Page 8 of Secrets of Riverside

‘All good, mine are too,’ Ebony chuckled.

Feeling on top of the world now she’d caught her runaway breath, Millie squinted as she gazed out and over the now roused city. ‘Wowsers, the views from here are pretty darn awesome.’

‘They are, hey.’ Ebony drew in a few breaths and exhaled each away. ‘Are you ready to head back home now?’

Millie nodded. ‘Just knowing it’s mainly downhill from here, damn straight I am.’

It was way easier on the homeward stretch with gravity on her side. When they arrived back at the apartment block, Millie paused to grab the pile of mail from their letterbox.

‘Dibs for the shower, Mills.’ Ebony raced ahead and started up the stairs.

‘You go for it, Ebs, because I ain’t running any more today.’

‘I’ll leave the door ajar for you,’ she called over the banister.

Traipsing up the staircase, Millie had never been happier to reach the front door. Stepping inside, she kicked off her runners, and then moseying into the lounge room, flopped onto the couch with an almighty sigh. Sifting through the mail, she tossed the grocery store flyers to the floor, along with a couple of pizza coupons – the junk mail was going straight into the recycling bin. Almost at the bottom of the stack, her fingers froze. Wide-eyed, she stared at the yellow envelope with her name scrawled across the front in bold black letters. There was no address. The sender had clearly placed this envelope within the stack, and deliberately hidden it towards the bottom. How in the heck did whoever it was get into the apartment block in the first place? Jason came to mind, but then she shoved the thought away – he’d already be hunting down his next unsuspecting victim and wooing the poor woman with his narcissism hidden until he hooked her in. She shook her head to get rid of the painful memories of him doing exactly that to her. She felt foolish for having fallen for him. Blinking her tears away, she stared at the envelope with her heart hammering in her rib cage as if trying to break free.

‘Amelia Price.’ She whispered it, as though terrified to speak her name.

Nobody called her by her birth name anymore. Not even Ebony. And other than her best friend, no one knew she was living here, or so she had thought. She flipped it over, not surprised to see the back of the envelope was blank. A terrifying thought struck her. What if the person who’d put this in her letterbox, who had somehow let themselves in the building, had let themselves in here too? She shot to her feet, looking left to right. Without wanting to scare Ebony, who was singing at the top of her lungs from the shower, she tiptoed about the small apartment, checking cupboards, looking under beds and behind every nook and cranny. Satisfied she and Ebony were safe, she released the breath she’d been holding and made her way back to the couch, sat stiffly, then, slipping her index finger beneath the edge of the envelope, carefully unsealed it. She removed the folded bit of notepaper and opened it, and a photo fell out and onto the rug at her socked feet. Bending over, she snatched it up and stared at her six-year-old self, wrapped up in the loving arms of her father. The photo had been taken from afar, as if someone had been watching them, stalking them. It wasn’t your usual happy family pic – there was malice behind this photo. Evil intentions. Fear snaked up her spine as another jolt of adrenaline shot through her.

What in the hell?

With quivering hands, she turned her attention to the note.

Hello Amelia. It’s been a long time. You wouldn’t remember me, so no need to fill you in on who I am. You’ll work that out in time. I know your family died in a fire. I know someone saved you. I’m presuming you’ve never gotten over the grief of your loss, or the guilt of surviving. If you want to know the cold hard truth of exactly who your father was, and finally learn who it was that saved you, you need to go to Northern Queensland, to a place called Riverside Acres. Find a reason to stay there. It won’t be hard, given the fact it’s a motel. Don’t tell a soul who you are. And in time, everything will be revealed. Because the truth always comes out, one way or another, especially when you’re at the source of the secrets. I suppose I could just tell you straight out, save you a trip, but then where’s the fun in that? Your father put me through hell. Now you’re paying the price for that. And besides this very valid point, in my family, unlike many others, we don’t rat on one another. Snitches die. Rats live in sewers. These are the mottos we live by. Now get a move on. Time’s ticking.

Her vision blurring, she felt the note flutter from her trembling fingertips and to the floor. With the room spinning in dizzying circles, she leant forwards and tried to catch her leaden breath. This couldn’t be happening. She had to be having another nightmare. Squeezing her eyes shut, she began to count to one hundred as she rocked back and forth. Next thing she knew, Ebony was kneeling in front of her, wrapped in a towel. Millie wiped at her eyes and tried to focus. The note and photo were now in Ebony’s hands, and the fearful look on her best friend’s face matched the angst swirling like a whirlwind within her own stomach.

‘Mills, look at me.’ Ebony placed a gentle hand on her cheek. ‘Do you have any idea who could have sent this?’

Still rocking back and forth, Millie shook her head.

‘Okay.’ She chewed her bottom lip as she re-read it, then locked her eyes with Millie’s again. ‘We should call the police and get them to investigate this.’

‘No.’ Millie took the note from Ebony’s hand. ‘You know damn well the police came up empty after all their investigating, and I don’t want anything to ruin the possibility of me finally learning the truth about everything that happened that night.’

‘Millie, don’t be so foolish.’ Ebony stood and then sat beside her, her hand once again steadying Millie’s bouncing leg. ‘Please tell me you aren’t thinking about actually going there.’

Sucking in a breath, Millie tried to pull herself together, at least enough to speak. But her throat was so tight, and her mouth was so dry, she couldn’t utter a word.

‘Millie?’ Ebony pronounced her name cautiously.

Millie finally sucked up courage from some place deep and dark. ‘I have to go, Eb.’ She whispered it, as if too afraid to hear herself say such a thing.

‘No way, I won’t let you go and do something so stupid.’ Ebony grabbed both of Millie’s hands and squeezed them. ‘Listen to me, this is crazy talk.’ Pausing, she cleared her throat. ‘How do you know you’re not walking into some kind of trap?’

‘I know you’re worried, and I am too.’ Sitting up straight, and meeting Ebony’s eyes, Millie took a moment to gather herself, and the right words. ‘You of all people know just how much I’ve wanted answers to why it happened, to us, a family who lived in a tiny little town with hardly any crime.’ She sucked in a shuddering breath. ‘This might be the closure I need, to somehow get on with my life.’

With a myriad of emotions contorting her features, Ebony took a long while to reply. ‘Well, in that case, if you need to do this, I’m cancelling my trip and coming with you.’

Millie shook her head. ‘You can’t, Eb, you’ve worked too hard for your dream holiday.’

‘But, Mills,’ Ebony was blinking now, and her lips trembled, as if she were holding back a flood of tears, ‘I can’t leave you to do something like this alone.’

‘I’m not going into the middle of Timbuktu, Ebs. I’m going to a roadside motel, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty of people around.’ Although terrified, Millie wanted to protect Ebony from this worry, this pain. Her darling friend had been through enough, with her and because of her. ‘I’ll have my phone, and I’ll make sure I call you, and you can call me, so you know I’m safe, okay?’

Nodding slowly, Ebony rested back against the couch. ‘I know you, and I know there’s no way I’ll talk you out of doing this, so I’ll just have to find the courage to support you.’ She pointed a finger in Millie’s direction. ‘But you make sure you stick to your promise of staying in touch, no ifs, buts or maybes, and no excuses, you hear me?’

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