All I Want Series Boxset, Books 1-3: All I Want for Christmas, All I Want for Valentine's, All I Want for Spring (29 page)

“You got it?” Tori asked her, bending down so she was at Elsie’s height.

Elsie nodded.

Tori was just filling in her address on the returns form when she glanced down.

Elsie wasn’t there.

She didn’t quite believe it at first, looking back up at the sales person, and then back to where Elsie had been standing, the space that was now vacant. When the magnitude of the situation fully registered, Tori dropped the pen she was holding and twisted around, scanning the area.

“My little girl — she’s run off,” she told the assistant. Then she began to run from the sales desk, shouting Elsie’s name at high volume. A woman with hair made of straw looked appalled at the level of noise Tori was making, but Tori just ignored her. She was going to make all the noise she could if it meant that Elsie heard her.

“Elsie!” Tori screamed, dashing past a rail of particularly terrible paisley trousers and matching blouses that looked highly flammable — the kind of floaty ensemble her mum might rock at a party, pairing it with clacking beads and gigantic earrings for added flair.

Tori’s eyes darted all over the store, between rails, off mirrors, under displays. She still couldn’t see Elsie.

She accosted a security guard, her eyes wide, panic flooding her entire system with a sharp slap. She needed to stay calm. Elsie couldn’t have gone far. She’d find her soon, then she and Holly would laugh about it all later.

If not later, maybe tomorrow at least.

It might even go down in Elsie’s personal history as the day she nearly got lost on Oxford Street.

Fuck
. They were in central London. Elsie might have got on an escalator and already have been swallowed up by the crowds, and then what?

Tori closed her eyes and tried not to imagine the worst, even though the thoughts and images were threatening to overload her brain.

Calm.

She needed to keep very calm and focus on the job at hand, which was to find Elsie before anything happened to her. It’d only been a few minutes since she saw her, and Tori had watched enough crime dramas to know this was the critical time.

“Have you seen a toddler round here?” Tori asked the security guard. He had a kind face, so that was a plus. “She’s wandered off and I can’t see her. Pink coat, red shoes, brown hair, big eyes. She was just there and then… then she wasn’t.” Tears began to assemble behind her eyes and Tori swallowed down hard. This was not the time for tears, this was the time for action.

She had the guard’s full attention now. “I haven’t madam,” he said, reaching for his radio. “But I’ll look here, and I’ll radio my colleagues for help, too.” His radio crackled and the guard spoke into it, informing the store of the missing toddler. Tori read his name badge: Tim. The same name as her dad. Surely that was a sign?

“Thanks Tim,” she said, racing off round the next corner and colliding with two women chatting. “Sorry!” Tori shouted as she raced on, bending down to see if she could see Elsie’s tiny little legs. “Please, please let me find her,” Tori whispered under her breath. “I promise, I’ll never moan about babysitting her ever again.”

A tap on her shoulder made her jump, and Tori turned to see Tim standing there.

“Have you found her?” Tori’s mind was now whirling like a fairground ride. She knew the instructions: hold tight.

Tim shook his head. “We haven’t, and you ran off before I could ask what the toddler’s name is? I assume it’s a girl, seeing as she’s wearing a pink coat?”

Tori nodded her head. “Yes — she’s called Elsie. Tiny, she’s only two.” That sentence stopped Tori in her tracks. “Oh my god, she’s only two.” She swung her gaze over Tim’s shoulder, got down on her haunches and scanned the floor around. Then she stood up and put her head in her hands. “Where the hell could she be?”

Tim put a hand on Tori’s shoulder. “Don’t worry madam, we’ll find her. She won’t have gone far.”

Fifteen minutes elapsed, although it seemed like an eternity to Tori. There were now five security guards scouring the fifth floor of the building, but they hadn’t found her yet. Tori was holding off contacting Holly, but she knew she might have to call her soon. She really didn’t want to though. They’d joked about keeping Elsie alive, and now this.

She shook her head. She wasn’t going to allow herself to think that. Her phone ringing interrupted her thoughts. It was Holly. Tori stared at it as if it was a ticking time bomb. She contemplated hitting the red button, but eventually clicked to answer the call.

“Hey babe, just calling to see how you’re doing with our little weapon of mass destruction.” Holly’s voice was cheery, content. “I’m cracking through these reports, so I’ll be all yours later.”

Tori hesitated for just a moment too long.

“Everything okay?” Holly asked, concern now coating her words. “Babe?”

Tori let out a deep breath before answering. “It’s all fine, I’m sure it’ll be fine. It’s just that Elsie’s wandered off—”

“—What?”

“—And I’m sure it’s fine. We’ve got the whole store looking for her, and I’m sure she’ll turn up any minute now.” Tori’s voice was coming out clear and confident. The exact opposite to how she was feeling inside. Her entire body was a hot slab of panic. She was lying wildly. Perhaps she had a career in politics ahead of her after all.

“Store? Where are you?” Holly’s tone and volume had now gone from calm to frantic.

“John Lewis,” Tori said, wincing as she did. She knew the response that would get.

“You’ve lost Elsie in John Lewis? The biggest store on Oxford Street? Are you insane?” Scrap frantic, cut to crazy. Holly’s breathing was now heavier down the phone, and Tori could tell she was on the move.

“You don’t have to come in,” Tori said, trying to keep her voice light. “She’ll turn up soon, the whole store’s looking for her.”

There was a sharp intake of breath. “The whole store?” Holly replied. “How long has she been missing?”

Tori stopped breathing. “About 15 minutes.” Then she put a palm to her forehead and sighed. It sounded really bad when she said it out loud.

“Fucking hell, Tori, how could you lose her? I’m coming in, I’ll meet you there.” Holly clicked off and Tori was left staring at her phone. She didn’t blame her. This wasn’t like losing your phone or your handbag. They were replaceable things. Elsie was not replaceable. Elsie was Holly’s sister and she was irreplaceable.

If Holly had just reached in and torn out her heart, Tori didn’t think she could feel more lousy. If she lost Elsie, she was damn sure she’d lose Holly too. That thought made her stomach plummet to the floor. She couldn’t lose either of them: one was her life and the other was the sister of her life. She scanned the store, breathing in some manufactured, recycled air.

Where the hell was she?

Before she could sink into maudlin, a thought struck Tori. The massive giraffe. Elsie loved that giraffe, maybe she was there? How a two year old would navigate her way back to the giraffe was beyond her — Tori often got lost in this huge store, so she wasn’t sure how Elsie might fare — but stranger things had happened.

Tori spied Tim up ahead and ran up to him. “Have you checked the toy department?” She was bouncing on her toes now, nervous energy zapping through her entire being. She wasn’t allowing herself to think negatively, she couldn’t.

They were going to find her.

Tim nodded. “First thing we always do with kids, check that place. I had one of my new guys do it, but he didn’t see anything.”

Tori’s heart sank. That had been her last hope. And Holly was right, 15, going on for 20 minutes was a heck of a long time to lose a two year old.

“Our staff are checking security cameras now, so we might have something any minute as to her whereabouts. We’ll find her,” Tim said, placing a reassuring hand on Tori’s arm.

However, Tori didn’t find it reassuring. She was currently made up of equal parts dread and fear, no place at all for reassurance. Reassurance wouldn’t help find a missing toddler.

“I know you’ve checked, but I’m going to run over there and check again. Just to make sure.”

Tim nodded, his eyes kind. “She’ll turn up, nine times out of ten they do.”

But Tori could only think about that one child in ten.

She raced down the aisle, the store strip lights burning into her. Past the china department, back past the posh cafe and through to the toy department. She knew her destination: the giant giraffe. Tori caught sight of its head as she zigzagged through the displays, snagging her thigh on a tower of toy trucks as she did and watching the lot collapse like a pack of cards. Tori stopped, considered briefly restacking them, but quickly abandoned that idea. She had more important matters at hand.

When she finally reached the giraffe, she looked it up and down, she ran around it, she searched the aisles nearby, but there was no Elsie. Her last hope was dashed.

She really had lost Elsie.

And that meant she’d really lost Holly too. How could she have fucked things up so monumentally?

Tori sat down on a nearby chair and put her head in her heads. She had absolutely no idea what to do apart from sit there and wait for her world to cave in. It had already started.

She was composing the first tearful sentences in her head to Holly a few moments later, when she felt a tap on her knee. Tori uncovered her face and when she opened her eyes, there was Elsie, standing before her, holding up both hands to be picked up.

Tori shook herself, making sure this was real. But when she was sure it was, she picked Elsie up and hugged her as tight as humanly possible. Somehow Tori had known that Elsie would make her way to the giraffe, and she had. And Tori had been waiting for her. Thank fuck.

After a few moments, Tori released her grip a little, placing light kisses all over the top of Elsie’s head.

Elsie giggled at Tori’s actions, then pointed upwards at the giraffe.

“Big raff,” she said. “For me?”

Tori hugged her tighter. “You can have anything you want right now, as far as I’m concerned.”

Elsie pulled back and looked at Tori suspiciously. “Raff?” she said again, pointing.

Tori grinned. She was about ten stone lighter with Elsie in her arms. She was walking on air.

“That one might be a little big, but we’ll find you a special present when Holly gets here.” Tori stood up, clutching a squirming Elsie in her arms, the toddler not a fan of Tori’s possessiveness. Tori didn’t care — she’d have to put up with it for now.

“Let’s go and tell the security guard we’ve found you and text Holly too,” she said, walking back towards where she’d left Tim and feeling for her phone in her coat pocket at the same time. “And then I don’t know about you, but I need a really stiff drink.” She kissed Elsie on the cheek as they walked, shifting her up in her arms.

Elsie immediately wiped it off. “Dwink,” she repeated. “Juice?”

Tori laughed. “Juice for Elsie,” she replied, giving her cheek another kiss. If she’d been equal parts dread and fear before, she was now made up of 100 per cent relief and nothing else.

“And then we just have to wait for Holly and hope she doesn’t kill me.”

CHAPTER 10

February: Week One

The following Wednesday, Tori and Holly both took the day off to spend with each other. January plans for a splash of romance hadn’t so far gone to plan, what with work and family demands, but both were determined to get some alone time — even if that meant doing it midweek. The air in their bedroom was thick with sex.

“How about The Arches?” Holly was standing in front of her bedroom mirror, applying tinted moisturiser to her sharp features. She was rubbing her left cheek when she turned, raising an eyebrow at Tori who was collapsed naked across her sheets. “Are you trying to entice me back to bed?” Holly asked, a smile in her voice. “Only I thought we agreed we’d try to get up and eat something. It’s almost one o’clock and my stomach’s rumbling.”

Tori lifted her head, hair still wet from the shower, a wanton gleam in her eye. “But can you resist me, that’s the question?” She puckered her lips in Holly’s direction, before licking her top one in a slow, drawn-out move.

Holly laughed, before turning back to the mirror. “When you do things like that, absolutely I can.” But she was still smiling at the mirror. Holly lifted her head up, down, left, then right. Once she was satisfied the moisturiser was rubbed in, she delved into her make-up bag and pulled out some mascara.

Tori was still on the bed behind her, lying prone.

“Are you going to move anytime soon?” Holly asked, eyes wide open as she carefully coated her lashes.

“You’ve worn me out, I’m too broken to move,” Tori mumbled into the covers.

Holly smiled again. “I told you — we’ll get some food, you’ll feel better, then we can come back and I can break you all over again.” One eye done, she turned. “The perfect day off — sex, food, gorgeous company.” She grinned. “But the food bit is really essential, so get up!” Holly turned back to the mirror and began coating her lashes.

Within seconds, Tori appeared in the mirror behind her, yawning.

“You’re a bully, you know that?” she said, kissing Holly’s arm as she passed.

In response, Holly smacked her naked bum. “Get dressed, wench,” she replied.

***

They stepped out into the daylight, the sunshine hitting the pavement like a slice of lemon. Holly appreciated the warmth it spread at this time of year, but knew it would be gone by mid-afternoon, leaving the city a darker, chillier place. But she was determined to enjoy the yellow glow while it was here, breathing in deeply and turning her face up to the light, relishing the cool, sharp January air.

The main road near their flat was busy as always, the traffic bumper to bumper waiting at the lights. Their resident Big Issue seller smiled at them as they walked past, stopping at the junction. Even though the crossing told them to wait, Holly was the impatient type, stepping onto the road just as a car sped round the corner, coming straight for her.