Finding Maisie

Finding Maisie: Chapter 17

'Either the abductor will tell us what we do or there'll be a clue that we have to figure out.'

*

The next two days we had no word from the abductor. We were left to do what we wanted, actually pretend we were on holiday. And although I couldn't help but be grateful for the time we were allowed to explore Venice, I couldn't help but feel like the gap in contact was because the abductor was planning something. Something big. Did the abductor hear us talking about him being a member of my family? It wouldn't have surprised me if he did, the abductor did well at going unnoticed, that had been proven by the fact he has stalked me when I was younger.

This morning we received envelopes, though. Envelopes with tickets home in them. I seemed a bit confused when I saw them. Surely there was a reason as to why he brought us to Venice?

'So we're going home, just like that?' Callum asked.

'It looks like it,' I replied, sadly. If we were then this had just been a wasted trip, but then I thought of something. 'Unless...'

Callum sat forward on his bed, eager to hear what I was going to say, 'Unless what?'

'Unless we had to come here,' I said. 'Unless there was something that we could find here, something in Venice meaning we had to fly over here.'

'Why give us the tickets home then? That makes it seem like he doesn't want to find whatever it is,' Callum said, truthfully.

'Because these clues and items telling us things about the abduction benefit us, not the abductor. If we miss clues that our problem,' I replied.

'Hold on, you're saying that these clues benefit us. Why would the abductor willingly give us something that can help us in his downfall?'

'Because he's playing a game, and what that game is we have to find out.'

Callum nodded, 'So what's the reason we had to come to Venice?'

My mind went back to what I was thinking before. This trip all obviously reverts back to the holiday Callum and my families had in Venice. That was our starting point; we had to think back to then.

'You can remember the holiday more than me. Did anything strange happen that wasn't explained?'

Callum's face went immediately into thought as he reminisced back to our childhood, 'No, sorry, nothing comes to my mind.'

I looked down, disappointed. If there wasn't a clue to find here, there wasn't any point to the trip.

'Hang on,' Callum said, his eyes looked clouded over as he was in thought. 'My bag of toys went missing.'

I looked at him blankly, 'Your toys? Callum, I don't think that helps u-'

'No listen, Poppy, it was strange,' Callum said. 'You might not remember this but we went on a picnic on the beach. I had my bag of toys with me, like all my cars and things. The beach was quite uncrowded so we got a good spot underneath the shadow of a tree as it was quite hot. You, Maisie and I went down to the sea with both of our dads to play in there for a bit. We were gone for about half an hour. When we went back to our picnic I was hoping to play with my toys, but.. They had vanished.'

'Callum, are you sure you didn't-'

'Leave them in the hotel, or leave them in the car?' Callum said, interrupting me, 'That's exactly what my mum said, but yeah, I'm sure I had them with me on the beach.'

'So what's weird about that?' I asked.

'Because when we went back to the hotel.. It was on my bed,' Callum replied.