6 HOURS MISSING
Sam climbed the stairs, her hand gripping the pine bannister as she smiled at the array of drawing tacked to the wall. Hesitantly, she reached the top floor of the house, and immediately saw the blonde haired figure of a young girl standing at the threshold of one of the numerous doors leading from the hallway.
"Hello," Sam greeted her with a small smile, and the girl replied in kind with a rather more timid one. Sam ventured towards her, holding out her hand for the young girl to shake, "My name's Samantha."
The girl looked up with her large brown eyes, shaking the offered hand slowly, "That's pretty."
"Thankyou," Sam couldn't help smile in spite of herself, "What's your name?"
"Matilda," The girl answered shyly, her eyes darting back to the ground.
"That's a lovely name," Sam moved closer to Matilda, "That was my favourite book when I was your age."
Matilda's eyes seemed to snap upwards, staring directly into Sam's as a grin appeared over her young lips, "Erin loved it too. That's why I'm called Matilda."
"Well," Sam bent down further, putting herself at eye level with the girl, "I'm here to help find Erin. I want to make sure she's alright."
Matilda's face paled, her eyes widening into large dark pools, containing far more knowledge and experience of life than was right for such a young girl, "Erin is going to be OK isn't she?" She backed away from Sam's presence, retreating further away, "She is coming back isn't she?"
Sam nodded defiantly, "Of course. I just want to talk to you about her so we can make sure Erin is safe as soon as we can. You do want that don't you?" Matilda nodded enthusiastically, her fears seemingly abated by Sam's explantation. She gestured towards an open door, with pink walls and fluffy decorations and teddies visible inside, "Is that your bedroom?" Matilda nodded silently, "Can we talk in there?"
The pair walked into the bedroom, and Sam took a seat on the pink bedspread as Matilda sat cross-legged on the floor. A moment of serenity seemed to spread over them as Sam heard the quiet words of Jack questioning Matilda's parents downstairs, trying to find something, anything that would help find Erin. Her eyes wandered over the young girl's bedroom, full of animals and castles and fairytale dreams about princesses finding their true love. Angels littered the walls, and clouds appeared in the corners of the room. Next to her sat a strangely coloured dog that she recognised vaguely from early morning cartoons that she occasionally catched after a long night at work. "Do you and Erin talk a lot?"
Matilda shook her head up and down, "We talk all the time. She's my big sister." Sam let the untruth pass; there was no need to confuse the girl even more than she was already about the events in her life, "Sometimes, when I hear her crying, I go and sleep in her bed."
"Does she cry a lot?" Sam subtly began writing in her notebook.
Matilda pursed her lips in thought, "She used to," A strand of blonde hair was pushed behind her ear, "Before she went away though. After she came back, she was happy. She smiled a lot and went back to school. Mommy and Daddy said it was a new start."
"So she wasn't upset or angry after she came home? She didn't shout or not talk?"
Matilda shook her head, then slowed down, her brow furrowing. "Well, she did cry last week."
"She did?"
Matilda bit her lip, suddenly aware that she'd said something she wasn't supposed to reveal, "I-I-I don't know."
"Will you tell me?" Sam asked, slightly more forcefully than she intended.
The young girl looked unsure, hesitant in revealing any more than she should, but she opened her mouth and began to speak, "She was on the phone to someone in her bedroom. The door was closed...." Matilda looked out of the open door of her own bedroom and into Erin's opposite;
She creeped past, dodging the creaky floorboards and tiptoeing past the cat to make sure that Erin didn't hear her approach. Her sister's voice was becoming more and more croaky, more and more tearfilled and despite being taught by her parents that when Erin was on the phone, she shouldn't be disturbed, it was Matilda's instinct to want to comfort her big sister. She stood to the right of the door, her ear pressed against the wall. Her eyes could just catch Erin's face in the mirror of the dressing table where she sat, cordless phone in her hand with tears streaming. Neither of her parents were around, both working out in the garden, so Erin hadn't thought of closing the door or lowering the tone of voice.
"Please stop crying," Erin protested quietly to whoever was on the other end of the line, despite the fact she was crying herself, "Please Zoe...."
Matilda felt the press of the cat's tail against the leg, and willed the cat not to miaow or Erin would realise her presence. She didn't want to seem like a nosy girl; her mommy had told her that it wasn't a nice trait to have.
"I have to do this, I just do." Erin's fingers dragged through her hair, her eyes bleary and red-rimmed from crying, "This will be the end. Everything will be so much easier."
The floorboard creaked, but not from Matilda's movement but the cat's. In the reflection of the mirror, Matilda could see her sister's eyes dart towards the door, rising slowly from her seat to investigate. Before she got any closer, Matilda ducked round into her parents bedroom. She held her breath and prayed that Erin wouldn't see her; otherwise she'd never trust her again. Erin, after looking down the stairs was satisfied that there were no eavesdroppers and went back into her bedroom, the phone still enclasped in her hand. Tearfully, she resumed her conversation and Matilda ran back outside to join her parents, trying to forget whatever she'd overheard.
Sam's hand worked quickly over the notebook, scrawling down the bare minimum of details over what the young girl had just told her. In all honesty, it shouldn't have surprised her. All the signs pointed towards suicide; recently released from a psychiatric unit, history of suicide in the family, depression. It all added up to it, but she still felt almost disappointed that Erin took that route. Her family seemed so devoted, and she seemed so loving, so considerate and desperate to right the wrongs that her biological parents had committed.
She didn't realise that she hadn't spoken for a significant length of time before Matilda shook her arm. Sitting on the floor, her baleful brown eyes looked up into Sam's; "She's going to be OK, isn't she?"
Instead of lying, Sam answered the question with a question; "Do you know any of Erin's friends that were named Zoe?"
"She didn't talk to any of her friends from high school when she came back." Matilda pondered thoughtfully, "There was a girl called Zoe that she met when she went away. I think they became good friends, but she didn't talk about her much. I think she was ill, and that she wouldn' be going back to her parents for a long time. Erin didn't like talking about her because it was sad."
Sam rose from the bed, walking towards the door, "Thankyou Matilda," She turned to face the young girl who still sat in the middle of the floor, only now she hugged the coloured dog to her chest, "You've really helped me."
"You'll bring her back, won't you?" She asked, fiddling with the hairs on the stuffed toy anxiously.
She swallowed, wondering if she should shatter the girls dreams and she paused before answering, "I'll try my hardest."
End of Part Two