Connie pushed her hand deep inside the envelope – there was no accompanying note. She stared at the pay-as-you-go mobile, half-expecting it to suddenly ring despite currently being switched off. She swallowed the lump in her throat and reached for it, gently handling it as if it might explode.
Someone had hand-delivered the package, meaning they knew where she lived. Could this be Scott’s doing? He’d shown himself to be persistent, so it was a possibility this was an extension of the texts and flowers. Deep down she knew this wasn’t the case. It felt different.
Connie checked the time. Ten-thirty. Surely Lindsay would be home soon. She would wait for her, get her to turn on the phone and find out what it was all about. Connie did not want to do it on her own. She pulled her legs up onto the sofa and lay her head on the arm. Surely it wouldn’t be long to wait.
A crashing awoke her. Connie bolted upright, fear preventing her from moving off the sofa. She’d fallen asleep. She held her breath, straining to hear foreign noises. There was nothing. She felt disorientated, her head fuzzy with sleep.
Connie’s muscles unclenched, her mind relaxed. It must’ve been a dream. Checking her phone for the time, she was shocked to see it was two-thirty in the morning. Why wasn’t Lindsay home yet? She uncurled herself and stretched, her neck stiff from her position on the sofa. She couldn’t believe she’d managed to sleep with all the worry swimming about in her head. She looked to the coffee table, to the mobile phone – its silence, its stillness somehow menacing. It was mocking her. With a sinking feeling, Connie reached forwards and picked it up.
She pressed the power button – her curiosity couldn’t wait for Lindsay. She was obviously tied up with the body that’d been found; she might not even bother to come back now, choosing instead to stay on for the rest of the day. In the meantime, Connie had to find out why the mobile had been delivered to her.
The phone buzzed into life, the vibration sending shocks, like icy shards, across her skin.
When she’d been a teenager, her and her friend Tracey had watched the horror film Carrie. Connie recalled with absolute clarity the moment the scene came on the TV where a girl was standing at Carrie’s grave. Connie had turned briefly to Tracey and said: ‘I bet a hand comes out of the ground now.’ And it did, as predicted. Connie had screamed, even though she’d been certain of what was going to happen. It was the same now: she knew that when the phone started up, a message would be on it. One that would cause as much fear as when Carrie’s hand had burst from the ground. Only this time, there was no friend to join in with the screams; no friend to hold tight in horror. No one to comfort her.
If she opened it here, now, she would be facing its content, and its repercussions, totally alone. She wasn’t sure if it was courage or stupidity, but Connie allowed her fingers to open the message.
She breathed out a long, slow breath. It wasn’t as bad as her imagination had conjured – although the ‘those you love will come to harm’ part kicked her heart rate up a few notches. In reality, however, it was only her mum she had to worry about – her dad was more than capable of looking out for himself. As for Luke, would anyone even be able to track him down? Connie rested back against the sofa. So, Kyle Mann wanted to talk to her, and had gone to a lot of trouble to deliver the message. He needn’t have bothered. Didn’t he realise she’d be dragged into this anyway? His refusal to speak with the police had pretty much guaranteed that.
The question, though, was why? It must be something he felt was urgent – he’d taken a huge risk sending a mobile phone to someone on the outside. Connie turned the phone over in her hand, half-expecting it to ring. Was this single message all there was, or did he intend to continue contacting her via it?
An uneasy sensation ran through her body. Someone else was involved. Kyle couldn’t have delivered the package; he must’ve enlisted help.
And they knew where she lived.