Page 23 of Then She Vanished

Then she heard loud, rasping breaths, which made her neck tingle.

‘Hello?’

She stepped slowly to the end of the van, her heart starting to bang. She didn’t know anything about first aid, and the person around the final corner of the van sounded like they neededhelp. What if there was blood? She’d have a panic attack if there was.

Grabbing her phone, she pressed 999 without hitting the call button, just in readiness.

Be brave, Keeley.

‘Help!’ the male voice gasped.

She hurried around and saw the person’s legs hanging out of the side of the van. Darting towards him, she leaned in.

‘It’s okay, I’m calling an ambulance—’ Her finger hovered over the call button as she furrowed her brows.

The man lying in front of her was nothing more than stuffed clothes.

How could she not have noticed that the legs had no shoes on the end? Someone was pranking her, and it wasn’t funny.

The new caretaker at the school was a bit weird, maybe it was his idea of a joke. It wouldn’t be the first time. When she had cleaned the gym toilets, he’d left a load of strawberry sauce all over the showers. She thought she’d been walking into a murder scene and she’d ran down the corridor screaming and saw him and the others laughing. It was meant as fun and she took it as that, but right now he was scaring her.

‘Xavier, you didn’t scare me. Whoever’s watching and waiting to film me run away screaming, you can quit now.’

In fact, they were being stupid. She was thirty-five, not ten. All she wanted to do was finish work and go home, not be late and have to work overtime because of a practical joke.

‘You didn’t scare me,’ she said, yet her phone trembled in her hand. Who was she kidding? ‘Okay, I’m going to call the police because you’re a weirdo, Xavier.’

That’s when someone came up behind her and knocked her phone flying.

She watched as it crashed to the road, smashing to pieces. As she turned, she caught sight of the figure in a ski mask as hegrabbed her arms and spun her around, his hands gripping her while his knuckles dug into the small of her back as he nudged her closer to the stuffed clothes.

‘Get in the van,’ he said in a hushed tone.

‘No!’ she screamed, then she screamed again. Someone from the rich-people houses had to hear her, because Lucie sure as hell wouldn’t.

He nudged her forward so she was doubled over, her legs on the pavement and her face buried into the dummy’s stuffed shirt.

She couldn’t breathe.

While wriggling, she freed a hand. As he tried to lift her legs into the van, she pushed back with all she had. She thought of her children. If she ended up in the van, she might never escape. Was he going to rape her or kill her?

She kept fumbling underneath the stuffed clothes and felt a solid cylindrical object. She grabbed it and he weakened his grip slightly.

She turned to gasp in a few breaths, and with all she had she swung the travel mug around and hit him in the neck. He began to gasp and his grip loosened.

She used her other hand to pull him off her.

Stumbling away, she began to dart in the direction of the school, heading through the main gate waving her arms in the hope that Lucie would see her, but Lucie had gone.

That’s when she felt his hand pulling the back of her jacket, just as the sun was coming up. She fell to the pavement. He yanked her up and began dragging her weakened body back towards the van.

‘Help!’ she screamed, but it was no good.

No one was listening as he thrust her through the side door and into the van.

FIFTEEN

Gina woke up gasping. In her dream, several men in masks had thrown her into some sort of dungeon. Some had been tapping away on their computers, others filming her while their friends defiled her. Breathing in and out, she gripped her quilt. She was home, she was safe, her house was alarmed and she had cameras pointed at her front drive and the back garden. Had anyone tried to come for her, she’d have got an alert on her phone. She quickly checked them. The one on the back door had gone offline again. As soon as the case was over, she needed to get it replaced.

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