“Technically, yes. I can’t investigate your ex any more than I have without just cause, and to be honest, I’ve overstepped already. My boss only let me go to Interpol because of a training initiative we had in place this week. Ordinarily, it would’ve been a wait-and-see strategy in the first place.”
“That’s insane,” Gus said. “What has to happen for this to be taken seriously? A horse’s head on the doorstep?”
“Not quite.” Rebecca tapped her pencil on her notebook. “But unless there’s a threat of assault, or to life, my resources are limited. I realise that’s not what you want to hear, but I can only tell you the truth.”
I understood. After all, what had we really given her to go on? The only thing that connected the car following Luke to me was the fact that our vans had both been vandalised on the same day. The rest of it was either his problem or mine.
Ten minutes later Gus saw Rebecca out, then came back into the room. “This shit is ridiculous.”
I sighed. “Don’t get worked up. There’s nothing else she can do.”
“I know that. But telling you to ‘be safe’ is hardly doing much to figure out who’s doing all this.”
“Maybe she’s right, though.” I turned my gaze to the window, cataloguing the vehicles parked on the street. “Laurent obviously sent me the package, but if he never left France, there’s no way he did the rest of it. Maybe it is a coincidence after all.”
Gus didn’t seem convinced, and for once I was inclined to agree with him, but I couldn’t find the words to do it. What was the point? If this turned out to be way darker than any of us had imagined, this conversation wouldn’t change anything. I wouldn’t look back on it and think fuck yeah, he was right. I’d still think he was an overbearing dick—a loveable dick, obviously, because he was the brother I didn’t deserve.
Inexplicably I giggled. Gus stared at me like I’d grown horns, then turned on his heel and left the room. I let him go, and let my mind wander too, searching for the happy I’d brought home last night. My legs ached from the bike ride, and my head was fuzzy from the booze, but despite its fractured state, my heart was full.
And I missed Luke. Where the hell was he, anyway?
I trudged back to my room to retrieve my phone. The screen lit up with a message he’d sent at eight a.m.
Luke: gone to sort my tyres. catch u later if you still want to visit Billy with me?
I’d clean forgotten about that, but my reply was instant.
Mia: Of course. Call me when you’re ready.
I set the phone aside and flopped on my bed. Driving to whatever shithole Billy had wound up in was the last thing my hungover self wanted to do, but I was fast learning that with Luke by my side, any journey was a blessing.
The sense of foreboding in my veins as I drifted back to sleep was incidental...right?
Chapter Thirty
Luke
Luke: do u know Morgan Benson?
Billy: i know Faye Benson, his sister, and he has a bunch of brothers too. why?
Luke: no reason
Billy: okay then
Luke: should i know him?
Billy: don’t think so. he was a year below me at school. little weirdo kept showing his willy to old ladies
If Billy was trying to make me laugh, he was doing a shit job. If he was serious, I wanted to puke. My memories of school were hazy and felt like they belonged to someone else. I couldn’t recall anyone showing their dick to anyone, let alone old ladies, but I did remember the weird kid who’d followed Mia and her friends around.
I put my phone down as Fran came back in the room.
“I’ve got these for your brother.” She handed me a Tupperware container of something that looked suspiciously like she’d baked it. “Tell him I’ll come up in a few days when he’s home. Help him get settled in.”
The chances of him agreeing to that were less than zero, and we both knew it, but I took the Tupperware anyway and put it by my keys. “Do you think I should tell him I’m coming?”
Fran straightened the already straight magnets on my fridge door. “I don’t know. Maybe. You parted on good terms, didn’t you? And you’ve spoken since?”
“Yeah, but he asked us to stay away...give him some space. Ambushing him in hospital again is probably a bad move.”
“So tell him you’re coming.”
It seemed like madness. But my thumbs flew over my phone screen as I tapped out the message.
Luke: lock the doors. I’m coming to see u
Billy: when?
Luke: in a bit
He didn’t reply. And perhaps without Mia’s drunken encouragement I’d have backed out. But even if Billy told us to fuck off, getting out of Rushmere for the night could only be a good thing after the police had pretty much washed their hands of the harassment case.
My thoughts turned black again. Gus had called me an hour ago, but I still wasn’t at peace with what he’d told me. “She thinks it’s a coincidence. Her ex was being a dick about the divorce, and some Rushmere kids went on the rampage around the same time.”
Gus hadn’t offered an opinion either way, but I knew him well enough to assume his thoughts mirrored mine, and had given him the rest of the day off to stick around the house until I picked Mia up this afternoon—a decision that came back to bite me on the arse when she called a little while after Fran left.
My phone was in my hand, fresh from the nervous text I’d sent Billy to tell him I was coming. “Hey.”
“You told my brother to stay home and babysit me?”
“No.” I set the phone to speaker and carried Fran’s Tupperware to the bin, knowing Billy would appreciate being spared her odd smelling sponge cake. “I’m knackered from necking cocktails all night and carrying your trashed self home, so I gave him the day off.”
“Liar,” she spat for what felt like the thousandth time.
“If you say so.”
“Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
Mia fucking hissed, venom seeping down the line and into my kitchen. “Brilliant. We’re back to that, are we? Evasive fucking bullshit that sends us round in goddamn circles?”
“Mia—”
“No,” she snapped. “You told Gus to stay here because you were worried about me and this ridiculous harassment crap the police think is coincidental nonsense. It wouldn’t kill you to just fucking say so.”
She hung up, leaving me half bewildered and half delighted that our relationship had returned to something resembling our teenage years. In hindsight, perhaps I had been habitually evasive, but I’d admit the truth when I saw her, and she’d be okay with that. I got her, and she got me.