Chapter 54: NOW - The Safe Room

He emerges from the bathroom alone.

I stagger back, almost dropping to the ground. Did she get out?

I check through the cameras. There’s no movement inside the house except for Peter rushing down the stairs. Why is he rushing? Because he wants to search for Sophie? I need to know where my daughter is, I need to see her.

Then I remember the exterior cameras. I tap the keyboard, flicking through the different channels. The bathroom window faces the back garden. It takes me a few seconds to find the camera feed for outside, but when I do, I slump forward in relief.

Footprints.

Tiny footprints. Oh, God, Sophie. Please get away from him. Please escape.

My poor girl out there in the cold. She doesn’t even have a coat or shoes on.

I steady my breathing, concentrating on the feed.

Peter comes into view wearing boots and a coat. It’s the middle of the day so I get a good view of him on the screen. He sees the footprints right away and follows them down towards the hedges at the bottom of the garden.

I try to think where Sophie could have gone from here. She could have slipped through a gap in the hedge and run down the fields towards Carrie’s house at the bottom of the valley. But she’d need to cross the freezing cold brook all by herself. She could have snuck around the hedge towards the front of the house where the road is. I check the front camera which points at the road, squinting for any sight of her in the distance. A glimpse of her yellow cardigan with the daisies on it. Her jeans. Something.

“Oh no,” I whisper, as Peter comes into view.

He clearly had the same thought as I did that Sophie must have come around to the road. I pray for it to snow right now, for something to cover her tracks, but the sky is ominously clear.

I rub the tops of my arms, cold from imagining myself out there in the snow. I need to be with her, but I’m frozen to this spot instead.

Then I remember the camera at the gate, and I flick onto that channel. The feed is fuzzy. I squint, trying to make out footprints, or a smudge of yellow in the distance. Where are you, Sophie? Where are you?

“Please be safe.”

There’s something in the distance. Some sort of tall smudge. I check the back garden camera, searching for Peter, trying to figure out where he is. But there’s nothing. Could that smudge be Peter searching for Sophie? I’m not sure. Whoever it is, they’re too far away and I can’t zoom in. There is a chance that the person has long hair and that their hair might be a dark blonde or brown colour. I lean so close that the picture goes out of focus, then lean back a little to let it come back.

The figure is gone. It could be a dog walker. All I know is that they were too tall to be Sophie.

Then I hear a sound outside the door. A voice.