I recently became suspicious that my brother-in-law could have played a part in the abduction of a young girl. It isn’t something that I would have ever considered under normal circumstances; Luke is a friendly guy, and as far as I know, he’s always treated my sister Lizzy with kindness and respect.
To give some context, there have been a few disappearances of youths in my local area. I won’t tell you where exactly, because I don’t want the wrong people reading this (I’ve also changed the names of the people involved), but rest assured it’s a big talking point around town. It started off when a schoolgirl called Eleanor went missing on her walk home from school.
Her parents were immediately terrified because Eleanor was a good girl who never did anything bad. She was a model student, and didn’t really have many friends, so it wasn’t likely she’d gone off with someone else. The police were convinced that she had been abducted. There was a huge search for her, but she never showed up.
Time moved on, and so did the majority of the town. That is until another girl went missing in identical circumstances eight months later. Then another three months after that. We all began to panic when a journalist reported that this situation could be even worse, as there were four more young people missing from the local area, but because they were homeless, didn’t get much attention.
I spoke to Lizzy on the phone one evening after the third girl went missing.
“I know” she said, “It’s terrifying me. Aaron’s nearly at the age where he’s wanting to walk home alone, but I just can’t let him. He’s going to hate me”.
Luke came on the phone Lizzy and agreed the situation was terrible. “There’s not much you can do though mate. Just be vigilant and look after you and yours”.
Nothing much happened for a few weeks. I became busy on a work project that left me with little energy to focus on anything else. That is until Lizzy asked if I could house sit for them while they had a long weekend in London with the kids.
I was happy to oblige, and that’s how I found myself slumped on their sofa watching Netflix and gorging on a pizza. I reached out to the coffee table to grab my bottle beer when I knocked a pizza slice on the floor. I swore out loud, knowing how precious Luke and Lizzy are about their carpets, and I got up, carefully placing the rest of the pizza on the table.
Annoyingly, the pizza slice had dropped between the side of the sofa and the wall, and I knelt down, grasping for the slice. My fingers felt upon something harder and drier than pizza. It felt like a book.
I stretched and managed to grip the book and pulled it out. It was a school workbook. I figured it was one of Aaron’s or Jack’s, but when I looked at the front cover, I gasped and felt my stomach lurch. Written upon it was the name Emma Hughes. Emma Hughes was the name of the last girl to go missing. She had vanished on her way home from school. It was logical that she would have had her school books on her person at the time.
Why was this here? Luke and Lizzy were normal people, and neither of them worked at the school or anything like that. Neither of the kids knew Emma, or had any way of having this book. It made no sense.
The pizza forgotten, I took a long swig of beer. There had to be an explanation. An innocent one. There was a reason, but I couldn’t for the life of me think of it. I didn’t want to imagine it, but there was only one solution. Luke was responsible for taking Emma. Luke had possibly taken the other two girls. Maybe even the four homeless kids too.
It was all too much. I bolted home.
How do you tell your sister that you think their husband is a monster? Kidnapping kids is not something a regular guy does. The kids haven’t been found, so as far as I knew, Luke had killed them too. God knows what else.
I spent days and nights staring into space. I called in sick at work and avoided calls from my sister. Finally, I gave in.
“At last” Lizzy said when I answered her call, “I was about to drive round and see what was wrong. You left our house in a complete mess! I won’t be asking you to house sit again!”
“Yeah, that’s fine” I said, gripping the phone hard enough for it to hurt my hand, “Listen, Lizzy, is Luke with you?”
“I don’t think so! I’m not just letting you off that easily!”
“Lizzy, I’m sorry, okay. Is Luke with you?”
“No he isn’t. He sometimes goes out for a drive at this time, so I don’t know when he’ll be back. I’ll leave a message for him”.
“No” I said, feeling sweat sliding uncomfortablly down my back, “Look, I’ve got something to tell you. You’re not going to like it”.
“So you think my husband is a murderer, do you?” Lizzy said when I’d told her.
“Errrm, well… No, but…”
“Don’t worry. He’s not a murderer”.
“He’s not?”
“No, of course not, silly. There’s an explanation to why that book was in our house without it meaning Luke killed those girls”.
I felt my chest lighten. I sighed an actual sigh of relief.
“There is?”
“Of course there is. I killed them.”
It took a moment for what she said to sink in. I heard her, but didn’t understand.
“Pardon?” I said faintly.
“The kids. Luke didn’t take them. He didn’t kill them. I took them. I killed them.”
My heart started pounding, and I felt like I needed a pint. Of whisky.
“Lizzy, you shouldn’t joke… That’s… You can’t joke about things like that!”
“Oh, I know. I wouldn’t joke about it. That’d be awful. I did it. I don’t want to go into why and how and all that right now, but believe me, I killed them. It’s something I do. I didn’t just start now either. Remember Jenny from school? That was me.”
I did remember Jenny. She was three years older than me, red-haired and beautiful. I was always shy around her, but she was kind and found me funny. She had gone night swimming alone in a lake when she was fifteen and tragically passed away. It had badly affected Lizzy, who didn’t eat for a week afterwards.
I couldn’t speak. The silence drew longer and longer.
“Is this going to be a problem?” she asked.
Silence.
“Family is important, you know” she said quickly, “You only get one sister. Imagine what would happen to my kids if you did anything stupid”.
What could I say? I cleared my throat and said “No, of course I won’t do anything silly. I’m just… I’m just surprised, that’s all”.
Lizzy made some excuse and hung up. I sat in complete silence for what felt like hours. My whole life, all my beliefs, had suddenly come crashing down on me. My own sister was a monster.
I didn’t know what to do. An hour passed. I went to my bedroom and stood by the window. My sister’s Mini sat outside. I didn’t sleep.
A pattern has started. Lizzy calls me once a day to check on me. Then in the evenings she puts her kids to bed then sits outside my house, staring up at me. I haven’t slept in days and I’m beginning to feel ill.
The threat is obvious. If I go to the police, she will kill me too. But I just need to sleep.
I wish it had been my brother-in-law. I wouldn’t hesitate to call the police on him. But family’s family. And at least while she’s stalking me, she’s not killing kids. What do I do?