He held up the garment, pinching the knickers lightly between finger and thumb, and a thrill of excitement coursed through him.

‘Gotcha,’ he said.

Chapter 43

Day 14 – Chloe

Even though two days had passed since her birthday parachute jump, Chloe was still finding it difficult to process the maelstrom of emotions and adrenalin that had little dispelled in the aftermath. The goggle marks had long faded from around her eyes, her cheeks were no longer reddened from the freezing cold descent, and it felt as though she’d dreamed the whole thing. Then she would experience another flutter of excitement and the sheer joy of being alive – only to find guilt thudding down on top of her, that she shouldn’t feel that way, not after Jess’s murder.

And then there was this other, new thing, more exciting than everything else put together – more than the parachute jump; way more than her sixteenth birthday; more than the cute nervous guy from the plane asking for her number – an actual message from Shawn Barrett.

Shawn Barrett texted me, she thought, a smile curling irresistibly up at the corners of her lips. Me!

She felt a punch of shame and guilt in her gut – only recently she had felt embarrassed by her love of OnTarget, had thought herself too grown-up for them. Thank God Shawn would never know her traitorous thoughts.

As she sat at the breakfast table in her pyjamas half-heartedly eating a bowl of Special K, her mum noticed how distracted she was.

‘Still thinking about the jump, Rog? I’m so proud of you, you know. I couldn’t have done that, not in a million years. You’ve been so brave . . .’

Her mother’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. She switched off the radio, reached across the table and took Chloe’s hand between her own, her voice thick.

‘We don’t get that much time together on our own, do we? I just wanted to say that the other day was incredible. There’s always so much going on here, and I feel like I’m constantly nagging you and Brandon about something or other—’

‘You are,’ Chloe confirmed, prompting a tearful laugh.

‘So anyway. I just wanted to say that it was amazing to take you to the jump, just the two of us, and watch you floating down to earth with that massive grin plastered all over your face, and to know you’ve recovered, that you’re well again, I can’t tell you . . .’

She was openly sobbing now, and Chloe gave a self-deprecating sort of huff, although, annoyingly, her own eyes had filled up too.

‘Oh God, Chloe, when I thought we were going to lose you, I just couldn’t bear it. I really couldn’t. The relief that you’re OK!’

‘Yeah, I’m fairly relieved too,’ said Chloe. She examined her mother’s profile, still attractive – although she really ought to pluck that one long hair she never noticed growing out of the mole by her left ear, and she was getting wrinkles in her neck. Chloe wondered what her mum had been like as a teenager. What she herself would be like as an adult, as a mother.

‘I’m glad you’re my mum,’ she said impulsively, leaning over her cereal bowl to kiss her, which prompted another sob before her mum blew her nose and straightened up.

‘Sorry, darling, I’m just being over-emotional. You just turned sixteen, and jumped out of a plane – how could I not be! Either that or I’m getting the menopause.’

She switched the radio back on, indicating that the chat was over, and started clearing up the breakfast things.

Chloe slid her phone out of her dressing gown pocket. She re-read the message – a PM sent from the OnTarget forum – for about the thirtieth time since she’d got it.

She still couldn’t believe it. She was dying to tell her mum, or Jess – how jealous would Jess have been! Another visceral pang of guilt shot through her, a little spear of actual pain in her belly. Jess was probably lying in a stainless steel drawer in a mortuary, like on CSI Miami.

Hey Chloe! It’s Shawn Barrett here. I’ve got something TOP SECRET I want to ask you about.

Even though Chloe was almost paralysed by the sheer excitement of getting a message from Shawn, she also found it too good to be true. She had watched Catfish. She knew all about people posing as others online.

Sorry Shawn, she wrote back. But how do I know it’s really you?

The reply came back almost immediately.

 

Remember when I came to see you in hospital, when you had cancer ? I asked you what your favourite OnT song was. You said that you tell everyone it’s Forever Together but actually you like Small Victory better.

‘Small Victory’ was a bonus track on OnT’s first album and generally considered a bit cringe. But it was true! It was her favourite. And she had never told anyone that except Shawn.

OMG! she replied. It IS you!!!

 

Yeah, it’s me all right. TOP SECRET yeah, but I’m funding a new kids’ cancer charity and want YOU to be my main girl, cos we go back, right? Can we meet up to discuss? Want you + me to be filmed, I’ll hand you the massive cheque, it’ll be on the news and that. But seriously, babe, please tell no-one, not even ur best mate or family. Need to know I have ur absolute discretion. DM me back and let me know if your up for it! Hope so! X ps., and I’m glad you’re better now.

He hadn’t used the correct version of ‘you’re’, Chloe couldn’t help thinking. But that was OK. He didn’t need to be academically clever. He’d told her in the hospital not to let her studies slip like he had, and she was determined not to, retaking a whole academic year. That had been so tough. She ought to be doing her own GCSEs now, but as it was, she had another whole year to go . . . ugh.

Anyway, what did that matter now? In the car on the way back from the jump, her fingers trembling, she had typed a message, finding it hard to believe that she was sending words that his fingertips would touch on his own phone screen . . . his long slim fingers with their heavy silver rings, the same fingers that had stroked her fringe in hospital.

Hi Shawn! she typed. I’d love to. Half-term ATM so I can meet anytime – just say when and where! I’m so excited!!!! Xxxxxx

Chloe hesitated, then deleted all but the biggest of the kisses. Shawn needed to know that she was a mature woman, not some stupid little fan.

She couldn’t wait to see him. After all the suffering she’d been through, all the bad luck and the pain of her losing her friend, this was just the tonic she needed. The jump had been the start. From this point on, she was going to embrace life. She wasn’t going to be afraid of anything or anyone.

Chapter 44

Day 14 – Patrick

As soon as Patrick entered the station, he detected something new in the atmosphere, a charge of excitement – the kind that sizzled in the corridors, the incident rooms and offices whenever a big case had been cracked, a suspect arrested and charged. He felt immediately wary. What was going on? Martin and Gareth were chatting by the vending machine, big grins on their faces. Gareth looked over and gave Patrick a look he couldn’t read, somehow mixing satisfaction, embarrassment and, what else? It looked like pity.

Patrick strode past them and headed straight towards Suzanne’s office.

He had been up half the night trawling through the StoryPad website, following his visit to Chelsea Fox’s flat and the revelation that Rose and Jess had collaborated on a piece of fiction on that site. It hadn’t taken long to find a few solo stories written by Rose (MissTargetHeart) and Jess (YOLOSWAG), all of which featured members of OnTarget in clichéd romantic scenarios. Patrick didn’t get much time to read fiction these days – in fact, the last novel he’d read had been Camus’ The Outsider when he was eighteen – but he recognised bad writing when he saw it, and the girls’ stories managed to combine purple prose with cringeworthy poetry. None of the stories contained any clues, as far as he could tell; nothing that told him anything at all about Rose’s and Jess’s lives.