BooksBarbecue
Back The Game
Chapters (68)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. NOW
  4. One
  5. BEFORE
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. NOW
  26. Twenty-One
  27. BEFORE
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. Twenty-Four
  31. Twenty-Five
  32. Twenty-Six
  33. Twenty-Seven
  34. Twenty-Eight
  35. Twenty-Nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-One
  38. Thirty-Two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. Thirty-Four
  41. Thirty-Five
  42. Thirty-Six
  43. Thirty-Seven
  44. Thirty-Eight
  45. NOW
  46. Thirty-Nine
  47. BEFORE
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. Forty-Two
  51. Forty-three
  52. Forty-Four
  53. Forty-Five
  54. Forty-Six
  55. Forty-Seven
  56. Forty-Eight
  57. Forty-Nine
  58. Fifty
  59. Fifty-One
  60. NOW
  61. Fifty-Two
  62. Fifty-Three
  63. Fifty-Four
  64. Fifty-Five
  65. AFTER
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Acknowledgements
  68. About the Author

The press conference for the Burns family. Julie and Stephanie centre stage. DI Bennett sitting next to them. He watched the video again.

Mark switched back to the Facebook link, when the video autoplayed on his phone once again. He scanned the few comments left, the usual stream of thoughts and prayers and sycophantic declarations. A few troll-like comments appeared, as was the norm now.

Shouldnt b out that late on her own round there. Askin for it, ya ask me.

‘No one is ever asking you,’ Mark said under his breath, continuing to scroll through the comments.

Near the end, there was one which seemed to jump out from the page. Made him frown at his phone and read it again.

She played the game and lost. Shame it wasn’t the other twin. Would have been more fun.

He wondered what had prompted such a strange response, but carried on reading through. Combed through the comments to see if there was anything similar he’d missed.

Seems like a Game to me. Another girl going missing –probably turn up in a day or two.

Who cares? More important things going on than a stupid girl playing around.

He’d seen comments like these before. Social media – the refuge of annoying opinions. He took a screenshot of the comments on his phone, without knowing why, and then switched to the main story on the page.

The death of Joanna Carter.

It seemed that this story had the same kind of people commenting, but with a few more fools tossed into the pile. The ones who couldn’t wait to post that someone was selfish for possibly ending their own life. The same idiotic words that were always used. Coward, attention-seeking, stupid. It was always the same.

They would soon change their tune, once the fact it wasn’t suicide became known.

Mark switched back to the story on Emily Burns when it became too much. There were a few more comments trickling in that he was interested in. Names he recognised from trawling through her fake social media accounts. Those who had been targeted by her, victimised and shamed. They would feel vindicated now; still too embarrassed to tell anyone what she had done.

Hope she regrets wat she did.

No1 will miss her.

More to this than anyone knows. She wasn’t a goody two shoes.

The anger Emily had left behind, like a stain on their lives. Mark couldn’t read anymore, but forced himself to make a note of the names.

She played The Game and lost…

When Mark finally fell asleep three hours later – Natasha asleep beside him, silent – he was still thinking about that comment.

Twenty-Six

Mark was bleary-eyed and tired when he arrived at the station the next morning. His eventual sleep was fitful, disturbed by the guilt of not working every hour, every minute of the day, to try and track Emily down.

To work out what connected her to Joanna Carter.