Where the Memories Lie

 

No, it wasn’t because I believed Tom at all that I went in search of Katie Quinn. It was so I could absolve myself. I had to find out that she was having a good life. A better life than the one she would’ve had if she’d stayed in the village and married Chris. I had to make sure she was happy.

 

At least, that’s what I told myself.

 

85

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter Nine

 

 

How do you find someone who wants to stay hidden?

 

I didn’t have a clue. I was a nurse and a mother – what did I know about finding a missing person?

 

Google was becoming my new best friend. Or BFF, as Anna’s annoying TV programmes would say. When she went to bed that night I typed in Katie Quinn’s name and was met with an author website for a Katie Quinn who’d written a cookbook. There was a Twitter page for someone who looked about a hundred years old and definitely wasn’t her, along with a Facebook page, a photogra-pher, a journalist, an actress and a doctor, all with the same name.

 

I checked through them but none was my Katie Quinn.

 

Poppy barked, making me jump, a few seconds before Ethan slid his key in the door. I closed the laptop, uncurled myself from the sofa in the lounge and went out into the hall to meet him.

 

He looked exhausted, with his hair sticking up where he’d been running his hands through it, an unconscious habit of his when he was worried. He’d done it so much when Anna had scarlet fever I thought it would stay permanently spiky at the front.

 

‘How is he?’

 

Where the Memories Lie

 

Poppy, sensing the mood, refrained from a full-on greeting and just sat there staring at Ethan, her tail thumping loudly on the stone floor.

 

Ethan met my inquisitive look with a watery gaze. ‘He’s pretty weak, but surprisingly he was quite lucid. Told us all to stop fussing over him and get back home to our families.’ He set his briefcase down on the floor. ‘They’re just making him comfortable. It’s all they can do, really.’

 

‘Are you going to stay down here for a while or are you going back up to York tomorrow?’

 

‘If I stay here, Dad will only moan at me. And as sad as it’s going to be to lose him, he could still go on for months or even years yet.’

 

I opened my mouth to tell him what Tom had told me earlier, but the words died on my tongue. With everything going on I had to make some more enquiries before I mentioned anything. If I even told him at all. I’d find Katie alive and well and there would be no need to say anything, anyway.

 

‘. . . back to York in the morning.’ Ethan’s voice pulled me from my drifting thoughts.

 

I squeezed his arm. ‘OK. There’s leftover spaghetti if you want some.’

 

‘I actually had a bite with Chris and Nadia. We went to a pub on the way back.’ He followed me into the kitchen.

 

‘Tea, then?’ I filled the kettle.

 

‘No, thanks. I’m going to have a shower and go to bed.’ He sat at the island, shoulders slumped, tie askew. ‘Is there something going on with Lucas and Nadia?’

 

I snapped my head around. ‘Why?’

 

‘It’s just Lucas was a bit odd.’

 

‘Odd how?’

 

87

 

Sibel Hodge

 

‘Well, he was really quiet. You know how he’s usually so energetic ? the life and soul of everything ? but tonight he didn’t hardly say two words. Even Chris said more than Lucas for once.’

 

‘He’s probably just upset about Tom. It’s not like he’s going to be all lively after his father-in-law’s just had a heart attack, is he?’

 

‘No, I know. He was just . . . miles away, really, like he wasn’t even in the room. He kept fiddling with his phone.’

 

I wondered if there had been a development with the woman he was having an affair with. Was Lucas preoccupied with deciding whether to leave Nadia or whether to end the affair? I hoped it was the latter, for Nadia’s sake.