The Game You Played by Anni Taylor Read Free Book Online Page B

the letter. There were just a few lines in the middle of the page:
     
    Little boy blue
    Alone and forlorn.
    From the meadow led
    From your mother torn.
     
    At first, my mind saw the Mother Goose rhyme. When I finally understood that the words had changed, my fingers started to tremble.
    Who’d sent this to me? Anyone who knew about Tommy would know how I’d react to those words. Tommy had been dubbed Little Boy Blue by the media. He’d been wearing all blue when he vanished.
    Someone sent this to us deliberately.
    Someone who wanted to hurt us.
    Then another, more desperate thought: Whoever sent this was the person who took Tommy.
    My lungs were airless rooms closing in on each other as I picked up the phone on the hallstand.
    Luke didn’t pick up. He’d probably gone straight into a meeting. Leaving him a message to call me, I hung up and called Detective Trent Gilroy. It’d been a month since I’d last spoken to him, and that had only been a brief conversation. He’d called just to check in with me . As if that had become his job now. He couldn’t find Tommy, so he’d keep checking in with me, to make sure that I still existed, that I hadn’t vanished, too.
    “Trent,” I breathed. “I got a letter. About Tommy.”
    Silence on the other end of the phone. Then, “What kind of letter?”
    “It’s a children’s rhyme, but they’ve changed the words. It was in our letterbox.”
    I read out the rhyme.
    His tone became dead serious. “Drop the letter. Now. Use tweezers to place it into a plastic bag and bring it down to the station. The envelope too, if there was one.”
    I opened my fist and let the letter flutter to the floor. “I shouldn’t have touched it, should I?”
    “You weren’t to know. Well, it’s likely to be someone playing a very stupid prank. Still, we’ll certainly investigate it. Can you come down now?”
    “Yes, I’ll be there.”
    I dropped the letter and envelope into a ziplock plastic bag using eyebrow tweezers. Then rushed upstairs to find my mobile phone. It was almost out of charge. I switched it off and pushed it into my pocket.
    Breaking into a run, I headed out the front door. I didn’t drive anymore—the sleeping medications I’d been on meant that I was too drowsy during the day to be on the road, especially in the hectic rush of inner-city traffic. I’d let my car’s registration lapse, much to Luke’s chagrin.
    I raced to the tall brick fence at the end of my garden path and through the gate. And smacked straight into someone.
    Pria’s daughter Jessie stood there in her calf-length private school uniform and straw hat. The ziplock bag flew up in the air, landing near the drain. Jessie rushed across the path, but before she could get to the bag, I snatched it up.
    “I could have lost it!” I cried.
    Her expression immediately crumbled. “I’m sorry, Phoebe.”
    I wanted to smack myself for snapping at the kid. “No, I’m sorry. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have barrelled out of my gate like that.”
    “What is it?” She screwed up her forehead in that gaping, wrinkled-nose way kids did when they were puzzling over something. She was so like Pria, with her almond eyes and high forehead, except that her hair (unlike Pria’s) was dark.
    “Just a letter. But an important one. Are you okay? Hope I didn’t hurt you.” I rubbed her arm.
    “Yeah. I’m okay.” She paused, glancing down at the pavement. “Phoebe, how come you don’t come around and see us anymore?”
    “I will. I’ve just been . . . caught up.”
    “Mum says she misses you. I miss you, too. And maybe when you come over, you can convince Mum to let me walk our puppy sometimes. She says he’s already too big and strong and might get away from me. She walks him when I’m at school.”
    It was so like Jessie to ask me over. She’d always been like a small adult, organising and worrying about everyone. The other side of that was a hint of anxiety. She often seemed to be analysing her own