Hurrying back upstairs to the peace of my office, I swear, here and now, that I will find Alexa Clarke. Whatever it takes, I will find her, and I will help her.
CHAPTER 6Alexa
Two days gone
Alexa Clarke was undoubtedly the most fascinating thing in the small, white room she had been laid in. The choice to position the five-foot-nine woman on a single bed gave the impression of her being an overgrown child, one who was simply too big for the space she occupied. To the left of Alexa was a bedside table and a lamp giving off a dim light. Beside that was a long, narrow window. Its curtain was drawn, the hem kissing the window ledge. No light seeped around the edges, a sign that it was night-time.
Dried blood matted Alexa’s blonde hair to her skull and stained her pale skin. The hoodie Alexa had been wearing when she went for her walk was gone, as were her trainers. The rest of her outfit was intact, although mud now caked the knees of her leggings.
The tatty nature of Alexa’s appearance was made even more shocking by how starkly it contrasted with her surroundings. The pristine room suggested that whoever owned it was neat, verging on obsessive. There was no junk under the bed, no excess furniture cluttering the space. Just a bed, some bedding and a woman named Alexa Clarke.
A woman whose flickering eyelids suggested that, after forty-eight hours of slipping in and out of consciousness, she was finally awake. More than that, she was trying to open her eyes.
Not that the process was easy. It couldn’t be when the blood that spilt from Alexa’s head had coated her lashes, drying to form a crust that welded her eyes shut.
Her eyelids screamed as she tried to pry them apart. The struggle reminded Alexa of times when she had forgotten to take her make-up off before she slept. The jarring thought stopped Alexa’s mind in its tracks. Why had she been wearing make-up? Alexa hadn’t used cosmetics in a long time. A beauty regime required effort, and recently all her effort had been taken up by getting out of bed.
But if Alexa hadn’t gone anywhere that warranted a cosmetic cover-up, then why were her eyelids stuck together?
As Alexa’s blood ran cold, she ordered herself to focus on facts, not fear. Scrunching her forehead, she tried to conjure her last memory. While her brain was pounding like she had the mother of all hangovers, no party came to mind. In fact, when Alexa tried to remember anything, thick clouds of confusion clogged her thoughts.
A low moan escaped Alexa’s lips when, finally, the corner of her left eye ripped opened.
As soon as it did, Alexa wished it hadn’t. The onslaught of light burned her retina, even though the room could hardly be described as well lit. She winced, but the facial movement only made the throbbing in her head intensify.
Clenching her teeth, Alexa forced the rest of her eyelids to open. The task was brutal, but she didn’t stop until the top eyelashes broke free of the bottom ones. But even with her eyes open, Alexa still couldn’t see. Her entire field of vision was blurred as if smeared witha sheen of Vaseline. Blinking, she waited until the world around her became clear enough that she could make out fuzzy shapes.
Shapes she didn’t recognise.
With her heart hammering, Alexa ordered herself to stay calm and assess the situation. There was something soothing about the practical task that lulled her into believing things might not be quite as bad as they seemed.
Tilting her head to survey the strange room she found herself in, it was then that Alexa realised she was lying on a bed with crisp white sheets. She didn’t know whose sheets they were. They certainly weren’t hers.
As the pain in her head screeched louder, Alexa scanned her surroundings for clues as to where she was, but other than the bed and the bedside table, there was nothing in the room.
Nothing but a grey hoodie hung on the back of the door.
I have a hoodie like that, Alexa thought as her gaze settled on it. It was one of Otis’s old ones, baggy and worn at the hem.
Alexa had been wearing the hoodie a lot recently. There was comfort in the way she could lose herself in the roomy material, the soft fabric providing the hug she had given up asking Otis for. Once upon a time, she would have only worn something as scruffy as that at home, but these days Alexa wore it outside, too. Especially when she was walking.
That’s it, she thought.A walk. That’s the last thing I remember doing.
She had gone for one after breakfast, and after the argument she’d had with Otis. Alexa remembered ignoring him to try to avoid the showdown, but he’d commanded her attention by shouting.
The next memory she had was of her walk.
I wore the grey hoodie, Alexa thought. She remembered dropping her purse into one of the oversized pockets but leaving her phonebehind. Abandoning the thing that tethered her to the world had been freeing. Now the decision just felt foolish.
Frowning, Alexa tried to think of what came next. The route she conjured from her memory was hazy, but it came to her. Sliding open the bifold doors and stepping out into the garden. Hopping over the fence and walking through the trees that bordered the land her home was built on. Reaching the fields behind the house. And then…
And then… What?
Chewing the inside of her cheek, Alexa focused on the hoodie once more, waiting for it to confess the truth. That was when she noticed the red-brown splashes.
The red-brown splashes that looked an awful lot like blood.
Suddenly, a tsunami of memories swept over Alexa, obliterating her beliefs that quiet countryside areas were safe and that bad things didn’t happen to nice, law-abiding people like her.