Laura Cassidy - Eighteen Kisses

‘It’s good to see the Gardai are still working hard on the case,’ she said. ‘Still trying to find her. You’re like… psychic, right?’ She flicked on the kettle.

‘Well… sort of. I can sense things. And I can see things that nobody else can. It’s a gift I have… it’s kind of difficult to explain.’

‘Whatever it takes to find her,’ said Libby, opening a cupboard and taking out two pale pink mugs. ‘We had this other psychic guy offer us help last year; he said he knew where Kayla was. Turned out to be a complete wacko though.’

‘Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly offer to help – the Gardai contacted me,’ I said, perhaps a bit too defensively.

‘Oh yeah, I know. You look totally normal. Thanks so much for doing this; we really just want Kayla to come home.’

I nodded, kind of regretting my reaction now.

‘So, Kayla is your stepsister?’ I asked as Libby handed me my cup of tea.

‘Yep, Dad married Kayla’s mum, Anna, three years ago, a year before Kayla went missing. We moved in here with them because Anna didn’t want to leave. Our house was so much nicer, but we got over it.’

I couldn’t imagine a nicer house than this one. It was beautiful without being too flashy. Mum would love it, especially the antique dresser in the corner. She was always on the lookout for interesting stuff for our house, even though it had been finished for months.

Libby offered me the milk jug and I poured some into my cup.

‘I knew Kayla before we were sisters though,’ she said. ‘We were in the same year in school and we used to hang around with some of the same people. She gets on really well with my big sister Hazel too – they have the same taste in music and stuff.’ It was weird hearing her talk about Kayla like that, like she was still here. I seemed to be the only person who knew for sure that Kayla was dead. I had to remember that her friends and family were still clinging to the hope that she was alive. It was difficult, but I needed to believe that what I was doing would eventually give them closure. Besides, Kayla wanted to move on, she wanted peace, that’s why I was here.

‘Anyway,’ said Libby, ‘I’m rambling. Is there anything in particular you’d like to know?’

‘Could you tell me about the night of her disappearance?’ I asked. ‘You had a party here, right?’

‘Yeah, we had a small marquee out the back; there were loads of people here. It was a great night, up until… well… up until we realized she was gone. Everyone was having a good time; there was no drama.’ I could tell that from watching the video. There didn’t seem to be anything weird going on, at least not on the surface. It just looked like a normal eighteenth birthday party.

‘When was the last time you saw her?’ I asked. Libby took another sip from her tea before she spoke.

‘It was around midnight. I was over at the patio door, having a cigarette, and I heard her and Amy talking about going to the shop. They got it into their heads that they wanted to toast marshmallows. They’re always doing stuff like that: they think of something and then suddenly they have to have it. They’re really, I don’t know… spontaneous? They said they were going to the shop and that they’d be back in a few minutes. Andrew, Amy’s boyfriend at the time, went with them. I wasn’t even involved in the conversation, I just overheard it. It was about half one when I noticed that I hadn’t seen them in ages. I just assumed she and Amy were off taking photos of stars or something… they’re really into photography. But by two a.m. I started to get seriously worried. I called her mobile, but it rang out.’

‘So her mobile was still turned on at that time?’ According to the file, its last recorded location was in this area. It was possible that she’d dropped it in a struggle, but it had never been found.

‘Yeah, she just wasn’t answering it. I tried Amy’s phone too, then Kayla again, but neither of them would answer. Calum said he could have sworn he saw them come back, so then I thought maybe they were around somewhere and I just hadn’t seen them. I looked in every room in the house, went around calling her name, but I couldn’t find her. I asked Calum where he’d seen her, but he was really drunk and wasn’t making any sense.’

‘Who’s Calum?’ I asked. I was interested because his name was on my list, along with Amy and Andrew’s.

‘He lives across the road; he’s one of my best friends. He said he thought he saw Kayla in the house, but he wasn’t sure. Somebody else said maybe she was off with Luke, this guy from her class that she was supposedly seeing, although she hadn’t told me or Hazel about it.’

‘Would she usually share stuff like that with you?’ I asked. Luke wasn’t one of the people I had to talk to, so he must have had an alibi.

‘Well, probably not with me, but with Hazel, yeah. Maybe she was embarrassed or something. I mean, he’s nice, but not really that hot. I rang him and there was no answer. I calmed down a bit then because I thought they were probably off… well, you know. But he rang me back half an hour later and said he hadn’t seen her since he’d left the party. I finally got through to Amy, who told me she’d got a headache and had gone home with Andrew. She said they’d left Kayla at the top of the road. That’s when everybody started to freak out and we went looking for her. We thought maybe she’d fallen on the way home and hurt herself. But there was no sign of her anywhere. Dad and Anna were staying in a hotel down the country and we didn’t want to worry them, but by six a.m. there was still no sign of her and we’d called everybody she knows, so we decided to ring Dad and then we rang the Gardai.’

Libby’s voice started to quiver and she looked like she was holding back tears.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘This must be hard for you, having to relive it.’

‘No, it’s fine,’ she said. ‘It’s fine.’

I felt really bad, but I wanted to get a clear picture of the night of the party.

‘So Kayla walked back by herself?’ I asked, as gently as possible.

‘Yeah,’ said Libby. ‘Dad and Anna were furious at Amy; they still are. But we always used to walk home alone – nothing ever happens around here, like, you can see our door from the top of the road. It was a bit crap of Amy to leave Kayla alone on her birthday, but I don’t blame her like everyone else does. Anybody can make a mistake – we all do things we regret; she shouldn’t be punished forever just for one bad decision.’

I admired Libby’s forgiveness – I wasn’t sure I’d be so understanding.

‘And anyway,’ said Libby. ‘It was probably Andrew’s idea to leave her, not Amy’s.’

I got the feeling Libby wasn’t a fan of his.

‘I love Kayla,’ she carried on. ‘I really do. But she is just way too trusting. If some random guy started talking to her, she’d probably stop and chat to him, that’s just what she’s like. And she’s so small and slight too; if some psycho was watching her and just grabbed her, then she wouldn’t stand a chance.’ Libby took another sip from her tea. ‘You heard about the serial killer, right?’

‘No…’ I said, feeling a shiver run down my back.

‘So many women have gone missing without a trace here in the last ten years that some people think a serial killer is kidnapping them. They reckon he’s keeping them for a while before… before murdering them. All these kidnappings have taken place in nice suburbs like this one, so we think that maybe this guy has Kayla. I mean, she didn’t run away – she wouldn’t just take off; she wouldn’t do anything like that. And it doesn’t look like she had an accident because there is literally no trace of her. We found nothing.’