My fingertips drum the steering as I will the temporary traffic lights to change to green. The rain hammers against the roof of the car, windscreen wipers lurching from side to side. It isn’t the crack of lightning that causes my stomach to painfully clench, or the rumble of thunder, even though storms always take me back to a time I’d rather forget, but a mother’s instinct.

I’ve felt it before. That bowling ball of dread hurtling towards me.

Drawing in a juddering breath, I tell myself everything is fine. It’s only natural that worry gnaws at me with sharpened teeth. Every mother in our town is on high alert right now after the disappearance of two teenage boys. I have more reason to be on edge than most.

It’s not as though I’m thinking Connor has been taken, but it’s one thing for him to ignore my calls, he’d never ignore Kieron’s.

Never.

Particularly when he had asked Kieron to call him after his hospital appointment.

Why didn’t he pick up?

In my mind’s eye I see him, bounding down the stairs two at a time, balancing on a chair to reach the snacks he doesn’t realize I know he hides on the top of his wardrobe.

An accident, or something else?

Something worse?

My stomach churns with a sense of foreboding.

Calm down.

I’ve been under so much pressure lately that I’m bound to be anxious. Edgy. But… I jab at my mobile and try Connor once more. My favourite picture of him lights the screen. We took it five years ago during an unseasonably hot Easter. Before Kieron was diagnosed, before everything changed. We’re on the beach, the wind whipping his dark curls around his face. His grin is wide, traces of chocolate ice cream smudged around his mouth.

We were all so happy once. I don’t know how, but I have to believe that we can be again. The alternative is too painful to bear.

The phone rings and rings. Fear brushes the back of my neck.

Frantically, I try calling again, from Kieron’s phone this time. He still doesn’t answer.

The lights are taking an age.