Hide and Seek

by Richard Parker

Genres: Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

The sun is out. Your little boy is smiling. The next time you look… he’s gone. Lana Cross would do anything to protect her perfect family but on a trip to an adventure park, they slip out of her sight. When she finds her husband, he’s out cold on the forest floor. Then the truth sinks in: Cooper, her four-year-old son, is missing. No one stopped the man carrying the sleeping boy. The park cameras don’t show where he went. Then Lana receives an anonymous message, telling her to visit a local school with a horrifying history... This is no random attack. Whoever took Cooper is playing a twisted game, and if Lana wants to find him, she must participate. How could there be a link between the school and her missing son? And can Lana find her little boy before it’s too late? A heart-in-mouth thriller that will keep you reading long into the night. Fans of James Patterson, Karin Slaughter, and Tess Gerritsen will be absolutely hooked. What everyone’s saying about Hide and Seek : ‘ Ohhh I totally loved this book. Fast-paced, gripping and it sucked me in from the very first page. This book was a real page turner.’ Goodreads, 5 stars ‘ Wow this book was good, it was full of tension and was charged with emotion. A solid 5 stars! ’ Bonnie’s Book Talk ‘ From the very outset of this book I was hooked… I was almost holding my breath, poised on the edge of my seat, desperate to see what would happen. I loved it. ’ Jen Med’s Books Reviews, 5 stars ‘ If I could I would seriously give this book far more than five stars. ’ Nicki’s Life of Crime ‘ Fast-paced thriller that was difficult to put down. ’ Goodreads, 5 stars ‘This is a terrifically delicious thriller... sort of like riding the world's highest roller coaster ride. Up and up and up... and then the fast decline to the bottom before starting again. All the while your heart is in your throat, the fear is palpable. If you like movies that scare you, books that leave you gasping, you really must read Hide and Seek .’ Strong Book Reviews ‘Sometimes I read "fast paced" or "dark suspense" and I think “Nah it really wasn't”. But this book was. I highly recommend this. ’ Goodreads, 5 stars ‘ I loved this book. It keeps you guessing all the way never knowing what might happen next. ’ Goodreads 5 stars ‘ Great suspenseful book that is fast paced and well written... RECOMMEND!’ Goodreads ‘ A pacey crime thriller. As the novel builds to its conclusion there are several twists in the tale. In fact, it turns into a real psychological thriller! I will certainly be looking out for future books by Richard Parker on the strength of this book.’ Goodreads ‘ A rollercoaster of a ride from the very first sentence. Beyond every parent’s worst nightmare, this story delivers a terrifying plot that keeps you guessing. The sort of read you won't want to put down until you have finished it.’ Goodreads, 5 stars ‘ I found myself hooked right from the very first page. Hide And Seek starts with a bang and stays that way until the very end.’ It’s All About Books, 5 stars ‘OMG! Richard Parker certainly knows how to grab the reader’s attention, with a “heart thumping” opening chapter I found myself well and truly hooked. Imagine one minute your child's having the time of their life and the next minute they’re gone, taken by a stranger, it's got to be every parent’s biggest nightmare, the author expertly builds on this fear making Hide And Seek a highly unnerving read...’ The Book Review Café

Release date: August 31, 2017

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 324

Sample

In the split second Lana shifted her attention to the drying rack to slot in a washed plate, the stranger dropped over the yard fence. His weight thudded onto the grass and she felt the impact in her chest. Her gaze whipped back to the window and alarm burst from her. ‘Cooper!’ she cried through the glass, but her blonde, four-year-old son was crouching and filling the scoop of his yellow mini digger with sand at the far end of the long lawn.

She banged the pane but only the stranger turned. He was wearing a child’s mask that sat in the middle of his face. It was Snip the Squirrel, Cooper’s favourite cartoon character; trademark cheek-bulging smile, and goggles barely containing bulbous eyes. But there was nothing comical about the man’s scrawny physique, faded pink tee shirt riding up from his pot belly and close-fitting red shorts. The toothy rodent grin swivelled away before he slid a dirty polythene sack over Cooper.

Lana heard her boy scream and shot to the back door. The new washing machine that had been delivered that morning was still blocking the way. She frantically squeezed past it. ‘Cooper!’

She’d taken her eyes off him for only a few moments but when she entered the sunny yard there was no sign of her child.

No, no, no. This can’t be happening.

She bolted to where he’d been sitting and found the stranger’s bare legs scrambling at the rotten, shoulder height fence hidden by the tall border plants, the transparent sack containing Cooper dangling from his fist.

She could see Cooper twisting inside. He was hoisted up and out of reach and her panicked wail energised his.

Her husband, Todd, was at work.

‘Help!’ She hoped one of her neighbours would be in their yard. If she didn’t act fast, the stranger would drop down to the private lane the other side. A guttural exclamation escaped her, and she restrained his ankle firmly with both hands and started trying to lug him back.

He kicked at her, and the rubber sole of his dirty-white deck shoe glanced Lana under her chin and then struck her full in the face.

She didn’t register the blows but they forced her to release him. Lana grabbed his clammy calf and then slammed her body against his shoe to trap him there. Digging her nails in, she bit the skin above his heel. She heard him cry out, a high-pitched, feminine screech, and clamped her teeth down as hard as she could.

‘Get the fuck off me!’ There was surprise and outrage in his hissing voice.

Lana could taste the sweat of his skin and the saltiness of his blood. She heaved hard at his ankle, and he howled and attempted to waggle his foot free. Clutching it, she hinged back on her heels, using all her weight to draw him back or dislocate his leg.

She wanted to shout that she’d murder him before she’d let him take Cooper. But Lana wasn’t about to loosen her teeth from the wound and chewed fiercely at it through his fine hairs. The aroma of his foot odour was in her nostrils but she held him fast.

Then the wooden fence shook, and she landed hard on her buttocks. He’d slid back into the yard. She was already on her feet as he rounded on her, his smiling squirrel mask askew on his red features, the sweat glistening in the sparse grey hair prickles on his scalp.

Cooper was squealing inside the sack but the stranger was holding the bunched top tightly shut.

Instinct overrode everything else and Lana flew at him, smacking her shoulder into his chest and locking her fingers onto the slippery polythene. She tried to wrench it from his palm, but even as she leaned away from him and his arm went straight, he wouldn’t let go.

Lana jerked it again, and this time the sack was prised from the stranger and thumped onto the lawn. But before she could open it, the stranger had reached inside and tugged Cooper out by his shirt collar. She caught hold of her son’s ankles.

Cooper bawled and wriggled as his shirt rode up his body and they wrestled him in opposite directions.

‘Let him go!’ she heard herself shriek over and over as she watched her son stretching away from her.

Still clinging to Cooper, the stranger turned and stamped at the rotten wooden fence panel. It bounced back into position. He booted it again.

‘Help!’ she yelled.

The panel cracked with the third impact, and he rammed himself against it. It bowed, splintered, and gave and Cooper was hauled away from Lana.

She maintained her grip and staggered forward so she hit the fence.

The stranger yanked at Cooper from the other side but Lana got her palms around his waist and hugged him to her. She turned herself sideways so he couldn’t drag them both through the gap.

The stranger suddenly let go, and Lana collapsed backwards onto the lawn, the wind knocked from her but Cooper squeezed to her chest. She could feel his tiny body pumping as he wept.

‘Oh Jesus. Oh Jesus.’ That can’t have just happened.

Wood squeaked as the stranger slid his bulk back through the busted panel, the squirrel face descending as he lunged for Cooper again.

Lana balled herself around her son and rolled onto her front. She felt the stranger’s foot stomping her back and clenched her jaw against the further impacts to her head.

Lana hung onto handfuls of grass as he tried to turn her over, and then his foot was violently battering her ribs, before she felt Cooper ripped from beneath her.

When she stood, the stranger had already disappeared back through the broken fence panel. She pushed through it into the lane and saw him fleeing with Cooper under his arm.

‘Help!’ The plea tore her throat, and she raced after him as he disappeared around the curve of the walled path. She wouldn’t lose sight of him. Every cell of her was prepared to kill or be killed to get Cooper back.

But when she rounded the corner he’d frozen. A black SUV was parked up in the narrow space and was blocking his path.

With scarcely a second’s thought, the stranger turned on his heel and tossed Cooper at Lana.

Nothing else existed except for the space between her child and the ground.

‘Cooper!’

Lana watched her son ascend, striking the sidewall before landing hard on the path. It was like a fist to her stomach.

She didn’t register the stranger shove by her as she ran to Cooper’s motionless form. But she did hear the sibilant promise.

‘Tomorrow.’

The stranger was called Mr Whisper.

In the weeks that followed the attempted abduction the only name the police had to go on had come from Cooper. Lana and Todd had the same conversation they’d had with their son so many times but today Detective Riggs was present. The officer had suggested they conduct the interview in Cooper’s bedroom, where he felt secure.

‘Mrs Cross, maybe you could ask Cooper about what happened.’ Detective Riggs appeared distinctly uncomfortable sitting on the end of a child’s little bunk.

‘Cooper, tell Detective Riggs about the man in the yard.’ Lana seated herself cross-legged with her son on the snakes and ladders carpet and tried not to flinch. The bruises to her body and face were still a constant reminder of the awful event. She could see from his rigid back that Cooper was wary of the officer’s presence and squeezed his leg reassuringly.

‘He whispered to me through the fence.’

Todd knelt with them and handed Cooper Frogbert, his favourite toy. ‘Just on the afternoon he climbed over it?’

Cooper rolled up his clear blue eyes to think like he always did.

‘What did he whisper?’

Cooper briefly regarded Riggs but didn’t answer him.

Lana wasn’t surprised he was nervous of the officer’s bushy beard and booming voice. ‘But before that? Did he speak to you then?’ She didn’t want to push too hard but Cooper had initially said that Mr Whisper had been his friend a long time and she dreaded the idea he might have been communicating with her son right under their nose prior to that day.

‘I don’t remember.’

‘Think hard. Is there anything else you can tell us about him?’ She patted his knee through his little jeans.

He shook his head.

‘What did he say to you?’ Todd put his hand lightly on Cooper’s back. ‘It’s really important you remember, Squidge. Do you understand that?’

He nodded.

‘Think harder,’ Lana encouraged him.

‘’K.’ He narrowed his eyes, as if it hurt.

Lana could see he didn’t want to and hated making him relive the experience. She wished she could let him forget, and every time he was asked the same questions, hoped the trauma wouldn’t affect him on a deeper level. But perhaps there was some detail he wouldn’t find important but that Detective Riggs would.

Todd ran his palm over his son’s head. ‘Squidge, I promise we won’t ask you many more questions…’

‘Mr Whisper was just being nice.’

And that’s what broke Lana every time. She could tell Cooper was afraid of being told off because he’d spoken to the stranger. Something they’d always warned him about.

‘I understand that,’ Todd said softly. ‘He was a bad man trying to fool you. Just tell me what he said.’

Cooper seemed desperate to give an answer. ‘He told me he wanted to play. Wanted to come into the yard. I don’t remember any more.’

Todd stroked Cooper’s toy. ‘Promise there’s nothing you’ve told Frogbert that you haven’t told us?’

Cooper looked at the stuffed green animal and then back to Todd. ‘Promise. Is Mr Whisper coming back?’

Lana took his hand. ‘No. Forget about him now.’ But that was something she’d never be able to do. And she could see in her son’s anxious expression that he couldn’t either. How could he when she kept asking the same questions over and over? And how was it possible to expect Cooper to feel safe living in the same house when she didn’t?

Despite Detective Riggs trying to reassure her about the likelihood of Mr Whisper returning, she was determined to get her son away from the place that had become a permanent echo of that sickening afternoon.

It was the house she and Todd had juggled multiple jobs to get the first down payment on; the two bedroom fixer-upper they’d gradually furnished from second-hand stores; the address they thought they might lose from month to month. But somehow, they’d held onto it and built it up. Todd had inherited his father’s DIY genes and worked his way through its never-ending patch jobs and plumbing issues.

It had become the home they’d cherished and where Lana had fallen pregnant with Cooper. She’d been toiling in the yard on her beloved borders when Todd had got in from work and she’d told him. He’d hugged her so tight.

It had been a tough birth and, after having to go against all she planned and have a caesarean, the doctors had told her that, because of the resulting uterine adhesions, it was very unlikely she would conceive again. That made every milestone of Cooper’s life extra special.

But now every day they remained under this roof was like a stay of execution. All those memories had been sullied, and although Todd tried to convince Lana the episode would eventually melt into the background, she knew he felt the same way as she did.

Tomorrow.

Lana emptied the last dregs of red wine from her bowl glass. It was cold and bitter. She looked over from her seat at the table in the lounge window to where Todd was sleeping, exhausted, in the leather armchair.

She’d repeatedly told him to go to bed, but he’d waited up because he knew if he hit the sack before Lana, she was unlikely to switch off the laptop until the early hours. She squinted at the time at the bottom of her screen. It was after midnight. It had been just before ten the last time she’d looked. It was a familiar feeling of guilt. Todd had to be up at five. He was project managing the installation of power lines in Princess County over the weekend.

She’d told him she was working on the seating plan for the Society of Toxicology’s annual convention but he’d guessed she was using it as an excuse to research another sociopath who might have worn the Snip the Squirrel mask.

Lana rose, lifted the blanket from the back of the couch and draped it over him. She leaned down and tenderly kissed his temple. Should she leave him there? He would only wake shivering later. ‘Todd,’ she said softly. He didn’t stir. Lana decided to blow out the candles before she disturbed him. But first she crossed the rug and nudged the door in front of her.

In the compact bedroom beyond, the rainbow air balloon night light was still on. Cooper was lying motionless in his racing car shaped bunk, his long fair hair splayed out over the pillow. She needed to hear the sound of his breathing and lingered in the doorway. His just-bathed aroma briefly overcame the darker thoughts crowding her head.

‘You can turn it off, if you like,’ his muffled voice said brightly.

‘What are you doing still awake?’ She moved into the room and leaned over him.

He opened his eyes but kept the left side of his face against the pillow. ‘I’ll be OK in the dark. Promise.’

‘Sure?’

He nodded emphatically and the pillow squeaked. ‘No problemo.’ That was definitely a phrase he’d picked up from Todd.

It should have been her reassuring Cooper about the dark. But even though the ‘tomorrow’ his would-be abductor had alluded to had come and gone nine months ago, Lana still anticipated his return every day. Mr Whisper had never been caught.

Lana touched his cheek and it was cool. ‘Shut ’em tight. Night, Squidge.’

He opened his eyelids again and frowned his faint eyebrows. That was his dad’s nickname for him and she knew better than to plagiarise it. Lana wondered if she’d be allowed to join their club if she weren’t such a source of concern for them both.

After the attempted kidnap she’d immediately moved them from their house in the suburbs of Jaxton to a cramped, rented fourth floor apartment in the city. She’d then fitted myriad forms of security and done everything in her power to lock her family inside. Lana knew her fixation with protecting them from the man who tried to snatch Cooper was frustrating their chances of ever getting back to a regular life again. But how could she let it go when every new day held the same dreadful potential?

After three months waiting in terror while the police failed to apprehend Mr Whisper, she’d been encouraged by her therapist to confront the fear that had been implanted in her. To do this Lana decided the best way was to search for Mr Whisper herself.

Lana’s hunt had begun online, researching local abductions and monitoring ongoing investigations. To begin with she’d found the details too harrowing, but then they made her consider how lucky she’d been to have wrestled Cooper back from Mr Whisper. As she’d delved further into the specifics, the things that upset her the most were the tales of children who’d vanished without trace. She couldn’t conceive of the torment those parents experienced the moment they opened their eyes every morning. There were a shocking number of offenders in the state, and she resolutely sought to find features amongst the images of wanted and convicted predators that slotted behind the Snip the Squirrel mask.

She’d been convinced on two occasions that she’d found him. Firstly, Peter Firth, a social worker with a similar build, who had been standing trial for child molestation. The police had entertained her the first time but quickly assured her that Firth had already been in custody when Cooper was grabbed. They were less sympathetic when she pointed the finger again. The other man, Brandon Fines, was checked out but definitively dismissed. Detective Riggs said their investigation was still ongoing but his updates had gradually become less frequent.

Then she’d heard about the Right Where You’re Standing app and downloaded it to her phone. It used GPS to direct her to local murder scenes, and she began a physical search, seeking those that had taken children, and hoping the tendency of perpetrators to return to the site of their crimes might afford her a slim chance of glimpsing Mr Whisper.

Lana kissed Cooper’s warm scalp and inhaled. It smelt of watermelon shampoo. She turned off the balloon light. ‘Don’t let the bugs bite.’

‘Only three sleeps left,’ Cooper reminded her.

She knew he and Todd had been counting down the days to their vacation at Blue Crest Adventure Park. It was what they all badly needed and it bothered Lana she wasn’t looking forward to it as much as they were. She’d been so busy but it hadn’t been anything to do with event coordination.

Lana had to get away from the apartment and the black hole of her online and physical research into child murderers and paedophiles. And she was finding it increasingly difficult to offload the heavy sense of revulsion the accumulated details of their vile crimes draped over her. But if she stopped being proactive she was certain the panic attacks would return.

When they escaped the apartment for two weeks, Lana sincerely hoped they’d begin to remember what it was like to be a normal family again. Their house still hadn’t been sold, so the mortgage and rent combined were steadily draining their savings. She’d agreed with Todd not to discuss their finances until they returned. Lana closed the door quietly behind her.

‘You can leave it open.’

She looked back through the crack. The offer wasn’t for his benefit. ‘OK. Night.’

Cooper’s age meant he might eventually forget the episode in the yard. Lana was thankful for that. But he’d definitely picked up on how that afternoon had affected his parents. Cooper never spoke of Mr Whisper now. But he didn’t watch Snip the Squirrel either. She still shuddered to think of the man with the pot belly crouching there, talking to her son.

Lana padded back into the tiny lounge. Time to double- then triple-check the locks on the doors and windows before setting the alarm. At least Todd was asleep, and she could take her time.

His head suddenly jerked, and he took a panicked intake of breath.

Lana reached him as he sat upright and darted his eyes about the room. They halted on her but, briefly, he didn’t seem to recognise her.

‘You OK?’ She placed her palm on the fair prickles of his head.

He briefly nodded. ‘Yeah…’ But the remnants of whatever nightmare he’d had was still ingrained in his expression.

‘Come on, babe, bed.’ She hugged Todd until she felt the tension drain out of him.

He stood, the blanket falling at his feet as he brushed off the episode. ‘You all done?’

He often woke like that now but Lana suspected he’d think it was a failing if she knew just how often. ‘I was about to do last-minute checks.’

‘Let me do it,’ he said, groggily.

‘Go on, I’ll be in now.’

He nodded. Probably knew it was pointless arguing. ‘Don’t take too long.’ He pecked her forehead.

She didn’t answer but skimmed her hand across his hot back as he passed her.

‘’Night, Dad!’ Cooper shouted. He sounded wide awake.

Todd put his head through the door and hissed. ‘Hey, you should have been asleep hours ago.’

‘Three sleeps to go.’

‘I know, buddy. And this one’s way overdue.’

Todd clicked the door shut, and Lana opened her mouth to object. But it wasn’t Cooper that minded it being closed. She watched Todd disappear into the passage that led to their bedroom.

Three sleeps was all that mattered to them both. But, even while they were away, she doubted Todd would dream any easier than she did.

Lana got out of their silver Subaru and took in the dilapidated colonial str. . .