The Missing Sister

by Rona Halsall

Genres: Women's Fiction; Noir; Thrillers; Crime Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Suspense

Synopsis

‘Wow!!!!… An absolutely fantastic unputdownable psychological thriller… It kept me on the edge of my seat and then in the edge of my bed until late at night as I just could not out it down!!!… I was captivated.’ Bookworm86 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The call comes on an ordinary Sunday afternoon to say your sister has been admitted to hospital with a serious head injury. But you don’t have a sister… do you? You’ve never doubted your parents. You’ve loved them without question your whole life. But your stepmother is uncharacteristically speechless, and your father isn’t well enough to understand. So you get in your car. Turn the key in the ignition. Knowing everything behind you is a lie. Not knowing what lies ahead: the truth… or something far darker? A deliciously dark and twisty tale of deception, secrets and family ties, The Liar’s Daughter is perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train, The Woman in the Window and The Family Upstairs. Readers are loving The Liar’s Daughter : ‘ Holy Moly!… I LOVED it!… There are just SO many secrets that made my head spin… I was tricked, kept in the dark and that rug was firmly pulled from my feet… A book that will sink its claws into you. It made me question everything… Enough twists to keep your head spinning as if you have been on the Waltzers!!’ Zooloo’s Book Diary ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ Straight out FABULOUS!!… Every..... Single..... Time.... I thought I had it figured out I got a surprising twist. Don't ya just love that?… I literally could not put this book down.’ Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ Wowzers!!… What a rollercoaster this was, just when you think you had worked it out bang Rona pulls out another twist… Gripping all the way to the end… My book of the year.’ Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ Deliciously dark and twisty… Will have you locking all the doors and flipping pages in order to find out what happened… Seriously one of the best psychological thrillers I’ve read in a long time!… Your heart will be pounding! ’ Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ Absolutely love this book, read it so fast… One of the best thrillers of the year. I highly recommend it.’ NetGalley reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘Hands down one of the best thrillers I’ve read so far this year… Will have your heart racing, your palms sweaty, and your breath stuck in your throat. The suspense gets that overwhelming. Wear a neck brace when you read this one!… It’s a twisty roller coaster ride… Just when you think the story is going in one direction, another sudden, unexpected twist jerks it in another… The ending is brilliant! ’ Book Rant Reviews ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ It’s 4AM where I am and I had to tell you how much I loved this one. I stayed up all night when I only intended to read one chapter. Do yourself a favor, get this page turner full of twists, secrets, surprises. You have no idea what to expect next. Just when you think you know — you have no clue.’ Goodreads reviewer ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘From the very beginning a feeling of creepiness crept into the book. I felt I had to be on guard the whole time. There never seemed to be a safe place. It was like there was always someone watching, following your every move and that’s just great... I thoroughly enjoyed it.’ B for Bookreview ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

‘ This book just goes off like a rocket – believe me it just gets better and better. There’s a particular point where you realise there is so much more to this story and the twists and turns start. I stayed up into the early hours to finish [it].’ Fiction Cafe Book Club ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Release date: April 26, 2021

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

The ambulance rocked as Ifan negotiated the stony track.

‘Oh my God, I’m feeling seasick,’ Ann said, clutching the door handle. ‘Are we even going to make it?’ She peered ahead through a low tunnel of trees.

‘Looks like it evens off up here.’ Ifan swung the vehicle round a tight bend, his manoeuvre accompanied by the screeching of branches as they scratched along the paintwork. ‘But this is what you call seriously remote.’

They were attending a call at a farmhouse situated in a high valley that ran along the mountainside at the back of Beddgelert, in the heart of northern Snowdonia. As locations went, it was a nightmare to get to. Ann always dreaded calls to the area because the single-track roads weren’t designed for four-ton ambulances. There were no landing places for the air ambulance, and often the first responder would be sent out in their smaller vehicle. However, with a massive area to cover and limited resources, it was a matter of who was available to take the call. Ifan had a different mindset to her; he fancied himself as a bit of a rally driver and saw it as a challenge.

Ann held the door handle tighter, her body thrown from side to side as Ifan negotiated the bend. ‘I hope this isn’t a hoax,’ she murmured, looking through the windscreen for signs of a house.

‘The dispatcher thought it was genuine, but I suppose there’s no telling. The woman just asked for help, managed to give her address and said she’d had an accident. Then said she felt faint and went quiet.’

Ann grimaced. ‘They’re always the worst calls. You just don’t know what you’re going to find: dead or alive?’

‘Here we go.’ Ifan hunched over the wheel, peering under the branches. ‘House up there in the trees.’

‘Thank God.’ Ann could see it now, the hulk of a stone building looming through the foliage. ‘Can’t say I’m looking forward to going back down that track, though.’

The ambulance pulled to a stop and the paramedics climbed out. Ann shivered. ‘Someone just walked over my grave,’ she said, glancing around. ‘It’s a bit creepy up here, don’t you think?’

Ifan laughed as he jumped in the back to get their bags of equipment. ‘You’re a right townie, Ann. I’d love to live somewhere like this. Peace and quiet. No bloody neighbours playing loud music at two in the morning.’ He scowled as he passed her the bags. ‘They were at it again last night; seems like party night every night with that family. Mind you, even I wouldn’t fancy going up and down this track too often. No handy shops if you run out of anything.’

The farmhouse sat squat in the landscape, nestled against the slope of a field at the back and protected by woodland on either side. Handsome and well proportioned, it was a nice-looking place when you got up close, if a bit run-down.

They were at quite a height, and a cold wind whipped Ann’s fringe off her forehead. She shivered again and zipped up her jacket as they hurried towards the front door. Red paint curled away from the woodwork. Ifan banged the knocker, which was brass and shaped like a lion’s head. They waited for a moment. The assumption was that the woman was on her own, but you never knew. They couldn’t go barging in.

‘Ambulance,’ they both called. When there was no reply, Ifan tried the door. It was open. He called out again as he went inside, Ann following.

They entered a well-proportioned hallway, stairs ahead of them, a door to either side at the bottom. With a practised routine, they checked the place. Two reception rooms, as an estate agent would call them. One formal, with a dining table at the far end and a couple of armchairs by the window. Bookcases stuffed to the gills, and an old-fashioned bureau in the alcove at one side of the fireplace. The other room was obviously used as a sitting room, with a battered leather sofa in front of the inglenook fireplace, which housed a wood-burning stove. A scattering of mismatched chairs. An old TV in the corner. Family photos on the walls.

They hurried down the hallway to the kitchen. It was a big room that ran the width of the back of the house. Old-fashioned units lined the walls, probably put in twenty years ago or more. The floor was quarry tiles, worn to the sort of smoothness that only happened over many years.

A woman lay sprawled across a large kitchen table that stood in the centre of the room. Her dark hair, streaked with grey, tumbled over her shoulders. As they got closer, Ann could see a patch of scarlet on the back of her head, blood caked in her hair, glistening as it oozed from a long, jagged wound.

‘Nasty head injury,’ Ifan said, bending closer to give it a proper inspection.

Ann put two fingers against the woman’s neck, glad to feel warm skin, the throb of a heartbeat. ‘Definitely alive,’ she said. ‘But her pulse is a bit thready. She might be in shock.’

Ifan bent to look at the woman’s face, which was turned towards the back door, her head resting on a handbag, her hand curled round a phone. ‘She’s breathing.’ Gently he rubbed her shoulder. ‘Hello. Can you hear me?’

They were both still, listening. No response.

‘Hello.’ He tried again. ‘You called an ambulance. Can you hear me?’

‘Possible fractured skull, I would imagine, with a wound like that,’ Ann said, studying the back of the woman’s head. ‘What do you think? Has she been attacked? Do we need to get the police up here?’

Ifan took a moment to reply, scanning the room as if he might see someone crouching in the corner, ready to pounce. A loud bang made them both jump, followed by a whoosh of cold air. He gave a nervous laugh. ‘Must be the door.’ He looked towards the hallway. ‘I don’t think I closed it.’

‘This looks suspicious to me.’ Ann could feel her own heart racing, adrenaline coursing round her body. She’d been attacked recently when trying to help a patient and the fear was fresh in her mind. That time they were on the street, though, and it was Saturday night, the remnants of a party breaking up in a nearby pub. She’d been a bit jumpy ever since; now she was feeling increasingly uneasy. ‘Whoever did this might still be here.’

Ifan was already busy putting a bandage round the woman’s head to keep the wound clean. ‘Let’s move her to the floor, get her stabilised.’

‘Okay. Then I’m calling the police. No way she did this to herself, is there?’

‘Nope. Definitely a non-accidental injury.’

The woman murmured something, her words thick and indistinguishable.

Ann bent towards her. ‘Hello. We’re paramedics. Can you hear me?’

The woman was trying to speak, her mouth pushed up against the handbag, making it tricky for her to move her lips.

‘We’re just going to make you a bit more comfortable,’ Ifan said, taking up his position at the woman’s side as he and Ann prepared to move her to the floor, where they could do more thorough checks. It was imperative to make sure that her oxygen levels were okay and get a cannula in. The woman grunted and tried to move, but it was obviously a struggle.

‘It’s okay,’ Ann murmured, reassuring her as they manoeuvred her out of the chair. The phone fell from her hand onto the table, but her other hand remained clasped round the strap of her bag.

‘Can I just take this and put it on the table?’ Ann said, pulling at the bag. But the woman became agitated, her hand tightening round the strap. Ifan shook his head and Ann let the bag rest on the woman’s stomach as they laid her on the floor.

‘There, you just relax. We won’t be long, then we can be on our way to hospital.’

The woman’s eyes opened and she mumbled something that sounded like thank you.

‘How did this happen? Were you attacked?’ Ann asked as she found a vein for the cannula.

‘Accident,’ the woman managed to say, before leaning to the side and vomiting on the floor. No food as such, just bile.

‘Concussion at the very least,’ Ifan observed, passing Ann the bag of saline. ‘Blood pressure is low, so we’ll get this going, see if it helps. I’ll nip out for the stretcher.’

‘It was definitely an accident?’ Ann asked, doing what she could to wipe her patient’s face clean. ‘Because I can get the police to come and check the house if someone attacked you.’

‘Accident,’ the woman repeated, her voice coming in breathy gasps, face screwed up in pain. ‘In the barn. Floorboard went.’ She gave a low moan. ‘Tools fell out of the loft.’

‘You live alone?’ Ann asked, following her own line of logic as she set up the drip. Her eyes scanned the room, noting the boots beside the range. Different sizes. There could be an abusive partner around and the woman was too frightened to point the finger. You never knew in these situations, and her explanation didn’t really fit with the injury.

Ann was sure there was more to this than a blow to the head. There might be other injuries they couldn’t see and the low blood pressure could be a sign of internal bleeding.

The woman muttered an inaudible reply before her eyes fluttered closed and her head flopped to the side.

Ann glanced up as Ifan hurried through from the hallway, pushing the stretcher.

‘Quick! She’s gone again. Lost consciousness. Pulse is still there, but erratic. We need to get a move on.’

They lifted her onto the stretcher, gathering their bags of equipment and checking they’d got everything. The woman’s fingers were still hooked round the strap of the handbag. Ann tucked the phone inside.

They were just by the front door when another loud bang made her jump. Ifan glanced over his shoulder. ‘Got to say, this place is giving me the creeps now.’

‘Do you think there’s someone else here?’ Ann asked as she guided the stretcher towards the back of the ambulance.

‘Who knows? Not our job to find out, is it? We need to focus on getting her to hospital.’

The wind rushed through the trees, sending branches clattering against each other, boughs creaking and squeaking. They both looked round at the sudden surge of noise.

‘She said it was an accident. In the barn. But I’m not sure.’ Ann scrunched up her nose. ‘What do you think? Call the police?’

‘Can’t do any harm,’ Ifan agreed as they pushed the stretcher into place. ‘I’ll make the call if you want to get sorted in the back here. Get ready for a bumpy ride back down.’

Ann’s stomach rolled just thinking about it. She set to work getting the drip set up and making sure the woman’s airways were clear, her breathing settled ready for the journey.

‘Police are on their way,’ Ifan said a few minutes later, before shutting the back door. She heard the driver’s door slam, then the engine thrummed to life and they were off.

She studied the woman’s face, thin and angular, like her body. Almost malnourished, she would say. It wasn’t unusual on these remote farms, where it was impossible to make a proper living off the land. People scraped by with what they could grow, selling a bit, doing another job to bring in some money.

She’d noticed the woman’s ear lobes were torn, as if earrings had been ripped out at some point. A sign of abuse?

‘You’re safe now,’ she murmured, sure that her own conclusion was correct. This was no accident.

Eva stroked her dad’s hand and felt his clasp loosen, his head lolling back against the headrest of his chair. She studied his face, his mouth dropping open as he gently snored. It was a struggle to come to terms with his transformation. He’d lost all his bulk, and his balance wasn’t good these days, so he shuffled rather than walked, a dimness in his eyes signalling that he wasn’t really present.

It had happened so quickly, her dad morphing from an action man who’d think nothing of going rock-climbing in the Peak District with his mates to a frail shadow of his former self who appeared to be edging closer to death by the day.

Her heart clenched at the thought that he might soon be gone from her life, a realisation that was only now starting to sink in. She’d always been his greatest fan, so proud of his daring adventures. They even looked alike, sharing the same dark hair, brown eyes and long face. The same rangy build. Part mountain goat, part monkey, he’d always joked.

There were no jokes anymore.

Dementia had taken hold three years ago, not long after Eva had graduated from university with her degree in wildlife conservation and plans to save the planet. Or bits of it, anyway. She’d imagined travelling all over the world, from project to project, but once her dad had become ill, she’d decided to stay closer to home. Fortunately she’d done voluntary work with the local nature reserve while she was at school and was lucky enough to secure a ranger post during the spring and summer, helping to organise volunteer groups to undertake maintenance tasks. By the time that contract ended, the post office were recruiting seasonal workers to cover the Christmas mail. Between the two, she more or less had work all year round, switching from one contract to another with maybe a month’s break in between.

This year, though, once the postal contract had finished, she hadn’t taken on the job at the nature reserve, staying at home instead to help her mum. It was clear Linda was struggling, and with the two of them as carers, it spread the load. As an insurance salesman, her dad had an excellent policy which was paying a decent income and with their savings they could just about manage.

Her mum had visibly aged in the last year, her blonde bob neglected and in need of a cut, more lines on her face and a permanent sadness in her eyes. She was Mike’s second wife, quite a bit younger than him, the age gap even more noticeable now. Although technically Eva’s stepmum, she was the only mother she’d ever known. She’d been their next-door neighbour when her parents had lived in Blackpool, and when Eva’s mum died, on the day Eva was born, Linda had stepped in to help.

By his own admission, her dad was hopeless with babies and scared witless by the idea of coping with a newborn on his own. From Linda’s account, she’d fallen in love with Eva the minute she saw her and had been only too happy to help out. Over time, romance had blossomed between her and Mike, and two years later, they’d got married and moved to Nottingham, to the house where they still lived.

During Eva’s childhood, her birth mother was rarely spoken about. There was only one picture of her in the house, taken on her wedding day. A picture Eva treasured and kept in her bedside cabinet. Her mum looked nothing like her – petite, with dazzling blue eyes, pale skin and a mane of red hair. To Eva, she would be forever a mystery, someone she could never know, but that didn’t stop her thinking about her. She wondered what she was like as a person, what they might have in common, whether she’d be proud of the daughter she’d never seen.

But Linda was a wonderful mum and they’d always been close. Now it was time to step up and look after Linda and her dad for a while. Her own plans would have to wait.

Linda had got to the point where she was clearly exhausted, already grieving for the loss of Mike, no longer a partner to her but increasingly like a child. Eva knew her life was going to change in ways she could hardly imagine, with a dying father and a grieving mother to care for. It was going to take a bit of getting used to.

She stroked her dad’s hand again, glad to be able to spend this precious time with him, determined to savour all the lucid moments. He’d been quite an athlete in his day, his rock-climbing feats legendary in the sport. He had shelves of climbing magazines going back years, and every day now they looked through his collection together, stopping when a picture jogged his memory. Eva enjoyed seeing his eyes light up, hearing the laughter in his voice as he recounted stories, giving her an insight into a life she’d never been a part of. His life before she was born.

She’d started to shoo Linda out of the house, making sure she had time for herself to do a bit of shopping, or meet up with friends, or go to yoga, so she could at least relax for a little while. When her mum was out, Eva would pore over the magazines with her dad, or she’d get out the photo albums and they’d chat about the places they’d gone on holiday, or favourite memories that the pictures sparked, just letting the conversation wend its own way through his disparate thought processes. Sometimes he’d recount tales from his own childhood, his eyes sparkling with the memories. She lived for those flares of animation. It struck her that there were so many things she’d never known about the man she’d lived with for most of her life. Now she felt closer to him than she had for years. An irony that fed the sadness in her heart.

It wasn’t just her father who was living in the past; she found that she was doing a lot of that too. She supposed it was part of the grieving process with a degenerative disease, as you watched the person you loved getting further away from you, the things you used to enjoy doing together no longer possible. There were no more games of cards, something they’d always enjoyed, the rules now forgotten. No teasing, because his sense of humour had shrivelled to nothing. No conversations about friends and neighbours, their names too hard to recall.

She held his hand a little tighter. ‘Love you, Dad,’ she whispered, aware that she probably hadn’t said it enough, hoping he knew how important he’d always been to her. How she wouldn’t have been brave enough to follow her passion and go off to university if it hadn’t been for his encouragement.

Linda popped her head round the door, just back from a yoga class. She held up a bag from the local bakery. ‘I got us a couple of pains au chocolat, if you’re ready for a coffee.’

Eva smiled and gently placed her dad’s hand on his lap before following Linda into the kitchen. She stretched and yawned, amazed at how taxing it was keeping an eye on him, his conversation hard to follow when his thoughts zoomed off at a tangent in the blink of an eye.

Linda put the mugs of coffee on the table and handed her a plate for her pastry.

‘Thanks for dad-sitting, love. I can’t tell you how much better I feel now I can get out a bit more. Being able to do yoga with Dee again is such a treat. Honestly, I go for the relaxation at the end, but I’m sure my body appreciates the stretching, and my mind definitely enjoys an hour and a half without wondering what your dad’s up to!’

Eva bit into her pastry, her favourite. Her mum was lovely like that, always buying her little treats. She was lucky, she knew, that they had such a strong bond. So many of her friends had clashed with their parents and couldn’t wait to move out when they went to university. In contrast, Eva had needed quite a bit of persuading to go away and study, her father insisting that it would widen her horizons and be character-building. He’d been right, and once she’d settled into her course, she’d loved every minute of it. She wondered when she’d get to use her skills again. All that knowledge sitting in her brain, desperate to be applied. It could be months before she could go back to her passion. It could be years. There was really no telling and the not knowing was difficult, her life in limbo.

‘I’m glad to be able to help,’ she said, licking crumbs from her fingers. ‘You should have said something sooner and I would have stopped work.’ She glanced at Linda. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

‘Oh, but I couldn’t spoil things for you. I just wanted you to be young and free and do all the things I should have done at your age but never did.’ Linda sighed, stirring milk into her drink before passing the carton to Eva. ‘Anyway, it wasn’t too bad until he had that mini stroke a few months ago. That’s when we started to struggle, wasn’t it?’ She reached across the table and rubbed Eva’s arm. ‘I appreciate you being here.’

‘Love you, Mum.’ Eva caught her eye. ‘And I want to be here. You and Dad have always been so supportive, it’s my turn to give something back.’

Linda blinked and took a sip of her coffee, a sheen of tears in her eyes.

They sat in silence for a little while, eating their pastries, Eva thinking about how hard it had been for Linda this past year, having to cope with a series of unfortunate events. Her dad had managed to scald himself with hot water from the kettle and had been rushed to A&E; his legs were still scarred from the accident. Then he’d set the kitchen on fire, leaving a chip pan on in the night after he’d got confused and thought he was a student and had been out with his mates. Another time, Linda had rung Eva at work, absolutely frantic because he’d disappeared. A neighbour brought him back a few hours later, having discovered him sitting in her garden.

Since then, they’d kept the outside doors locked all the time to stop him wandering off, even though he’d seemed to have forgotten now how door handles worked. He couldn’t be left on his own because his behaviour was so unpredictable, and he wasn’t allowed in the kitchen. Linda said it was worse than having a toddler. Especially when he got frustrated and angry with himself, or confused about things. Then he’d start throwing stuff around, lashing out. Eva had only seen it happen once, but it had been pretty scary and completely out of character. Linda had soldiered on, dealing with things on her own. Always insisting she was fine. No wonder she looked so frazzled.

‘I’ll make tea tonight if you like,’ Eva said as she picked up her mug and cradled it to her chest.

‘I’ve been thinking about things.’ Linda looked serious now. ‘While I was supposed to have an empty mind for the meditation at yoga, all I could think about was putting a rota together for us. Then you can have time out as well. At the moment, it’s all about me, but if we’re going to be doing this for a while, it needs to be fair.’ She caught Eva’s eye. ‘We’ve got to look after ourselves and that’s not selfish. It’s just good practice. That’s what they said at the carers’ support group yesterday and it’s been on my mind ever since.’

Eva smiled, glad that Linda was starting to think about loosening control over the household chores. But she was also happy that she’d be able to plan some time out for herself.

‘Good idea. I’d like to catch up with Holly. She’s just moved back home, between jobs, she said, so it would be great to organise a meet-up.’ Eva hadn’t seen her school friend since they’d headed off to different universities six years ago, and although they chatted regularly on social media, it would be lovely to see her in person.

Linda’s phone started singing ‘We Are the Champions’ from somewhere on the worktop. She got up to answer it.

Eva watched, curious, as the. . .