Finding Alex

Chapter 7

"You made it," Liam said as Birdie climbed into the passenger seat of his car. She was wearing a black hoodie and blank leggings, and Liam noted she smelt like vanilla. 

"Barely, it took forever for my parents to fall asleep, thanks for waiting," She did up her seat belt.

"No worries, not much else to do on a Tuesday night," Liam joked as he started off down the road, his bright lights flashing into the darkness that surrounded them.

"Nice car," Birdie commented looking around her at the technology inside the vehicle. A screen bigger than her iPad sat front and centre with a number of controls. A far cry from Zoe's 15 year old car that Birdie was normally driven around in. 

"Thanks, a gift from my parents. Extravagant I know," Liam said rolling his eyes.

"It is a bit."

It is a 10-minute drive back Liam's house and they drove mostly in silence. Birdie making small comments on the way.

"Why were your parents acting funny tonight?" Liam asked as he pulled int the driveway.

"I am not sure," Birdie shrugged, "It's like they have gone backwards, like just after Alex went missing. I wasn't allowed to leave the house for weeks."

"Maybe they just wanted you home tonight?" Liam suggested. They both got out of the car and walked up the drive to the house.

"I'm not sure this was more than that, almost like they know something bad is going to happen," Birdie shrugged. 

"I don't want you to get into trouble by being here," Liam looked at Birdie as he unlocked the front door.

"They won't know. I'll be back before they wake up."

Liam nodded and led them inside, he flicked on the light for the hallway. Birdie sucked in a short breath, seeing the house never gets any easier.

"I supposed we should just get started," Liam took off up the stairs and Birdie followed him. They stopped in the hallway, looking into Liam's room. It looked different to when it was Alex's.  A large four poster bed sat in the middle against the back wall. On another wall a large book case filled completely with books, had been pulled slightly away from the wall so the contractors could remove the wall paper. There were no photo frames or anything to signify it was Liam's room. It almost looked like a display home, very tidy, very plain.

"I managed to strip down a whole wall of wallpaper, there were some things, but I don't know if they are important enough, just a bunch of numbers," he walked in and pointed at them. Birdied followed, she took out her camera and pointed the lenses,

"Looks just like measurements?" She thought aloud.

"That's what I thought."

Birdie went over the numbers in her head, they didn't seem to mean anything to her. 

"Should we start taking down the other wall?" Birdie asked standing up and turning towards the wall that hadn't been touched.

"Sounds good, I have some tools in the bucket over there I was using to get the wallpaper off, I didn't have time to run to the shops and get proper stuff," he walked over and grabbed the bucket. Inside there were some paint scrapers, some clothes and wipes.

"Let's get started then," Birdie said. She grabbed a scraper and set to work on the middle section. Liam dragged over the step ladder and started at the top. They spent three hours scraping the wallpaper off and still only managed to do half the wall.

They sat down to rest.

"This is pointless, maybe it was a once off," Birdie sighed.

"Don't give up hope, we still have half the wall to go," Liam said he leaned his head back on the wall and closed his eyes.