Chasing the Browns

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

Oh, my God.

You’ve got to be kidding me, I thought as I stared at the television screen. I’d been so shocked at the news that I’d rejected my toast. And I never rejected my morning toast.

‘Mum!’ I called. ‘Come see this!’

I heard her tired voice calling for me to wait.

‘This can’t wait, Mum. Come now!’

‘I’m coming!’ she called back.

‘Come quicker!’

‘I am, Lea!’

‘Quicker than that!’

‘I’m coming!’

‘God, for all that talk about not being old, you travel like you are!’

‘I’M GOING AS QUICKLY AS I BLOODY CAN!’

‘Jeez, calm down, Mum!’ I couldn’t help but laugh.

She poked her head through the doorway, scowling. ‘What?’ she asked irritably.

‘Look!’ I pointed madly at the screen and turned up the volume.

‘What?’

‘LOOK.’

She frowned. ‘Jesus, Lea. I’m looking! I saw that last night.’ Her frown deepened. ‘You made me get out of bed to see a news report I already saw twice yesterday?’

This was not the reaction I’d expected. Where was the shock? The surprise?

‘What?’

My exasperation reached a point where I couldn’t even express it. ‘Did you know she went missing from our school, last night, during the open mic auditions? That’s crazy!’

She scratched her head, still tired from lack of sleep, squinting down at her phone. I’d woken her up, screaming from a nightmare in the middle of the night. And now I’d woken her again.

But this was more important.

‘No, I didn’t. Maybe they found her, you know…’ she trailed off, putting her phone down.

‘If they’d found her, then why would they still have it on the news this morning?’ I asked. I stood up, turning off the telly. This was madness.

Angel had gone missing.

I turned on the telly again, unable to resist hearing more. My eyes widened when the news reporter said that investigators believed that if a thirteen-month-old baby had just disappeared, she hadn’t just gone by herself.

She’d been kidnapped.

Keep a closer eye on her.

Worse things happen to people who don’t pay attention, especially when what they’re looking for is right in front of them.

I couldn’t believe it’d taken me so long to realise. But now I knew.

She hadn’t been kidnapped by just anyone.

‘Get dressed,’ Mum said.

‘I am dressed.’

‘What, you’re going dressed in your uniform?’