themselves to notice that Trey wasn’t contributing much to the general conversation.
I took my lead from the boy, giving brief answers that were as vague and noncommittal as I could get away with.
Eventually, Scott shook his head in exasperation.
“I swear to God, man, that Henry must be some piece of work,” he said, and I could still hear the excitement running through his voice, just under the surface. “One meeting and you’re even giving us the whole Big Secret thing, huh?”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I said. “He promised to help.” But I was watching Trey as I said it and I couldn’t help wondering – if Henry was the answer to all our prayers – why the kid suddenly looked set to cut his own throat.
***
It was late by the time we got back to Scott’s place. The opportunity to sleep somewhere clean and comfortable, and relatively safe, was too tempting to pass up on. I left the kids sprawled in front of the TV and turned in.
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to unravel the beaded bits in my ridiculous pink hair, but felt stupid asking so I left them as they were but I dropped the necklace Aimee had provided in a heap on the bedside table. I took the SIG out of the little backpack and shoved it under the pillow, just in case.
I undressed slowly, weary beyond words. The guest room had mirrors on the wall behind the double bed headboard. The sight of my strange reflection kept catching me out, like someone else was in the room with me.
I climbed into bed and was just reaching for the light switch when there was a hurried tap on the door. Before I could speak it opened and Aimee stuck her head round.
“Oh hi,” she said. “I was kinda hoping I’d catch you. Can we talk?”
I sat up, trying not to hug the bedclothes around me too prudishly.
“Help yourself,” I said, waving a hand towards the end of the bed.
She came in, closing the door behind her. Instead of sitting down she came and stood by the bed with her hands in her back pockets. It made her shoulders hunch forwards awkwardly. Her eyes kept dropping down past my chin, then popping back up again, nervous.
I sighed. “What’s on your mind, Aimee?”
“I was just wondering what—” she broke off, thought some and tried again. “How did you get that scar?”
I was silent for a moment, mentally arguing over whether to tell her the truth, a convenient lie, or simply to tell her to mind her own bloody business.
“Someone jumped me,” I said at last, watching her face. “They tried to cut my throat.”
She nodded without showing surprise. There was little more than curiosity in her voice as she asked, “What happened to them?”
Now that question I wasn’t sure I was prepared to answer. “Why?” I hedged.
“Well, aren’t you scared that one day they’ll, like, come back?”
“No,” I said.
“Oh.” She eyed me for a few moments, then nodded and started to turn away.
“Why the quiz?” I asked as she reached the door.
She shrugged. “I just wanted to know that Trey’s gonna be OK. I’ve known him since we were six – like, forever,” she added. “His birthday and mine are a week apart so when he lived up here we used to have, like, joint parties and stuff. He’s the brother I never had.”
The mention of birthdays sparked a memory. “So you were around when his mother disappeared?” I asked. She nodded. “You remember anything about it?”
Another shrug. “Not really,” she said. “I know what Trey thinks might’ve happened, but I heard my mom and dad talking about it, a while after. They said she was always gonna go sometime – Trey’s mom, I mean. She just never liked giving up her job to bring up a kid. I think she resented him, or something. He just can’t see it, that’s all.”
“Yeah well, parents can give you the impression they think you’re a waste of space sometimes,” I said tiredly, thinking of the ups and downs I’d been through with my own. “I think it’s part of their job description.”
She smiled, with that slightly worried look behind her eyes, like she didn’t really get the joke.
“So, you feel any more reassured?” I asked.
She frowned for a moment, hesitating.
“Aimee,” I said, straight and steady. “I won’t let anything happen to him – or any of the rest of you, for that matter. Not if I can help it.”
She carried on frowning for a moment, her eyes flicking over my face. “Yeah,” she said then, slowly, “I guess you won’t.”
I watched the door close behind her and debated in passing on turning the key but quickly dismissed the idea. If anything happened in the night, I didn’t want to have to waste time fumbling with the lock.
I reached up and killed the light but sleep eluded me. I lay awake in the gloom, my eyes just about able to make out the twirl of the ceiling fan above me, and let my restless mind roam. A good many questions had been answered tonight, but at the same time just as many new queries had been thrown up.
I struggled to stop my mind turning things over, so that when I eventually drifted into sleep, it was edgy, fitful and disturbed by savage dreams. I woke distressed, reaching for Sean, only to find the bed beside me cold and empty.
***
Saturday morning dawned with that hazy brightness of English midsummer, which seemed to indicate it was going to grow up into another hot and sunny day. Did it ever do anything else round here?
I was up and showered and dressed by seven, so I sat out on the small screened rear deck, drinking coffee and watching the nimble little geckoes flit across the concrete path just beyond the mesh.
From where I was sitting I could hear but not see the neighbours. Over to my right the kids had been bribed into washing the family speedboat. They were using a hose with a spray nozzle on the end of it and the exercise soon degenerated into a shrieking water fight. Then it all went suddenly quiet and I heard the murmur of adult voices. Just when I thought the kids were getting a ticking off for the noise and the mess, hostilities resumed. By the sounds of the squealing laughter, the parents had now joined in.
I tried to picture my father, a consultant surgeon, or my mother, a Justice of the Peace, indulging in such juvenile behaviour but my imagination wasn’t up to it.
I wondered what their reaction would be when they heard it on the news that their daughter was wanted for murder and armed kidnapping. It would have been reassuring to have known, without the shadow of doubt, that they’d support and defend me regardless. Past experience, however, told me they would probably want overwhelming proof before they’d believe my side of the story about what had really happened.
I sat and wallowed in a little bitter remembering, the way you’d kick your heels in a muddy puddle, just for badness. It took a while before I’d got it out of my system and stopped feeling sorry for myself. It might be dirty water but it was all under the bridge now. My relationship with my parents had certainly improved lately, even if it hadn’t quite recovered completely.
Unlike Trey’s.
Trey had claimed that his father must have set him up at the Galleria – that he’d arranged in some way for Oakley man and his partner to catch him shoplifting. I wasn’t actually convinced that the boy
But if Keith had paid Oakley man to snatch his son, why not do it then, when the boy was alone? Why wait until he had his own bodyguard, however inept they believed me to be?
It simply didn’t make sense.
I made a mental note to grill Trey for the details on his arrest when he surfaced, then I went into the kitchen and poured myself another coffee.
