The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell

66

August 2018

One day, Tallulah wakes up from another deep sleep, a sleep so deep it feels like death, the sleep she now knows is brought on by something from the well-stocked shelves of Scarlett’s mother’s bathroom cabinet, and she finds herself once again in a dark, silent space, all alone, the rhythm and roll of deep, cold water oscillating through her bones.

Through a circular window she sees the viscous cement wall of seawater. She feels her wrists bound. Her feet bound. And now she knows. She knows for sure that she is not being kept safe. That she is not being protected. She knows that everything Scarlett has told her about her father trying to corrupt the police investigation is lies and that this nightmare is about to come to the worst possible end. She knows that the only reason she is still alive is because Scarlett has made sure of it. But she also knows that Scarlett is losing control of her mother, losing control of the whole situation, and that now Tallulah is being taken to the furthest point from her own mother and her son and her home, to be dropped, despatched, disappeared.