The Reappearance of Rachel Price

Letting go of something you love is too hard. Don’t know if I’ll ever make another documentary. Six hundred and twenty-nine likes, forty-one retweets, eleven comments.

Bel’s eyes lit up. She’d found it, finally, the tweet that @DirectorRamseyLee posted last October. This must be the one.

It was Thursday evening, and she was sitting on her bed, laptop buttressed against her knees, stomach snarling because she hadn’t eaten enough at dinner.

She clicked onto the comments and scrolled down.

Don’t give up!

I loved Snow Dog—it made me cry!

And then:

Have you heard of the Rachel Price case? If you’re ready for your next story, it would make a great documentary. Can’t believe it hasn’t been done already.

By a Lucas Ayer, no profile photo. Bel clicked the name. He had zero followers and followed no one. That tweet had been his first and last, joining Twitter in October 2023, like he’d made the account just to do that. Bel narrowed her eyes, studying Lucas’s empty gray face, finding nothing.

The laptop juddered in her hands, rattling as an awful sound filled the house, grating and high-pitched, cutting out suddenly.

Someone was drilling. Upstairs. And it wasn’t Dad, because the TV was on down below.

The drilling started up again.

Bel let her laptop slide off her lap, got up to follow the noise.

She opened her door, hesitated in the hallway.

Rachel was on her knees outside the spare-room door, holding the drill up to the latch hole in the frame, carving out the edges. There was an open box on the floor beside her, a new silver door handle poking out. Door lever handle: locks both ways, said the box.

Rachel stopped the drill and blew at the sawdust.

“What are you doing?” Bel asked.

Rachel flinched, her finger pulling the trigger, the drill growling once in response.

“You scared me, Anna—Bel, sorry. Bel.”

But Rachel had scared her more times.

“Putting a lock on your door?” Bel trailed forward, nudging the box with her toe.

“Yeah.” Rachel pulled out the new handle, showing her. There was a switch to turn for the inside, a keyed lock for the outside of the door. “I haven’t been sleeping very well,” she said, rubbing her eyes on her sleeve. “I guess because I know he’s still out there, could be anywhere. The man who took me. Thought it would help me sleep, knowing I can lock myself in. Worth a try.”

Bel nodded, like that made sense, avoiding Rachel’s eyes. “This one locks on the outside too.” She pointed down at the box. “With a key.”

“Oh, so it does,” Rachel said, like she hadn’t noticed until now, returning her attention to the drill, avoiding Bel’s eyes too. She changed the setting and started it up again, removing the screws from the existing door handle, making the house shake again.

Rachel had noticed it was a double-sided lock, though, hadn’t she? That was the reason she bought it. It wasn’t about being able to sleep. It was about being able to lock the room when she wasn’t here, keep intruders out. She must know Bel had been in her room yesterday, that she’d taken back her pink baby sock.

Did Rachel now know that Bel knew she was lying? Or at least that she suspected it? Bel didn’t want to hang around to find out. She backtracked to the stairs and hurried down.

Dad was in his chair, beer in one hand as he watched baseball reruns, the volume on high.

Bel paused at the back of his chair, wanting to be close to him without him knowing, pretend it was just the two of them again, without the shifts and distances Rachel had created.

“You got back late today,” she said. “Missed dinner.”

He took a sip.

“Work was busy.” His eyes on the TV.

“And yesterday?”

Bel leaned over and gave him a hug, arms around his warm neck, face squished against the back of his head. She’d have to let go soon, before he asked what was wrong, but she didn’t want to. He was avoiding the house, working later and later every day. Soon he might just stop coming home at all. Bel knew why. They all knew why, and she wouldn’t let that happen.

“Work is busy,” he said. “I can’t help it.”

No, he couldn’t. But Bel could. Dad didn’t need to be the one who worried, for once. Bel could do the worrying, the fixing, the planning. Rachel had only been back five days and she was pushing him away, Bel could sense it. Dad said he believed Rachel’s story, every word. But there was no doubt that her return had changed something for him.

Part of Bel had known, the instant she saw his face when he realized Rachel was back, that it would come down to a choice. One or the other. Now she knew they couldn’t exist in this house together and for Bel, it wasn’t a choice at all. That was why she had to fight: find proof that Rachel Price was a liar, get rid of her before she got rid of Dad.

“OK, kiddo?” Charlie said, tapping her arm until she let go. “What’s she doing?”

He meant Rachel.

“Fitting a lock on the spare-room door.”

“OK,” he said. Was that all? So calm, like he didn’t even know he was part of this war.

Bel sat on the sofa, the side closest to him.

“Someone left the window open down here last night,” he said. “I don’t know if it was you or her.”

Bel didn’t either. “Sorry,” she said, just in case. “Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, Bel.” He saluted his beer at her.

“Have you got any of the stuff from when I was a baby? Toys or clothes? Are they up in the attic?”

“No.” His eyes tracked the baseball. “Don’t have anything like that. Gave it all to Goodwill, or to Jeff and Sherry for Carter. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. Film crew were asking if we had any,” she lied easily, even though it was Dad and she didn’t do that to him.

He grunted, taking another swig of his beer.

The drill started up again, shuddering and growling. Building to a high-pitched rattle of a scream.

Dad grabbed the remote, turned the volume up.

And again, both getting louder, one in each of Bel’s ears, commentators bellowing over the screech of the drill.

Up and up, pushing and pushing.