The Game You Played (31 page)

I sat in my room, waiting.

There was no more
looking for Tommy
. By anyone. The focus was all on me, waiting for me to get a bit less crazy and tell everyone where he was.

When the staff from the Greensthorne facility came to get me, I took my packed bag downstairs and kissed Nan good-bye. She clung to my arm for a moment then turned her face away from me.

Tall buildings blurred past me as I was driven to the facility at North Sydney. My room was small and painted blue, with a painting of a rainforest on the wall. No glass covering the painting of course and nowhere high within the room to hang anything from—nothing for a resident to use to kill themselves.

A broad-faced man with a tiny, pursed mouth showed me around Greensthorne. It looked like a small country hospital, except for the view of the city from the upstairs floors. Long halls smelling faintly of antiseptic. Lots of paintings of sultry rainforests and tropical birds. Outside, high black metal fences surrounded the entire property, the bushy bamboo failing to hide the spikes on top of the fences.

The residents gazed at me with either probing or open stares. I’d been instructed to wear sunglasses and a large hat or hooded top—even inside the facility. If people recognised me, they might try to hurt me. No one took a good view of child killers.

I stayed in my room after the tour.

Visiting hours were until half past eight at night. Luke tried to come and see me at seven, but I refused his visit. I knew what he wanted from me. To tell him where his son was.

At ten o’clock, I peered around the corner of my doorframe to ensure no one was coming and then knelt down next to my suitcase. In a locked, zippered pocket, I’d hidden my sleeping pills. I knew they wouldn’t like for me to bring my own pills. They’d be deciding what medication I had and when. They’d already looked through my bag—
just standard procedure, they’d said
—but they hadn’t found the hidden compartment. Luke used to joke that this was my drug-runner suitcase.

I’d take the last of the pills every night until there were none left. Just so that I could see Tommy. It would be the last time I’d ever see his face so vividly.

I locked the compartment securely and swallowed the pills with a drink of water from the plastic jug beside the bed.

It didn’t matter if I sleepwalked here. I couldn’t get out, and they were used to people acting strange here. I had nothing to hide, anymore.

All I wanted now was to sleep and dream.

I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in a haze, hidden behind my hat and sunglasses.

When the nights came, I returned to my stash of sleeping pills, to begin the dreams again and find my way back to Tommy.

This was all I had now. This was all I wanted.

Wednesday night

SOMEONE WAS TOUCHING MY HAIR.

Inhaling a sharp breath, I rolled over.

Tommy stood next to the bed, stroking my hair. “
Shweep, mumma, shweep.
”

“Tommy,” I whispered. “Where have you been? I’ve missed you.”

“
I been gone
.”

“I know. You’ve been gone too long. Too long . . .” I wriggled to a sitting position, rubbing my heavy forehead in a small circle.

I didn’t have time to think about Tommy’s long absence because he’d already slipped out of the room. I caught sight of his shadow out in the hall, just before it vanished from view.

Jumping from bed, I ran after him.

In the narrow corridor, Tommy pushed through a door, leaving it swinging behind him.

God, where was I? I didn’t recognise this place.

Sprinting, I pushed through the same door that Tommy had. Another corridor lay ahead. Rooms led off the corridor—two with their lights on. I turned and looked the other way. The corridor extended even longer in this direction. Tommy was there, running—towards a tall woman.

Saskia.

In a long, dark jacket, scarf, and jeans.

Tommy ran and encircled her legs.

Why was she here in this strange place?

“Tommy! Tommy!” I called. “Come back to me.”

Saskia’s eyes became strange. “Phoebe, Tommy isn’t here.”

Tommy squished his shoulders and nudged his head around to look back at me. I froze. His features were gone. No mouth. No church-pew eyes.

He was wearing the exact same clothing he had been when he first went missing. He always wore those clothes. Why didn’t I notice that before?

He wasn’t real.
I’d been chasing a ghost.

As I raised my eyes to Sass, Tommy faded from view.

I’d lost him again. This time, he wasn’t coming back.

Putting a finger to her mouth to tell me to be quiet, Sass waved me forward.

“They weren’t going to let me in,” she said quietly. “Visiting hours are closed. But I told a small lie and said I had to fly out of the country tomorrow.”

“Do you know this place?” I gripped her forearms.

She stared at me, her expression growing sad. “Oh, Phoebe, they’ve pumped you full of drugs, haven’t they?”

“Where are we?” I asked her.

“You’re in a special place where you can rest,” she told me. “But you can’t rest yet. I have to take you somewhere.”

“I want to leave here.”

“Good. But you have to trust me. The people here don’t want you to leave. We have to be careful.”

I turned my head back in the direction of my room. “I have a bag—”

“It’s best we don’t go back for it. They were about to change over shifts when I came in, and they’ll probably do a room check.”

Shrugging off the calf-length jacket that she wore, she handed it to me. “Put this on.”

I obeyed and buttoned it up.

She brushed my hair and knotted her scarf around my neck.

Taking my hand, she led me along the corridor, peeking briefly into each room that had an open door. In one room, an elderly woman was sitting in an armchair with her legs tucked up to her chest, fast asleep, a plastic princess crown lopsided on her head. Sass grabbed her shoes. “These might fit.”

We stepped into an empty room, and I squeezed my feet into the lace-up orthopaedics. They
hurt
.

“Phoebe, you’re not walking straight. I need you to act normal, or you won’t get out of here.”

I wanted to get out. I didn’t like this place. I nodded at her.

We took the stairs to the bottom floor. Sass didn’t want to take the elevator. She hung back in the dim corridor as we neared what looked like a reception desk.

“It’s a new person at the desk,” she told me quietly. “Hopefully they don’t know that only one person came in. I need you to walk straight and tall beside me. You get one shot at this, okay?”

“Okay.” I could
pretend
this, like an acting role. Pretend that my mind wasn’t fog and my heart hadn’t been torn away by Tommy’s deception—leading me to believe that he was here when he wasn’t.

She eyed me fixedly. “Here we go.”

I copied her, walking in step.

“Thanks!” Sass called to the woman at the front desk.

The woman nodded at her. “Use the card you were given when you came in. And keep it, for further visits.”

Sass shot her a broad smile and then continued on to the glass door. A tiny light flashed above a round lime-green button. Sass pressed it. We went through to yet another glass door. A light flashed above a green button here, too. Again, Sass pressed it.

We were out.

I inhaled the cold night air.

“C’mon.” I followed Sass to the first fence. Beyond that lay a parking lot.

Sass inserted her visitor’s card into the slot. The gate buzzed and clicked open. We threaded our way through the parked cars to the last gate. Again, Sass inserted her card.

I recognised her car parked on the street, even though it was half enveloped by mist.

As we drove away, I remembered something. “You hate me,” I told her. But I didn’t remember why she hated me.

“I was wrong,” she said.

“Why—?”

“Phoebe, let’s not talk about it now. You’re not yourself. Whatever they gave you, it’s made you pretty damned dopey.”

I decided to let it go. “Are you taking me back to Luke?”

“Is that where you want to go?”

“No.” Why didn’t I want to go back to Luke?

“That’s good, because we can’t go there.”

“Then where are we going?”

She pressed her lips in, lights of an oncoming car washing over her face. “Number 29.”

“
No.
I don’t want to go there.”

“Just trust me.”

That house was the last place I wanted to go. But my mind was sludge and ash. And my head too heavy to argue.

I fell back into sleep.

*

I woke alone.

I knew exactly where I was even before I opened my eyes. Those overpowering scents of age, mildew, second-hand clothing, and the new scent of pot. I was upstairs at number 29, in the third bedroom.

A soft light shone from a corner, but most of the room was a palette of deep shadows.

My voice sounded hollow as I called for Sass.

No answer came.

My heart thudded in the silence.

Of course she wasn’t here.

I’d been dreaming.

I was meant to be at Greensthorne. And Sass was a thousand miles away, with her family.

How did I get here from Greensthorne? How did I get out? I remembered taking the pills and getting into bed. I remembered Sass . . . and Tommy.

I glanced down at my clothing. I was wearing a long jacket and the old lady’s shoes. I’d stolen all of that. Wincing, I pulled my feet free of the restricting shoes.

Someone was coming.

I heard the
creak, creak, creak
on the stairs.

Crawling around a rack of framed paintings, I bent my head low. The rack was just high enough to hide me. I had to be still. There were spaces through which I could be seen.

The floorboards groaned along the hall.

A man walked into the room, a large canvas satchel over his shoulder. The same man as before. He dumped out the contents of the bag on the floor and then set about arranging the items. He hummed as he added to his collection—his voice odd.

He stopped and frowned as he lifted two black shoes from the floor.

I sucked in a rapid breath. I’d left the old lady’s shoes out there.

He turned his head, looking around. I watched his shoulders shrug then as he gave the shoes a place.

Seeming satisfied that everything was in order, he hung his hat on a free-standing coat rack, then his jacket.

He peeled a wig from his head.
A wig?

Shoulder-length hair dropped. I knew who he was even before he removed the goatee and moustache.

Bernice.

I edged back a fraction as she stepped across the small room to put the wig on a shelf. As I moved, the floorboards made a tiny shifting sound under my feet.

I had no time to react before she marched to the painting rack and peered around it. Her eyes were intense as she grabbed hold of my arm and yanked me from my hiding place.

“Phoebe Basko. What are you doing here?”

“Let go of me.”

“Tell me why you’re here, and maybe I will.”

Words blurred in my head. “I don’t know why I’m here.”

She made a derisive sound under her breath. “I’m supposed to believe that?”

I sensed a shadow behind us. I twisted around at the waist.

Sass emerged from the darkness of the hallway into the doorframe. Sass, shoeless and with a pearl-handled knife in her hand.

I stared at her like she were a hallucination.

“Leave her alone.” Sass’s voice was calm, icy. “
You freak.
I should have guessed that the strange man around the neighbourhood was
you
.”

“Get out of my house,” Bernice roared. “You don’t belong here. Either of you. Not anymore.”

“This place was always ours.” Sass took a bold step forward.

“You left it, and you didn’t come back.” Bernice shifted her gaze to me. “And Phoebe’s going to be going away for a long time. She can’t hide here.”

“She didn’t come here to hide.” Sass took another step.

“Sass, be careful!” I cried, trying to wrench my arm from Bernice. Sass had a knife, but Bernice was larger and stronger than either of us.

“Don’t worry about me,” Sass said. “I can deal with Bernice.”

“I thought I dreamed you,” I breathed at her.

“You were certainly in a drug haze.” Sass nodded at me. “I had to help you inside and up the stairs, then I went to move my car. I didn’t want anyone to know I was here.” She paused for a moment, biting her lip anxiously. “I’m sorry about how I was when you called me on the phone. I was just so angry with you. More than angry. I’ve always seen you as a sister. Which made Tommy my family. When I saw all the evidence against you, I can’t even explain how I felt—”

Bernice tightened her grip on my arm. “If Phoebe didn’t come here to hide, then why is she here? And why the hell are you here?”

Saskia’s expression hardened. With her eyes on Bernice, she pushed her hand into the front pocket of her jeans and pulled out a small object.

The boat from Tommy’s nightlight.

“This is why,” Sass said.

I felt Bernice’s shoulder shrug beside me. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“Phoebe found this here. In this room. With your things,” said Sass.

I shook my head slightly. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Sass. They found the nightlight in Nan’s toolshed. It was me who—”

“No, it does matter.” Saskia held up the boat between the thumb and forefinger of her free hand. “If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s colour and patterns. It’s what I do for a job. And this boat has red stripes in straight lines. But Tommy’s didn’t. The stripes on Tommy’s boats had a curve that followed the curve of the boats. Those kinds of small details are important when you’re a designer. Most people don’t notice. But
we
do.”

“You’re both insane,” said Bernice. “Phoebe’s about to be charged with
murder
. While you’re trying to make up some ballyhoo about stripes on a kid’s toy. Not to mention, you’ve got a knife pointed at me. I’m pretty sure that’s a crime in itself.”

Sass slipped the boat back into her pocket, holding the knife out straight. “Are you going to call the police on us? I don’t think so. Not after you hear what I have to say. On my flight home, the on-board TV on the plane was showing the news. I saw a close up of the nightlight. And I thought back, to the day that I played on the floor with Tommy and that nightlight. The boats had all been uniform. You know, curved stripes. Not like the boat Phoebe found here at number 29.”

I eyed the metamorphosed Bernice from my side vision. The scoffing look hadn’t left her face. My mind was still processing seeing her change from a man to a woman. Sluggishly, I tried to concentrate on what Sass was saying.

“But, I needed to know for sure,” Sass continued. “When I got home, I went straight to see Phoebe’s nan. I told her I’d left a scarf behind in Phoebe’s room. And I went up there and grabbed the boat. It was just like I thought. Straight lines. Which means this boat came from another nightlight. I already knew from Phoebe that the nightlights were limited edition and how much they cost. You’re just not going to find broken bits of them everywhere. So, I raced home and looked up the toy shop where Phoebe bought it. And I called them. I pretended to be the police needing urgent information about the sales of the nightlight. It wasn’t difficult for me to do. I mean, the nightlight had already been splashed on the news everywhere. The store owner looked up the sales records for me. He had a record of one being sold in December last year. To someone on this street. He even remembered the woman who bought it. She was blonde, Bernice. Like you.”