but it rang out without being answered.

Neve realised she'd have to get home another way, and crept out of her bedroom as softly and quietly as she could.

She listened for any sign that Morris was still awake, and faintly heard the sound of him snoring in his room.

Neve grabbed her things, walked out the front door and headed to the train station as quickly as she could.

Her phone rang as she was sitting down in the train car on the way back to Crawford. Owens name appeared on the screen. Neve hung up on him.
CHAPTER thirty-eight

sunday – midday

Neve crawled out of bed late on Sunday morning, chucked on her jeans and a loose singlet shirt and sleepily descended the stairs. The front door was wide open, and the sun shone into the room brightly. She reached out and let her fingers caress the bright rays of light.

"Oh hey, I didn't know you were home," Nikki said appearing in the doorway. She was dressed in a casual tee and short denim cutoffs that were frayed around the edges.

"Hi," Neve said with a yawn.

"Feel like giving us a hand out here?" Nikki said pointing behind herself.

Neve glanced out into the bright yard which came into focus slowly. Sophie and Claudia were outside lifting up the old oven together. They hoisted it out of sight and then there was a crash.

Neve walked closer to the door. A skip bin was sitting in the driveway, and the girls had already removed half the junk from the yard into it.

"Oh wow," Neve said taking a pair of brand new work gloves off the railing. Nikki had put out drink bottles and hats for everybody. Neve slipped the wide brim hat over her loose hair and pulled the gloves on.

"Okay, where do I start?" She said.

Nikki looked at her and grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her back into the house.

"What are you...?" Neve began to say.

"You need to wake up. Coffee first, then fix your shirt; it is inside out, and join us," She said. She gave Neve one final nudge down the hallway and went back out into the yard with the girls.

Neve pulled off the gloves as she walked down the hallway and tossed them on the bench beside the stove. She filled the kettle with hot water before placing it on the stove to heat. When the stove top was lit, she hoisted herself up onto the bench and looked down the hallway out the door. She could see Sophie throwing dirt clumps at Claudia in the yard. Neve smiled. Those two were so close she thought. She flipped her singlet off and turned it in the right way around and shrugged it back on quickly.

The kettle began to whistle.

She poured the hot water into the mug, and the aroma of coffee wafted toward her nose. It was heavenly. She tucked the gloves into her back pocket and carried her steaming hot mug of coffee back out to the front porch to drink it. She sipped at the hot coffee as all three girls hoisted a broken old washing machine up between themselves and tossed it into the bin. Sophie was pumped.

"Come on slacker, all the good stuff is going to get done before you get out here!" She said to Neve, walking back across the front yard.

Claudia walked toward Sophie and tripped on a clump of grass. Sophie caught her as she lost her balance.

"Don't even start that, Missy" Sophie warned her friend, and they giggled.

Neve pulled her gloves on and walked out into the yard to assist in the removal of a large fold out couch. It was heavy, moving reluctantly across the yard until they decided to flip it over and over until they got it beside the bin.

"How are we going to get it in?" Claudia whined.

"That's what she said," Sophie said quickly.

Nikki and Neve chuckled as Claudia reached out to punch her friend in the arm and missed entirely.

"Oh!" Claudia said as she missed the connection.

Sophie snorted and burst into a fit of giggles, she carefully brushed her hair away from her forehead with the exposed wrist at the end of her glove.

"Shut up!" Claudia said with an embarrassed smile.

"Okay," Nikki said. Let's just all try and pick up this end and flip it into the bin?" she suggested. The four girls pushed the couch onto its side, and it stood there solidly against the bin refusing to budge.

"Shit," Nikki said.

They tried to lift it from the base, but it seemed like it weighed more than usual.

"Come on girls, _lift,_ " Sophie said enthusiastically.

They had the couch a few inches off the ground slowly but surely raising it upward when four extra hands swooped in to help.

"Come on, you can do it," Jimmy said with a wink to Neve as the couch raised up enough to topple over the bin and land across the top, resting on both edges. Jimmy pushed it around until it fell into the bin with a thud.

Jimmy reached over to pat Neve on the back. His hand clapped over her shoulder, and she jerked away maneuvering herself quickly away from his reach.

"Don't?" Neve said at Jimmy. Owen stood behind him quietly without saying a word.

"Jimmy Choo!" Claudia said happily rushing forward to give him a hug. He put his arms around her and returned it. Sophie high fived him, and Nikki just nodded her head gratefully.

"Thanks," she said breathlessly. "Wasn't sure we were going to get it in there."

"No problem," Jimmy said. "Always happy to help! Is there anything else we can do?" he asked.

Nikki glanced around the yard and gestured toward the whole place.

"Anything you want. Go for it" she said.

Jimmy looked down at Claudia who was still cradled in his arms and smiled brightly down on her.

Owen started picking up some of the stuff in the yard and tossing it into the bin. Neve watched him, he still didn't try to say anything to her, which made Neve feel weird.

The six of them cleared the front yard of all the debris in under an hour, all that remained was the clumps of grass in the dirt and the broken footpath pieces.

"So is that it?" Jimmy asked sculling down an ice cold glass of fresh lemonade that Nikki had brought out from the fridge. Neve looked into her coffee mug. It had gone cold, and she tossed it out onto the dirt.

"Well, actually" Nikki began. "If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to pull the rain gutter off over here." She pointed to the side of the house, and Jimmy and Owen followed her over.

"Okay sure, Owen what do you reckon?"

Owen nodded. "We could probably pull it off together" He agreed.

Sophie snorted into her lemonade.

"That's what they said," she said choking and spluttering on the lemonade.

Owen and Jimmy shook their heads with a smile, almost laughing.

Jimmy pointed at Nikki's hands, "Could I use your gloves?" he asked. Nikki took them off immediately and handed them over, and Jimmy pulled them on.

Owen turned to Neve expectantly.

She stared back at him, quizzically, for a moment before realising why he was looking at her. She rolled the gloves off and tossed them at his feet on the ground.

Jimmy's eyebrows raised but he didn't say anything.

Why had he shown up with Jimmy without letting her know first, she wondered.

Nikki brought Neve out of her thoughts when she handed over a shovel.

Neve glanced down.

"Uh? What's this for?" she asked.

Nikki pointed to the front yard.

"I want this place to start looking decent, so we're tearing out the clumps and the footpath."

There was a loud metal creaking and a pop as the boys brought the rusted out guttering off the side of the house. They bent it up into a smaller piece and tossed it into the bin before retreating toward the back yard to continue cleaning up back there.

"The footpath?" Neve said, "But what if it rains, how do we get inside without bringing in the mud?" Neve asked.

Claudia came over to them. "Well, we all went shopping yesterday, without you, to buy some pavers." She said and pointed to the fence. There was a pile of neatly stacked paving bricks there. "Where were you anyway?"

"Oh," Neve said. "I was out. I had an appointment."

Claudia nodded.

"Well we went with the sandstone colour anyway, but I wanted to get the grey ones. What do you think?" she said.

"Grey would have looked nice," Neve said.

"I knew it!" Claudia said. "God if you had of been there, I would have won." She said walking over to Sophie.

"Uh, no, it would have been a tie" Sophie argued.

Nikki and Neve set about digging at the dense root systems of the clumps of grass while Sophie and Claudia jimmied the slabs of cement up with crowbars. They tossed piece after piece into the bin while Neve hacked away at the same grass clump she'd started on.

"So where were you yesterday?" Nikki said.

Neve busied herself yanking away the roots by hand one by one.

"I went to see Dr Morris," she said quietly.

"Oh?" Nikki says.

"Yeah," Neve said without looking up.

"Do you mind if I ask why?" She said softly.

"To get my journals, I thought. He said he would give them to me."

"You keep journals?" Nikki asked.

"Yeah."

"That's so cool. I literally can't get myself to sit down and write about anything. I've had a few journals, like when I was a kid with perfumed paper... I literally ate the paper."

Neve laughed and looked over at Nikki who had almost entirely dug out her clump of grass.

"Owen went with me," Neve said.

"Oh?" Nikki said. "So are you two-?"

"Nope!" Neve said quickly. "It's not like that, I don't think" She sighed and started ripping at the grass with vehemence.

Nikki watched patiently as Neve ripped at the roots in front of her. Sophie and Claudia tossed another piece of concrete slab into the bin and headed to the back yard.

"I got news about the letter I sent to Joey Santiago," She said as they disappeared out of view.

Neve stopped ripping at the roots and looked up. The sun shone in her eye, and she lifted a hand to shade her vision.

Nikki stood leaning on the shovel.

"What is it?" Neve said.

"They're willing to let us visit him."

"Us?" Neve questioned.

"Yeah, I want all four of us to go."

Neve laughed. "Yeah, Sophie will totally go for it." She said sarcastically.

"Totally go for what?" Claudia said unexpectedly appearing at the front porch with a glass of lemonade in her hand. Nikki peered around the doorway when she was certain there was no sign of Sophie nearby she explained.

"We have an appointment to go see Joey Santiago and ask him questions over at Rydensac prison if you are interested?"

"Joey Santiago?" Claudia said her eyes growing. "Isn't he?"

"The guy who got done for our disappearances," Neve confirmed.

"Wow, you want us to go and see him?" Claudia said.

"Yeah," Nikki said. "If he did do it, wouldn't it blow his mind to see you three."

"Wait," Neve said, "You want to take us with you to the interview, basically to mind-fuck this guy?"

Nikki shrugged and smiled.

"Damn girl, you are ice cold," Neve said marvelling at Nikki's plan.

Claudia nodded in agreement.

"I'm totally in!" She said excitedly.

"Really?" Neve said.

"Are you kidding? This whole thing is all I can think about now. If it is him though, Neve, will you know?" she asked.

Neve shook her head.

"I don't know. No? Maybe? I was supposed to get my old journals yesterday to see if there was anything in there that might help me remember what happened."

"We need to get Sophie to come," Nikki said hopefully.

Claudia looked doubtfully over at Nikki.

"For full effect!" She said.

Claudia considered the ramifications of exposing all three victims to the supposed killer.

"Let's do it."

"So, you'll talk her into it?" Nikki asked.

"Let's just say I'll get her there."

"That's what he said!" Sophie said appearing at the doorway.

The three girls turned and looked over at Sophie standing on the porch, their faces taught. How much had she overheard?

"What? Come on that was flawless." She said picking up an ice cold drink bottle and taking a swig.
CHAPTER thirty-nine

wednesday – morning

Sophie sat in the waiting room cracking her knuckles angrily. Claudia had managed to get her to Rydensac Penitentiary under false pretences after days of pretending that she needed everyone's support to go see a gynecologist for a pap smear. She glared ice-cold daggers at Neve and Nikki.

"I'm moving out." She said bitterly.

"I'm not," Claudia said.

Sophie threw her head back in exasperation.

"Whatever." She said. "But, I will miss you."

Claudia pouted.

A buzzer sounded, and a lady in a security uniform waved them forward through the checkpoint. Nikki, Neve, and Claudia walked forward, Sophie remained seated, rebelliously.

"Please!" Claudia begged. "I'll owe you one!"

Sophie got up and followed them through the checkpoint begrudgingly. They went through metal detectors, were searched with a pat down and had their mouths and hair checked by the guards. Then they were led into a room with a large metal table and six chairs. Four on the side closest to them facing the back of the room and two on the other. They sat at the table with their backs facing the door. A guard stood in the corner watching them.

Sophie sat back in her chair tapping her nails on the table in frustration.

The first person to come through the door was an elderly balding man. He introduced himself as John Bertram, he was Joey Santiago's Lawyer.

"I hope you don't mind that I've come today. Mr Santiago hasn't had a visitor in almost ten years. Lately, however, with another girl going missing from Crawford University, his family has asked that I sit in on any meetings to make sure that nobody is trying to further insinuate my client into any wrongdoings."

"That's perfectly okay," Nikki said shaking his hand politely. "I'm Nikita Raymone, and this is Neve Moore, Claudia McClaine and Sophia Lopez." She gestured left down the table toward the other girls, and Mr Bertram looked at each of them and nodded. He popped his glasses off his face and rubbed them with a microfiber cloth.

"Joey hasn't had a visitor in ten years?" Claudia asked.

"I'm afraid not," Bertram said.

"But you just said his family asked you to be here. So, they don't visit him?"

Bertram checked his glasses in the light.

"I'm afraid they don't," he said, popping his glasses back on.

Joey Santiago arrived in the room with chains around his hands and feet. Nikki and Neve looked back at him. He was about 5'9, muscular with tan skin, a shaved head, and tattoos all over his neck and hands. Neve turned back around and started wiping her sweaty palms on her t-shirt. He stared at the ground as he entered and looked over at the table. He nodded at Nikki who was still facing him before he was taken to his seat by a guard and locked into place. He acknowledged Bertram as he passed but hadn't taken notice of the other girls yet. He wriggled around in his chair until he was comfortable and finally looked up at the four girls who sat in front of him.

He leant back in alarm. His large green eyes bugging out of his head. He couldn't get any further away from them because the chains restricted his movement.

"Santiago." The guard warned, alarmed by his reaction.

"Are you not seeing this?" he said, pointing open-handed at the girls in front of him. He looked at Bertram, then back at the girls.

"Maria!" He said, his hands were in front of his mouth. His eyes were filling at the brim with tears. "Oh, Maria!"

Sophie glared at him.

"Penelope!" he reached across the table with open palms to greet them, but they sat watching him confused by his actions. He glanced at Neve and Nikki with little interest.

"How is this possible? Where have you?... How?"

He leant back, staring at them rubbing one of his hands against his brow. He'd experienced a myriad of intense emotions so quickly, and now he realised what could and couldn't be possible.

"Mr Santiago?" Nikki said.

He looked at her and leant forward resting one arm on the table. He glanced back to Claudia and Sophie again and again, daring them to disappear. But they always remained exactly where he had last seen them.

"My name is Nikita Raymone. This is Neve Moore" She pointed to Neve and Neve waved shyly. He looked at her with disinterest and turned back to Claudia. She blushed slightly.

"That's Claudia McClain and Sophie Lopez."

"Claudia? And _Sophie_?" he said. "No, that's not right."

Bertram himself appeared to realise that something wasn't quite right about the situation and studied the girls' faces. His first intuition about them was right, they were familiar to him. But not recently. Two decades before when he'd defended Santiago in court for their murders.

"You're Rosemary Watts," Bertram said suddenly, excitedly. "But no, you can't be. But you look... and _you_ look... and _she_..."

Bertram and Santiago shared a confused glance between them.

"What exactly is this?" Bertram asked.

"You're Rosemary? Uh, sorry what did you say your name was again?" Santiago asked.

"Neve. Neve Moore."

Santiago clicked his fingers together trying to jog his memory. His hand spun around and around.

"Oh!" he said suddenly. "Yellow Beetle. 69 model."

Sophie's closed fist hit the table. "How do you know that?"

Santiago was confused.

"I worked on it. I fixed it for her." He said.

Sophie's face wrinkled up in resentment.

"You couldn't have!" She said.

"That was the model car that Rosemary Watts drove, wasn't it?" Bertram asked Joey. Joey nodded. Bertram turned back to the girls.

"The car that she left at Joey Santiago's workplace to get fixed a week before she disappeared."

"That's how they reckoned I was involved." He said. "But you're alive. You all are. I mean, you don't look forty. But it's you. I know you, Maria. I'd know you anywhere."

"I'm _not_ Maria. I'm Sophie _._ " She exclaimed angrily.

Santiago scoffed and jumped back in his chair.

"So, you don't have that purple birthmark on your rib that's shaped like this?" He asked placing his hands together in a prayer symbol. Sophie's jaw dropped, and he snorted and smirked.

"When you were born, Our Mother said you were touched by the angels. You know how she is, how our people are. But you..." He chuckled. "You were... demonic. That mark meant we needed to pray more. God was reminding us to have faith, or to pray for forgiveness."

Sophie's lip turned upward in an involuntary smirk until she pressed her lips back into a hard line.

"And you," he pointed to Claudia and his eyes softened. He touched his heart, "Mi Amor. You got a beauty mark under your left breast, like a secret third nipple."

Everybody looked at Claudia, her mouth hung open, and she turned bright red.

"We need to talk to you about what happened twenty years ago," Neve said.

"I don't know nothing," he said, wiping his nose at her and nodding his head upwards. I keep telling people, it wasn't me. Till I'm blue in the face, I tell them. But her old man," he said, turning his face up like there was a sour taste in his mouth, pointing at Claudia. "He had it in for me. His baby girl loved me. When she disappeared, I was broken." He slammed his fist against the table angrily. "And then Maria was taken. And I got locked up for it."

"Santiago." The guard warned. Santiago put his hands into his lap.

"Where have you been? Huh?" He demanded at Claudia and Sophie. He was getting worked up.

"If you have been out there, why have you let me _I_ in here? Thinking you were DEAD?" He stood up and swayed side to side.

"SANTIAGO. LAST WARNING." The guard stepped forward with his hand on his baton.

Santiago's lips were pursed as his mind swum. He put his head on the table and then slammed his head into the table once, twice, three times. The guard moved forward and pushed him down onto the table so he couldn't move. He stared unblinkingly into Claudia's face. "Mi Amor. How could you do this to me?" He whispered angrily.

The door opened with a buzzing sound as another two guards came into the room. The girls were escorted out, followed by Mr Bertram.

They walked down the hallway silently.

Claudia was pale and held her stomach as she walked. Sophie watched her carefully and didn't leave her side.

"Excuse me, Nikki was it?" Bertram said. Nikki stopped as the others walked ahead. "What happened in there, exactly? What is this? How do..." he stammered. "How do they look so much like the victims?"

Nikki shrugged. "They just do. And somebody knows about Neve. They left her a threatening note. It was a picture of Rosemary Watts. That's how we found out about the whole case and Joey. It's only a matter of time before they find out about Claudia and Sophie too."

"A threatening letter? What did it say? Did you report it to the police?"

"Of course, we did. It said 'Dead Girl Walking,' and it was written in blood."

"I see." Bertram looked down the hall, the other three girls were waiting at the end for Nikki.

"How did you find each other?" he asked. "I mean how did you all meet?"

"We all live together and go to University together."

"huh, at Crawford?" Bertram said, his eyebrows arched as Niki nodded in the affirmative.

"Would I be able to get contact information from you, I'd love to talk to you more in depth. You may be able to help Joey's case."

"Do you think he actually did it?" She asked

Bertram shook his head. "No. Joey didn't do it. He was a victim. When I took his case, there were other missing girls from the university. At least two. They were minorities though. Nobody would listen, they only cared that the mayor was breathing down their necks trying to get his daughter back."

"There were other missing girls?" Nikki asked.

"Yes. I'll dig up the information and send it to you if you like, for your article."

"Article!" She said, suddenly remembering the ruse she had used to get in to see Santiago.

"Yes, please. You have my email address from before."

Bertram nodded and walked away.

"What did he say?" Neve asked as they walked out to the car.

"He said at least two other girls went missing from the University in the same year as Rosemary, Penelope, and Maria."

"Really? How come we haven't found anything out about them?" Neve asked.

Nikki sighed.

"Because they were minorities."

"Minorities?" Claudia asked.

"That's polite talk for 'Colored people'" Sophie said.

The girls looked at Nikki.

"What? I don't care that you said coloured. Calm down."

Neve, Claudia, and Sophie shared glances with each other silently.

"What?" Nikki asked again.

"You're... black." Neve said abruptly.

"So?"

"So? You're the only one of us that doesn't have a dead doppelganger." Sophie snipped.

Nikki balked. She hadn't really considered the fact that she was the odd one out. She'd merely been caught up by the madness of it all.
CHAPTER forty

wednesday – afternoon

The girls arrived home that afternoon after a quick stop at the mall. Neve pulled into the driveway.

"The front doors open," Claudia said.

"Yeah, we must have forgotten to lock it. It just blows open if you don't deadbolt it." Sophie said she rubbed her head absentmindedly where the door had struck her last week.

"Are you sure?" Claudia asked cautiously.

"Yeah," Neve said. "It swung open in the wind and smacked her straight in the head the other night. I saw it."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Nikki said defensively.

"I thought you knew?" Sophie said with a nonchalant shrug.

Claudia opened the car door.

"It's not windy though?' She said.

"Do you want me to check it out?" Sophie said cracking her knuckles.

"No!" Nikki said.

"Should we call Detective Dobson?" Claudia asked.

"I don't know about that" Neve said.

"He did say to call if anything suspicious happened," Nikki said agreeing with Claudia.

"Okay. Fine. Better safe than sorry." Neve said.

Dobson arrived fifteen minutes later in his old beat up navy blue sedan. He got out of the car and trudged across the lawn to the front door.

"Did you touch anything?" he said gruffly as he passed.

"No," the girls said in unison.

"Good."

Dobson disappeared into the house with his hand on his gun at the ready. The girls waited patiently for about ten minutes before he returned. He fiddled with the door handle turning the nob in his hand, testing it. Closing it and opening it. He opened it again and walked out.

"Your door handle is a piece of- its broken! Looks like it needs to be replaced." He said. "Can you go in and see if anything is missing please." He sounded impatient.

The girls walked into the house and looked around. The house seemed untouched.

"I guess the wind just blew the door open," Nikki said apologetically.

"Well, you guys can't be having that happen. You need security. There's a fuckin psycho out there giving your friends death threats. You all need to start taking it seriously."

He glared at Neve.

"Look. I'll go over to the hardware now and get you guys some new locks. At least until you can get the door sorted out properly."

"Let me give you the money" Nikki began to say.

Dobson waved her away.

"I don't need your money. I need you guys to be safe."

Dobson got into his car and drove away, leaving the girls standing around.

"He's right," Nikki said sadly.

"What do you mean?" Claudia said.

"The house isn't safe enough. It's old. It's falling apart. The lock on the door doesn't even work."

"So?" Neve said. "Locks only keep honest people out anyway."

Nikki's shoulders dropped.

"Let's go around the house and figure out where we need to put locks in place."

"Yeah, we could get barred windows or something," Claudia said.

Neve shuddered at the thought.

Dobson returned at twilight, while the girls were making dinner. Neve walked up to the front of the house to keep an eye on him. He came into the house with new sliding bolt locks and a hand-held drill.

"You got a pencil. I can use to mark the wall?" He said to Neve.

Neve went into the kitchen and returned to him. She handed it over to him without saying a word. Dobson looked at her.

"You know my boy, Owen, right?" he said focusing on the task at hand. Neve sat on the stairs.

"Yeah, Kind of..."

"Kind of?" Dobson repeated. "He's been a bit down and out lately, you know, more than usual. You guys have a fight?"

"Not exactly," Neve said.

"So, what happened? Was it a lover's quarrel?" he said with a laugh.

Neve just shook her head. Dobson was trying to be good-humoured and talkative, but Neve wasn't really in the mood.

Dobson looked around the floor for the screw he'd just dropped.

Dobson leaned back on his haunches and sized Neve up with his eyes. She could hear the television in the lounge room. Someone was changing channels.

"He's a good kid, you know, but he's not so great with people. Which is probably my fault. You know, because I work a lot and his Mother's... not around" he said. "What I'm saying is, don't let something stupid that happens or gets said between you two, make you give up on him. He doesn't know any better, and he's... sorry."

Neve realised Dobson wasn't just talking about her and Owen.

"I'm just trying to figure out who I can trust," Neve said.

He drilled the last screw in slowly and looked at her before standing up and stretching out a little.

"I'd like to think you knew that you could trust me." He said.
CHAPTER forty one

wednesday – evening

"Guys!" Claudia said from the lounge room, interrupting the awkward silent glance that Neve and Dobson were sharing. "Get in here, quick!"

Neve, Nikki, and Dobson walked into the lounge room where Sophie and Claudia were sitting on the couch. Claudia turned the volume up on the TV with the remote. A lady with long black hair and a nasal voice stood in front of the Crawford university sign with a microphone in her hand.

"As I was saying Brock, a second student from Crawford university has officially been reported missing today."

Neve glanced over at Dobson who seemed unperturbed.

"Lori Miller is a local girl, who is approximately 5 foot 6 with long blonde hair and a petite build." A picture was shown on the screen of a pretty blonde girl in a preppy vest.

"She went missing sometime last weekend after going to visit her boyfriend whom she reportedly met online. But she never came home." The journalist paused for effect.

"Lori was last seen on a train heading into the city on the weekend by friends who described Lori as a confident, optimistic and happy girl."

The scene changed to a teary-eyed girl being consoled by her friends.

"It's just so upsetting, especially after that other girl, Karey or something went missing. They haven't found her. What's going to happen to Lori? I can't stop thinking about what's happened to her. I just... I just can't..." The girl broke into tears.

The reporter appeared on the screen again.

"Kate Sharp went missing almost two weeks ago," Her picture was placed on the screen for a few moments as the reporter continued her report, "Some people are saying that these missing girls are merely a recreation of the disappearances of three other university students twenty years ago, in 1995. Joey Santiago was convicted of all three crimes, but the girls and their bodies were never found, and he has maintained his innocence all this time. So, are we dealing with a Copy Cat? Or has Joey Santiago spent the last twenty years in prison for crimes he didn't commit? If you or anybody you know has any information regarding Kate Sharp or Lori Miller's whereabouts leading up to their disappearances, please call this number." A phone number flashed across the bottom of the screen below two juxtaposed pictures of Kate and Lori.

"I'm Valerie Dalton, Reporting live from the Crawford University Campus. Stay safe out there, ladies."

"You knew another girl had gone missing!" Neve accused pointing at Dobson.

"Of course, I knew! I'm the detective on the case!" he said balling his fist up angrily.

"Why didn't you tell us!" Sophie demanded.

"I didn't want to scare you." He said.

"But you knew we were going to find out about it!" Neve said. "Why didn't you just tell u?."

"Because... I don't know! I have been busy looking into things."

"Too busy to protect us?" Claudia said meekly.

"Protect you? I just put locks on your door with my own money." He looked around the room at all the girls' upset faces.

"Look, I'm sorry. It was a bad call alright? I'm not a perfect cop. I didn't tell you, because I didn't want to scare you. Scared people, do stupid shit. I need you to be smart, and stay alive." He ran his hands through his hair.

"Look, your doors are done. Use the locks. Call me, or call the station if anything happens."

He stomped outside stopping only to pick up the drill on the floor as he left. The packaging from the locks lay strewn across the floorboards.

Neve followed him outside into the dark.

"Wait!" she said.

He stopped in the middle of the yard and turned slowly to face her his head rolled backward, chin jutting upward and forward.

"What?" he said impatiently.

"Thank you for the locks," Neve said. She watched him get into his car and drive away.
CHAPTER forty-two

wednesday – night

"Are you okay?" Nikki asked creeping up behind her in the dark. "I kind of overheard you before, with Dobson."

"Oh, you did, did you?" Neve said.

Nikki nodded.

"So?" Neve asked.

"You're not talking to Owen? I thought you really liked him."

"I don't know how I feel about him. It's complicated."

"Love is." Nikki lamented. "Did he do something wrong?"

"No. I don't know. It's just, with everything that's happening and has happened... I don't know who I can turn to, or trust now."

Nikki reached out and pulled Neve into a hug.

"You can count on me," she said.

"I know. Since I've been here, I haven't felt alone, anymore. I finally feel like I'm where I am supposed to be. With the people, I'm supposed to be with. I feel like I belong. Even if it sounds crazy, everything that's happening with us... it just makes me feel, normal."

Nikki hugged Neve.

Neve pulled away from the embrace because she noticed something large inside the letterbox, propping the lid open. Her heart started to pound.

"What's wrong?" Nikki asked. Neve pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket and used the torch app to see it better. It was a thick brown envelope. She moved closer to it and looked down. Nikita Raymone was written across the front in black marker. In the corner was a stamp. Bertram & Ass. She released a long breath.

"Holy crap. I thought we had another threat. It's for you, from Santiago's lawyer" Neve said.

"Wow Really? I thought I was getting an email."

Neve shrugged, and they both went back inside the house.

When Neve entered the house Sophie and Claudia were talking to each other loudly, Nikki walked in and plopped herself down on the carpet in front of the coffee table. Sophie and Claudia were sitting on opposite sides of the couch facing each other. Neve leaned against the door frame in the doorway of the lounge room and listened.

"Let's say I buy it. This..." Sophie paused trying to figure out how to say what she wanted to say. "whatever this is, clones? Reincarnated? Whatever this is." She said gesturing to the people in the room. "Let's just say I buy it for five minutes, Okay. Now what?"

Sophie leant back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest. She waited, eyebrows arched, daring somebody to speak.

"Well we figure out what happened, don't we?" Claudia said.

"How?" Sophie said.

Neve walked in and sat herself down on the carpet next to Nikki. She stretched out along the floor on her stomach and flipped her legs in the air to swing in the air.

"So, Santiago made a believer out of you then?" Neve asked, propping her chin on her hands, a smile snaking across her lips.

Sophie snorted, and her head moved around in an indecisive manner. Yes, no, yes, no. Finally, she stood up, lifting her shirt up, then her sports bra. Underneath her arm, in a very private place that would never be seen by anybody she wasn't intimate with, was a purple mark in the shape of two hands praying.

Claudia leant forward.

"Woah!" she said.

Neve glanced over at Nikki. It was hard to imagine the mark had remained secret from Claudia all this time.

"Wait, wait, wait," Nikki said, placing the half-opened envelope down in front of her as Sophie pulled her shirt back down. "Does this mean Claudia has three nipples?"

Everyone else giggled as Claudia's face turned bright red.

"No!" she said smiling. "It's not a nipple... it's like a beauty mark, or a mole or something."

Sophie sat down in her chair, "It's a third nipple" she confirmed.

Claudia tossed a cushion at Sophie, and surprisingly it made direct contact with her face.

"Woah!" Neve exclaimed clapping. "Actual contact!"

Sophie laughed and tossed the cushion back in Claudia's direction. She missed, which sent them into fits of insatiable laughter.

As the laughter died down Sophie slid the coffee table across the room and laid down on the carpet facing Neve and Nikki. "So seriously, what do we do about this?"

Claudia followed, after toppling off the couch.

"We try to put our past back together. We try to remember." Neve said.

"How do we do that?" Claudia asked.

Neve shrugged. "By finding out everything we can?"

Nikki shook the contents of the envelope out onto the carpet in between the girls. There were a few piles of paper clipped together in the corner and a post-it stuck to the front of the first one.

Nikki flipped the papers right side up.

"For your convenience, Missing girls that match the case from the area, the past twenty years including minorities." Nikki read aloud.

There was missing poster after missing poster. Nikki looked at each one then laid them out on the floor individually for the others to see. Mid pile she stopped, her hand shaking. Neve looked over at the page she was holding. A young Black girl with braids smiled brightly back from a grainy black and white photo.

Tabitha MaGumbu. Missing.

It was Nikki.

It had to be Nikki. Nikki was Tabitha. Tabitha was Rosemary's best friend. Neve kicked her shoes underneath her bed and sat down on the floor and pried the floorboards up with the little metal nail file she kept on the slats of her bed near the mattress.

The wood lifted and then the other piece. She reached into the space between the floorboards and found it empty.

Her journal was gone. Somebody had taken it.
CHAPTER forty-three

thursday – mid morning

Thursday's class was quiet. Neve was still avoiding Owen. She was sitting at the back of the room keeping an eye on him and Jimmy. She'd arrived late so she could sit away from them. She figured they were less likely to get up and join her if the class had already started. The auditorium emptied. Neve made sure they had left before her.

The room was almost empty when she sidled out of the back row to leave. Mr Cunningham walked up the aisle tucking his laptop into his side satchel.

"Neve," he said nicely as he approached. "How are you doing?"

"Okay, I guess." She said uncertainly. She'd handed in a report for the class to be assessed, and she was avoiding hearing the feedback on it, whereas other students had approached the professor for feedback.

"Are you?" he asked stopping. He studied her. "Wow you know, it's incredible how much you look like somebody that I used to know." He said.

"You mean Rosemary," Neve said. She wanted to bite her tongue immediately. The professor's eyes widened.

"Um, yes. Exactly. How do you... Oh, well I suppose with the news. Lately, it's come up in conversation. Yes. You look like Rosemary. It's uncanny. Actually, I almost swear I could put you both side by side and mix up which one you were."

Neve offered him a meek smile.

"Are you related?" he asked.

"Kind of," Neve said.

The professor tossed his head back and nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes? Oh well, that's where the resemblance comes from then." He said.

You have no idea, Neve thought.

"How do you like my class so far?" he queried, he leaned casually against the seats in the row in front of Neve with his arms crossed across his chest.

"It's been good? I think? I don't know. I don't have anything to compare it to really, Mr Cunningham."

Cunningham nodded. "Don't call me that. This is college, just call me John. And you're happy in my class?" he asked.

Neve nodded. She wasn't giving him much to work with.

"I have to get to work," Neve said finally.

"Oh, Yeah, I don't want you to be late."

"I won't be; I work at the Coffee shop on Campus."

"You're kidding!" he said. "Rosie used to -"

"I know," Neve said cutting him short.

He smiled and clapped his hands together. "Well let me walk with you? You know, safety in numbers." He offered. "I wanted to talk about your article with you anyway."

Ugh. Here it comes Neve thought regretfully.

"It's good. You're asking all the right questions, but you're not quite getting to the point. I kind of feel like you are running around in circles."

"I've been kind of distracted lately," she said apologetically.

"I can imagine. I can't imagine, actually. But I can empathise. For you to come to Crawford and have people start disappearing after the same thing happened to your – uh, what did you say Rosemary was to you? Sisters?"

"Yeah," Neve said, then quickly added under her breath "you could say that."

Cunningham nodded.

"So, yeah, after all, that and now this I can imagine, but I really want you to work on the conclusion to your narrative. There are too many questions left unanswered. Would it be weird to, talk about Rosemary's case in class? Me. Not you. I think it's kind of relevant now that's all."

Neve nodded. "Go ahead. I'm interested to learn as much as possible about her." She said honestly as they approached the entrance to the Stagg.

"Well I used to know her, maybe I could tell you some stories sometime. After class." He offered.

"Sure," Neve said with a smile.

Cunningham opened the door to the Stagg for Neve, and she walked through it as he left and continued walking down the path toward the car park.
CHAPTER forty-four

thursday – midday

The Stagg was bustling on Thursday afternoon. Neve was hanging for her shift to end so she could meet up with the girls to discuss everything further. They were going to head over to the library to look up as much information on the original case and all the other missing girls as possible. A team effort was required to sift through all the information, especially now that they knew all four of them were involved.

Owen was working busily behind the counter. He glanced at Neve whenever he thought she wasn't looking and she kept catching him before he had a chance to glance away. It was getting stupid. She had to confront him.

"How have you been?" She asked sidling up next to him at the counter. The silent boycott had to end, one way or another. They worked together and had a class together. Owen looked at her in bewilderment. She'd broken the silence.

"I'm okay. You?" he answered carefully.

"Yeah, I'm good."

"My dad said he talked to you, tried to get you to talk to me. I can't believe he did that." Owen looked down at his feet and rubbed the counter nervously with one of his fingers.

"Oh yeah, he totally did that." Neve said, "Right before we all found out about Lori Miller, From the News."

Owen looked up at her.

"He didn't tell you?"

"Nope. You know you could have said something."

"I thought you knew and you weren't talking to me. I didn't want to upset you more. Did I do something? Like, I mean maybe I'm an idiot for asking because I'm sure I'm supposed to know what it is that I've done, but I can't figure it out."

Neve sighed. "You didn't do anything. It wasn't you. Everything that's happening is doing my head in. I don't know what or who to believe at this point."

"Well, at least you have a better lock on the front door." He said.

"Speaking of which, I need to tell your dad something about last night."

"What is it?"

"I think someone was in the house because my journal is gone."

"Maybe you put it somewhere else?" Owen said.

Neve shook her head. "I keep my journal in the same place as Rosemary did, and you and I are the only people that know where that is. Trust me, I didn't misplace it. It's gone."

Owen looked uncomfortable.

"What is it?" she said.

"We aren't the only ones who know where you might keep it." He said.

Neve glared at him.

"Wait did you tell your Dad?"

Owen looked surprised.

"Uh, no. I told Jimmy about how we went to Rose's house and what happened."

"Jimmy?" Neve said.

The shift ended and Neve waited by the doorway as Owen exited the back room.

"Are we good now?" he asked.

Neve nodded.

Owen smiled. "So, I'm not getting any more silent treatment? From now on we talk to each other. Communicate and stuff. I want to help you figure this out."

"Okay," Neve said hands up in the air. "Done."

"My Dad will be home now so I will text you when it's a good time to come over and see for yourself okay."

"Done," Neve said. "I've got to go and meet the others at the library anyway."

Owen's right eyebrow arched quizzically.

"Oh?"

"A lot of stuff has happened since I stopped talking to you."

"Like what?" Owen asked.

"Okay. So, for starters, we went and visited Joey Santiago at Rydensac prison."

Owens eyes nearly bugged out of his head, and he moved around in front of her excitedly squeezing her arms and putting her still on the spot.

"Whose 'We?" When? What happened? What was he like?" He asked excitedly.

Neve's lips curled up into a smile at his childish enthusiasm.

"All of us girls."

"The three of you? How did he react?"

"The four of us. And he only seemed to recognise Claudia and Sophie. To be honest, I don't think he had anything to do with the disappearances."

"Woah," Owen said turning back around and walking toward the library. Neve followed.

"Wait," he said stopping. "The four of you? So, Nikki went too?"

"Turns out she's one of us."

"One of you?"

"Yeah, Joeys lawyer guy who's trying to get him out of prison said there were a bunch of other missing girls from the area over the years including two others that went missing in the same year as me and the other girls."

"So, why only focus on you three?" Owen asked.

"The other two girls were minorities."

"Jesus," Owen said, shaking his head.

"So, who is Nikki, like really?"

"Tabitha MaGumbu."

"She's Tabitha? Well, that makes sense, actually." He said.

Neve agreed.
CHAPTER forty-five

thursday – afternoon

Inside the library, Nikki, Sophie, Claudia, and Jimmy sat at a table surrounded by printed out articles and laptops open to news stories. Neve sat down in the spare seat reserved for her and Owen pulled a chair out from another table and sat on the end.

"Jimmy's here?" Neve said, stating the obvious. Jimmy acknowledged Neve with a small nod over the top of a book about Serial Killers.

"You brought your boyfriend" Claudia stated. "I've brought mine."

"Owen's not my boyfriend," Neve said. "What are we looking at?"

"Well," Nikki said. "We are looking into the missing girls from the posters that Bertram sent me. We have a basic timeline. If you focus mainly on women of a certain age, so, let's say 18 – 25 we cut half the pile out." Nikki placed her hand on a disregarded pile of missing posters. "Then we're left with about 20 people in the area in that age bracket." She fans her hand over the spread-out posters of the remaining girls. Including the missing posters for Tabitha Rosemary, Penelope, and Maria. "Then by timeline and dates on missing reports, we can see the ones who are in a pattern. Every Five years, for the last twenty years, four girls have gone missing about one week apart from each other, either from this school or the local area."

"So, whoever did this is definitely still out there, abducting girls and killing them too" Sophie surmised.

"Joey Santiago is, probably, innocent" Nikki said.

"Then why was he incarcerated?" Claudia said.

"Because he was fucking Penelope," Jimmy said crassly lowering his book to the table. It was open on the Chapter about Joey Santiago.

"Really, Jimmy?" Neve said.

"How does that get a man wrongly accused of murder?" Claudia asked.

"Well, first, he's not white..." Jimmy started, "And second he's fucking way above his class. Penelope was Mayor Langdon's daughter. Santiago was just a grease monkey."

"Mayor Langdon as in Mayor Langdon?" Nikki said in surprise.

"Grease Monkey?" Owen said.

Everybody stopped and looked at him.

"It means 'mechanic'," Neve said.

"I know. Rosemary was going to get her car back from Zuko's the morning she disappeared so she could see Tabitha's grandma. Danny Zuko. Grease. Grease Monkey. Mechanic. Santiago!" He exclaimed loudly.

The librarian shushed loudly in his general direction.

Neve leant over to him. "Good work, Detective... Dobson... Jnr."

"Wait, Rosemary knew Tabitha?" Nikki asked.

"Wait how do you know what Rosemary was doing on her last day?" Claudia asked. "Did you remember?"

"No. I found my old -Rosemary's old journal, and it was the last entry."

"Journal?" Claudia asked excitedly. "What do you mean you found it? Where did you find it? Can we see it?"

"At Rosemary's old house," Owen said before Neve could reply.

"You went to your old house?" Claudia said.

"Yes," Neve said. "Looking for answers, and no, I can't show you the journal because it's gone. It was stolen."

"Stolen?" Sophie said, cracking her knuckles.

Neve and Owen nodded.

"Speaking of old and new," Jimmy said, "Do we call you guys by your original names now or just keep using the ones you've got?"

The girls glanced around the table at each other to get a general consensus.

"Use our new names," Neve said. "I mean we are technically not who we used to be, anymore."

"What else did your journal say about Tabitha? Did you see anything before it was taken?" Nikki asked. "It's just there's almost nothing written anywhere about me, or her. I literally only have a name and an address out of town to go by."

"I do know, that she went missing first, a week before me. But you already know that thanks to the posters. I was looking for her, and her Grandma was looking for her."

"You were looking for Tabitha?" Nikki said.

"Yeah," Neve said, "She was my best friend."

Nikki looked at Neve and smiled.

"I believe that." She said reaching over and giving Neves hand a squeeze.

"Okay," Jimmy said. "Enough with the mushy shit, let's get back to the case. Okay, because somebody is still out there killing girls and has been for the last twenty years. We need to pull our heads in and figure this out."

"Why would you want to help us, though?" Neve asked him.

Jimmy stared at her like she was stupid.

"Are you serious? This is the most interesting thing I've ever heard of. We're going to solve your murders. Do you know how crazy that is to say to the actual live victims? We're journalist students Neve, I think you should understand why I'm so interested."

"For the fame?" Neve said.

Jimmy huffed and shook his head.

"You and I both know if the press touched this too early, you'd all be exposed and then you really wouldn't be safe. I mean so far we know that someone knows Neve is in Crawford, and they know she looks just like the killers' first victim ever."

"Second victim." Neve corrected.

Jimmy's shoulders dropped. "First known victim then. If it is a copycat, and you've received a threat, you are at risk. If it's the original killer, and he figures out you know something, then you are a loose end that he's eventually going to want to tie up. Once he figures out you're not the only one with a link to his past, the others will be in danger too."

He reached over and pulled Claudia to his side without breaking eye contact with Neve.

Neve put her head down and looked at the notes on the table. She rifled through some of the papers quietly.

"When I went home it triggered memories. Not memory memories but like, I knew things without realising I knew them." Neve said.

"So, what are you saying, if we go back to our homes we might remember?" Claudia said.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Also, I have dreams..."

"Nightmares," Nikki said correcting her.

Neve looked up from the papers in her hands. Sophie and Claudia looked away.

"Nightmares?" She said.

"You scream sometimes," Sophie said.

"Also, you like, hit the walls or kick them sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes." Claudia added.

Nikki squeezed her hand again.

"It's okay you know, people have them."

"You remember in your dreams," Claudia said. "God, your dreams must be terrifying."

"They don't really make sense at this point," Neve said quietly.

"What do you dream about?" Sophie asked.

"Do you ever dream about us?" Claudia asked.

"Kind of. I dreamed about Nikki once."

"Tell me about it?" Nikki asked sitting back in her chair comfortably.

"Well, um we were in like a swampy area. It was dark, and there was this light being carried through the trees, so we followed it. We came upon an old woman at a fire, and you said something... like it was over now, or it was the end? Then you stepped into the fire and then I was alone in the dark."

Nikki pulled the laptop over to herself and typed something into a search engine.

"Oh man, I hope we weren't like burned to death," Claudia said.

"Huh," Nikki said with a smile. "The address I found for the MaGumbu family earlier is out in the woods. It's a bit swampy out there, especially in wet weather" She turned the laptop toward Neve to see.

"So that's just like your dream!" Claudia said excitedly. "And you said that Tabitha's Grandma was looking for her, right? What did the old woman look like?"

Neve nodded. "She was black too. Um, black dogs. In the yard, under the floor. Dr Morris turning into Owen. Water. Choking."

"Drowning?" Claudia asked, leaning forward.

"Yeah," Neve said.

"I have this dream that I'm being held under water all the time," Claudia said. "Like it's a frequent nightmare."

"Well, that's like a common phobia," Jimmy said.

"True." Neve agreed.

"In my dream," Claudia said as everyone stopped talking and listened, "I'm walking in the woods. It's dark, and I'm lost, I think I'm on a hiking trail too because I always see this sign in my dream. It's some Mountain or something. The trail goes up a hill. Then suddenly I'm facing down in a creek, and I can't get up. I always wake up at that point, out of breath."

"Okay, that's scary," Nikki said.

"I agree," Jimmy said holding Claudia closer. "We should probably talk about something else."

"I never remember my dreams," Sophie said finally with a shrug.

"It might mean something, Neves dream was in the woods too," Nikki suggests.

"Write it down add it to the pile," Neve says.

"I don't really think you're going to get anywhere following your dreams," Jimmy said. "I think we should tackle this from an investigative point of view."

"Like asking people questions?" Owen said.

Jimmy nodded.

"Who?" Neve said.

"Start with the families, people that you used to know."

"We can't just walk around asking questions without them going, you look like my dead kid or friend though?" Sophie said.

"Probably not," Jimmy said agreeing. "But you can't afford to spare someone else's feelings when your life is at stake. Besides, Owen and I can ask the questions."
CHAPTER forty-six

friday – morning

"Hey, what are you doing today?" It was Owen. Neve rubbed at her eyes. He'd woken her from the first sound sleep she'd had in a long time.

"Neve?" He said into the phone.

She groaned in response. "What time is it?" She said.

"It's eight thirty. Rise and shine. My Dad had to go out, I think he'll be gone for a while. Did you wanna come over?"

Neve was out of bed before her brain had time to register the change in postural condition. Her vision went black, and her face felt too warm. Slowly the light returned as her head spin faded.

"I'm up!" she said. Stumbling sleepily out of her bedroom and across the landing to the toilet.

She was walking around with her eyes half shut holding the phone to her ear.

"Neve?" Owen said into the phone "I think I can hear you peeing?" Owen said.

Neve's eyes popped open. She was awake now. She pressed the end button on the phone hastily. She flushed the toilet and walked out onto the landing in her underwear and t-shirt.

"Woo woo!" Sophie said.

Neve covered herself with her hands and retreated to her bedroom.

"Are you coming to the University Today Neve?" She asked through the door.

"No. I don't have class. Or work, why?"

Neve shimmied into a fresh pair of jeans and reappeared at the door. All three girls were standing there waiting.

"What do you want?" Neve asked suspiciously.

Nikki smiled. Claudia grinned. Sophie looked at the other two and grimaced.

"Would you maybe want to pick us up this afternoon after class and drive out to the MaGumbu place with us?" Sophie asked.

"You guys are actually going out there? Of course, I'll take you."

"Great!" Sophie said.

"Thank you," Nikki said.

"So, you're also cool with dropping us off at school now, so we don't have to screw around with cars, later on, right?" Sophie added.

"Oh!" Neve said catching on. "I see. This has nothing to do with the fact that your car is being serviced, right?"

"Just a convenient coincidence," Sophie said shrugging.

"There are no coincidences," Neve said. "Give me five minutes to fix my face and my hair, and I'm all yours."

"Sweet!" Sophie said, and Neve listened to the three of them trample down the stairs.

"Someone make me a cup of coffee to go!" She called down the stairs.

"Dream on!" Sophie said back.

"I'll do it," Claudia said.

"NO!" Neve called down the stairs. "Anybody but Claudia, I don't have time to swing by the burns unit first."

Sophie laughed.

"I'll do it!" Nikki called out. "Get yourself ready!"

Neve looked in the mirror and cringed, and threw her hair into a messy bun.

She dropped the girls off at Campus and agreed to be back in the parking lot by One p.m. Then she realised she'd left Owen hanging since this morning. She dialled his number.

"Hey, stranger. Sorry about before. The girls needed me to drive them to Campus."

"That's okay." He said.

"Is it still cool to come over?"

"Yeah, can you meet me at Al's and I'll show you how to get here."

"Okay, no problem," Neve said, ending the phone call.
CHAPTER forty-seven

friday – mid morning

Neve arrived at Al's, and Owen jumped hastily into the car.

"Hello," Neve said.

"Hi," Owen said. "So just go around the block here." He said pointing. Neve followed the road around the block, and then they pulled up at the house directly behind Al's produce yard. It was a two-story wooden house that looked like it was one assessment off being condemned.

"It looks worse than it is," Owen said quickly.

"Yeah, well so does my place," Neve said.

The house really was better on the inside. If only by a fraction. It was obvious there were no female influences in the decorating. A completely naked buxom blonde woman spread out across a large poster was blu-tacked across the wall in the kitchen.

Neve's face was half shocked and half curious. Owen started to laugh quietly and composed himself. She cocked her head to the side to see the picture from a different angle.

"Come on" Owen teased affectionately, leading Neve by the hand up the stairs to the second floor. The air on the second floor was a tad musty. Owen opened one of the doors on the hallway and took Neve up the stairs into the attic. It was hard to see the room had very little natural light. He flicked the switch on the wall and the room illuminated. Dust settled over the room in slow formation.

All across the walls were articles and notes. Pictures of Neve, Claudia, and Sophie, handwritten notes on whiteboards, corkboards and files stacked against the edges of the floor.

"Wow. If your dad wasn't a cop Owen... I'd be really freaked out right now."

Neve walked over to the wall and looked at the photographs. There were pictures of Rosie in high school, along with other familiar faces. Goof. Joel. Cunningham. Cassandra.

Neve almost gasped out loud in surprise. There was a picture on the wall of Rosemary and Cassandra together. Rosie was hugging Cassandra from the side with her head against Cassandra's shoulder and her hand on Cassandras very pregnant stomach.

"I guess this is where your Dad's been keeping all the photographs of your mother. When was this one taken?" Neve asked.

"About three months before she killed herself and like two months before you disappeared."

"Your mother was pregnant with you?"

Owen walked over beside her.

"Yeah, she was."

Owen shrugged. "You having any kind of memories about her?" he asked hopefully.

Neve shook her head. "How did she die?" she asked.

"She killed herself."

"But how? When? Why?"

"My Dad says after she gave birth to me, she went into a deep post-partum depression. There was so much going on. Girls were being abducted, she'd just had a baby, and things weren't working out the way she had hoped. We had a storm. There was a lot of rain. The main street flooded. My mother jumped off the bridge into the water. She was swept away. My dad tried to stop her."

"He was there?"

"Yeah. He tried to stop her, he watched her jump. That's why he can't handle this time of year."

"I'm so sorry," Neve said placing a hand on Owens' arm. He shrugged it off.

"I never knew her; I don't know how to feel. Do I miss her? Don't I miss her? Is it okay to not feel anything about it?"

Neve continued to look around the room. There was a whole section about Cassandra. There was even a missing poster.

Neve pulled it off the wall and looked at it.

"My Dad filed a missing person report after she jumped off the bridge."

"Why? She was dead." She said.

"Because they never found her body, and because my Dad loved her. I don't think he's ever given up looking for her."

Neve looked back at the picture. Cassandra's face had changed. It was skinnier. Her big green eyes were almost alien like. Her smile had dimmed. She'd changed from the girl she used to be.

"I'm not surprised they didn't find a body, If the town was flooding, water was running downhill fast... She could have ended up anywhere. Even out at Sea."

Owen was still sitting at the table with his arms crossed.

"I'm sorry." She said quietly.

Underneath hers, Sophie's and Claudia's posters were there correlating fingerprints. Samples they'd given Dobson after he'd asked for them. They matched their original files perfectly. Neve wasn't surprised.

Underneath Neve's poster was something she thought she would never see again. A photograph of her parent's faces. The ones who had abandoned her.

Dobson had added a post it to the picture. 'Abandoned or Missing? Where are the Moore's?"

"Woah... he's trying to find my parents" Neve said.

"What?" Owen asked.

Neve showed him the note beside the picture.

"I never thought I would see them again. Maybe it's time to include him in this, in what we know, in what I remember from before. He's got a lot of information here. Maybe we can help each other figure this out."

Dobson's voice spoke from the bottom of the staircase.

"Well, that would be really helpful." He said walking up the stairs with heavy steps.

"Dad!" Owen said jumping out of his seat in surprise. "I'm sorry we were up here! I didn't mean to..."

Dobson silenced him with a raised hand.

"It's okay." He said. "It's fine that you brought her up here. She needed to see this."

Neve stared cautiously as Dobson came into the room. His size filling up the only way out of there. He walked over to the table and sat on it.

"So, are you really her?" His face was softer than usual.

"Yes, I am." She said.

"How much do you remember?" He said.

"The more I dig into the past, the more I make sense of myself." She said.

Dobson's eyes dropped to Neve's hands.

He stood up and walked toward her, gently prying Cassandra's missing poster from her hands. He looked at it sadly then placed it back on the wall where it belonged.

"Somehow, somewhere in that head of yours are the answers I need." He said. He stared at the wall. "Something is still missing."

"Well, for starters, your victim profile is missing the fourth girl," Neve said.

Dobson paused.

"The fourth girl?"

"The killer takes four girls every couple of years. They all go missing about one week apart."

"Every couple of years? Who else has he taken? Have you got proof that this is not just a copycat?"

Neve nodded. "Yeah, we have some research at home."

"So, Kate and Lori are..."

"Just his latest victims," Neve confirmed.

"Four girls? Four girls?" He said quietly looking at the wall. He stood up and paced slowly in front of it then paused. "One week apart."

He tapped the missing dates of the three posters, then glanced over at Cassandra's poster.

"Cassandra jumped off the bridge right before Sophie went missing!" He said, turning around to them. "She could have washed ashore somewhere, and he could have taken her easily making her the fourth girl! I knew it! No wonder nobody found her!" Dobson exclaimed. He unpinned Cassandra's poster and placed it in the fourth position.

He stepped back and stared at the board eyes glowing.

"Cassandra's not the fourth girl," Neve said.

"What do you mean she's not the fourth?" Dobson said. "The timeline works!" He said pointing at the wall.

"Tabitha MaGumbu is the fourth girl."

"Who the fuck is Tabitha MaGumbu?" He asked tensely, tearing Cassandra's poster down angrily.

"Tabitha is Nikki. She was the first one to get abducted. You know, Cops having that attitude is exactly why she got left out of the initial investigation."

Dobson sighed and straightened out Cassandra's poster.

"So, you're telling me, the killer abducts four girls every couple of years one week apart."

"Yes."

"There are others?"

"Yes."

"Who? How did you find out about them?"

"Santiago's lawyer gave us some information; he's trying to prove Santiago's innocence."

Dobson squinted.

"I want to see this information." He said.

"I'll bring you copies," Neve said pulling her phone out of her pocket. It was getting close to lunch. She figured she could grab a bite to eat before grabbing the girls.

"I got to go."

"Will you be back?" Owen asked.

"Not today."

"Where are you going?" Dobson asked.

"To pick up the girls," she said.
CHAPTER forty-eight

friday – afternoon

The, VW rocked about on the bumpy dirt road that trailed into the woods on the furthest outskirts of the town. Civilisation was left behind; it was real out here. It was people and nature. Small wooden houses popped up individually on the side of the road from time to time, and other times they passed mailboxes with driveways that made you drive into a more private residence somewhere beyond. They followed the road slowly until they came to a letterbox on the main dirt road that said 'MAGUMBU.' Neve turned the car into the driveway and slowly followed it deeper and deeper into the woods.

"How do people live so far out of town like this?" Jimmy said from the backseat. Neve had been unpleasantly surprised to find out he would be joining them. Her car was full, but Claudia had managed to squeeze her petite derriere into the middle of the back seat between Sophie and Jimmy. It was tight back there.

Neve adjusted her mirror to see them all. Shaking her head.

"Does anybody have a cell signal?" Jimmy asked holding his phone out in different spots inside the car.

Neve smiled, happy to see Jimmy uncomfortable for a change. Tabitha sat anxiously inside the car watching at every turn in the driveway in the hope to see the house appear.

"Is this a driveway?" Sophie asked.

"I assume so," Neve said, beginning to wonder that same question herself.

The sight of houses through the thick trees was a welcome relief.

"There!" Nikki said.

Everybody squinted out the windows as Neve navigated the dirt track. The car rolled into the clearing and stopped in the middle of four wooden shack looking houses. Everything from animal bones and hides decorated the verandahs.

"We better not die out here," Sophie said quietly.

An old woman sat on the porch rocking slowly back and forth in a chair. It was the woman Neve had seen in her dreams. She pulled the clutch up and got out of the car. Nikki followed.

The woman had been asleep or resting her eyes when they'd arrived. But as the car door had creaked open, she'd suddenly became animated.

She was old and frail, hunched over with a lot of bushy white hair coming out on all angles from her head. Her eyes were milky white, contrasting sharply with her dark skin. She moved her head as she heard the unfamiliar sounds of her trespassers. The breeze picked up behind them, easing them forward.

The woman inhaled deeply through her nose. Her dry, scaly lips spread open. The deep crevices in the wrinkles cracked open slowly and painfully until her black rotting teeth appeared.

"Jesus," Jimmy whispered.

The old crone cackled happily. She brought her hands together in a slow clap, again and again.

"Tab-i-taaaaaaaaaaa!" She called out in a long drawn out crackly voice.

"Ta-bi-taaaaaaaaaa" She started to laugh loudly, rocking back and forth clapping her hands together faster and faster.

"We should definitely go home," Jimmy said.

"No," Claudia said.

Nikki was mesmerised. She walked forward slowly. Neve followed her matching her step for step. Suddenly Nikki paused and glanced back at the car.

The old crone was standing up now, with the help of a tall wooden walking staff. She stared down at them with her milky white eyes. Her black teeth glistening through her cracked brown lips.

Neve reached out to Nikki and took her by the hand, nudging her onward. This what they had come for.

The old crone's head twisted around as she counted the people approaching by the sounds of their footsteps.

"Mmmhmmmm," The old woman said. " 'bout time you found your way home to Mama, Miss Tabita." Her grin widened.

"And you brought some friends back with you too!" She sniffed at the air fervently.

Her head jerked to the side. She locked her milky eyes on Neve.

"Rose-mareeeee" She hissed dragging the name out for a long time. "Mmmhmmmm!" She wailed banging the staff on the wooden boards of the verandah.

Nikki looked over at Neve and relaxed.

"Come here." She said beckoning with a long gnarly finger. "Let me seeeee you."

"Can you... even see?" Jimmy asked. Claudia punched him in the arm.

The crone cackled. "Ha!" She moved quickly and effortlessly off the verandah and approached him. He stood still as a post. His nose crinkled as the sour stench of her breath hit his face. She inhaled his scent like a dog on the hunt.

"Don't need eyes to see! Seeing is not everyting. Have you believing you need eyes to see!" She said with a laugh and turned around she approached each and every one of them and did the same until she stopped at Nikki.

"Eyes see da colours, see objects, see da light and de darkness. You get so caught up in what you can ', dat you don't realise when you are truly blind. Take away your eyes" she said approaching Neve and covering them with one hand. "And you start to see 'Sense.' You sense people for who dey really are. For what dey are really made of." She lowered her hand looking directly into Neve's eyes with her milky orbs.

"Not for how dey look." She wandered slowly back up onto the verandah and turned back to them.

"You sense what's comin'," She gestured to the road in front of her. "who is goin'" she lowered her gaze to Neve.

"Who can tell de trut', who is a liar, who got an Angel in dem, and who has been touched by Demons." She lowered her gaze onto Jimmy before turning promptly back to Nikki.

She shuffled forward excitedly until she was in Nikita's face.

"I don't need eyes to see dat you are my Tabita. You might not remember who you are, walking around like you got some kind of Amnesia. But your essence is the same. You are just Tabita wit'out the memories. But we soon fix that. Like we fixed you to come back here." She chuckled.

"Are you the reason we came back?" Nikki asked.

The crone threw her head back cackling loudly.

"No!" She said, lifting her gnarly finger up and jabbing Nikki against the heart, smiling. "You are!"

"Come inside!" She said sweeping her arm widely around. "Storm's coming," she said.

The wind started blowing gusts through the open clearing, whistling as it blew through the trees. The animal bone wind chimes clinked together noisily rocking backward and forward.

They followed Mama MaGumbu into the house.

The house was cluttered with strange objects, and Neve noted that there was orange sand-like substance across the doorway as they entered. The crone stopped inside the house and watched as each and every one of them walked through the threshold.

"Hmmm," She said thoughtfully, Closing the door behind Jimmy with a slam.

"Sit down," She said gesturing toward the lounges. The five of them sat uncomfortably in the dusty house. Sophie almost jumped out of her skin as she brushed against the hanging bones of another animal. She shuddered.

"You don't belong here." Mama MaGumbu said to Sophie, "But that's okay. You are here now."

She turned and sat herself down in the armchair.

A knock sounded at the door.

"Come in!" The crone called out, and the door opened. A large black man appeared at the door.

"MaMa, whose car is in the driveway?" He asked in a deep voice.

The crone gestured to all of her guests sitting quietly in the room. Nikki was looking around the room at the walls. There were symbols painted all over the place, and photographs on the walls of what she assumed must be her direct descendants.

The man dropped to his knee with a heavy thud on the wooden floor.

"Mama MaGumbu. You have brought Tabitha back from the dead?" He exclaimed his eyes were wide with surprise and fear.

"I have done no such t'ing." The crone said. "You know dat we can do no such t'ing witout great consequence. Our Tabita has done it all on her own."

"With my help?" Neve said questioningly directing her words at Ma MaGumbu. The old lady smiled.

"Yes." She said smiling.

"What can you tell me about what happened to me?" Nikki asked.

The crone shrugged. The man from the doorway stayed resting on his knee.

"Jonah, you may go." She said excusing him. He backed away from the room and exited the house. Neve watched as he walked over to one of the other houses.

"I can tell you not'ing. I know not'ing. If I knew anyt'ing, I would have found you myself." She lit a long match and moved it slowly toward the incense stick on the side table. The smoke snaked up into the air, and the aroma filled the room. The crone smiled and shook the match out.

Neve felt suddenly as though the room was moving like sand does when it passes through the eye of a timing glass.

"I will do anything to find her," Rosemary said.

Mama MaGumbu sized her up from the sitting chair. She placed the dead match on the table in front of her. The smoky incense coiled up into the air between them. She clasped her hands together in front of her.

"Den you will find her." She said.

"How?" Rosemary asked.

"You're not afraid of me?" Mama asked.

Rosie shook her head.

The woman sighed, throwing one bejewelled hand out to the wind.

"I can't get a single person in dis town to take me on my word dat Tabita hasn't up and run away. But you are determined to find her?"

Rosie nodded. "Yes, ma'am."

"Call me Mama. Everybody does." She drawled. She trailed her fingers lightly up the inside of her neck as she considered what to do.

Mama took Rosemary's hand in her own and flipped it over palm up and looked at the lines in her hand.

The woman stood up, her greying hair spread ethereally in all angles toward the ceiling as she moved gracefully across the room. Her long Robe dress swept at the dusty floor sending dust bunny's scattering into corners and under furniture.

Mama MaGumbu then performed some kind of ritual over Rosemary. Anointing her with oils and chanting over her as if in prayer.

She walked away from her, leaving her in the room for some time. When she returned, Rosie had begun to rest her eyes, opened them in surprise to find Mama standing in front of her.

She yanked Rosie's hand out of her lap, palm side up, opening her fingers to receive. Then slowly lowered a heavy necklace into Rosie's hand letting the chain coil on top slowly, finally dropping it entirely into Rosie's hand. She closed Rosie's hand over the prize.

"Take dis to her," Mama said, her breath blowing on Rosie's face.

"I don't know where she is," Rosie said.

"Take dis to her. She will do the rest."

The memory slipped away as it had started and Neve came back to the room staring eye to eye with the crone that Ma MaGumbu had become. Her breath was sour.

"Ahhhhh, this one almost remembers. We will make you remember, again." The crone promised as she turned away and left the room.

Everybody exchanged silent looks with one another.

"What was it?" Nikki asked.

"I remembered something," Neve said.

"What?" Claudia asked leaning forward excitedly.

"On the day that I went missing, I came to this house to see Mama. I was trying to find Tabitha. She blessed me or something and gave me some kind of amulet to take to her. Said that Tabitha would do the rest." Neve finished with a shrug. "That's it."

"How will she make you remember again? Do you think?" Claudia asked.

"What is this anyway? Voodoo?" Sophie asked moving further away from the bone chime.

"Hoodoo. Maybe. I think" Nikki said.

"Is there a difference?" Claudia asked.

"Yeah, I think so," Neve answered.

"So Mama's a... a witch?" Claudia said looking around.

The old crone appeared at the doorway with a tin of something in her hand.

"I've been called many t'ings." She said walking slowly into the room. "This is just who we are. Our religion. Passed down from generation to generation, until it was passed to me, and then I was going to pass it onto you Tabita." She said.

"Oh, boy!" She said, smiling. "You got the power strong in you! I had no idea you were even paying dat much attention, but to bring yourself and your friends back from the dead. It's no easy feat."

The crone turned to Neve and held out the tin.

"You drink this in hot water before you go to bed. It will bring back those memories."

Neve reached out and grabbed the tin placing it carefully on her lap.

The shutters began to bang on the walls outside.

"It's time to go. The weaders changing." She said. Neve glanced out the window as the sun slipped behind the tree line. The house grew darker as the daylight gave way to the night.

Mama looked at Nikki and touched her hand. "You will come home again, soon." She said.

As they piled into the VW thankful to be leaving the property alive. Neve looked back at the old lady on the porch. Mama was watching them, Jonah appeared on the porch beside her with a shawl helping Mama wrap up against the cold. Was it possible that they had been brought back to life by the powers of this mysterious religion?

"Are you really going to drink that tea?" Claudia asked.

"Shoot, if they can bring four kids back from the dead, I'm sure they can brew a memory replacing tea, no problem," Sophie said.

"Yeah, I'm going to drink it."

Neve glanced over at Nikki who was sitting quietly in the passenger seat. They were still driving on the dirt roads, and the car was jostling around a fair bit making Nikki's head bump against the window from time to time.

"Are you okay?" Neve asked.

Nikki looked over and sat up properly.

"I was expecting something... else." She said.

Neve nodded.

"Yeah, it was a bit weird," Claudia said.

"It was a little underwhelming," Nikki said. "I thought that I don't know I thought it would feel more like family."

"Aw," Claudia said sadly from the back and leaning as far forward as she could. She reached her arms out over Nikki's seat.

"We are your family now. We love you so much!" She said.

Sophie joined in on the love reaching out and hugging Nikki and her chair.

"You guys!" Nikki said with tears brewing in her eyes.

"Aw!" Neve said. "I want to hug you too." She pulled the car over to the side of the road and leaned into the hug.

Jimmy clicked his tongue against his pallet and awkwardly tried to join in. He ended up giving Nikki a few pats on the top of her head.

The girls all turned to look at him. He'd completely ruined the moment.

"What are you doing?" Nikki asked him laughing.

Jimmy shrugged. "Trying to fit in with this... whatever this is." He said. "I don't know!" He crossed his arms defensively and turned to look out the window.

The girls laughed. Nikki wiped her eyes. Claudia snuggled up to her boyfriend until he wrapped his arm around her.

Neve pulled out of the ditch and drove up to the turn that took them back into Crawford. Her headlights illuminated a wooden sign in the grass.

"Hmm," Sophie said out loud, as they turned the corner.

"What is it?" Claudia asked.

"I feel like I've been here before."

"Really?" Claudia asked. Nikki turned back in her seat to look at Sophie.

"What makes you say that?" she asked.

"The sign back there, it's familiar to me."

"What sign?" Jimmy asked.

"The one back there, by the road. The one for Mount Press Marsh."
CHAPTER forty-nine

friday – evening

Neve strained the chunky bits of bark and leaves the old crone had called 'tea' from the cup as the girls watched and waited with bated breath.

"I've got emergency services ready to go at the push of a button," Sophie said holding up her phone, so everyone could see.

"Thanks," Neve said, feeling more nervous. She exhaled deeply and slowly.

"You don't have to do this" Nikki said.

"I want to. I want to at least try." She said bringing the cup of hot black water to her lips.

It was bitter and spicy on her tongue. She put the cup down holding the liquid in her mouth.

She gulped it down and waited.

She didn't lose consciousness or start foaming at the mouth. Her eyes didn't go fuzzy, her head didn't swim, and her stomach didn't regurgitate. She was fine.

Nikki let out an audible sigh of relief.

"Hang on, maybe it takes longer," Sophie said.

Claudia shot her a disapproving look.

"Sorry." She said.

Neve carefully took another sip and another, drinking until three-quarters of the cup was gone. She started to feel an effect. Her arms became heavy, and her eyelids lowered lazily. She was falling asleep right there in the kitchen standing up. She felt hands around her bracing her as she wilted into unconsciousness.

"What do we do?" She heard Sophie say in alarm.

"She's okay. She's still breathing." Nikki said.

"She's asleep," Claudia said.

The room slipped away into darkness.

Rose felt herself hit the wooden floor with a forceful Thud. She flew forward from the force of the push. What? She tried to look up, but someone grabbed her head by the hair and yanked her hard. The room was dark. She kicked her legs and flailed her arms, hitting walls on both sides of her. She tried to focus, her vision danced around in two layers of the same image, never quite meeting in the middle to make an exact picture. She was in a dark hallway. She kicked against the wall and pushed herself back against the person who was holding her but it was no use, her pink taffeta dress tangled her up. They were bigger and stronger anyway, and she felt funny she thought. Weaker than usual. Her body slumped weakly even though she was willing herself to fight.

There was a creaking noise behind her as her captor pulled a trap door up from the floor and using his foot, he pushed her toward the hole in the floor. She toppled face first into a dark pit falling onto her side with a sharp intake of breath as her ribs ached from the impact. The ground was soft and cold, and she was thankful for it breaking her fall, but it was in her mouth. She tried to push the gritty soil out of her mouth with her tongue, but it was everywhere. Her eyes opened slowly. She glanced up as the trap door closed, and with it, the light was extinguished.

Something moved quietly in the dark. Rose held her breath and listened. She couldn't move, she couldn't fight, and now all she could hear was her own breathing and her heart beating in her ears. She held her breath and listened again. Nothing. Head spinning, body feeling weaker, she wondered if she was under the effect of some drug as she slipped into unconsciousness.

When her eyes opened again, she was still in the dark. She blinked as her eyes adjusted. There was a greyness to the dark now as light filtered thinly through the floorboards above her head. She looked up. She was underneath somebodies house. Dust filtered down as the floorboards creaked under somebody's footsteps above.

"Rose?" someone said quietly from the dark. Rosemary jumped and moved as fast as she could through the dark until she hit a cold brick wall. She felt her hands across it; there was no end to it. She breathed heavily, hyperventilating almost.

"Is that you, Rose?" the voice asked again. It was dry.

"Tabitha?" She said.

A shadow moved in the grey darkness, slowly coming toward her until Rose could see her in the largest crack of light.

Tabitha was dirty and unkempt.

"Rose?" She said, choking up with tears.

"Tabitha!" Rose exclaimed lunging forward. She wrapped her in the biggest longest starving hug.

"Where are we?" Rosie whispered.

Tabitha shook her head and sniffed.

"I don't know," she said crying.

"Did they hurt you?" Rosie asked.

Tabitha shook her head.

"No, they have just kept me down here. They give me food and water. They don't even touch me. I don't know what they want. I can't believe they got you too."

Rose was trembling, holding onto Tabitha tightly.

She glanced around the room. There was a strong smell of feces and piss. Tabitha had been down here alone, all week. And now, Rosemary was with her too.

"I saw Mama yesterday," Rose said after they'd cried together for some time. They were leaning against the cold wall. Tabitha coughed. The person upstairs thumped the floorboards as a warning, and she muffled the cough as best she could into her own shirt.

"What did she say?" Tabitha asked when the coughing fit had passed.

"She said to give this to you," Rosie said revealing the amulet necklace from underneath her party dress.

There was noise up above them. The floorboards creaked, and dust sifted in from the floorboards as they moved.

Tabitha took the necklace gingerly in her hand and felt it with her fingers in the dark.

"What is it?" Rose said.

Before Tabitha could answer the trap door made an unlocking sound. Tabitha quickly put the necklace on and tucked it under her shirt.

The door opened and with it, light. They blinked and shielded their watery eyes from the blinding brightness.

A bucket was lowered into the room. It stopped at the dirt with a soft thud.

Then the trapdoor closed and they listened as Footsteps walked quietly away.

Neve felt herself spinning around unable to make sense of her bearings, her eyes fluttered open. The girls were there, watching over her. She felt the softness of the couch below her body as she drifted back into the dream.

Rose was weaker now and sore. Her body was cramped in the too small space beneath the house. They could barely stand up and walk around in the space between the ground and the floorboards above their heads. Rose walked from one side of the room to the other hunched over as Tabitha watched weakly from the wall. She needed to keep herself active. The light was fading. There would be another bucket soon, another morsel to put into their aching stomachs.

Night time came. The room grew darker and colder. Tabitha and Rosie huddled together for warmth and were drifting into sleep when suddenly there was a loud bang upstairs.

They jerked upright from the dirt and listened.

The front door slammed closed above their heads, and there was a sound on the floorboards. Thump. Step slide, step, slide, step.

Tabitha stared wide-eyed at Rose.

The lock on the trap door rattled, and the door flew open. No light filtered down. The room above them was grey. Rosemary moved forward and looked up. There was a dark figure above her. She squinted trying to see them better. The figure bent over out of sight and with one last slide dropped a body into the dirt with them and closed the door above.

A petite figure lay sleeping in the dirt dressed in a long coat and long pants. Tabitha and Rosemary moved toward her, inspecting her. They couldn't see much, but she was smaller than both of them.

"Do you think he's dead?" Rosemary whispered to Tabitha.

The small girl stirred, groaning. The fall had disturbed her, but not enough to wake her.

"She's still drugged," Tabitha said. "It must be taking longer for her to wake up cause she's so small."

They waited for what seemed like hours for the new girl to wake up, but she slept soundly until Rose and Tabitha fell asleep too.

"Where am I?" the girl asked loudly. Rosemary's eyes fluttered open.

"Sh! Don't talk so loudly or I don't know what they will do. I don't know where we are." Tabitha answered.

"Who are you?" Rose asked moving closer to see her. She had long blonde hair.

"Penelope Langdon. Who are you?" she asked.

"I'm Tabitha MaGumbu." Said Tabitha.

"And I'm Rosemary Watts."

"Rosemary Watts!" Penelope said in despair.

"Oh no. What are they going to do to us?"

"We don't know," Tabitha answered honestly.

"Penelope" Neve whispered. Nikki reached over and brushed Neve's hair back. She'd begun a light sweat.

"It's working!" Claudia said excitedly to the others.

"Shhhhhhhhh..." Nikki said, easing Neve back into the dream.

Rosemary sat against the wall, huddled with Tabitha and Penelope beside her. She'd given up hope. The endless waiting and wondering was wearing her thin. Tabitha went into another coughing fit. Rosie rubbed her back and tried to help her bring up the congestion. How much longer could they stay down here in the dark? It had rained constantly for days, there was water from outside leaking into the pit, the girls had dug around the outside of the room to catch the water and it was colder and damper than usual.

What little daylight there was in this wet weather was fading, they were waiting for the bucket. Tabitha was burning up. She needed medicine and clean water. Penelope cupped her hands together and caught some running water in her hands and scooped it into Tabitha's mouth.

Footsteps thumped loudly across the floor, and the three girls huddled closer to the ground listening. There was some kind of excitement up there, as their captor moved quickly between the rooms. Things seemed hectic. Something was up. They listened.

The trap door lock rattled, and for a moment Rosemarie's heart stopped. This was it. The end. Tabitha leant forward clutching the amulet in her hand. "Mama" she whispered hopefully.

"What? Who is this?" They heard somebody whisper loudly. They couldn't tell if the voice was male or female.

"Don't touch me!" a girl yelled angrily.

The captor didn't speak. Whoever they were, they punched her in the face hard. The girl spat into the hole and struggled against them. She was awake! She was fighting hard against them. The figure tried to push her into the pit.

"No!" She screamed. Her feet were pressed against the edges of the floorboards, and she was fighting going into the hole.

Another punch. This time from the other person up there. Her foot slipped, and she dropped into the hole.

"Fuck you!" She screamed, standing up and fighting against the door as it closed. The captor was trying to push it down, but she was fighting back and winning. The other captor joined in, and the door got lower and lower as The girl started to lose the battle until it closed with a slam. The bolt slid into place above them.

"Maria?" Penelope said tearfully, standing up.

"Jesus! Penelope?" she said. "Oh, Penelope!" She exclaimed. "I can't see you, where are you?"

The others watched as Penelope made her way over to the new girl in the dark and they hugged.

"Are you okay? Have they hurt you?" Maria asked tearfully holding onto her friend.

"Did you see them? Did you see who's doing this to us?" Penelope asked.

"No, they were wearing masks and black clothes." She said.

Tabitha squeezed Rosie's hand and leant heavily against her, her breathing shallow. There was never a bucket when another girl came. There would be no food or water tonight.
CHAPTER fifty

saturday – morning

Neve opened her eyes. It was very early in the morning. The sunlight was only just beginning to creep in through the windows. She was asleep on the couch. Nikki was asleep on the other couch and Sophie and Claudia were sprawled over the lounge room floor with blankets and pillows all over the place.

She sat up, her head spinning and her mouth dry.

She needed water.

She walked into the kitchen and drank thirstily from the tap.

It was raining softly outside, and there were puddles in the back yard. The black dog was out there. Sitting by the tree, watching her.

Neve walked toward the glass doors staring at it. It wasn't growling today. Just sitting helplessly out in the rain. She dared to slowly open the glass sliding door. The dog watched her patiently as the rain dripped down his face. He stood up and walked behind the tree out of sight. Neve stepped slowly out onto the back patio and walked toward the tree. The cool rain hit her skin, and she glanced up at the sky mouth open drinking. Would the thirst end? She wondered. She looked toward the tree and crept closer and closer until she was beside it. The dog wasn't there.

She walked back inside and began to close the sliding door when she heard the tapping of dog's feet on the floorboards in the house.

Shit. The dog was inside the house. She walked quickly through the office into the loungeroom. The girls were still asleep, and safe. She walked through the living room toward the front door. Neve stopped unable to comprehend what she was seeing. The muddy paw prints began at the front door as if the dog had phantom walked his way through the door. His muddy tracks stood out against the long grey hall runner and into the kitchen across the old linoleum floors. She followed the footprints, and they led all the way out the open back door where Neve had been standing before.

"How the heck?" Neve wondered aloud. She shook her head as she retraced the muddy paw prints to the front door and opened the front door. The paw prints were on the porch too. An uninterrupted trail of freshly laid pawprints from the front door to the back door through the house. It didn't make sense.

"Why are there dog prints all over the floor?" Nikki asked quietly.

Neve jumped. She hadn't heard her get up and walk over.

Neve shook her head.

"I don't think I fully understand it myself." She said.

"What do you mean?" Nikki wondered.

"Have you seen a big black dog outside the house before?" she asked.

Nikki shook her head.

"Huh, that's weird. I see it all the time. It was out the back, then it was in the house."

"Is it still in the house?" Nikki asked in alarm.

Neve shook her head.

Nikki pulled Neve inside and closed the door.

"I doubt that will keep him out," Neve said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the front door was closed when these prints appeared."

Nikki's eyes opened wide. She looked at the floor and followed the tracks into the kitchen and started fixing herself a cup of coffee.

"How did you go last night with the tea, did it work?"

Neve sat down on one of the stools.

"Yes and no. It didn't tell me much. But Kate Sharp and Lori Miller are still alive. Although they don't have much time left."

"Do you know where they are?" Nikki asked.

"Underneath the floor?" Neve said.

Nikki stood back and glanced down at the linoleum below her feet.

"Somewhere else," Neve said reaching out and stealing a sip of Nikki's cup.

"God, I'm so thirsty. The tea is killing me."

"Don't say that," Nikki said with a frown. "What now?" Nikki asked.

"I don't know. We figure out what all of these girls had in common if we can."

Someone knocked on the front door. Nikki hurried down the hallway to open the door.

"Neve, it's for you" she called down the hallway.

Detective Dobson stood at the door.

"Come in out of the rain," Neve said motioning him forward.

"I just came to see about those missing people and the information you were telling me bout, I don't want to get your floor all dirty."

Neve smirked.

"Don't worry about it, as you can see it's already pretty messed -" she stopped mid-sentence looking around at the floor. The floor was clean. There was no longer any sign of the paw prints.

"Woah," Nikki said.

"You saw it too, right, it's not just me?" Neve asked her.

Nikki nodded.

Dobson entered the house and kicked off his muddy boots and placed them in the corner.

"Saw what?" he asked.

"Nothing," Neve said. "Trust me, don't worry about it."

"No, really, what was it?" he said.

"It's going to sound crazy," Neve said.

Nikki nodded.

"Right now, we are doing crazy on a daily basis. I don't think this could get any weirder."

"There was a black dog in the house."

Dobson's face fell.

"And there were muddy pawprints all the way through the house, from the front door to the back door. And they've disappeared."

"I saw them too," Nikki said.

"Did you see the dog?" he asked.

Nikki shook her head. "No, I didn't. But I saw the pawprints myself. They were here a minute ago."

"See?" Neve said. "I told you it would sound mental."

"Have you seen this dog before?" he asked.

"I saw it when I moved in, once in a nightmare. Then I saw it outside this morning."

"The second time you saw the dog, how long was it after you saw the dog the first time?"

"I don't know, about a week."

"That's what I thought." He said.

"What do you mean?" Nikki asked before Neve could say anything.

"Cassandra used to see a black dog, whenever a girl was abducted." He said. "I didn't believe her." He said sadly. "Nobody did."
CHAPTER fifty one

sunday – morning

The morning rain fell continuously outside as Neve and Nikki moved listlessly around the house waiting for news of the third abduction. Nikki refreshed the internet page she was looking at with an impatient double click. The clicking sound was a loud, rhythmic accompaniment to the drops of water leaking from the roof into a bucket placed on the ground beside her.

Neve sighed heavily into her hot cup of Coffee, momentarily extinguishing the mesmerising wisps of steam that she was using to distract herself.

"There's still nothing on the internet," Nikki said entering the room with the almost full pot of leaky roof water. She emptied it into the sink with a loud gush before placing it back into the computer room to fill up again. "I'm going to have to inform the landlord about this leak." She said with a sigh.

"We have a landlord?" Neve asked. "I thought you owned this place?"

Nikki laughed and shook her head.

"Uh, no. I'm just renting it and subletting the rooms." She leaned over the computer desk and refreshed the page again.

Her shoulders sagged.

"Why don't you text Owen and see if he's overheard anything from his Dad?" she asked.

"I already did," Neve said pursing her lips together tightly. "Still nothing. He hasn't been home yet."

Neve stood up and stretched herself out, walking over to the stove to check that the kettle was still hot, looking for a distraction.

The sound of the house key grinding into the lock moved her attention to the front door which she rushed impatiently toward as a soaking wet Sophie, Claudia and Jimmy entered, dripping. Sophie looked up at neve's expectant face and nodded her head gravely.

"Nothing yet," Claudia said, shivering and shaking rain off her jacket. She placed it on one of the coat hooks to dry.

Sophie and Claudia brushed past Neve, who was leaning against the stairs, in the hallway almost trampling her toes as they headed toward the warmth of the kitchen.

Neve glanced down at her feet as they passed and noticed a damp stain had appeared on the hallway runner. She glanced around for the cause of the stain, another leak in the ceiling perhaps, she thought, but couldn't see one. She walked into the kitchen and dug another pot out of the cupboard and placed it over the damp stain on the carpet as a precaution.

"There's another leak in the hallway," Neve said to Nikki when she came back into the kitchen.

"Ugh," Nikki said, aggressively double-clicking the refresh button on the computer again and again.

Another half hour passed before Dobson turned up at the front door. Neve helped him out of his wet outer layers noting that his expression was grim. He didn't speak until he entered the kitchen and had all four of the girls together.

"There's been a third abduction." He finally stated.

"When?' Neve asked.

"Why isn't there anything on the news yet?" Nikki said.

"Who was it?" Claudia interjected.

Dobson stood up and stretched himself out to his full height.

"I'll tell you what I know, but first, can I get a cup of Coffee?"

"Of course!" Neve said hopping out of her seat.

Dobson sat back down and rubbed his tired eyes.

"Okay," he said gathering his thoughts.

"It's not on the news yet," he started, directing his response at Nikki. "Because of the weather probably. It's raining cats and dogs out there." He gestured toward the view side through the glass doors. He looked at the bucket beside Nikki. "And in here too, by the look of things."

"The girl's name was Annalise Thermopolis. Apparently, she was a bit of a loner. Nobody realised she was missing until late last night. Apparently, she was supposed to babysit one of her neighbours' kids and didn't show up, which according to the couple, was, "very inconvenient, and not like her at all, because, and I quote, she had "no life."" Dobson threw his hands up angrily and made double comma gestures as he quoted the 'no life' comment.

"Insensitive much?" Sophie muttered.

"Right?" Dobson said, agreeing.

"Are we sure she's one of the victims?" Claudia asked.

Dobson nodded gravely.

"There was a dried rose left lying on the floor outside her apartment door. As far as we can tell, She wasn't a student at the University. Nobody seemed to know much about her at all. She was quiet, kept to herself, very shy. There's a chance, a real possibility even, that these abductions aren't planned. That the girls are chosen at random and opportune times."

"Wait, what does that mean?" Nikki asked.

"It means, he could be an impulse killer, which probably means he's a psychopath," Claudia said.

"Oh, great. A psychopath. Who doesn't love one of those?" Sophie said sarcastically.

"What if his victims aren't completely random?" Neve said. "I mean, the victims all come from a specific area. Crawford, right?"

"That only tells us where he hunts, not who he's going to choose next," Dobson said.

Neve nodded and squared her shoulders, chewing her lip nervously as she handed Dobson his cup of Coffee.

"What if...?" Neve began, but stopped and bit her lip harder to silence herself.

"What?" Dobson said, leaning forward.

"Well," Neve said uncomfortably, "What if he chooses his victims because they're more isolated than other people? Kate was depressed, she had troubles, right?"

Dobson nodded but stayed quiet.

"And Lori," Neve said continuing, "Well she just jumped on a train to meet a guy she didn't even know in real life. Which is kind of insane when you think about it, we are warned almost on a daily basis not to do that by everyone, everywhere because of what can happen."

The girls nodded in silent agreement.

"Catfish," Sophie said.

Dobson eyebrows furrowed.

"What exactly are you getting at?" he asked.

"They were lonely people. They didn't have a lot of people around to miss them. What if he chooses people based on the probability that they might not be noticed. I mean, how long would Annalise be missing before somebody said anything if she wasn't supposed to be babysitting? And Kate used to disappear all the time, apparently, so even when she did go missing people just assumed, she's just doing her normal thing."

"And that's how he gets away with it." Jimmy surmised, "By taking people you wouldn't notice are gone. He takes the nobodies."

Neve jumped at the sound of Jimmy's voice, she'd forgotten entirely that he was present.

Dobson scowled. "They're not nobodies. They're people, they belong to other people. They have families and lives and purpose." He stared angrily into his cup of coffee. His hands strangling the hot mug in frustration.

Dobson sighed.

"The very last time Annalise was seen by anyone other than the person who took her was very early Saturday morning." He said, to Neve.

"If you see that Black dog again, I want to know. I want you to call me if you have to, but you tell me." He said, looking determinedly into Neve's dark eyes.

Neve nodded.

"Black dog?" Jimmy asked.

Claudia waved her hand around in a dismissive manner. "Don't worry about it." She said.

Dobson still held Neve's gaze intensely.

"You understand now, don't you?" He said quietly, watching her. "You're only going to see it one more time."

"This year," Neve added solemnly with a shiver.

Dobson's phone rang loudly, causing everyone in the room to jump. He answered it formally. Nikki exchanged a meaningful glance with Neve and the others.

It was understood silently between them, that there was only one more chance left to find him before he disappeared for the next five years.

Dobson ended the phone call and gulped down the last of his coffee.

"I gotta go, Duty calls. Call me, if you need me, or if anything happens. Thanks for the Coffee." He said and walked out of the room.

"What were you guys talking about? With the black dog?" Jimmy inquired.

"It's nothing, just some old mangy stray that hangs around. Let's go upstairs?" Claudia said. Jimmy followed her out of the room.

Neve exhaled heavily as Jimmy and Claudia exited the room.

"We only have one more week," Sophie said.

Nikki nodded. "We're running out of time to figure this out."

"Guys, what if we can't figure it out?" Neve said holding her head in her hands.

Sophie stood up and walked across the kitchen to the cupboard and opened it. She pulled out the tin of memory tea brew that Mama MaGumbu had given to Neve and placed it on the counter in front of Neve with a metallic clink.

Neve picked the tin up gingerly in her hands and looked at it, silently, nodding in agreement.
CHAPTER fifty-two

sunday – mid morning

Neve's eyes opened groggily in the dark room. Nothing had happened. There had been no dreams or visions at all. The tea hadn't worked.

She rolled over on the mattress with a heavy defeated sigh and stopped as the bed springs screeched loudly. Where was she? She wondered as she realised she was somewhere different than she'd been when she closed her eyes.

She sat up quickly in the bed and again, the bed springs screeched awfully.

She wasn't in her room anymore that she knew for certain. In the dim light of the changing sky outside, she could see the faint outline of a lamp on a table beside her. She felt around the base of it for a switch and turned it on, blinking until her eyes adjusted to the light, and looking around.

Neve was sitting in Rosemary's fully restored and furnished bedroom. Beneath the lamp was an old fashioned rectangular shaped flip alarm clock. The numbers changed over as she was looking at it. According to the clock it was now five a.m., on October Seventh, 1995.

Neve looked around the room in shock. This couldn't be, could it? She wondered, punching herself very hard in the thigh. She winced. Somehow, the Tea had brought her back in time. But she wasn't living in Rosemary's memory because she was Neve, all of Neve in Rosemary's place.

Neve crept as silently as she could out of the creaky bed and lifted the floorboards to see if her journal would be there. It was. She quickly opened it to the last entry and read it.

'October 6th. It's been a week tomorrow since Curly Sue disappeared."

She slammed the book shut, in a moment of shock, trying to adjust to what was happening. She closed her eyes and opened them again. Trying to wake up in her real life. She tried again and again, then tried slapping herself in the face to snap out of it. Nothing worked. She was stuck. But what did it mean, she wondered. If she was in Rosemary's place would everything go as it should, or could she change things? Or no matter what would she end up in Rosemary's place, and if so, was she going to die?

Somewhere in the house, the floorboards creaked. Neve hurriedly put Rosemary's journal away, hopped back into bed switching the lamp off as she got comfortable facing the wall and pretended to be asleep. Maybe if she went back to sleep, she would wake up in the right place and time.

Her bedroom door opened quietly, and someone walked quietly into the room and closed the door behind them. Neves' eyes popped open in alarm in the darkened room as she listened. Her hairs stood on end, and she remembered Owen telling her that the Detective on her case had speculated that the abuse Rosemary had endured at home had been more physical. She shuddered to think what that meant.

The bed creaked as the mattress at the end of her bed compressed under her visitors' weight. She could hear them breathing.

The visitor sat, watching her silently for quite a while before Neve felt her covers starting to slip away slowly.

She was frozen. Immobilised by panic. Her mind was racing. She knew she could try to stop this in its tracks. But as insistently as her mind urged in agreement that she should act she just couldn't move a single muscle in her body.

A hand touched her leg and brushed upward. Neve flinched as her stomach somersaulted into her throat and turned to look at him. Jed was undisturbed, watching her react. His expression earnest and sickening.

He continued to move his hand upward. Neve's hand was hanging over the side of the mattress where she felt something sharp at her fingertips. Slowly her fingers identified the sharp object between her bed and wall as a small paring knife. She clutched it in her hand as Jed continued his assault on her.

In one swift movement, Neve sat bolt upright in the bed and stabbed Jed between the legs.

His anguished cry echoed throughout the house, and he punched Neve hard across the face with his left hand. Her head hit the wall hard, her vision was spotty, but she knew she needed to get out of there.

Neve lunged out of bed, hitting the hardwood floor and tried desperately to untangle her legs from the blanket to get away.

Rosemary's door swung open with a slam which seemed a perfect opportunity for her to get away, but as neve went to dart through it, she found herself being pulled back into the room by her collar by the woman standing in the doorway.

"What?" Neve wondered incredulously out loud.

"What's going on?" The woman demanded angrily.

Neve looked up at this woman, she was very attractive and sophisticated, her long dark hair was in curlers.

"Well Rose?" she scolded, slapping Neve in the face. "What's wrong with you? What's going on?" she said again icily.

Neve realised she was looking at Edith.

"He was touching me" she stammered pointing accusingly at Jed who was still howling about the knife in his crotch.

"No, he wasn't" Edith declared firmly.

"What?" Neve said incredulously, "How can you say that? Yes, he was. He's in my bedroom at five a.m. in the morning, he wasn't coming in here to make a social call."

Edith slapped Rosemary across the face with more fervour than before and fixed her attention on her daughter's eyes with a wide, unblinking gaze.

"You're being ridiculous Rosie. Do not talk to me like that, ever again. I will not have it in my house."

Neve couldn't believe what was happening. She pushed past her mother into the dining room, shaking all over. Was this how it happened for Rosemary, on her last day at home?

"Take yourself to the hospital, you disgusting pig," Edith said coldly to Jed, who whimpered as he shuffled past her.

As he passed Neve in the dining room, his demeanour changed in an instant. Instead of shuffling out the door to go to the hospital like he was told he decided to retaliate. He grabbed Neve by the hair and slammed her head into the wall.

"I'm going to kill you, bitch." He spat into her ear.

"No, you won't." She heard Edith say with authority. No sooner had the words left her mouth than Jed had stopped his attack on Neve, frozen in his tracks. He spat on Neve and Neve watched as Edith shoved him away from her and ordered him down the hall and out of the house.

Neve watched as Edith turned to look at her. In her eyes, she was looking at her own daughter Rosemary crying in pain, laid out over the table. Her eyes were cold and accusing. She said nothing before she walked away.

Neve fell to the floor sobbing and wished desperately that she would wake up from this Nightmare that Rosemary had called her life.

The victims were lonely nobodies she thought bitterly with tears in her eyes. Rosemary had been a lonely nobody.

Neve's head was still throbbing when she left the house. She tried to remember what she was supposed to do that day. The diary had reported that she'd gone to collect her car from the garage so she could visit Mama MaGumbu, hadn't it? She wondered.

Where was she even supposed to go, she wondered stopping at a telephone box. She flicked through the phonebook until she came across an advertisement for Santiago's Garage. She pulled the page from the book and headed toward the location on foot.

When she arrived at the Garage, a young, upbeat Joey Santiago greeted her with a big smile.

"Ola, Chica!" he called out, throwing a greasy rag over his shoulder with a friendly smile. "Your cars all ready to go." He said walking her over to the cash register. He side eyed her as he noticed the split on her lip and the bruising that was appearing on her face. He leafed through the receipt book beside the register "You're Watts, right?" he asked. Neve nodded.

"It's just thirty-five dollars to pay out the rest of the account." He said with a less engaging and more sympathetic smile.

Neve stared at him and rummaged through Rosemary's purse hoping she would have the money in there. She pulled out a wallet and opened it up. She was ten dollars short.

"Shit." She said.

Joey leaned forward and looked at her wallet.

"I tell you what," he said quietly. "We'll just call that even, okay."

"Really?" Neve asked, "Are you sure?"

Joey looked at Rosemary, his face softening. "Yeah, I'm sure." He said with a smile.

"Thank you," Neve said.

Neve took the money out of her purse, and Joey handed her the keys. Neve clutched the money tightly as Joey tried to take it. It was hard to imagine that in a few days this guy's life was going to be destroyed by this transaction.

Joey sensed that something was up. "Is everything okay?' he asked.

"I've got a killer – uh, a massive headache all of a sudden." She said.

"Oh, do you need me to call someone? Do you want an aspirin maybe? I'll give you one out of the first aid kit, no charge" he offered.

Neve smiled.

"No, no thanks, Joey." She said. "But hey, do you ever think about getting out of Crawford?"

Joeys eyebrows furrowed.

"Sure, I do, who doesn't? Why you asking?"

"No reason. It just seems like right now is as good a time as any to get away from it all, you know?"

His brow furrowed deeper. He nodded in agreement.

"You're the second person to give that advice to me this week, you know?"

"Really?" Neve said. "Maybe you should take it." She offered.

"Yeah," he said. "Anyway, Rose? You're cars out in the parking lot behind you."

The phone rang. He smiled at Rose and told her to have a nice day before picking up the phone and returning to business.

Neve glanced back at him across the parking lot as she unlocked the car, wishing there was something she could do to stop this young man's life from being destroyed. Maybe, maybe she just could.

The drive out to Mama MaGumbus wasn't as easy as it had been when Neve had visited the neighbourhood last week with her housemates. For one thing, in Rosemary's day more of the roads were still dirt and road signs seemed optional and were usually propped up against shrubs or non-existent at all. She had to get there using mostly memory alone.

When Neve arrived, Mama MaGumbu was standing on the porch waiting. She ushered Neve through the doorway into her home and invited her to sit in the loungeroom.

"Who are you?" Mama asked.

"My name is Rosemary Watts, I'm friends with Tabitha," Neve answered.

"Rosemary?" Mama said looking Neve up and down sceptically. "Are you?" she asked again.

Neve nodded.

Mama stared at her, patiently.

"Are you, Rosemary?" she asked finally.

Neve's breath caught short.

Mama continued to stare deeply into Neves' eyes.

"I don't think you would believe me if I told you," Neve said.

"Try me." Mama dared.

"My name's Neve Moore. I have been here before. A few days ago. With Tabitha."

Mamas eyes grew wide.

"Twenty years from now," Neve said.

Mamas chin lowered as she listened to Neve talk.

"Someone takes us, and kills us, and they're still killing girls twenty years from now. We came back from the dead somehow, and you gave me this tea to drink, and I drank it to remember and now somehow, I'm here. In the past. Not just seeing it, but living it."

Mama's interest piqued.

"How many times have you drank de tea?" she asked leaning forward and taking Neves hand.

"Three?" Neve said.

"You can't drink any more of de tea, it's dangerous." She said.

"So, you believe me?" Neve asked.

Mama nodded. "Come wit me," she said leading Neve by the hand into a private room where she performed some kind of smoke-filled ceremony.

"Why are you here?" she asked Neve, finally.

"I have to find Tabitha, I will do anything to find her."

Mama MaGumbu clasped her hands together in front of herself and nodded. She slid an amulet across the table toward Neve.

"den you will find her."
CHAPTER fifty-three

sunday – night

Neve parked her car on the street outside Rosemary's house and debated with herself about what to do next. What happened between now and the dance tonight? She wondered glancing over at the house for any sign that anybody was home. Jed's car was still gone which was good, and there was no obvious sign that Edith was there, but Neve still wasn't sure how she felt about going back in there. On the one hand, she was trying, desperately to remember everything in case there was a clue or a revelation there that might help, and on the other hand, she wasn't sure she wanted to know one more thing about Rosemary's life. Somewhere at some point today, Rosemary Watts got chosen to be taken and eventually killed, today.

A tap on the window brought Neve out of her thoughts with a knee jerk reaction. Edith was standing outside her car, wearing a long black maxi dress and a small, soft smile, waiting patiently for her daughter to respond.

Neve got out of the car and looked carefully at Edith who seemed in good spirits.

"You came home," Edith said softly with a smile, as though talking to a scared animal she didn't want to frighten away. "Good."

"Well, I have to get read," Neve said.

"Ready for what?" Edith asked with her painted red lips.

"I'm going to an 80's themed dance tonight. With a friend from my school."

"Oh," Edith said, her face falling. There was silence between them both as neither knew what to say next.

"What are you going to wear?" Edith asked finally.

Neve shrugged.

"Well, I think I may have something put away that you could use." Edith offered.

"Okay," Neve said, wondering if this was how it happened for Rosemary.

Edith's face broke open in a big smile as Neve looked at herself in the mirror. The puffy pink taffeta dress was perfectly retro, and Edith had teased out Rosemary's hair and even done her make up.

"You look wonderful," Edith said. "I do good work."

Neve just offered an uncomfortable smile. This was the dress Rosemary was wearing. So everything was going to plan.

Neve slipped the amulet over the top of her dress.

"Oh no," Edith said trying to remove it immediately.

Neve jerked away.

"It clashes" Edith argued. "and it's ugly. Where did you get it?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter," Neve said, tucking it inside the top of her dress.

Edith sighed and gave her daughter one last look.

"You'll be safe tonight, won't you?" she asked fiddling with Rosemary's dress.

Neve nodded.

"Is your friend bringing you home tonight?" she asked, "Who is she anyway? Do I know her?"

"She is a He," Neve said.

Edith face changed to a scowl, but she didn't say anything.

Neve realised this was the last time Rosemary would ever see her mother, and the last time Edith would ever see her daughter. She thought back to the woman she'd seen in the kitchen, blind, hobbled and aged terribly and how much the toll of losing her daughter would take on her, twenty years from now.

As cold and unfeeling as Edith seemed, nobody deserved that kind of pain.

"I love you," Neve said.

Edith scowled again.

"Go have fun." She said.

The dance was in full swing, the music was loud, they were lost in the crowd of bodies when Joel decided to make his move. He reached out and took Rosie's face in his hand. He leant forward, toward her, his eyes closed, his lips pursed to kiss when out of the corner of her eye behind him, Neve spotted a familiar face in the crowd. She moved her head across to see better and there in the midst of the dancing couples was, unmistakably, Owens mother Cassandra in a heated argument with someone who was facing away from her.

Joel's lips connected awkwardly with the side of Rosemary's head. Embarrassed he tried to collect himself and in doing so stepped in-between Rosemary and her line of view.

"Joel? What are you doing?" Neve said, trying to look around him into the crowd, she spotted Cassandra again, briefly. Her body language was obviously accusatory in the direction of this other person. She was very angry with him.

Neve figured Joel might recognise the person Cassandra was talking too.

"Joel?" she said turning to him.

Joel was looking at Rosemary, with pain in his eyes.

"Joel?" Neve asked.

Joel reached into his pocket and pulled his glasses back out and placed them onto his face as he turned to leave.

Neve was torn, she wanted to make him feel better, and explain the misunderstanding, but she needed to know what was happening across the floor.

She watched, regretfully as he disappeared into the crowd and started making her way through the crowd to where she'd just seen Cassandra, but they were no longer there. Neve glanced around the room looking for a way out, there was a large factory door opening up into the parking lot outside, and she headed toward it.

The air was cool and refreshing, and as she moved further away from the factory the music became quieter, and for the first time that night Neve could hear herself think. She leant across one of the parked cars and listened. The sound of a woman speaking angrily carried through the carpark. It was easily disguised by the music if you were too close to the party, but Neve could hear the unmistakable sound of an argument. She followed the voices until she spied them between some parked cars at the far end of the parking lot.

"Cassandra, shut up before someone hears you." A male voice said. Neve peered through the spaces between the cars and tried to get a better look. The ruffling off her Taffeta dress would give her away if she wasn't careful so she stayed as far back as she possibly could, hoping to catch a glimpse.

"Cassie?" Someone called out into the parking lot. Neve looked across to see a young Dobson or Goof as he was known then looking for Cassandra. He called out for her again and again as he moved toward the party. She wondered briefly if she should tell him where Cassie was.

"You can't tell him, anything, ever." She begged.

"Why would I want to Cassie?" The mystery guy said defensively. "My name gets dragged into this too, you know? You're not the only person with something to lose."

"Fuck you too, John." She said angrily.

"Really?" John said incredibly. "Fuck you too? Isn't that how you ended up in this predicament in the first place Cassandra? Being easy?"

Cassandra's mouth fell open, and for the first time, Neve got a view of the other person. It was John Cunningham, Jimmy's Dad.

"Just don't fuck this up for me, please. Do this for me. And for him." She said, dropping to her knees and pleading. "Please John."

John shook his head and brushed his hand over his head stressfully crying out angrily. Cassie jumped up and put her hands on his shoulders squaring him up in front of her. "It's important." She said gravely.

"Hey!" Dobson called out across the parking lot. "Cassie? Is that you?"

Neve watched as John headed into the dark. Cassie stood where she was as she tried to wipe the tears off her face.

"What's going on?" Dobson asked as he got closer and could see that Cassandra was upset.

"Cassie? Are you okay?" he said reaching out to her. Cassie moved instinctively to his side and let him place a protective arm around her shoulder. He could see undoubtedly, even in the poor light that she had been crying.

"What's going on?"

"Nothing. You know how I am lately. I just can't seem to keep it together."

As Cassie pulled Dobson into the dark, closer to where Neve was crouched between cars spying on them, he heard her comforting her. "Come on, Cassie, we should get home to the baby."

She sobbed and nodded.

"Oh no," she said, stopping.

"What? What is it?" Dobson asked concerned.

"It's here." She said.

"What's here?" Dobson asked confused.

Cassie's breathy sobs increased. "That Dog, from before."

"Where?" Dobson said putting Cassie behind him. "Where is it, Cassie? I don't see it. I swear to God if they don't catch this thing soon."

Cassie stood behind Dobson clutching onto his shirt trying to calm her breathing.

"I can't see it, I can just hear it, growling," She said.

Neve listened, and sure enough, she could hear the low long menacing growl of the angry dog out there in the dark.

"I don't hear anything," Dobson said.

"It's out there," Cassie said.

Dobson listened.

"Cassie, I think this might be in your head honey, there's no dog."

Cassie nodded absentmindedly. "Let's just get out of here, okay?" she asked, and they headed off toward the party again, leaving Neve and the dog alone together in the carpark.

The growling was getting closer. Neve lowered herself to the ground and looked under the car in time to see the dogs' paws walking slowly on the other side of the car.

Without hesitation, Neve jumped up, her Taffeta dress crinkling as she moved and sprinted across the car park and into the woods with the dog right behind her, barking and nipping at her heels. She ran until she reached the main road, where suddenly the Dog vanished into thin air. She stopped to catch her breath and collapsed into a heap on the side of the road.

A car pulled up in front of her, blinding her with the headlights. She looked around and realised she was all alone. Her eyes started to focus on the Grill of the car, and she realised she was looking at the bonnet of a familiar blue truck. When something hard struck her head.

There was a noise, like the sound of a truck backing up when Neve woke without opening her eyes next. The sound continued, disturbing her sleep and she struggled to open her eyes to find it. She reached out lazily with her hand until her hand brushed across a phone. The noise stopped, and Neve was settling back into the pull of sleep when she realised another person was laying with her, spooning her, their arm draped across her stomach.

Neve moved carefully and quietly out from underneath them and turned to find herself looking into the face of Tabitha MaGumbu.

Her eyes opened.

"Neve?" she said. "God, I didn't think you were going to wake up, I was so scared."

"Nikki?" Neve said.

Nikki nodded.

Neve burst into tears and hugged Nikita closer and tighter than anything.

"I'm back, I'm back." She sobbed.

"Are you okay?" Nikki asked.

"Yes!" Neve said. "I am now."

"What happened?" Nikki asked.

Neve shook her head.

"I can't right now, I need to sleep," Neve said.

"But Neve, you've been asleep for twelve hours."
CHAPTER fifty-four

monday – morning

Professor John Cunningham paced back and forth across the floor in front of the podium looking up at the students who sat silently in their seats.

"So, by now, no doubt, you have all heard there's been a third abduction in Crawford in as little as three weeks." He stated.

Nobody responded. Some people glanced at their neighbours or checked their phones behind notebooks, but nobody made a sound. The room was silent.

He stopped pacing on the left side of the room and placed his hands into his pockets.

"As Journalist students, and one day hopefully as journalists you may find yourself working on a story like this, which is what I would like us to do today, So start taking notes. Our job as journalists is to find out and report facts, not our feelings, Cindy." He said to a student who was seemingly losing interest. "This is why we aim to cover the five W's and the H, the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How of the piece before we figure out how we are going to tell the story. People want to read the facts. People want to be in the loop. Whether it's to be armed with information, or merely to have something interesting to gossip about at the water fountain. We need to tell them when things happened, what happened, who it happened to, Why it happened, and if we can, who is responsible, and in a situation like this, how does one protect themselves from becoming a victim?"

Cunningham glanced around the room at his students and walked over to the podium to drink his coffee.

"Don't feel like you have to stick to the story. Find your angle and develop it. Ask questions, lead the reader to ask their own questions. We as journalists not only report the facts as we know them but we can also use our writing as a platform to ask new questions and even bring attention to alternative ideas concerning the case."

"Like how Joey Santiago may have been wrongly imprisoned all of these years?" Someone offered from the front row.

Neve maneuvered herself in her seat to see who had spoken.

"That is a possibility, one other possibility, and more likely being that there is a twenty-year gap between abductions is that this is most likely the actions of a copycat." The professor surmised.

Neve raised her hand in the air, and the professor looked up at her.

"Yes Ro- Yes Neve?" he said, catching himself.

"Actually, I've been doing some research that indicates-"

"We've been doing research" Jimmy interjected. "Together."

Neve glanced sideways at Jimmy before continuing.

"We've been doing some research into the case, and it appears the-"

"-Original killer has remained active. He's been moving around, abducting and likely killing his victims across the state without being caught. Probably because the police botched the initial investigation by pinning it on Santiago." Jimmy finished smugly.

Neve's mouth hung open.

"Yeah, what he said." She said dryly, motioning toward Jimmy.

Cunningham looked down at his shoes for a brief moment.

"I'd really like to see this research, if I may?" he asked.

Neve nodded.

"I'll get it for you first thing." She said.

"Okay," Cunningham said with a clap of his hands. "So, let's write a practice opening lead for our story, using what you know and what you can gather from other articles on the internet, left side of the room stands for Joey's innocence, and the right side of the room will be against it. I want you to draft an outline for the body remembering to use the five W's and the H and put it on my desk by the end of class."

As the students opened up their laptops and started looking into Joey Santiago's case people began, one by one, at first, quietly and uncomfortably acknowledging Neve's resemblance to his alleged first victim Rosemary Watts.

Neve sat, self-consciously, as the whispers and stares became louder and more insistent. The room became abuzz with the static hum of people speculating on the uncanny resemblance.

"We're related," Neve said loudly. "Hence my interest in the case."

The room fell silent, and most of the students returned to their work, as the excited hum slowly ebbed into the normal amount of noise made on any given day. One or two people still turned to look at Neve but were quick to glance away when Neve acknowledged them.

When the class was over, Neve waited until almost everybody had left before she approached the professor at his desk.

He looked up at her from his laptop, and half shut the screen.

"Yes, Neve?" he said.

"I can't talk long because I've got to go to work," she said, "but I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about Rosemary."

Professor Cunningham nodded.

"Of course, what do you want to know?"

"I was wondering if you remembered anything about the day she disappeared, maybe you saw her?"

Cunningham shook his head. "I didn't actually. I believe she went to a party the night she disappeared and wasn't seen again after that."

Neve nodded. "So, you didn't see her at the party then?"

Cunningham shook his head again.

"I didn't go to it." He said

"Oh," Neve said, swallowing dryly.

"Are you sure you didn't go?" Neve said. "It's just I heard from someone else that they saw you there that night,"

"I'm positive I didn't go, whoever said they think they saw me was mistaken." He said. "What exactly did they say they saw me doing?"

"They said they saw you arguing with Owens Mother Cassandra in the parking lot."

"Cassandra? Owen's mother?" The professor said in surprise. "Owen isn't Cassie's kid?" he said.

"Yes, he is."

Professor Cunningham looked surprised.

Neve's phone alarm beeped to remind her to go to work.

"Well, I've got to go to work." She said.

The professor smiled.

"Sorry I couldn't be more helpful." He said.

"That's fine," Neve said turning to leave the now empty room.

"Rosie," Cunningham said.

Neve turned instinctively. Cunningham stared at Neve's face for a moment before speaking.

"Sorry, Neve." He corrected. "The resemblance between you two is really unnerving... You said you had research that the person responsible for the abductions was active all this time?" he said.

Neve gripped her phone tightly in her hand.

"Yeah," she said.

"Could I get copies?" he said.

"I'll email them to you," Neve replied.

"Good, thank you," He said.

Neve left the room quickly glancing backward as she walked out of the room.
CHAPTER fifty-five

monday – midday

"You look distracted Today," Owen said hanging his apron up inside his locker at the Stagg.

Neve fiddled, absent-minded, with the locking mechanism on her own locker, pretending she hadn't heard him.

Owen moved closer, and Neve felt obliged to look at him. His large green eyes were concerned.

"Neve, what's wrong?" he said, "You can talk to me."

Neve sighed.

"It's everything."

Owen placed a comforting arm around Neves' shoulder and pushed her locker door shut with the other.

"I'll walk you home, okay? We can talk about everything on the way." He offered.

They walked through the café and out into the open quad before Owen dared to pry further.

"So, what's 'everything'?" he asked.

"I'm just feeling overwhelmed, and confused." She said.

Owen stared at her and waited for her to continue.

"There's only one more girl left. It's one more chance to stop him, and I don't know anything new. When I drank the tea, the vision, thing, I experienced it was worthless. At the end of it, I didn't even see who was there. I just saw the grill of a truck which seems familiar, but I can't place it. I'm scared that I'm not going to be able to help those girls Owen, and then, everything that's happening, Us, coming back how we have, that it's all for nothing because I can't see the big picture."

"Neve, it's not over yet, you still have time." He said reassuringly.

"It may as well be over Owen. It doesn't matter how much I see, or learn, or feel- it doesn't make any sense to me. I can't put it together, and everyone is watching me and waiting for me to figure it out, and the pressure is killing me. I'm terrified. It's so exhausting being afraid. I feel like I'm going crazy." She said with tears welling in her eyes.

Owen squeezed her shoulder and pulled her into his chest for a hug.

"Just because you can't see the whole picture doesn't mean that what you know isn't important Neve. I mean, you're remembering, right? It will come to you."

Neve sighed. "I only remember so much because Mama MaGumbu gave me this special tea to drink that helps, but I can't drink it again. I've drunk too much, and it's dangerous. The last time I drank it, things got really weird."

"Mama MaGumbu?" Owen asked pulling away.

"You mean the old witch out in the woods?" he asked.

Neve looked up at him.

"Jimmy told me about that." He said bitterly.

"I would have invited you if I'd known it was going to be a thing. I thought it was just going to be us girls." Neve said.

"It's fine," Owen said. "So, this tea, makes you remember things?"

Neve nodded. "Yeah it does, at first they were like dreams and then..."

"then?" Owen asked.

Neve pulled away and started walking again. Owen hurried to keep up.

"Then what?" he asked.

"The last time was weird. I was there. Me, the way I am now, but I was in Rosemary's place, as Rosemary. I relived the day she disappeared."

"Like time travel?" he said, "What happened?"

Neve shook her head. "I don't know. Nothing really."

"Are you sure you didn't see something that matters, maybe it's not obvious?" he offered.

"I saw Cassandra." She said.

Owen paused visibly excited.

"Did you talk to her? Did you ask about me?"

Neve shook her head they'd reached Genesis avenue.

"I didn't talk to her, and she didn't see me, she was arguing with John Cunningham in the parking lot about something. But the weird thing is, I asked the professor about it, and he said it didn't happen. He said he wasn't even there and that's not even the weirdest part."

"What's the weirdest part?"

"When I said Cassandra was your mother, he didn't know you were her son."

Owens brow furrowed.

"Why would he? I don't think I've ever told him, it's not like I knew they knew each other." He said.

Neve nodded.

She put her key into the lock on the front door and opened the house.

"What's that?" Owen said, spotting the large murky stain on the hallway runner.

Neve glanced over to it to say that it was nothing, but the patch had become much larger, and a green-black mouldy patch was maturing on top of the carpet.

"Ugh," Neve said. "Disgusting"

Owen lifted his t-shirt over his mouth and nose, and Neve did the same.

"Oh hey," Nikki called from the kitchenette. "Good, you're home."

"Nikki!" Neve called. "Have you seen this?"

Nikki came down the hallway toward them and stopped short of the hallway runner. "Holy... heck what is that?" she said looking at Neve and Owen and pulling her shirt over her mouth too.

"It's mouldy," Owen said.

"No shit, Sherlock," Nikki said. "But the carpet wasn't like this just before."

"You need to take it outside and clean it," Owen said.

"I can't," Nikki said.

"What? Why?" Neve asked.

"It's stapled to the floor," Nikki said.

Owen and Neve exchanged looks. Owen walked down to the kitchen and came back with a hammer and some butter knives.

"We got to get it up, and take it outside." He said, handing the girls the knives.

He hooked the end of the hammer under the rug and pulled up the first rusty staple.

Nikki and Neve joined him, pulling one or two staples out to each of his five. When the last staple came up, Owen rolled the carpet up and carried it outside.
CHAPTER fifty-six

monday – afternoon

"What is that?" Nikki said, pointing at a rectangularly shaped trapdoor in the floor where the runner had been. The handles were removed, and the corners had been nailed in.

Owen looked down at it and taking the end of the hammer tried to start pulling up the nails.

"Woah, what are you doing? Don't do that!" Nikki exclaimed.

"Why not?" Owen asked.

"We don't know what's down there." She said.

"Yeah," Neve agreed, "What if that's where the mould is coming from?"

"It's not," Owen said.

"Oh really?" Nikki asked. "And how do you know that?"

Owen stood up and pointed at the door on the floor.

"Because the mould would be on the wood, or on the bottom of the carpet and it's not."

Nikki glanced at Neve while she thought. Owen didn't wait for permission and tried to dig the end of the hammer between the slats of wood.

"Wait!" she said. "I think there's a crowbar in the toilet." She said, disappearing into the cupboard under the stairs.

She returned handing it to Owen.

Owen slipped the edge of the crowbar into the edge between the trapdoor and the floorboards.

"Ready?' he asked.

Nikki looked at Neve and then back at Owen with a nod. "Do it." She said.

With a wood splitting crack, the door lifted away. Owen tossed the wood door to the side. Icy cold air and dust came up from the hole in the floor. Owen looked into the darkness.

"It's just a crawl space." He said, "Doesn't look like there's anything down there." He swung his legs into the open space. "It's pretty Deep though, have you got a torch?" he asked.

"Uh, you're not going down there," Neve said incredulously.

Owen fiddled around with his pocket and pulled out a mobile phone and opened the torch app on it and shined it in.

"Not without this, I'm not," he said with a wry grin and dropped into the space under the house.

"Owen" Neve screamed as he dropped out of sight.

"Coming in?" he said, his head popping out of the opening.

"Are you standing up right now?" Neve asked.

"Yeah," he said. "You should be able to stand upright down here. I'm not going to lie, it was deeper than I thought."

Neve pulled her mobile phone out of her pocket and turned on the torch app. She put her legs shakily into the pit. Owen reached out, ready to brace her at the hips and assist her as she dropped into the space under the house.

Neve's feet hit the cold damp dirt. She barely had to crouch to walk under the floorboards, but there were fragile, dust-ridden cobwebs hanging from the bottom of the floorboards like upside down seaweed.

Neve shined her light around the space. The room was bare and smaller than she had expected.

"Check the corners," Owen said shining his phone around the room.

Owen moved toward the far side of the room, and Neve went in the other direction.

"Shit" Neve said as her phone slipped out of her hand and landed light side down.

"What?" Owen asked.

"I dropped my light," Neve said.

Owen snickered and moved toward her, crouching and walking uncomfortably, throwing his torchlight around the room.

"Wait!" Neve said.

Owen stopped.

"What is it?" he said in alarm.

Neve picked up her phone and shined it at the wall his phone had just been illuminating.

"What's that?" she said pointing to a faint scratching in the wall. Neve got closer to the wall and noticed a slight discolouration to the scratches.

Owen moved toward the wall to see what Neve was looking at when he tripped, sending him sprawling into the dirt.

"Are you okay?" Neve asked, trying to help him up.

"Yeah, just be careful the ground is really uneven right here, I just tripped on it. What were you looking at?" he asked, directing his torch at the wall. Neve stood as close to the wall as she could and traced the etching on the wall with her finger. As her fingers traced the carving in the shape of a J, she seemed almost trance-like as a cold shock ran down her spine. Her head jerked to the left as she heard the unmistakable sound of whispering, mixed with sobbing in the room.

"Do you hear that?' she asked Owen.

Owen shook his head. "No, hear what?" he asked.

"Sh!" Neve said silencing him and listening. The words became clearer the more she listened, she was able to make out some of what was being said. "People need to know what happened here," she said, echoing the voice she heard.

"What?" Owen said.

"It's important that people know." Neve droned.

Owen stared at her and shined his torch directly into her pale frozen face, which seemed to make Neve snap out of it.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

Neve started shaking.

"Are you okay, Neve? What's happening to you?"

Nikki's head appeared in the trap door. "I think she's having a panic attack." She said. "I'll go get her meds."

"I need to get out of here right now." She said, pushing past Owen awkwardly and heading for the trap door.

Owen boosted Neve out of the trapdoor and pulled himself out of the pit behind her. She moved quickly outside into the fresh air, stumbling off the broken step on the porch and launching herself right out toward the pavement on the street.

"What's happening?" Owen asked. "Was it the dark space? Did it make you remember something?"

Nikki came out of the house and joined them out the front, trying to hand Neve her medicine and a bottle of water. Neve shook her head and tried to calm her breathing on the sidewalk. Owen rubbed Neves back in circles trying to comfort and calm her.

"Do you need anything?" Nikki asked helplessly. "I can go back in the house and-"

Neves hand shot out and grabbed Nikki's arm by the wrist so hard her knuckles were white. Nikki and Owen exchanged uncomfortable glances until Neve finally spoke.

"We can't go back in there. Just call Dobson" she said.
CHAPTER fifty-seven

monday – late afternoon

Dobson arrived shortly after he received the call from Nikki, in his old blue sedan. He got out of the car looking tired and worn out, and seemed to notice that he'd spilt some food on his shirt and tried to wipe it off.

"What's happened?" He asked as he approached the house. Neve, Nikki and Owen stood just outside the doorway on the verandah.

Neve pointed into the house, directing Dobson's attention toward the trap door in the floor.

"What's down there?" he asked, placing one hand on the sidearm on his belt.

"Nothing," Owen said shaking his head.

"It's not what's down there," Neve said, stepping backward off the porch and looking up at the exterior of the house. "It's who was down there."

"Who was down there?" Dobson, Owen and Nikki asked in unison.

"Four girls who were never seen again," Neve said.

"what?" Owen said, taking Neve by the arm and pulling her away from the house.

Nikki's eyes were wide in alarm as she walked over to join Neve's side.

Dobson walked into the house pulling a small flashlight out of his pocket and dropped onto his knees, shining the torch into the space under the house.

He shined the torch around before turning it off and joining Neve outside.

"Are you sure?" He said. "Are you One hundred per cent certain? No doubts?" he asked.

"I'm positive," Neve said.

Nikki grabbed Neves arm and clung to her side.

"This is where it happened?" Nikki said in barely an audible whisper. "We've been living here the whole time."

Dobson walked over to his car and popped the boot open. He collected some lighting equipment from the boot and made Owen help him carry it into the house. Owen plugged them in, draping extension cords across the floor carefully before he passed the lamps to Dobson through the trap door as he used them to light up the space.

When he reemerged, he sighed heavily and brushed the cobwebs off his arms furiously and placed a call on his cellphone.

Owen walked outside to the girls while his dad was talking on the phone.

"He found human remains down there." He reported.

Nikki slapped a hand over her mouth, breathing hard and trying not to cry.

Neve stood, watching everything as if it were a movie playing out on a screen in front of her.

Dobson walked out of the house, down the steps, past the happy little frog whose pinwheel was stopped, he trudged across the grass toward them and spoke to Nikki. Silent words that Neve couldn't hear. There was only silence and her own heartbeat.

Nikki shook her head and pointed toward the house which made Dobson turn to walk back into the house, disappearing. When he returned he passed Nikki a vaguely interesting folder, Neve followed it with her eyes and watched as Nikki went through the contents, her hands shaking, she pulled out a booklet of papers stapled together. The word 'Lease' in big bold letters was written across the top. She held the paper out in front of Neve, Owen and Dobson. As Neve's eyes looked over the page, there was a sudden loud pop in her hearing as the sound came back to her senses in a rush. She snatched the booklet out of Nikki's hands and looked at it closer.

"Neve!" Nikki said, "What are you doing? Dobson needs that."

Neve looked up at Owen.

"The Landlords name is listed as Mr J. Morris," Neve said to him.

"What?" He said, snatching the papers to look for himself.

Dobson grabbed the papers out of his sons' hands and motioned for everybody to stop trying to take it by putting his hand up authoritatively. "This is officially a document in an open investigation now guys. Be careful." He said, flattening the papers out on his chest. He quickly scanned his eyes over the paperwork.

"Well, I'll be damned. J. Morris is named as the landlord."

"Who is J. Morris?" Nikki asked.

"You remember that guy you thought was my boyfriend but was actually kind of my Dad?" she said.

"The Therapist?" Nikki confirmed.

Neve nodded.

"Owens Therapist's name is Morris too," Dobson said.

"Same person," Owen said. "He was also Kate's Therapist".

"Really?" Dobson said in surprise.

"Briefly," Owen said.

"Shit" Dobson said. "Wait, Neve, you know him too? What do you mean kind of your Dad?"

"I have been living with him since I was a kid."

"So, you didn't live with your parents?" he asked.

"No, they disappeared when I was eleven."

"Disappeared?" Dobson asked.

"Abandoned me, actually."

Dobson swallowed.

"Morris could very well be our guy."

"Oh my God. Neve, you got the missing poster the day after he came to the house." Nikki said,

About four squad cars appeared in the street and parked. One of the policemen, a handsome man with dark hair walked over and reported directly to Dobson.

Dobson directed the officers into the house and to put out an APB on Joel Morris as a person of interest in the discovery of human remains and questioning into the missing case of Kate Sharp.

Nikki tugged Neve by the hand. "We should call Sophie and Claudia." She said.

Neve nodded and pulled out her phone, but her mouth was dry, her stomach still in knots. She handed the phone to Nikki shakily. Dobson came over just as Neve passed the phone to Nikki.

"You need to start thinking about where you guys are going to stay tonight too," he said. "Probably the next few nights."

"More like for forever," Nikki said. "How can we ever go back into that house now?"

"Can't they stay with us?" Owen asked.

"Owen," Dobson said. "Don't you girls have a family you can stay with?" he asked, directing his question at Nikki and Neve.

The girls both shook their heads.

"We have more than enough room," Owen reasoned.

"I'd feel safer with you," Neve said.

"Fine, but only for tonight, tomorrow we find you all a hotel or something."

Nikki unlocked the phone and started to search through the contacts for Sophie and Claudia's numbers when Sophie's car pulled up in the driveway.

"What's happening?" she said as she got out of the car followed by Claudia and Jimmy.

"There are human remains in there," Owen said.

"Woah," Jimmy said, "are they fresh?"

Owen shook his head.

"What?" Claudia shrieked, clinging to Jimmy's arm. "Where? In the house?" she asked her eyes wide as saucers.

"Under it," Nikki said.

"Under it?" Sophie asked. "How did you find them if they were underneath the house?"

"We found a trap door under the hallway runner," Nikki said. "There's a space under the house. Neve says it's the space we were kept in when we were abducted."

Sophie and Claudia looked over at Neve to see if she would confirm this. Neve nodded solemnly.

"You're joking," Sophie said.

"Nope," Neve said.

"Whose remains are in there, Neve? Are they" Claudia lowed her voice conspiratorially "ours?".

Neve shrugged.

"I don't know, I didn't even see the remains."

The girls were silent as they watched the police move in and out of the house.

"So," Jimmy said, breaking the silence. "You've been living in the house you were murdered in. That's kind of a creepy coincidence."

"I'm starting to think that there are no coincidences when it comes to these girls." Dobson lamented.
CHAPTER fifty-eight

tuesday – morning

Neve's eyes opened reluctantly to the early morning light. She pulled the covers over her head in protest as she tried to get comfortable on Dobson's fold out couch.

No sooner had she lifted the covers over her eyes than they were pulled away by Nikki who was still fast asleep beside her.

Neve sighed and sat up rubbing her eyes as she looked around the room. Sophie and Claudia were still fast asleep in the recliner chairs under sleeping bags.

The sound of a porcelain mug being put on the bench in the kitchen drew Neve's attention away from her sleeping friends, and she went to see who else was up.

She walked into the kitchen to see Dobson pouring a cup of Coffee. His eyes were tired, and his face was puffy from lack of sleep.

"What time did you get back?' Neve asked as she entered.

Dobson jumped at the sound of her voice. "Uh, just now, actually. Sorry if I woke you." He said.

"You didn't," she said. "Did you really just get back? So, you've been at the house all night?"

Dobson nodded sleepily as he sat down at the dining table beside a large leather briefcase.

"Can I get a cup of Coffee?" Neve asked.

Dobson nodded and pointed to the cupboard above the kettle and Neve prepared herself some morning enthusiasm.

"So, did you find anything?" she asked, finally joining him at the table.

"Christ, That and then some," Dobson said.

"How many bodies were down there?" Neve asked squeezing her mug a little tighter in suspense.

"What?' he said. "Oh, there was only one. Look I got to ask you something," he started.

"One?" Neve asked. "That can't be right. I know we were down there Dobson, you just haven't found us yet."

"Neve, it's not that. We know you four were definitely down there. We found bits of clothing, shoe remains, some jewellery. They match the descriptions of things you girls were wearing when you disappeared. You were right, you were held down there."

"Jewelry?" Neve said. "Like a necklace?"

Dobson shook his head.

"A bracelet and some rings. Listen, Neve, I need to ask you something important."

Neve silenced herself.

"Were you ever aware of someone else in the house, beside you and the other girls?"

Neve's brow furrowed.

"What are you saying? What do you mean someone else?" she asked.

"When the officers searched the house, they found signs that someone had been squatting – or living, in the front room of the house."

"In the front room?" Neve said.

Dobson nodded. "The one that was boarded up."

"No," Neve said. "Of course not. Are you serious? Someone was living in there?"

Dobson pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket. He plugged his phone into the charger that was hanging from the wall socket beside the table and fiddled with the screen before he handed it to Neve.

Neve looked at the phone. On the screen were images of the interior of the boarded-up room. Neve looked at each one, zooming in and out. The room was bare of furnishings, apart from a sleeping bag laid out in the middle of the floor and a variety of food wrappers strewn about amongst some discarded clothing. The walls were covered in charcoal scribblings and in one of the photos, was a familiar looking, rusty biscuit tin.

"My journals," Neve said.

Dobson reached down and rifled through his briefcase presenting a large thick evidence bag containing the biscuit tin and the journals.

"You know what these are?" Dobson asked.

Neve nodded.

"These are Rosemary's journals," Dobson stated.

"I know," Neve said.

"How do you think she got these?" he asked.

"Who?"

"The squatter?" he said.

"The squatter was female?" Neve said.

Dobson nodded. "The discarded clothing in the room suggests that the squatter was female."

"Have you got any idea how she would have gotten these journals?" he asked again.

"They were taken from me," Neve said.

"These were in your possession?" he asked.

"Briefly," Neve said.

"Where did you get them?"

"From my old bedroom."

"In rosemary's house?" Dobson asked.

"Yes, are you interrogating me?" Neve asked.

Dobson half smiled. "I'm a cop, it's how I talk."

"One of my journals went missing too," Neve said.

"Was it green?" he asked.

Neve nodded.

"We found that in the room, as well as photographs of you girls. Whoever she was for whatever reason, she was obsessed with you. There's also this." He said, swiping the screen on his phone until he came across a particular photo. He showed the screen to Neve. A crudely drawn Black Dog was drawn on one of the walls.

"The Black Dog," Neve said, whispering. "You have no idea who she is then?" Neve asked.

"Not yet. But they are running fingerprint analysis. Whoever she is, she seems like a very damaged individual who may have an untreated medical condition. I discussed this with one of the on-scene forensic analysis guys, and he said it's possible this person may have been a surviving victim of the original killer and has become fixated on you for some reason. Handwriting analysis matches her handwriting to the note you received in the mailbox that day."

"You mean the Missing Poster with my face on it?" Neve said.

Dobson nodded.

"So, she left the poster for me, not Morris?"

Dobson nodded. "It seems that way. Although, they may have been working together,"

"So, what your saying is, last night, you learned that on top of living in the house we were held prisoner in, we have been living with a crazy person. Who may, or may not be a surviving victim, who has been watching us, stealing from us and generally scaring the living crap out of us and we have no idea who or where she is now?"

Dobson gulped down the last mouthful of his coffee.

"Sounds about right. Also, we haven't located Morris yet, so I'd appreciate it if you could all stay inside this house today."

"I've got work," Neve said.

"I don't care. Call in sick. I don't want you girls out of my sight until we find these people, and I need to get some shut eye."
CHAPTER fifty-nine

friday – afternoon

Neve tapped her foot against the floor with agitation as she watched the minute hand approach the 5.p.m mark on the kitchen wall clock.

"Neve" Claudia scolded from the other side of the table.

Neve stopped her foot and immediately unconsciously swapped from tapping her foot to repeatedly clicking end of the pen she was holding in her hand.

"Neve" Claudia repeated more sternly.

"Claudia," Sophie said as wiped down the bench near the sink.

Neve was still and silent for all of thirty seconds before she continued to tap her foot and click the pen simultaneously.

"Stop it." Claudia barked.

"It's not hurting anyone," Neve said continuing to click the pen in nervous frustration.

"It's not helping anyone either" Claudia retorted.

"That's where you're wrong because it is helping me, it's keeping me sane."

"Well, it's driving me insane." Claudia said sharply, "It's bad enough we've been stuck inside this crappy old house for the past two days, but if I have to be stuck inside this house with you doing that annoying shit for one more minute, I swear I'm going to lose it."

Neve couldn't stop herself. Click, click, click, click, went the pen in her hand.

Claudia growled and snatched the pen out of Neves' hand and hurled it angrily across the room.

"What am I supposed to do?" Neve yelled.

"Neve," This time it was Owen, he placed a hand on hers and gave it a comforting squeeze. "It's okay."

"I don't know Neve, why don't you go and have another vision instead of sitting around doing nothing. We are running out of time after all."

Neve's mouth fell open in shock.

"Claudia" Sophie scolded.

Claudia pursed her lips and crossed her arms across her chest.

Neve stood up, scraping her chair back across the floor and stormed out of the room. As she walked through the lounge room, Dobson walked through the front door.

Everyone rushed in and started bombarding him with questions right away.

"Well?" Claudia demanded loudly above all the other questions.

"Still nothing," Dobson said.

Claudia screamed out in frustration. "I can't take much more of this! I need to get out of here." She said.

"We're doing the best we can," Dobson said apologetically.

"Claudia it's not like we will have to stay here much longer," Nikki said. "It's Friday, he will abduct the fourth girl soon, and it will be over."

She looked at Neve guiltily as the words left her mouth.

Neve huffed and tried not to react, but the words had stung, and she felt responsible.

"No more visions?" Dobson asked.

"No!" Neve yelled. They're not even visions, they're memories. I'm not a psychic, I don't know what's going to happen, I only see what has already happened."

"Right, Right, that's what I meant," Dobson said back peddling. "No dogs?"

"No dogs either," Neve said.

"Good," Dobson said trying to lift their spirits. "That means we still have time."

"Time? Time for what?" Claudia asked sharply.

"Claudia," Sophie said, "Are you acting like this because Dobson won't let Jimmy come over?"

Claudia crossed her arms in front of her angrily. "He's taking it personally you know Sophie?"

"Cunningham's aren't welcome in my house," Dobson stated bluntly.

Sophie shook her head in disbelief.

"Boys!" she said to Nikki. Nikki agreed.

"We're just wasting our time here anyway. Neve doesn't know anything, and she's not doing anything to help." Claudia said accusingly.

"What would you have me do?" Neve demanded.

"I don't know," Claudia said throwing her hands up in the air. "Drink some more tea maybe?" she said.

"I can't! Mama said not to drink too much of it at a time. I almost didn't wake up last time."

"She told you that in a dream, it wasn't even real," Claudia said. "We are running out of time to help these people, and another dose of the tea might be the only way."

"It's too dangerous," Nikki said, "She was out for 16 hours last time."

"People are going to die, and we are stuck here until they're all dead or we stop them from being killed. Which is it going to be Neve?" Claudia yelled.

"Do you think I don't know that? Do you think somehow, I have miraculously forgotten the lives of those girls aren't weighing on my god damn shoulders right now? That I'm the only one of the four of us with any real link to what happened to us? I don't know who is doing this if its Morris or somebody else. Every time I think I know something- the rug comes out from underneath me and it's not how I thought it was. It's confusing having these memories, and the pressure of it all is literally driving me insane, so I don't need you to remind me, okay?"

"Jesus, we all need to calm down here," Dobson said.

"Neve," Owen said reaching out to touch her shoulder. Neve ducked and moved away.

"No, don't touch me" Neve yelled shaking.

"Hey, hey, hey," Sophie said chiming in, "Look, Neve, I know I didn't really want to believe all of this in the beginning, but it's happening. We know everything we know because of you, because of what you have been through, and you haven't let us down. Not yet. So, you can't give up because you're scared. I was scared too. I was scared when I saw my face on those posters from twenty years ago, I was scared when it started making sense, and I was scared when you brought more and more proof that its real, home to us. I know you're scared right now too, but you can't give up. You shouldn't give up. You do what you can until it's over and whatever happens, you'll know you tried your best. Claudia's just cranky cause she can't go and see her boyfriend."

"Cunningham's aren't welcome," Dobson said again but stopped short when Sophie shot him a look that could kill him.

"Neve, just take a minute. Is there anything at all that you have seen or felt that you didn't tell us about? Something maybe that didn't seem important to the case but maybe is?"

Neve glanced sideways across the room at Owen.

Dobson, following Neves lead, glanced from Owen back to Neve. He shifted uncomfortably in his suit and swallowed.

"Neve?" he said.

Neve swallowed hard.

Dobson reached over and taking her by the arm walked her into the kitchen, motioning for everyone else to stay behind. Owen lingered close by the door.

"What is it?" he said quietly.

"I saw something the last time I drank the tea. It's about Cassandra."

Dobson's eyes grew wide with excitement. He ran his fingers over the stubble of his mouth and sat down.

"Tell me everything." He said.

"It was the night I... Rosemary, went missing from the dance."

Dobson made a face like he was trying to recall the events of the night.

"I was at the dance when I saw Cassandra arguing with someone, and I followed them outside into the carpark."

Dobson nodded. "Okay,"

"She was arguing with a guy, whose face I couldn't see, so I tried to get closer to hear what they were fighting about. She was begging him to keep something secret. I don't know what it was."

"Do you know who she was talking to?" he asked, leaning forward tentatively.

"John Cunningham. Jimmy's dad."

"Shit." He said, dropping his posture.

Neve shook her head.

"So, I asked Professor Cunningham about it."

"What did he say?"

"He said he wasn't there, that he didn't talk to her that night. He said Cassandra, couldn't be Owens Mother."

"- What?!" Dobson said, his face going pale.

Neve stopped.

Dobson placed his hands onto Neve's shoulders tightly. Neve felt uncomfortable under his grip.

"You told him Cassandra was Owen's mother?"

"Yeah. I mean, he didn't believe it. He lied about seeing her that night, too. He said he wasn't even there, but I saw him."

Dobson dragged the palms of both his hands down his face and neck while he let the information Neve just shared sink in.

Neve stared at him with a confused look on her face.

"Why does that matter if he knows about Owen?"

"It doesn't," he said.

"Are you sure?" Neve asked.

Dobson sat deliberating in his own mind about what to say next.

"Is Owen Cassandra's son?" Neve asked.

"Yes," Dobson said. "Look, Neve, what you heard that night... Cassandra wasn't well after he was born. She went loopy. She was really paranoid and thought she saw things."

"Things like what?" Neve said.

"Like the Black Dog..." Dobson said.

"If she was right about the black dog, what else was she saying that you didn't want to believe?" Neve asked.

"Neve, I didn't know it was real. The doctors said it was the hormones. She was so afraid, terrified really, and every time she tried to tell me about it, I tried to get her help. Medical help." His face softened, his eyes grew sad. "I let her down, Neve, and I don't think I can ever forgive myself."

"What was she talking to John about that night?" Neve said.

"It's got nothing to do with the case," Dobson said.

Neve stared at him.

Dobson looked around, checking that nobody was there listening. He spotted Owen in the doorway, and Owen retreated.

"You can't tell Owen about this," Dobson said quietly to Neve.

"Tell him what?" Neve said.

"I'm not Owen's real Dad." He said.

Neve gasped.

"You can't tell him, Neve." He said.

"Who is?" she asked.

Dobson shook his head but didn't say anything.

"So, you see, it's not about the case."

Neve nodded.

"I suppose. So now what do we do?"

Dobson shrugged and stood up, placing a hand on Neve's shoulder.

"We just got to trust that the answer will come." He said as he walked into the downstairs toilet.

Owen came around the kitchen doorframe as soon as he heard his Dad go into the bathroom. He looked at Neve desperately.

"What were you saying about me?" he said. "I heard you guys talking about me, what did you say?"

Neve shook her head and tried to play dumb.

"Dammit Neve," Owen said, "I heard what you said. Tell me. If you care about me at all, you'll tell me right now."

Neve shook her head. "It's not important." She lied.

Owens' face was taught and angry. He slammed his fist on the table loudly.

"You promised we would communicate. There would be no more secrets. I just want answers." He said standing up. He stormed out the front door slamming the door as he left.

Dobson came out of the bathroom and looked at Neve.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Owen just left," Neve said.

Dobson's face paled. "Did you tell him?" he asked.

"No," Neve said.

"I'm going to go look for him," Dobson said grabbing his car keys and walking out the front door.

Neve walked into the lounge room where the other three girls sat silently waiting. Claudia was the first to speak.

"You know what? If he's going, I'm going too." She said.

"Claudia, No!" Sophie said.

"Yes," Claudia said firmly. "You are welcome to join me, babysit me, or whatever. I don't care. I need to get out of this house, and I'm going to go and meet Jimmy at the grocery store outside."

Neve sat down on the chair with a slump and buried her tear-strewn face in her hands. She was so tired. A sob escaped her lips.

Sophie looked at Claudia and then looked over at Neve and sat down with her wrapping her arms around her shoulder and rocking her back and forth. "For once, Claudia, I'm going to do what is right by the four of us. I'm going to stay. You should stay too." She said.

Claudia glared angrily and turned on her heel and left.

Neve cried in Sophie's arms, and then Nikki's until she'd finally worn herself out and laid out on the couch started to fall to sleep.

Nikki and Sophie sat on the recliners watching Neve's final tears fall, listening to her hiccupping sobs reduce as she calmed down over time. They both looked over at each other sleepily and started to let their eyes fall shut.

"What are you doing?" Neve said, in a half-asleep voice, pulling her leg up underneath her and brushing her foot before placing it back where it was hanging off the end of the couch.

Sophie opened her eyes and looked over at Nikki who was stirring.

"Seriously, what are you doing?" Neve said again, her face crumpling in discomfort.

"Nobody's doing anything to you Neve, we aren't even near you," Sophie said.

Nikki opened her eyes.

Neve's eyes opened, and she glanced down at her foot as she felt it being tugged on once again. She saw the black dog, it's teeth wrapped around the bottom cuff of her jeans, tugging at her leg pitifully.

The black Dog calmly walked up to Neves' hand and nudged it, trying to stir her. She pulled her hand away hastily.

"The Dog," Neve whispered. "The Dog is here."

"I'll call Dobson," Nikki said.
CHAPTER sixty

saturday – morning

Neve opened her overtired, cried out eyes, the next morning in another unfamiliar room. She popped up in bed in a panic and looked around. There was men's clothing strewn about the room. She spotted Dobson's briefcase on a chair and calmed down. She realised she was in Dobson's room. Beside the bed on the bedside table was two pain killers, a glass of water and half a bottle of scotch.

Neve took the pills and chased them with a few sneaky mouthfuls of the scotch. It burned her throat.

Someone knocked on the door, and Neve quickly placed the Scotch back as the door opened.

"Good, you're awake," Dobson said.

"Why am I in your bed?" she asked.

Dobson sighed. "Figured you would get a better night's sleep in a real bed. We hoped a good night's sleep would help you...remember or something."

"Oh," Neve said.

"We need you, downstairs," he said as he left.

Neve inhaled deeply and tried to prepare herself to face everyone. She knew she owed apologies all around for her behaviour yesterday. Especially to Owen.

Neve got up slowly and quietly, tiptoeing through the house and down the stairs. When she walked into the living room, she paused in shock. The room was full of police officers, and there on the couch was Nikki and Sophie giving some kind of interview. Sophie looked over and spotted Neve, she jumped up and rushed over to her with red puffy eyes and hugged Neve crying.

"What's happening?" Neve asked.

"Claudia didn't come back last night," Sophie said hugging Neve tighter.

"Jimmy didn't see her, nobody knows where she is. They found her phone smashed in the parking lot." Sophie inhaled deeply and sobbed. "There was a dead rose."

Neve gave Nikki a worried look over Sophie's shoulder. Nikki looked down at her feet and bit her lip.

Sophie pulled away from Neve and held her by the shoulders in front of her, crouching down slightly, so she was eye level with her shorter friend. "You have to find her, Neve" she begged.

Neve nodded absentmindedly, half in shock half distracted by the conversation she could overhear between Dobson and one of the other police officers.

Dobson asked him if he'd gotten the DNA results back on the remains found under the house, but they weren't in yet. Dobson would be the first to know the officer assured.

Dobson thanked the officers for their time and help as they left.

"Don't I need to give a statement too?" Neve said.

Dobson shook his head. "No Neve, they have all they need."

Sophie, still stood in front of Neve, gripping desperately onto Neves' shoulders, pleading with her eyes for Neve to fix everything.

Neve looked back in those eyes, guiltily, doubting if she could. "I don't know if I can," Neve said.

"Yes, you can," Sophie said firmly. "Yes, you can. I know you can. You've just got to drink that tea. You saw who did this once. You saw what happened. If our bodies aren't under that house, then they are somewhere else, and if they are somewhere else then maybe Claudia is there too? It's in there, Neve. You just got to get it."

"I can't drink any more tea" Neve whimpered.

"Yes, you can," Sophie said, shaking Neve with her hands. "You just have to do it."

"What if I die?" Neve said.

"What if you don't?" Sophie argued, "But Claudia will die if you don't."

Neve looked around the room for support, but everyone seemed hopeful that Neve would try.

"Even if I wanted to drink the Tea, it's at the house, and the house is a crime scene now."

"No, it's not," Sophie said excitedly turning around to grab a silver canister off the coffee table in front of the sofa. She showed the canister to Neve before putting it down, next to a steaming teapot and freshly brewed cup of tea. She carried the tea over to Neve.

"Dobson went and got it for us, this morning," She said happily.

Sophie lifted the cup toward Neve's mouth, but Neve sidestepped, moving away.

"No," Neve said. "I didn't say yes. What are you doing? I wasn't joking yesterday. I'm sorry about the way I acted, but I can't drink the tea again."

Sophie stood with the mug in her hand outstretched toward Neve, a single tear rolling down her cheek.

"Normally, I wouldn't ask you to do this. But Claudia is my best friend. She's like a sister to me Neve, and she's in danger. She's one of us Neve. One of us."

"Nikki?" Neve said hoping to garner the same support she'd received yesterday from her friend.

Nikki looked away.

Neve turned her attention to Dobson.

Dobson shook his head and shrugged.

Neve looked around the room.

Owen stood in the kitchen doorway.

"Owen?" she pleaded. "Owen, I'm sor-"

"-Don't!" he said cutting her off.

Neve's eyes stung.

"I could die," she said in a hoarse whisper.

Sophie stood hand outstretched, trembling.

Neve knew she was outnumbered.

"Claudia needs you now," Sophie begged. "I was here with you last night when you needed me to be. If I'd been with Claudia instead of you Neve, she wouldn't be in trouble right now."

Neve took the cup out of Sophie's hands bitterly. She slowly brought the cup to her mouth, her head still pounding, the pain killers hadn't kicked in yet and swallowed half the cup in one mouthful.
CHAPTER sixty one

saturday – morning

The pounding continued for what seemed like the fourth hour in a row. Surely someone would call in a noise complaint at some point.

Maria continued to scream. It was her screaming that made the people in the house above them start to blast the heavy metal music in the first place.

Maria pressed her face against the tiny vents in the brick wall.

"HELP" She screamed over and over again.

Penelope joined her.

Tabitha laid on the ground in the dirt with her head on Rosemary's lap.

Rose had her hand on Tabitha's back, feeling her chest crackle with every inhalation and exhalation.

"Nobody's going to hear us," Penelope said.

Maria continued to scream anyway.

"My name is Maria Santiago, I'm trapped in here with Penelope Langdon, Rosemary Watts and Tabitha MaGumbu. Help us!"

Maria jerked away from the vent.

"Oh my God, he heard me," she said.

"What?" Rose said.

Penelope and Maria continued screaming through the vent with renewed enthusiasm.

Neve moved Tabitha off her lap and moved over to the grate and looked through it to the outside. At first, the brightness was blinding but slowly her eyes adjusted, and as the grey and white spots in her vision went away, a figure came into view.

A young man was stopped out on the footpath sitting on top of a bike, looking around as though he was trying to spot something.

"I know him," Rose said. "That's Joel. I work with him at the University."

"Are you sure?" Maria said.

"Positive" Rosemary said.

Joel put his foot back on the pedal of his bike.

"JOEL" Rosemary screamed through the grate, right as the song on the stereo changed to the next song.

He stopped again.

"He heard you," Maria said as the next heavy metal song started.

Maria, Penelope and Rosemary continued screaming out his name as he eyed the house playing the heavy metal music conspicuously.

Tabitha ambled over and added her own hoarse crackling voice to the chorus of pleas for help.

Joel dropped his bike on the footpath and approached the house cautiously with his ears pricked toward the house.

The closer he got, the more confident he seemed to be that he could hear something. He walked out of view for a moment but circled back to the front of the house. He was standing in front of the grate.

"What is he doing?" Maria said.

"Trying to look into the windows?" Tabitha said.

"Down here. Under the house" They screamed.

Joel kneeled in the garden amongst the Rose bushes. Spotting the very tips of fingertips pushing through the grate. He jumped backward in shock and looked around.

"Help. Go get help!" Maria screamed.

Joel looked at the grate and tried to discern what was being said. He pushed his glasses up on his nose as he turned his ear toward the grate.

"If only we could write him a note, so he knew it was us," Maria said.

Rose looked down at herself and started tearing at the hem of her dress. She tore away a long strip of the fabric and pushed it through the grate.

Joel pulled the pink fabric through the grate looking confused. His face changed as he realised what he was looking at.

"Rose?" he screamed. "I'm going to get help." He yelled.

"Yes!" Maria said moving around the room excitedly.

Penelope and Maria hugged each other in celebration.

Rose helped Tabitha lay back down in the dirt as she went through another coughing fit brought on by trying to scream with the others.

"Hold on Tabitha," Rose said, resting her hand against Tabitha's sweating brow. "It's almost over."

A half hour passed and the heavy metal music continued to play. Tabitha wasn't sure how much more of the noise she could take.

"Where is he?" Maria said, pacing nervously across the damp floor, stopping briefly to look through the grate.

"It's probably just taking a while. Maybe they don't believe him?" Penelope offered.

"Look, his bikes still out there," Penelope said pointing. "He's on foot. That takes longer."

The bolt on the trapdoor moved, and the door opened. The girls stood up. Rose moved forward to collect the water from the bucket for Tabitha, but instead of a bucket being lowered into the pit, another body came through the door and landed in a crumpled heap on the floor.
CHAPTER sixty two

saturday – mid morning

The trapdoor closed with a slam, and the darkness returned.

"Who is it?' Penelope asked. "Is it another girl?"

Rose moved closer to the body. It had fallen into the pit at an odd angle. The body was folded over itself.

"I don't think that's a-" Maria started to say but fell short of completing her sentence. Instead, she placed a hand over her mouth.

Rose was close enough now to see that the crumpled, beaten, bloody body belonged to Joel.

She reached out and touched his arm. It was still warm, and wet.

"It's Joel," she said, confirming Maria's suspicions.

"Shit" Maria cried angrily.

"Help me lay him out properly," Rose said.

Maria and Neve worked to untwist his body and were surprised to hear a moan escape Joel's lips.

"He's still alive," Maria said jumping back in shock.

"Barely," Rose said, supporting his head as they laid him out in the dirt.

"Rose" Joel gurgled trying to lift his hand up to her face.

Rose took his hand in hers and lifted it to her cheek. Hot tears ran down her face onto his palms.

"I'm so sorry Joel," Rose said. "I'm so, so, sorry" she sobbed.

The music upstairs finally stopped.

Joel coughed and spat something wet all over Roses' face. She wiped it off with her other hand as Joel's breathing became shorter, and more of a gasp before stopping altogether.

"Joel?" Rose said trying not to burst into tears.

"Joel, I'm so sorry." She whispered, leaning down to place a tender kiss on his brow.

She held him tighter and rocked back and forth with his limp body in her arms.

"I'm so, so, so sorry" she whispered over and over.

The room was quiet. Maria sat with Penelope and Tabitha on one side of the room. Rose, finally, separated herself from Joel's body and crawled across the floor in the other direction. She started digging in the cold, damp earth with her hands.

"What are you doing?" Penelope asked.

"She's burying him," Maria said. "Which is a good idea, we don't know how much longer we will be down here with him."

Maria moved across the room and started helping Rose dig.

"It's not fair," Penelope said sadly. "Nobody who cares about him will ever know what happened to him, or where he's buried."

"Nobody cared about him," Rose said sadly. "He was all alone. No parents. No siblings. He was too shy to make many friends. He was over here on an exchange student scholarship. No one will care that he's gone." Her voice broke. "He will rot in here – until he is nothing but bones and be forgotten with us with no headstone to say he existed at all."

With that final exclamation, Rose burst into heavy, tired crying.

Maria whilst digging, came across a stone with a sharp edge. She placed it in Roses' hands.

"So, let's give him a headstone Rose. So that one day if someone finds him they can figure out who he is and how he got here. People will know what happened here. It's important that we leave something behind.

"Yeah," Penelope said agreeing. She reached into her jacket arm and pulled off her bracelet and placed it on Joel's body.

"Penelope Langdon was here with Joel... what's his last name?" she asked.

"Morris" Rose said.

Maria smiled and pulled one of her rings off her fingers and placed it on Joel's body.

"So was Maria Santiago."

Rose smiled and pulled off one of the costume rings her mother had given her to wear to the dance.

"Rosemary Watts was here."

Tabitha looked at the others.

"I don't have anything to put."

Rose nodded.

"Maybe one of your shoes?" she said.

Tabitha nodded and placed one sneaker in the earth by Joel's body.

"Tabitha MaGumbu was here too."

After they had covered Joel with loose dirt Rose stood up and started scratching the stone into the wall above Joel's head in a large J shape.

She scratched and scratched with her stone until the movements became desperate and manic. Her fingers bled from contact with the wall.

Penelope stood beside Rose.

"Can I use the stone now?" she asked. Rose stopped and handed Penelope the stone and watched as Penelope started to scratch another letter into the wall. This time she wrote a letter P.

"What are you doing?" Maria asked.

"I'm putting P for Penelope. I was here too." She said.

Each of the girls exchanged a meaningful glance and started searching through the earth for more stones or lose shards of brick.

"Where are his glasses?" Rosemary asked looking around.

"They must be in the dirt," Maria said. "Look over here where the trapdoor is."

Rose and Maria searched through the dirt but came up empty-handed.

"I can't find them." She finally said, in defeat.

"Maybe tomorrow, when there is a little more, light?" Maria said.

The daylight faded and the etchings on the wall disappeared into the darkness. They huddled together for warmth as the temperature dropped.

The trapdoor opened again. A bucket was lowered into the pit along with a glow stick. The bucket had water bottles but no food. No doubt the days' punishment for getting Joel's attention.

Rose helped Tabitha drink her share of the water and more while the other girls sat back drinking their own bottles thirstily.

Rose watched as one by one, the girls slumped over in a deep sleep. She stared at the half bottle of water she'd been drinking from, her vision blurring. Something was in the water she realised tipping the rest of the bottle into the dirt as she slumped over with the rest of the girls

The next time Roses eyes opened for a moment, she was being hoisted out of the floor by someone. The next time after that, she was in a car, the car jostled around soothing her back into another sleep, and finally a shock of cold air seemed to bring her around once more as she was carried through a forest. She could smell and see the trees above her, and then the night sky and all the stars as she was placed on her back in the cold, damp earth.
CHAPTER sixty-three

saturday – mid afternoon

She slowly became aware of the weight forming on her body. It was uncomfortable, pressing down on her chest making it harder to breathe. She tried to open her eyes, but they were too heavy. She coughed. Her mouth felt dry and full. The taste of Earth lingered on her taste buds. She coughed and spluttered as she tried to inhale a clear breath. Whatever was on top of her, and all around her was inside her mouth too. She panicked, inhaling sharply.

"It's okay, It's okay, Neve. You're Okay. You're safe." Nikki said.

Neve was shaking and convulsing, coughing and choking on a sensory memory unable to fully wake from the dream.

"Sophie, she's really choking," Nikki said.

There was a commotion in the room around her as Neve tried to catch her breath and stop wheezing. She spluttered, unable to get that breath she so badly needed and fell limp on the couch.

"Is she dead?" Nikki said in shock.

Dobson checked her pulse.

"No, just unconscious." He said. He started lightly slapping Neve's cheeks to bring her back around.

Her eyes opened, and her eyes rolled into place from the back of her head.

"Hey," Dobson said softly. "Are you alright?"

Neve stared at him, as her mind played catch up and nodded slowly.

"Water?' she said hoarsely.

She shakily sculled three glasses of water and looked at the others.

They were waiting for answers.

Answers that Neve didn't think she had.

She shook her head.

"They drugged us when they moved us from the house. We drove somewhere, out in the open and then, I think, they buried us alive. Or, at least, I was alive." She said rubbing her throat.

Sophie's eyes grew wide with fear.

"Is that all?" Dobson said. "You were out for a few hours."

"Yeah, what else?" Sophie said Nev, balked momentarily as she watched Sophie's face change from hers into Marias and back again before her very eyes.

"Um," she said, looking over at the jug of water on the coffee table, considering she might pour just one more glass for herself. Her body and mind felt wrong. She was heavier than usual, and out of sync.

"Yes," she said. "Joel!"

"It was Joel Morris who did this to you?" Dobson asked, "he is responsible?"

Neve blinked stupidly. "No,"

"No?" Sophie repeated.

"No, no. He is Joel. It is Joel."

"Guys I don't think Neve's okay," Nikki said sounding genuinely concerned.

"The body! Under the house. It's Joel."

Dobson looked confused.

"Neve," he said, trying to get her to snap out of her confused state.

"The body under the house can't be Joel, it's been there a very long time."

Neve nodded. "The body is Joel's. I saw him die. We all saw him die. We buried him" she said her voice breaking.

"Are you telling me that the body under the house is Joel Morris? So, the Joel Morris we know, isn't really Joel Morris?"

Neve's mouth opened in shock, and she gasped.

Dobson looked at Neve with his grey-blue eyes thoughtfully before he got up and left the room talking on his cellphone with the precinct.

Neve sat in a dazed, drugged stupor. The tea wasn't wearing off, and she felt so strange. She was watching Nikki and Sophie talking on the other side of the room, but no sounds were coming out of their mouths. Sophie was angry and crying. Nikki was trying to comfort her.

Neve's ears popped, and she jumped in her skin, as the sound in the room came rushing back into her head, startling her.

"So, we know nothing," Sophie said bitterly. "it was useless to give her the tea."

Neve snorted before she could stop herself.

Sophie turned on her.

"Are you laughing?" she said.

Neve shook her head. "Nope." She said.

"It's not funny Neve," Sophie said

"I know it's not." She replied.

"Then why did you laugh?" Sophie demanded.

Neve looked down at the coffee table in front of her and jerked forward, sliding the half cup of tea that was left to the edge of the table toward Sophie.

Neve locked eyes with Sophie.

"Drink it." She said.

Sophie looked at Neve and then glanced at the cup warily.

She shook her head.

"No, I can't. It's for you." She said.

Neve nudged the tea a little closer, dangerously close to the edge.

"It might not work on her Neve" Nikki reasoned.

Neve kept her eyes locked onto Sophie's.

"Drink. It." She said, putting emphasis on each word.

Neve glared at Sophie. "You were more than happy to make me do it. You do it. You don't know what you don't know. I'm not the only one of us who has intuitions or dreams or weird feelings about places and people." She slurred.

Sophie stepped forward and picked up the cup.

Nikki placed her hand protectively over the top of the cup before Sophie could drink it.

"Wait, Neve's right," she said.

"I am?" Neve said, sounding surprised.

"What do you mean?" Sophie said. "If you want me to drink the tea why are you stopping me?"

"No, it's not the tea, it's you," Nikki said. "It's your intuitions."

Sophie seemed confused. Nikki took the cup out of Sophie's hands and placed it back on the table.

"We were not friends before in our past life," Nikki said.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Sophie asked.

"Well, when we went out to Mama's place out in the woods, and we were leaving, you said you felt like you had been at the turn off before, the one that went up to Mount Press Marsh."

"So?" Sophie said.

"Well," Nikki said. "There are no coincidences. Tabitha and Maria did not know each other before we ended up in that pit under the house."

Neve leaned back in her chair and listened.

"I'm not following you, Nikki," Sophie said.

Nikki sighed.

"If we didn't know each other, why would you remember that turn off? Maria wouldn't have gone to that side of town. Claudia had that nightmare about the hiking track." Nikki said. "There are hiking tracks to the top of the mountain."

"Why would you remember that one thing, when we were there. Because it was important. What if you imprinted it into your memory the same way Claudia held onto that dream and the same way Neve held onto Rose."

Sophie's face changed as she listened to Nikki speak.

"There are no coincidences," Sophie said, agreeing.
CHAPTER sixty-four

saturday – evening

Neve's rusty yellow Beetle pulled up at the Mount Press Marsh carpark with a lurch as the sun made its final descent into the horizon.

"Sorry," Sophie said for the hundredth time. "I'm not used to driving stick".

"It's fine," Neve said feeling somewhat more herself. She looked around the car park. It was empty except for a single van parked on the other side of the lot.

"There's a van over there," Nikki said pointing toward the darkest part of the carpark.

The street lights in the car park automatically turned on.

"Should we go check it out?" Nikki whispered.

"Why are you whispering?" Sophie said as she hopped out of the car and walked quickly over to the van. She glanced in the front windows and then the back and motioned for the others to join her.

Neve unlocked her phone to check the time and saw that she had one bar of reception dropping in and out.

They walked over the van where Sophie stood waiting impatiently and peered inside.

"There's nothing in there," Nikki said.

"But there might be," Sophie said hopefully, trying the handles. The car was locked. Neve sighed heavily and moved toward the front of the van so she could sit on the pine log barrier that separated the car park from the walking trail. She felt dizzy again.

She looked at the front of the van and squinted as if blinded by the headlights.

She lifted her hand to shield her eyes.

Suddenly she was on the side of the road in her pink Taffeta dress looking at the same blue truck that had stopped in front of her that night.

She lowered her hand and found herself sitting in front of the parked blue van in the carpark beside Nikki and Sophie once again.

"Oh my God," she said.

"What is it?' Sophie said.

"Nikki was right," Neve said. "There are no coincidences. This is the same van that took me the night I disappeared."

"Are you sure?" Nikki said.

"We're in the right place," Neve said. "Sophie, you did it."

Sophie jumped around excitedly on the spot instead. "Now what?" she asked.

The girls looked up at the mountain ahead of them, it was growing darker by the minute.

"Look," Nikki said pointing up into the dark on the mountain. Neve and Sophie looked up in the direction that Nikki was pointing but saw nothing, until, briefly, the glow of a lantern passed through the trees.

"The lantern," Neve said. "I've seen it before. In a dream."

"We have to follow it," Sophie said

Neve nodded.

"Wait," Nikki said. "We should call Dobson first, tell him where we are and what we're doing."

Neve pulled her phone out of her pocket and moved around trying to find the best place to get the single bar of reception to hold.

When Neve was finished leaving a message for Dobson, after calling him several times, she joined Nikki and Sophie at the bottom of the trail.

"How long until Dobson gets here?" Nikki asked.

"Not sure, I got his message bank," Neve said.

Sophie pointed up into the mountain. "Look there's the lantern again." She said. "We might lose it if we go by the trail." She reasoned.

"What's the plan then? Straight ahead as far as we can go?" Nikki asked leaning down to unroll her jeans and cover her legs.

"Yes, once we get close enough, take the trail the rest of the way."

Sophie looked at Nikki who stood on her left then at Neve who stood on her right.

"For Claudia." She said as she started running up the hill through the trees and bushes.

Nikki and Neve followed. Catching brief glimpses of the lantern as they rushed through the dense and sometimes impenetrable pitch-black overgrowth.

The three girls ran, climbed and stumbled upwards until the darkness unnerved them.

"Where is it? I don't see it" Sophie said breathlessly.

"Sh," Neve said coming to a stop beside her. "We don't want them to hear us."

Nikki huffed as she tried to catch her breath.

"I can't see it either," Nikki said finally.

They all looked around for it.

"It's gone," Sophie said.

"Just be quiet and listen," Neve said.

They all stood together in the dark listening to the mountain in the night. Neve closed her eyes as she fine-tuned her hearing senses to the dark. Her breathing was loud at first, too loud to hear outside of herself. She breathed slower, deeper and quieter. The sound of her heavy breathing gave way to the sound of drums, accompanied by crickets chirping from the undergrowth in all directions around her. The smell of the damp earth and the trees came next, followed by the fungal smell of the freshly sprouted mushrooms and toadstools from the rain.

She tilted her head in another direction, directing all of her attention toward the right of where she was standing. The sound of water coursing down the mountain with a heady emergency.

"The water." She said.

A branch snapped underfoot behind her and Neve's eyes popped open in surprise.

The mountain was dark, she blinked her eyes, trying to adjust to the shadows, looking around but she was all alone.

Nikki and Sophie were gone. She turned around, her heart pounding, and with no particular direction to head toward moved toward the sound of the water. The water became louder and louder as she got closer to it and the ground seemed slicker and damper the nearer she got. Her feet stuck in the mud, and her legs seemed more tired than she had realised as she hurried through the undergrowth. The trees opened up to a clearing where a River coursed quickly down the hill urgently.

The sound of branches snapping underfoot behind her again made her turn around.

She searched the trees for any sign of the others, and as she placed her hands to her mouth to call out, a pair of someone else hands came out of the dark and grabbed her over the mouth and pulled her into the shadow of a hollowed-out tree.

Neve looked into Claudia's terrified face. She was frozen in shock, listening to the sounds of footsteps passing their location in the night. When they passed, Claudia's hand slipped away from Neves' mouth slowly.

"Rose," she said in a whisper. "We have to get out of here and get help."

Neve looked at Claudia in confusion and as realisation dawned on her, glanced down at herself in her tattered and torn pink taffeta dress.

"How much of the water did you drink?" Penelope asked.

Rosemary shrugged. "Not a lot, I don't think, I gave most of my water to Tabitha," she said.

Penelope nodded. "I didn't drink much either. I dropped mine and spilt most of it. I think it was drugged because I couldn't wake the others." She said tearfully. "I know Maria only drank about half too. She might be awake, maybe I should go back for her" she thought out loud.

Rose stiffened as the sound of footfalls came closer in their direction again. Her eyes widened.

"I don't know how to get back. We should go for help" Rose said.

"Well, I ran down a hill to get here, so, I guess we just run back up." Penelope said as she put one of her hands onto Roses' shoulder, "We're in the middle of a forest Rose, there might not be any help close enough to save them."

Rose nodded.

"Follow me," Penny said listening to the dark which had fallen silent again, "And don't look back."

Penelope and Rose leapt out of the hollow tree and raced upward along the Riverbank as fast as they could. Rose watched as Penelope jumped agilely over fallen trees and skirted rocks and bushes with ease.

A voice shouted out in the dark. They had been spotted, of that and of little else, Rosemary was certain.

As they reached the top of the mountain, it cleared. The incline became less steep, but they had been running uphill for so long and had grown tired.

As the clearing came into view through the trees, a large fire burning was both a welcome sight and an omen. A figure came out of the dark and lunged at Penelope who was a few steps in front of Rosemary, knocking her into the water.

Rose stopped short only to find herself in the vice-like grip of somebody who was behind her.

Neve, as a passenger inside the memory, willed Rose to turn her head and look into the face of the person who was holding her but Rosemary wouldn't do as she asked. Rosemary's attention instead was on Penelope.

"Shit," The man who was holding Rosemary, said as he watched his partner pulling Penelope out of the water.

"Is she still breathing?" He asked.

Penelope's face was covered in blood, blood that was pouring out of a head wound from where her head had been smashed into an exposed Rock on the River bed as she's been tackled. Rose could see that half of her face was caved in from the impact.

Rosemary's blood-curdling scream filled the night, and she leant forward as she vomited violently onto the ground.

As she lifted her head, a hand reached out to touch her, and she jumped.

"Are you okay?" Nikki asked.

Neve's breathing slowed as she realised where she was and wiped her mouth while shaking her head.

"It's the tea," she said.

Neve wretched again, bringing up more of the sickly sweet brown water.

"You had a vision, didn't you?" Nikki said.

"A memory," Neve said.

"What did you see?" Sophie asked.

Neve took a deep breath. "Penny and I got away somehow, but she said we had to go back for you and Tabitha. One of them tackled her by the river where they had us. She was in the water. Her head hit a rock so hard," Neve said, trying not to cry, "it was caved in."

"Just like her nightmare," Nikki said.

"How do we get there? To where they are" Sophie said, " To where they had us."

"We find the River, and we follow it up to the top. There will be a clearing and a big fire. That's where they will be."

Sophie held out her hand to Neve and pulled her up to her feet.

"This time, I'm going back for her, and this time, she survives, Nev," Sophie said.
CHAPTER sixty-five

saturday – evening

As the three girls blindly navigated their way up the riverbank in the pale moonlight, the smell of fire began to fill the air.

The low beat of the drums became louder as they wearily drew nearer to the top of the mountain.

Nikki knelt closer to the ground as the fire came into view between the trees, nestling amidst a shrubbery for more cover.

"Oh my God," she whispered.

In the middle of the clearing was a large bonfire and standing around the fire were four darkly cloaked and hooded figures on their knees busying themselves in some kind of ritualistic dance that made them touch the ground in front of them a lot.

Standing around those four figures in the middle of the clearing were a dozen or more people in the same hooded cloaks watching.

"I can't see her," Sophie said. "Where is she?"

Neve suddenly felt the need to cough and smothered it into her arm as quietly as she could so not to give their location away.

"Sh!" Sophie reminded Neve as she fought the urge to cough once again. Neve tried to hold the cough in, causing her lungs to hurt in the process and when she couldn't take it no more and knew she had to give into the cough, tried to, but couldn't. She dropped to the ground, unable to breathe.

"Is she having a panic attack?" Nikki whispered.

Sophie shrugged her shoulders and rolled Neve onto her side rubbing her back, hoping it would help her breathe.

Neve gasped one last time, as she felt her body finally relax, slumping into the cold, damp earth below her. Her fingers clenched into the soft earthy soil, the dirt wedging itself under her fingernails.

Her vision blurred as Nikki and Sophie's faces became blurry and shrouded by dark halos.

Neve's mouth became dry, and once again the unmistakable taste of soil was in her mouth as an invisible weight crushed her. She slipped, into the darkness of unconsciousness.

Nikki shook Neve's body desperately.

"Sophie, she's stopped breathing."

Sophie placed her fingers onto Neve's neck and checked for a pulse.

"I can't feel anything. Neve, don't do this to us now. Wake up. You have got to wake up." She said.

"Do you ever wonder what happens to us once we stop them from killing girls?" Nikki asked.

"What are you saying?" Sophie asked. "What do you mean?"

"Maybe Neve's completed her purpose? Maybe when we right the wrong, the magic that brought us back leaves, and we die."

"Maybe it was the tea..." Sophie said. "She was throwing it up before."

Nikki looked at Sophie and tears rolled down her cheeks.

"No," Sophie said. "No, we didn't come back to stop these people and die, we came back to stop these people and live the lives we were supposed to have. I won't accept anything less than that."

Sophie placed both of her hands on Neves' chest and started compressing.

"What are you doing? Do you even know CPR?" Nikki demanded.

"Nope." Sophie admitted, "But she's dead anyway, so all I can do is try."

"Breathe into her Nikki."

Nikki hesitated briefly, but then she opened Neve's mouth with one hand and pinched her nostrils shut with the other.

"Count of three," Sophie said. "One, two, three."

Nikki exhaled into Neve's mouth. Nothing happened.

"Do it again," Sophie said, maintaining a rhythmic compression.

Nikki leant down to Exhale into Neve's mouth again.

"One, two, three" Sophie counted.

Nikki breathed into Neve's body.

Neve coughed and inhaled sharply into Nikki's open mouth, spluttering as she tried to catch her breath.

Sophie watched as one of the hooded figures turned toward the trees they were hiding behind

Nikki sat up and spat dry soil out of her mouth.

"Oh my God," Sophie said in alarm as two of the hooded spectators broke off from the group to investigate the sounds they heard coming from the bushes.

Sophie pulled Neve to her feet. "We need to hide. Now."
CHAPTER sixty-six

saturday – night

A single gunshot rang out in the night. Everything stopped for Neve, Nikki and Sophie. Sophie put her hand on her stomach and chest, checking herself for a gunshot wound. The night was frozen in one brief moment of surprise. Dobson walked into the clearing, followed by Owen, with his gun drawn in the air and his badge out.

"Police! Everybody stay right where you are."

The spell immediately broke as everyone in the clearing scattered into the dark.

Neve stood up shakily and ran into the clearing.

Dobson acknowledged the girls as they entered the clearing with a nod of the head, radioed into his coworkers about the suspects and followed them into the trees.

"Quick" Neve screamed running toward the fire. "Quick, they're here." She said dropping onto her knees on the soft ground. "Owen" she called. "Help us!"

Owen rushed over seeming momentarily confused at the four freshly disturbed patches of soil around the fire.

"Dig!" Neve screamed.

"Oh my God, No. Claudia!" Sophie cried in realisation, dropping down at the closest patch of loose earth near her.

Nikki, Owen, Neve and Sophie each dug into a grave each trying to free the girls from their earthly tombs. The dirt moved easily which helped them.

The sound of Sirens approaching was little comfort as Sophie uncovered the first body. It wasn't Claudia. She struggled to pull Lori Millers' unconscious body from the ground. Sophie placed Lori on the ground and hurried over to where Neve was digging and helped her dig up one of the other girls.

"Oh God" Owen cried out loud as he uncovered Kate's face. He fell backwards onto his backside and rocked back and forth with his head between his legs. "No, Oh God, It's Kate. Oh God, No."

Neve finally felt something underneath her fingers.

"Here," she said directing Sophie's attention to the spot she was digging in.

"I've got Annalise," Nikki said

Sophie and Neve looked at each other. Claudia was right there beneath them.

"DIG!" Sophie screamed.

They tried to pull Claudia to the surface, but there was still too much dirt on top of her. Neve brushed as much dirt away as she could while Sophie dug her hands underneath Claudia's armpits and pulled. Claudia's body finally gave way with a momentum that knocked Sophie to the ground.

"No, no, no, no," Sophie repeated scrambling over to Claudia's body. She brushed the dirt away from Claudia's eyes nose and mouth.

Claudia's body lay limp and lifeless.

"They're all Dead," Owen said rocking.

"We were too late," Nikki said, crying.

Sophie started screaming. Long, guttural angry screams into the night. She held her friends head between her dirty hands and, through tears and snot kissed her friend on the brow and placed her gently back on the ground. She stood up, the fire shining in her bright green eyes.

"I will find you, and I will kill you sons of bitches!" She screamed into the night, and as soon as her words disappeared after the hooded figures in the darkness, so too did she.

"Sophie" Neve cried tearfully. "Come back!"

Nikki moved over to Claudia's side and brushed her hair back over her head. She was crying as she leant down to hug Claudia, her head laying on her chest.

Nikki gasped and sat up.

"Her hearts still beating. It's slow, but it's still beating."

"What?" Owen said. "Are you sure?" He started to dig around Kate's body again.

Neve moved over to Claudia's side.

"What do we do?" Neve asked.

"Do you know CPR?" Nikki asked.

"No," Neve said.

"It doesn't matter just try to do it. Okay?" Nikki said.

Neve placed her hands over Claudia's sternum and started doing what she thought was CPR while chanting the bee gees song she's heard was helpful. Nikki started rubbing Claudia's arms and legs to help the circulation.

Nikki paused momentarily to exhale into Claudia's mouth. As Nikki's lips sealed over Claudia's and she exhaled into her body, a scream pierced the night, over the sound of the now arrived sirens and cut short.

Nikki broke away from Claudia's face to look around, and Claudia coughed.

"You did it!" Neve said.

Nikki exhaled again and stood up to get the attention of one of the paramedics she expected to see any second.

Neve sat back in relief falling into the half-dug grave that her friend had just been rescued from.

Owen exclaimed loudly as he pulled Kat's body out of the pit. Paramedics came running and attended the other girls' bodies.

Something scraped Neves arm as she tried to climb out of the hole she'd fallen into. She felt the ground around it and tried to dig it up, whatever it was. A delicate old, crusted, rusty chain came out of the dirt in small sections before stopping, stuck on a branch.

Neve moved around so that the light of the fire would illuminate what she was doing. She pulled on the chain gently until it stuck again and then used her fingers to pry the end of the chain out of the mud.

She held up the large rust corroded object that was attached to the chain in the firelight and recognised what she was looking at.

It was the Amulet Mama MaGumbu had given her. The same one that Tabitha had been wearing the day she died.

Neve felt a crushing wave of emotion come over her as she looked down at the branch the chain had been stuck to. She brushed the dirt away from it to reveal that it had been no branch at all, but the exposed remains of Tabitha MaGumbu's arm.

Nikki glanced over at Neve from Claudia's side as she was lifted onto the paramedics' stretcher and wheeled away.

"What's that?" She asked.

Neve gently got out of the grave and stood up respectfully.

"It's Tabitha MaGumbu's body," Neve said.
CHAPTER sixty-seven

saturday – night

Detective Dobson returned to the clearing and directed several officers with K-9 units in the directions that he had seen several perpetrators flee.

He paused in the midst of the activity and took a moment to breathe, glancing around. He spotted Owen, wrapped in an ambulance blanket, sitting beside a coroner as he zipped a body bag closed over Kate Sharps face. He sighed heavily and walked toward his son to offer comfort, but stopped short, as his path was interrupted by a paramedic pushing Claudia past him on a stretcher.

She smiled weakly at Dobson from underneath the oxygen mask. Nikki and Neve followed Claudia, wrapped snuggly in ambulance blankets.

"Girls," he said. "How are you doing?" he said to Claudia as she was lifted into the ambulance.

Claudia nodded.

Dobson looked at Nikki and Neve regretfully. "We didn't get anybody yet, but the dogs still might. So, don't lose hope. What were you doing coming up here without me anyway? I thought I was clear, you were to call me if anything happened? What happened to that?" He asked.

"I did call you, you didn't answer," Neve said. "Besides we wanted to be sure before we called it in."

"And aren't we happy that we did. One more minute and our Claudia could have been a goner." Nikki said.

"Like the others," Owen said as he appeared by Dobson's side. "The paramedics couldn't revive them."

Dobson reached out and put his arm around Owens' shoulder pulling him close and giving him a kiss on the side of his head.

"How did you find me?" Claudia asked Neve croakily, moving the mask aside as she spoke.

"Funny you should ask actually," Niki said. "Because it was Sophie who figured out where we were supposed to go."

Dobson smiled, then his face fell and his brow furrowed.

"Where is Sophie?" he asked.

"She went AWOL when Claudia wasn't breathing," Owen said. "She went into the woods screaming that she was going to kill them."

"Oh Shit," Dobson said lifting his walkie talkie to his face.

"Officers, Please be advised to keep an eye out for a civilian in plain clothes. Female, late teens early twenties, long dark hair, Latin complexion. Over."

Dobson turned and sighed, noticing Neve fiddling with something in her hand.

"What's that?" Dobson asked.

"This?" Neve said holding up the rusty remains of the amulet.

"It's the necklace Tabitha MaGumbu was wearing when she died."

"What? Where did you get that?" Dobson said looking around.

Neve pointed over to the open graves.

Dobson motioned one of the officers over and told them to expect to find more remains.

"It's weird, huh?" Claudia said, "Everything that's happened to us. Neve found Tabitha, just like she set out to do twenty years ago, and, Sophie found me. Just like she was always meant to find me, just like we were always meant to find each other. It's like all the loose ends are being tied up. Everything worked out the way it was supposed to."

Nikki looked at Neve with a smile.

"There are no coincidences" they both said.

"Except the bad guys are still out there, so everything hasn't worked out yet," Owen said bitterly.

Neve agreed, sadly.

"Don't give up yet, kid. I'll go see if anyone's heard anything back." He said as he walked away.

The ambulance engine started up. The paramedic stood up to close the ambulance door.

"Is anyone coming with us?" She asked.

Claudia moved the mask away from her face. "Stay here and wait for Sophie." She said.

Nikki nodded.

"We will come as soon as we can" Neve promised.
CHAPTER sixty-eight

saturday – night

Neve sighed heavily as she watched the Ambulance disappear into the darkness. She pulled the ambulance blanket up over her shoulders and turned around, leaning against Nikki. Nikki wrapped her arms around Neve and picked a leafy twig out of her hair before resting her head against Neves' head.

They stood silently together, holding each other up, waiting for Sophie t return and watching as torchlights bounced around in the trees and sky like spotlights for a Hollywood movie premiere, as the crime scene was processed methodically in front of them.

Neve spotted Dobson talking to another officer at the edge of the tree line. He looked over at the girls grimly and trudged over.

"Do either of you have a picture of Sophie on your phones?" he asked.

Neve pulled her phone out and opened the gallery.

"What's it for?" Nikki asked.

Dobson ignored her question. He took the phone over to the officer he had been talking to before. The officer nodded in the informative and looked over at the girls mournfully. Then he walked over to one of the coroners and directed him into the trees.

"Nikki" Neve said gripping her friends hand tightly. Nikki didn't respond, she just squeezed Neves hand more tightly in return.

Dobson dropped his hand, and his head and sniffed back hard as he tried to compose himself.

He walked over to Neve and Nikki and handed Neve the phone.

"I'm sorry" he croaked, looking deeply into both of their eyes. A tear fell down his cheek, and he looked away trying to disguise that he was crying.

Nikki wrapped her arms around Neves' shoulders and pulled her close as they both broke down into tears.

Dobson sniffled and wiped the corners of his eyes as he tried to compose himself.

He glanced around the clearing looking for something to distract himself.

"Did Owen go with Claudia?" he asked suddenly.

"What?" Neve asked, wiping her eyes. "No, I don't think so. She told us to wait for Sophie."

Dobson's brow creased heavily. He pulled out his phone and dialled Owens phone.

The phone rang over where the ambulance had been.

Dobson walked over and picked it up from the grass.

He started calling out into the dark for his son.

Neve and Nikki looked around and started calling out for him too.

Officers in the clearing stopped what they were doing and looked around.

Owen's name was called into the night by those who could be spared, with no response.

Dobson got off the phone with the hospital after confirming that Owen had not gone to the hospital with Claudia.

"Officer Denton," Dobson called to one of the officers standing nearby. "I want you to take these girls... um, take them to the station, keep them safe. And put a protective detail on the girl at the hospital. I need to go find my son."

