Only Daughter: A gripping thriller of deadly deceit. Anna Snoekstra

soon.

      I push myself out of bed and open Rebecca’s closet. The musky smell isn’t so strong anymore, or perhaps I’m just getting used to it. I flick through her clothes slowly, sizing up each item. Surprisingly she actually has a few good brands in here. Parting the clothes, I notice a pink quilt and a few stuffed toys stuffed in the back. I almost laugh. She hadn’t wanted to seem like a kid anymore, but she hadn’t wanted to throw them out either. For an instant, I can imagine her as a real person rather than a picture on a missing persons sign.

      I decide against the designer brands and pull out a light cotton dress. Something about the drop waist and pale fabric screams innocence. I’m seeing Andopolis today and I want to reinforce the image he has of me as much as possible. The bruise on my face was fading to a gross yellow colour. I couldn’t rely on it for much longer; I needed to dress the part, too.

      Slipping the dress over my head, I feel something hard in the pocket. It’s a folded-up piece of paper, Exorcism Spell at the top in bold letters. Magic for the Modern Witch is written in the banner in Gothic lettering. I can’t imagine Bec had been into pagan stuff. Her room looked so preppy. Then again, teenagers like to keep secrets. I fold it back up and toss it into the closet with other things she was hiding. If she’d managed to conceal it all this time I wasn’t going to expose her.

      When I was sixteen, I hid joints in the seams of my curtains. I’d been in my hippie stage then. I’d met a group of older kids, with dreadlocks and tie-dyed T-shirts, busking near the railway station. For a full month I had them convinced I lived in a commune near Fremantle where no one was allowed to wear clothes. That was before I realized the art of subtle lies. Somehow one of them found out who my dad was. They called him an “oil tycoon” and didn’t appreciate it when I laughed. Hippies always talk about love and kindness, but I don’t know if I’ve ever met a group of people so snarky. I squeeze the seams of Bec’s blinds. Nothing.

      As I walk out of the room, I can hear the mumble of the brothers’ voices. I stand there for a moment, hoping to catch something, but the talking stops abruptly. They must have heard my footsteps. For a moment I consider knocking, but I don’t know what I would say to them.