I needed something to numb that pain. To slam a door on the horrors and grant silence from the nightmares.
Maybe beer could grant that peace.
Maybe that was why alcoholics abandoned their life for the numbing prostration that liquor provided.
I struggled for something to say. Justin kept looking at me far too intently—almost as if I was his next victim in his ‘gotta help someone in need’ crusade.
“Well, I’m glad she followed her dreams.” I pushed away my empty glass, feeling sick to my stomach. I had ransoms to pay. Daughters to save. Ex-girlfriends to forget.
I couldn’t fucking afford to drink.
Justin nodded slowly. “How about you, Clark? Everything okay with you? You don’t look so good.”
I couldn’t hold back the cold snort. “Me?” Fuck, what a loaded question. My life was completely out of bounds. No one must know that I’d failed my daughter. The child who was born of rape and threats.
“Yeah, what have you been up to? Getting much sleep?”
“Ah, you know.” My eyes once again trailed to the exit. My legs bunched to get up and leave. He’d told me all I needed to know. He wasn’t with O. He hadn’t married her and given her a family in some white picketed home where she would never be lonely again.
Instead, he was with a girl called Colleen, and O was off dancing in London.
There was no connection between the three of us anymore.
And I was done.
Standing, I worked out the crick in my neck. The past two weeks of no sleep, barely any food, and the stress of Olive’s kidnapping had turned every fist and kick from my youth into a delayed injury. I should’ve been too young to suffer arthritis, but I swore every joint and muscle had crept past eighty and no longer knew how to work. “I’ve got to go.”
“Busy night painting?”
“Something like that.”
Justin stood too. “I’ll walk you out.” Throwing a tenner onto the bar, he waved his arm, waiting for me to stride ahead first.
Hiding my annoyance, I stalked to the exit and bowled into twilight.
Justin crossed his arms against the slight chill in the air. “Who do you paint for?”
I’d hoped he’d quit with the questions the moment we’d left the bar, but he didn’t. “Myself.”
“Do you have a business name?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”
“I’d like to pop by sometime. See your work.”
“My work is different. My canvases are...not what you’re used to.”
“I’d still like to come by.”
“Why? To check up on me?”
“Maybe.” He smirked. “What do you paint?”
I looked down the street, past the milling pedestrians and smiling shoppers, and only saw a world that didn’t care that my daughter was in the hands of a monster or that I was screaming inside for goddamn help.
I couldn’t enlist the police.
I couldn’t go to the media.
I had no family or friends to help me make decisions.
All I had was a fat bank balance that was waiting for me to withdraw a hefty amount for ransom number two.
“Come on, tell me.” He laughed. “I’m a boring accountant. O has her dance and you have your art. Both of you followed your passions, not a paycheque. Share a piece with me, so I can live vicariously through you.”
I sighed, wanting this meeting to be over. “I paint women.”
His eyes lit up. “Naked women?”
“Knickers on but breasts mostly bare, yes.”
“Wow, that’s a career choice they don’t mention at school.” He punched me lightly in the shoulder. “Good for you, mate.”
I stepped out of his reach. “I have to go.”
“Fine. But we should do this again sometime. Soon.”
“Why would we bother doing this awkward attempt at conversation again?”
For a second, he paused, no doubt annoyed that I’d spoken the truth about this farce, but then he nodded with sincerity. “Don’t get mad at me, Clark, but...I think you need someone you can have an awkward attempt at conversation with every now and again.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means you look half-starved and the black circles under your eyes are either from working way too many hours or worrying about way too many things. Problems are better shared, mate.”
I bared my teeth. “Keep your guesswork to yourself, all right, Miller? I’m fine. I don’t need you or anyone—”
“We all need company at some point in our lives.” Pulling his phone from his pocket, he quickly typed in something before scrolling through lines of text that appeared. It only took him a second before looking up with a triumphant, almost pitying look. “Master of Trickery. Cool name.”
“How...how did you find that?”
“I googled man who paints naked women in Birmingham. You’re on the first page.”
Shit.
Was Olive mentioned on there?
Was my past and what’d happened with Tallup printed for the world to see?
Snatching my phone, I did the same search, relaxing when only business-related stuff and my website popped up. Reviews of my work and chatter on Facebook feeds about my time-lapse videos cluttered the search results, but there was no mention of my personal life, who I was, and what I’d lost.
Justin put his phone away and turned to leave. “I’ll be seeing ya, Clark. I’ll pop by with a takeaway sometime. Make sure you’re not a starving artist and eating something occasionally.”
“I don’t need your charity, okay? Just back the fuck—”
“Who said anything about charity?”
“I don’t need you sticking your nose in at my warehouse when I—”
“Cool, you have a warehouse? Definitely popping round now.”
“Don’t want you there, Miller.”
“Too bad. I’m a nosy git and already issued myself an invitation.”
I crossed my arms. “Don’t you have some other helpless stray to smother with good intentions?”
“Nope.” He smiled. “Just you for now. Colleen is getting a bit annoyed with my mother hen routine, so I need someone else to bug.”
“Count yourself successful.”
He laughed. “I will when you’ve lost that tortured, haunted look.”
That won’t happen until I get my daughter back.
Until I can stop thinking about O.
Until I’m no longer such a fuck-up.
I backed away. “Like I said, I don’t do pity. This is where this ends. Got it?”
He just smirked. “I don’t call it pity. I call it being a friend. See ya next week, Clark.” Waving goodbye, he vanished in a sea of tourists and pedestrians, his threat lingering on the air.
Chapter Four
______________________________
Gil
-The Present-
I WAS A bastard.
I knew that.
I’d known it since I was born: a self-centred, down-to-his-core bastard.
But being a bastard was necessary when raising a little girl on your own. I had to suspect everyone, protect her from everything, and be on my guard at all times.