The Gaps by Leanne Hall (young adult books to read .TXT) 📗

but I remind myself that he probably owes me this. I’m allowed to ask him for things.

‘Let me take care of it, Chlo. Is little Sammy there?’

‘Nah, he’s at soccer practice.’

‘Oh, right. I should watch one of his matches, shouldn’t I?’

‘Yeah, he’d like that.’

‘Speak soon,’ he says, and we hang up.

After I speak to Dad I do my homework. Not all of it, because at this time of year it’s like a bottomless pit of things that should have been done a week ago. Balmoral runs on pressure, like a big steam train you can’t get off once you’re on. Every teacher thinks their subject is the most important, and they get annoyed if you haven’t paid enough attention to their set tasks. They’ve got no idea how much it adds up to across six subjects.

The house is quiet, with Mum and Sam both at soccer. I do my maths exercises and then make grilled cheese on toast with so much French mustard my tongue burns.

Natalia has sent me a link to the TV show she mentioned, Devil Creek. I realise that the billboard I saw on the way home from school just after Yin was taken was for the same show.

The opening credits roll: a girl runs barefoot through the bush at night, her legs and arms painfully scratched, the soundtrack built from driving drums and panic.

I decide I don’t really love it halfway through the first episode. Detective McManus is experienced and professional, but distracted by his messy divorce. His work partner Detective Burns is dedicated and cares too much, but keeps pissing off witnesses with her blunt manner. The people of Devil Creek all have secret lives, but nothing ties together, at least not yet. Everyone is white and every time it seems like the plot might go somewhere, they cut to a confusing dream sequence.

But Emily Blake, the victim, the town’s prettiest girl with the sordid secrets—she gives me chills. The music builds to something sinister when they find her body.

Her nightie is ripped low on her chest and a fly hovers around her face.

The camera zooms in on her pale lips, which are as cracked as the mud she’s lying on. A strand of hair snakes its way into the corner of her mouth, searching for a way in. There are droplets of blood along the actress’s forehead, as pretty as rubies, and her staring eyes wear the reflection of blue sky and clouds above.

Every time they show the autopsy photo, or show Emily Blake when she was alive, or give us her blueish body on a mortuary gurney, I can see the resemblance to Natalia, I see every fallen body on the cover of a crime novel, and I can’t help thinking that everyone wants their teenage girls ruined.

DAY 36

A police car fills our driveway, and when I take a survey of what other gargantuan shifts have taken place in the universe, I see the Baillieus’ front curtains twitch across the road.

Welcome to the show, everyone.

I pull my headphones off, look through the police car window to see a black leather void inside, with extra screens, extra gadgets. First the Mitchells on TV, and now this. I let myself in the front door instead of the back.

Mum is a treble clef silhouette in the distance, leaning against the kitchen counter. She’s supposed to be visiting Nan at the retirement home today. It usually takes her most of the day to drive down to the peninsula and back.

‘You’re home early,’ Mum says.

‘What’s going on?’

The question sends her slumping even further against the counter. She looks unexpectedly beautiful in this moment, pale and tense, beige and blonde, surrounded by the marble countertop and gleaming kitchen appliances.

‘It’s nothing.’

Faith emerges from the laundry holding her jacket and bag, heading for the back door fast. She’s scared of anyone in uniform, and who would blame her when she’s already survived a civil war in her home country. She has a nursing degree but works as a cleaner for several families on our street. Mum raises her hand goodbye.

A strange man walks across the picture window behind Mum, looks up at the garage eaves and makes a mark on a notepad. He disappears around the side of the house.

‘Is our house being searched?’ My mind leaps to my bedroom immediately, completing a detailed inventory of my drawers and closet.

‘Not exactly. I don’t know.’ My mum, the lawyer, doesn’t know. She worries away at a cuticle. ‘Your father is upstairs talking to the police. It’s…routine.’

I stare. When my voice comes out again, it’s high and not really my own. ‘It doesn’t sound routine. This is because I used to be close to Yin, isn’t it?’

A shower of illusions crash around me. That I can stay at a distance from the abduction, that the police won’t drag us into it anyway.

‘I don’t think so, love.’

‘Then it’s about Dad? Do they suspect him?’

‘Darling…’

Every word costs Mum energy she doesn’t have. She’s about to say more, but Dad clomps down the staircase that leads to their bedroom. He looks grey and ashamed when he sees me, the way he should look all the times he comes home drunk.

He’s followed down the stairs by a rumpled, friendly looking guy in a suit.

‘This is my daughter, Natalia,’ Dad says. ‘Natalia, this is Detective Barbero. We’re helping him with his enquiries.’

‘Are you going to interrogate me as well?’ I ask.

Detective Barbero looks like someone’s unfit dad, not a person who chases criminals for a living. I haven’t seen him around school or on the TV either. He’s got nothing on the handsome head guy who gets interviewed on the news.

‘No one is getting interrogated, Natalia. We’ve got everything we need at this stage, and your parents have my number.’

It’s odd to be so irrelevant when I know Yin better than anyone else. Or I used to. Maybe someone should talk to me.

The detective gestures to his colleague in the