Tara uploaded another photo of Bella onto her Facebook post, repeated her plea to help find the little girl and pressed Share. For a moment, she wondered if she shouldn’t have told the detective about the missing stepdaughter. If it was all so innocent then Lexie should have told the police herself. Or was Lexie protecting Marty? Oh God, Tara hadn’t meant to incriminate the hottie hubby—surely the girl was just a wilful teenager, pushing against the boundaries. They’d all been that teenager, arguing with their parents, desperate for some independence and self-control. Shit, perhaps Tara should have kept her mouth shut for once. She went to search for Victoria’s profile on Facebook but then realised that she didn’t know the girl’s surname. Would she be called Parker too or did she have her mother’s name? The search for Victoria Parker brought up a range of women from twenty to eighty but none of them bore any resemblance to the hottie hubby. Anyway, she’d heard that teenagers didn’t use FB these days—they were all on Snapchat and Insta.

‘Tara, are you finished paying that bill? Can you come and help with Daisy?’

She did it all day long, every day, and Josh couldn’t look after two kids for fifteen fucking minutes.

‘Coming,’ she called down the corridor.

Maybe they’d found Bella by now? Maybe no news was good news? Tara had left playgroup two hours ago—anything could have happened in two hours. A thought niggled at her blind optimism: Julia would have rung straight away. She’d better get back down there. Feed Daisy again, put her to bed, then take some pizzas to playgroup. People would need food. She could put it on the Virgin Visa card—that still had a few hundred spare.

As the cursor hovered over the close button on Facebook, her feed was refreshed. Bella’s face stared out at her. Not from her own post but a police one. An AMBER Alert that would be appearing in front of thousands.

FACEBOOK

Imogen Lawrence Facebook page

Update: We still haven’t found Bella. The police search is continuing through the night. Lucas and his army mates are helping out. If you can help too, please come down to the playgroup behind Merrigang shops. Bring torches and wear warm clothes and sensible shoes. Please share this with your friends. God bless. xx

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13 LEXIE

13

LEXIE

ANY MOMENT NOW. ANY MOMENT NOW. BEFORE THE DARKNESS SETS in. Any moment now, someone would shout: ‘We’ve found her!’ My belief was so strong that I couldn’t comprehend why the SES commander was marking out new grids on the map.