Little Secrets: A gripping new psychological thriller you won’t be able to put down!

Unlike Mia, Rose often craved solitude. She didn’t need to answer anyway. Mia usually seemed perfectly happy to just listen to the sound of her own voice chirping away.

“Apparently someone has been leaving porcelain dolls on doorsteps of houses, and the dolls look like the little girls that live in the house. How freaky is that?”

Rose snapped her head around.

“The cops are worried it might mean something. Like maybe it’s a pedophile marking his victims.”

Rose gaped at her.

“What?” asked Mia.

Rose scrambled through her bag, trying to find her cell phone, the image of Laura in her mind, sleeping cheek to cheek with her tiny porcelain twin.

5

“Help! Stop it!” the child wailed.

Frank had tried asking nicely. Now he was prying the doll out of the little girl’s hands. When he’d imagined being a cop, he’d never thought fighting kids for their toys would be part of the job.

“She’s mine!” Laura yelled, just as Frank gave the thing a proper tug, released it from the kid’s iron grip.

Laura stared up at him, looking more angry than upset, and kicked him right in the shins.

“Laura!” Rose yelled at the little shit as she ran out of the room and slammed her bedroom door.

Frank rubbed his shin. She’d got him right on the bone. Truth was, it was throbbing.

“Sorry,” said Rose, looking him up and down. He stopped rubbing his leg and grinned.

“No stress,” he said. He should have guessed Rose’s sister would be like that. Cutest damn kid you ever saw but a real little fighter. When she grew up, she was going to break hearts. That was for sure.

Frank could see the worry in Rose’s eyes, and if he were honest, he liked it. Rose had never looked at him like this before, like he had something to give, like he could protect her. Ben Riley’s mother and the arsonist felt a million miles away now.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“About what?” asked Bazza. Frank won the fight not to swear under his breath. That guy could be an absolute moron sometimes.

He put a hand on Rose’s soft arm. Every part of him wanted to slide his hand up and down her arm, feel her warm unblemished skin. He wondered whether her whole body was that same pale honey, or whether the parts of her that didn’t see the sun were still the color of cream. He could feel his pants tighten ever so slightly.

“I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” he said, letting go of her before it really got out of hand. He was here as a professional.

“That’s not what you said at the station yesterday,” Bazza interjected from next to him.

“Shut up, Baz,” he said out of the side of his mouth, his budding erection deflating instantly. He smiled apologetically at Rose. “You’ve told your mum about this, right?”

“Yeah, but she’s doing a double today.”

“We’ll let you know if there are any developments, but if you’re feeling at all worried, you can call me and I’ll be here in a flash.”

* * *

“What did we say about sharing police information?” Frank said to Bazza as they walked back to the car. The sky above them was overcast, but still it was hot and slimy. Half-moons of sweat hovered under each of his armpits.

“Sorry,” mumbled Bazza.

Usually that would be the end of it, but not this morning. “It’s not okay. You’ve been a cop long enough now, mate. You should know better.”

The guy was taller than him, and much broader, but Frank had never once felt threatened by him. Right now, he was giving Frank the round-shouldered, hurt look like you’d get from a kid caught stealing from the biscuit tin. Frank stared back at him like he was just a piece of shit on his shoe. Bazza’s lip jutted out and he went to sit in the car to sulk. Good. Let him stew and think about what it meant to wear the badge.

Frank turned for one last look at the small white brick building. The lawn had not been cut for a long time. Around the side of the house were monstrous, spindly bushes growing around pieces of broken furniture and an old dog kennel.

To other people the place probably looked like a bit of an eyesore. Not to Frank. This was Rose’s house, and he had been allowed inside. He could smell her everywhere. He’d thought that clean, spicy scent was unique just to her, but it must have been the detergent she used because her whole house had that same smell. It was heaven. Now he could imagine what her life was like when she wasn’t at work. Everything in that house, even the toaster, had a strange erotic quality. He only wished that he had got a look at her bedroom.

God, he could do with a drink right now. Just to calm down. The day was only just starting and already it felt like too much. He was hungry for that look in Rose’s eyes. That look like he could protect her from the filth of this world. It made him feel taller, broader, and he could, if she let him. He would protect her from everything. She would never have to pull another beer again.

Although his mouth was already watering, he banished the thought of beer from his mind and pulled the trunk open to grab an evidence bag. He flicked it to let the air in and then took the doll out from under his arm. God, the thing was freaky to look at. He had no idea why that kid had fought so hard to keep it. He was a grown man and it gave him the major willies. Its eyes were wide and glassy and its hair felt too soft. He hoped like hell it wasn’t real human hair. Frank was used to wife bashers and drug addicts; he was used to the guy with bloody knuckles being the one who threw the punch. These dolls were something else completely. More than anything, it was bizarre. It wasn’t only that he didn’t know who the pervert was. He had no idea what on earth he was doing, and even less of an understanding of why. Hell, right now he’d take the arsonist over this case. At least that was cut-and-dried police work. Leaving anonymous little gifts for children wasn’t something they’d ever covered in training.

He squeezed the awful thing into the evidence bag. The plastic stretched across its face, its open mouth gaping as though it was trying to breathe. Frank tried not to think about how much it looked like an asphyxiated child. Despite himself, he shuddered as he snapped the trunk shut.

6

Rose didn’t have a chance to think while she got the kids ready for school.

“Shoes on,” she said to Laura as she passed her bedroom. The little girl was sitting on her bed in her socks, arms crossed. She was still angry about Frank taking her doll away.

In the kitchen, Sophie was attempting to put peanut butter on bread, but somehow had managed to get most of it on her hands, cheeks and the bench. Their mother had recently given her the new chore of making the school lunches, but Rose always ended up doing it. She nudged Sophie out of the way with her hip; it was quicker just to do it herself.

The piece of sandwich Sophie had attempted to make had holes in it from where she’d pressed too hard with the knife. Rose folded it over and took a large bite as she lined up six slices of white bread. She chewed, enjoying the salty crunchiness, as she neatly spread each slice. The peanut butter had to reach each corner; she knew that from when she was a kid. She finished off her own mangled sandwich as she neatly cut each of the three in front of her into two even triangles. Behind her, she heard shrill giggles.

“What are you doing?” she said, turning to the twins. Sophie was lying on the floor and Scott was crouching over her. They stopped and looked at her, Sophie rubbing her wet cheek.

“He was hungry,” said Sophie, and they burst out laughing again.

“Were you eating the peanut butter off her face?”

“Maybe,” said Scott.

“Gross! Hurry up.”

She quickly wrapped the sandwiches in cling film, then tossed them into the schoolbags that had been dumped next to the front door yesterday afternoon. She remembered Bazza tripping on them when he and Frank had come in this morning. The thought made her wince. She hated the idea that they’d seen where she lived. Somehow, with them standing there, the stains on the carpet and the crumbs on the bench top seemed magnified.

She picked up Laura’s bag and went into Laura’s seemingly empty room. Rose knew better.

“Don’t leave without her!” she yelled, hearing the twins opening the front door.

“But she takes forever.”

Rose placed the backpack on the ground and knelt down in front of the bed, taking the small scuffed-up shoes off the carpet.

“Can I have a foot?” she asked softly, and one of Laura’s little socked feet emerged from under the bed. She slid the shoe on and gently did up the buckle.

“Are you angry with me?” she asked.

There was no response, but another shoeless foot was extended out from under the bed. Rose took it in her hand.

“Fair enough,” she said as she slipped the white-socked foot into the shoe. There was no point in trying to explain to Laura. Rose would prefer her sister feel angry than afraid of whoever had chosen her for that strange present.

She held Laura’s ankles in her hands and carefully slid her out from under the bed. Laura ignored what was happening and stared at the ceiling, her cheeks blotchy and red from all the angry crying, her eyelashes still wet.

Rose took her under her arms and, pulling her up onto her feet, kissed her on the top of her head. “Off you go, then.”

The twins banged and skidded out of the house, Laura trotting quietly behind them. Rose often felt sad watching her siblings walk to school. Laura was always left lagging behind. Like Rose herself. She closed the door against the heat and noise, and the house went totally silent except for the low hum of the refrigerator.

Rose padded across the carpet to her bedroom. Standing in the doorway, she didn’t enter. Her suitcase was in the corner of her room. It was open, her best clothes folded inside. She’d packed. Actually packed. That was how sure she’d been about the cadetship. She was such an idiot.

There was no point in unpacking. Cadetship or not, her mother and Rob had told her she had to move out by the time Rob came home from his latest haul. That was in just one week. Part of her thought that maybe if she told her mum what had happened, if she asked for a bit more time, her mother would relent.

Really, though, she’d long stopped thinking of this place as her home. She had to start looking for a rental, but even the idea of it made her exhausted. Her sleep had been hollow, never dipping far from the surface of consciousness. Frank had promised he’d come over first thing the next morning when she’d called him in a panic from Mia’s car last night. When she did get home she had quietly pulled the doll out of Laura’s sleeping fingers and put it on the highest shelf, its glass eyes staring at her. The strangeness of it, her own inability to understand what the implications were, meant that no matter how tired her bones felt, her mind had whirred on. She had listened to her mother get up at 5:00 a.m. to go to work. Heard her soft footsteps down the hall, her sigh, barely audible, from the dark kitchen. She hadn’t moved. She’d remained motionless in her clammy sheets, listening as her mother’s car backed out of the driveway, the headlights illuminating her bedroom. Then her thoughts turned to dreams and she was asleep without even knowing it. Soon after she had awoken sharply to Laura’s screams.

Jumping out of bed, she’d realized the screams were out of anger, not fear. Laura had found the doll eventually and was almost crushed in the process by climbing up the bookcase. She only had the thing for about fifteen minutes when Frank and Bazza had pulled up.

Rose was still hovering in her doorway when the home phone rang. She ran back into the kitchen and snatched it up.

“Rose?” It was her mother, sounding breathless. “I just got your message. The police were at the house? Is everyone okay?”

“Yep, but everything’s fine. They just came because someone left Laura a doll.”

There was silence down the line, and Rose braced herself.

“You called the police because of a toy?” The panic was totally gone from her voice now.

“The police were worried, Mum. They say that there’s been a whole bunch of kids getting dolls and—”

“Rose.” Her mum’s voice was quieter then. Rose imagined her in the break room at the poultry factory, her hairnet still on, her body turned away from the rest of the workers’ pricked ears. “We’ll discuss this when I get home.”

The line went dead. Rose slammed the phone back onto the cradle. Her mum never listened to her anymore. Rose ignored the peanut butter smeared across the counter and went back to her room, diving onto the bed. Turning away from the suitcase, she squeezed her eyes shut. The sheets beneath her felt sticky from her restless night.

Rose knew the conversation that was going to happen with her mother when she got home. She knew the way her mum would look at her too, like she was an inconvenience, like she was just another frustration on an already-long list. It hadn’t always been like that.

It was less than a month after the rumor began that the Auster Automotive Factory would close that her mother had started seeing Rob. He was a long-range trucker, and looked the part. Rob was someone her mother would never have fancied before. But when a steady wage became a rarity in the town, Rob became a catch. Back then, Rose didn’t even care. She didn’t care when he moved in, or even when they announced that her mother was pregnant with twins. Rose was seventeen, almost finished high school and stupid enough to be excited about the future. The idea that she would fail to get a scholarship, and what with no savings and no financial support wouldn’t be moving out of town anytime soon, hadn’t even crossed her mind. Ever since then she’d been living on borrowed time.

She pulled her curtains shut and put on the fan. She could smell the ripe stink of her own sweat and it made her even more frustrated. She had been totally right to call the police, and now her mum was angry with her.

Again, the memory of the last time she’d seen Rob surfaced. She’d come out of her bedroom, where she basically lived these days, and her mother and Rob had been sitting in the living room. They’d asked her to sit down. Rob had actually said the words our home, when he’d told her it was time for her to get her own place. Rose was no longer part of the “our,” even though she’d lived in the house for seventeen years longer than he had. Her mother had said nothing, but she’d nodded along with him and hadn’t looked Rose in the eye.

The fan whirred, blowing cold air onto her sweaty neck and making her hair flutter around her face. The pillow felt soft against her cheek. She closed her eyes, relishing the silence and the dark, trying to let herself dissolve into it. To forget her life, just for a moment. But she couldn’t. Every time her mind felt clear, she’d see that porcelain face. Or Will’s expression when he’d caught her crying. Or, worst of all, she’d see herself, staking a claim to some earth near the fossickers. She opened her eyes. It was too stuffy for this. Sitting up, she pulled the window ajar, letting some air in. Fuck it. Just because her life was depressing didn’t mean she had to be. She was going to figure this out. Besides, it wasn’t like she even had a choice. She had to do something.

She slipped on some sandals and put her phone and notebook in her pocket. She left the house, banging the screen door shut behind her. The air was heavy with humidity. Listening to the slap of her shoes against the road, she walked briskly down the street. The tiredness lifted off her like a blanket. It was good to get outside. The morning was getting hot, but at least there was movement in the air. Sitting at home in the house where she grew up, but where she no longer felt welcome, was hardly comforting. From a distance, she heard the echoes of children squealing and laughing. They must have been stragglers, late to school, or perhaps playing truant. She and Mia used to do that sometimes, she remembered, back when there was a high school in Colmstock. Things were so different then, it was hard to believe it was the same place. They’d had a whole group of friends. All of them, except for Rose, had their futures mapped out perfectly. They’d graduate high school and then go to work at Auster’s. It wasn’t a bad job, and the pay was good. High school had felt like their last chance for freedom.

Walking past the football oval, Rose remembered what it used to look like. It had been perfectly green, and one night, they’d done doughnuts with one of their fathers’ pickup trucks. Rose and Mia had lost touch with their friends very quickly after their final year. Two of them had married each other and were on to their third kid, Mia’s boyfriend had killed himself, and one of them, Lucie, had moved out of town for three years only to come back to Colmstock pregnant and alone. Rose had tried calling her, but she’d never called her back and so that was that. Looking out over the field, where the dead yellow grass was coming up in clumps, it seemed incredible that it could be the same place. The stands were covered in graffiti, and the seats were broken. But she could almost still feel the wind in her hair, still hear Mia’s and Lucie’s squeals of delight echoing in her ears.

Colmstock had once thrived as a farming area, but in World War I, more than two-thirds of the young men who left didn’t come back. The town had almost been deserted then, and Rose wished it had. It would have saved them all a lot of disappointment. But it hadn’t, because someone had stumbled on deposits of oil shale in the late 1930s. The rest of the country was still recovering from the Depression, so people flocked to the middle-of-nowhere town to work in the mines. The car factory was built around then, and Colmstock had become a very wealthy town. You could tell which buildings were from that period: grand white facades that were now cracked and weathered.

The mine closed in the eighties. Something to do with cheaper alternatives being discovered, but Rose couldn’t quite remember what they were. The mine entrance was still there. A wide black mouth leading into oblivion. It wasn’t too far from the lake near Rose’s house. When she and Mia had been bored kids they used to sneak under the fence around it and dare each other to jump inside.

The council building was one of the big white buildings, but more important, it was one of the few places in town with air-conditioning. An old woman with a hunch and thick Coke-bottle glasses was sitting on a bench out the front; she smiled hopefully at Rose, who nodded in return. This woman was often hanging around, and if you weren’t quick you’d get stuck listening to her rattle on all day about her cat. Rose stepped inside, and her skin prickled cold. It was a lovely feeling. She stood in front of the notice board, her eyes closed, feeling her blood cool.

This was where the office for the local newspaper used to be. The Colmstock Echo—Rose had done work experience there when she was in high school. Everything about it had felt so right. Going out and finding the real story. The smell of ink on printing day. She’d started working there during the day after she’d been rejected in her university scholarship applications. It had only been for six months, and she’d been at Eamon’s at nighttime, but Rose had been okay. She’d almost been happy. It hadn’t been long until they could no longer afford to pay her, but she’d stayed on anyway. Most of the other staff had left, so Rose had become the deputy editor. Eventually the funding was cut completely. That was when Rose had done the stupid thing. The dumb, reckless thing that had really sealed the deal on her crappy life. The idea of the newspaper closing, of her life just being about Eamon’s, killed her. So, big ideas in her head, she’d got a small loan from the bank. She had been sure if they could just hang on until they had some advertisers, she could save the Echo. It hadn’t made any difference; the newspaper had barely lasted another month. Rose’s loan had grown steadily, and now she wasn’t even managing to pay off the interest each month.

“Rose?”

Steve Cunningham came to stand next to her.

“I thought that was you,” he said, smiling. “How are you?”

“Fine.” She felt caught out; she didn’t want to have to explain to him that she had nowhere to live. He looked up at the board, but didn’t ask her about it.

“It’s quiet around here,” she said, and it was true. They were the only people standing in the corridor.

He shrugged. “I’m used to it.”

Steve was looking terrible; he was pale, which was making the shadows under his eyes appear deep and purple, but his smile was real. She had always suspected Steve might admire her, not in the ogling bad-joke way that some of the other punters did, but like he actually thought there might be more to her than her arse.

With a swish from the doorway, his smile fell instantly from his face. She followed his gaze. Mr. Riley was opening the building’s front door for his wife, his hand on her lower back as he steered her through it. Rose looked away quickly. Since the fire, the Rileys had become almost famous in town, triggering silence and averted eyes wherever they went. Their grief followed the couple like a cape.

“Hi,” Steve said, walking toward them, hand outstretched. “Good to see you both.”

He escorted them past Rose and into one of the rooms beyond the staircase. Rose watched them go, trying to imagine how it would feel to have both your child and your business disappear all at once.

She swallowed and looked back at the board, oddly grateful she definitely wasn’t the least fortunate person in town. She looked for rooms to rent among the badly photocopied posters advertising secondhand cars and used baby cribs for sale. There were two advertisements for tenants. One was so far out of town she had no idea how she could get to work, and the other was a room share, but she wrote both numbers down in her notebook. Neither was appealing, but both were better than sleeping under the stars with the fossickers.

As she stood thinking of how the rent per month added up against her income, she felt a movement behind her. Nothing touched her, but the hair on her arms prickled and stood. Turning, she saw the back of a man walking up the stairs. Will. Without thinking, she began to follow him. She wanted to know more about him, understand what someone like him, someone with new clothes and no apparent connections with the town, was doing here in Colmstock.

Rose waited until he reached the crest of the stairs and turned down the corridor before she began quietly climbing them herself. When she reached the top, he was gone. He must have entered one of the offices. Rose looked into one. A woman sat glumly behind a computer, barricades snaking around the room in preparation for a long line, but no one was waiting. The woman straightened when she saw Rose but Rose just smiled at her and kept walking. The next room was the public records. You were meant to register yourself at the station and ask the attendant to find records for you. Rose had done research for stories here a couple of times. There was no one behind the desk now. Looking at the logbook, she saw that the last entry was for over six months ago. There’d been layoffs at the council around then.

She was about to turn when she heard a sound of a filing cabinet drawer squeak open. Leaning across the desk, she looked into the archives. There was Will, flicking through a drawer like he was perfectly entitled to be there.

“Hey!” she said. “What are you doing?”

He looked up at her and smiled. “Hi,” he said. “You’re the waitress from Eamon’s, right?”

As if he didn’t remember who she was. She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know you’re not allowed to just look through this stuff yourself.”

He shrugged. “Are you going to help me?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t work here, you know.”

He didn’t answer but began flicking through the records again.

She came around to the other side of the desk. “What are you looking for?” she asked.