Effie

Previously... (You might want to read this first)

Tumble out of bed and stumble to the kitchen, pour myself a cup of ambition...

I snort. Again. But not cocaine this time. Just whatever naturally lives in nose-holes. I'm not a fan of country music, but I've always had a soft spot for Dolly. The way she defied everyone and everything, and made her own way. Good for her.

In the song, ambition is coffee, right?

Not vodka.

I pour it anyway. It's not that early is it? I slept late again. It is breakfast though. Simon would frown, but he always does that.

I frown, too. At the meagre measure in the glass. I tip the bottle, give it a shake. Another drop drops out. Goes plink.

I get up, and go hunting for another. The clunk of cupboard doors reverberate in my skull, and for a second I'm cowering again while those doors slam above and around me, Lonnie's voice thundering. The slosh of liquid glugging its wasteful way down the drain. The image of it is so real I can taste it; it makes me lurch sideways and slump back on to the breakfast stool.

Inside my head, I hear my own voice shriek,

I'm grieving, you heartless bastard! Isn't that what you wanted?

None of this works if you're dead, you stupid bitch!

The liquid in the glass is quivering, and I realise it's because my hand is shaking. Isn't that just beautiful? The moment I was struggling, my hand settled around the glass without me willing it or thinking it. That's what I've become.

I put down the tumbler with exaggerated care. The noise it makes on the counter tears into my head anyway, which has been de-shelled like a prawn and is soft and squishy and vulnerable. And pulsing.

What I mean is, it hurts.

God, I think I am still high.

I should've gone to Simon's last night. To get away from Lonnie. But he wanted me to go there, to harvest more data, and I thought fuck you, and I went out with the girls instead. I don't remember getting in. I must have picked one of the spare rooms at random.

If I had gone to Simon's and returned without the data, the whole row would've blown up all over again. Worse than before.

He won't actually kill me. Not on purpose. He said himself he needs me alive if you're dead you stupid bitch! so I'm safe. Sort of.

The glass is empty, and I want it to not be empty. Lonnie has done this before, poured the booze away. So I had some stashed. Which he probably doesn't know about. But where did I hide it?

I think, in my drunk or high state, I decided the best place to put it would be his second study. It's still his stuff, so even if he suspected, maybe he won't want to tear it apart looking? More importantly, he doesn't know I have the key and the code for it.

I'm not sure where he is, though, or when he might be back. It's no good using tracking devices or apps. Believe me, I've tried. Lonnie is an actual genius at sniffing them out, disabling them, hacking them, or just dropping the affected phone off somewhere. Either a random bar for a few hours, or a river, forever.

While I'm sat there, mulling, head throbbing, my latest nails beat a rhythm on the edge of the empty glass. Sobriety threatens like storm clouds. My phone rings, piercing the fug I'm sitting in. I wince. It's Simon. Why is he ringing me? He never rings me anymore.

Almost reflexively, I reject the call. My gut churns. Maybe I should have answered. Maybe he found something.

No. If he did, he'll ring again. I wait, on tenterhooks. The phone lies flat and silent in my hand.

I don't think, maybe he found her, because that thought is too big to hold. But maybe he did. Maybe he is hopping up and down like a bunny, every tooth on display in the widest smile he's ever had.

Somehow, the call has galvanised me into action. Without another thought, I push myself to my feet and march out to the hallway and up the stairs to the third floor. My brain kicks into overdrive. I should make sure I can see the front driveway from that office. Even if I have to set up a camera myself. So I can see if he comes home. Isn't there a spare room on that corridor? I can slip in there, pretend that's where I slept.

Even while I'm thinking all this, I find I'm already at the office door, punching in the code, turning the key, stepping inside. Will I hear the car? Unlikely, the newer models make less noise than ghosts, but the care is slipping away, like vodka down a plughole...

It doesn't look like a billionaire's study. It looks normal. A regular high-end-ish computer on the scuffed desk. Couple of filing cabinets. Papers piled everywhere. A fossilised printer in one corner. Bookshelves.

The filing cabinets feel like a too-obvious choice, but I yank the drawers open anyway and feel around. Nothing. Of course. But I had to check. Plain sight was the plan, right?

Next, the desk drawers. A forest of old envelopes, some random keys, loose change from other countries. In other words, nothing.

The bookshelves are custom-made and deep enough to stack books in at least double rows. Easy to hide something back there. I pull out several books at random and feel around at the back. Nothi-

Wait.

There is something. It flutters out of Aluminum Ore: The Political Economy of the Global Bauxite Industry. A small square of shiny photo paper. Like an old polaroid, but it doesn't look old. You know that vintage look photographs get. It doesn't have that.

Who even has a polaroid anymore? Not Lonnie. He likes digital things, things that can be tracked and hacked and manipulated and spied on...

I bend down and pick up the little square, faltering a moment because the slippery paper offers little purchase, but then it's in my hand... All of a sudden my heartbeat is very, very loud.

I am afraid to turn it over and look at it. I hesitate, the fateful square trembling in my fingers. This is something important. Something Lonnie hid, because he didn't want people to see it, but it was too important to simply burn, or throw away.

Maybe he is blackmailing someone. Or maybe this is a picture of her. Of Lorelai. My baby. Gone from me. Taken.

I badly want to flip it over and see. See if it's her. How she looks. Whether she looks exactly as I remember her, which means it's probably just an old picture. Or whether she looks older, and if she looks well and happy...

But I don't want to see it, because I know all too well why some people take pitcures of little girls.

The front door bangs.

Thank you for reading!

The span of her life was only eighty years, but her voice will live forever.

Her dedication to literacy and children reading should be an inspiration to us all.

Rest easy, Dolly Parton.

If you'd like to read the others, I hope the links work!

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine