Nor did it help that everyone else had deserted her. Friends she’d known since college, she’d ruthlessly culled from her contacts. The remarks they’d levelled at her still stung like whip lashes.
“Ace job picking them, Alle-oh! I can’t believe you dated this guy. I’ve read all about him, and he sounds like a goddamned maniac. You should count yourself lucky that he’s done a runner.”
“That’s not who he is. It’s all a distortion.”
“Right. So, he’s never paddled your arse? Cause your bro certainly says otherwise.”
“My brother’s a dickhead.”
“Leave her be, she’s clearly brainwashed.”
“I’d never let a guy hit me. If he so much as tried, I’d kick him in the nads so hard he’d be pissing blood for a week.”
“It’s like you’re dating Dorian Grey or something.”
“I think you mean Christian.”
“Do I?”
“I mean, each to their own, I’d do either of them.”
“Ben Barnes, totes… Jamie Dornan, I dunno. He was in that other thing, and he was really fucking creepy.”
“Serial killer, fucked up serial abuser billionaires, what’s the difference?”
The difference… the difference was that she wasn’t dating either. And, hello, her boyfriend was missing! They might like to take a minute to think about that before they started bad mouthing him again.
“Hey, Alle. You still with me?”
She turned to look up at the man who was now, in essence, her boss. “What have you heard, Ronnie?”
“Nothing.” He drifted over to the beat-up sofa and tugged a packet of Haribo from his back pocket before planting his arse. “You know I’d tell you if I had. I mean, there’s plenty of tabloid speculation—” He reached for his phone.
“I don’t give a fuck what the papers have to say. The band, Ronnie, what are they saying? They must have some notion. You see them, you’re in touch with them, you must have heard something.”
Head bowed, Ronnie drew the jelly rings one by one from the brightly coloured packet and pushed them onto his fingers. “Nope.”
“Come on, be real with me. I’m supposed to believe they’re all silent on the subject. That not one of them has a clue where he is. I don’t believe it. It can’t be true.”
“I’m being real with you, Alle. I’m not saying they don’t know anything, not that I think they do, I’m telling you that they’re not sharing anything with me.” He gave a dry chuckle. “I’m not half as thick with them as you seem to think. With Rock Giant, sure, but the rest?” He bit into the back of the ring on his index finger. Alle watched him chew. “I helped them out with a couple of gigs, that’s all.”
“What does Rock Giant say?” Curiously, he wasn’t around today. With Black Halo on sabbatical, the big guy had been contributing his talent to the Ronnie Bush cause.
“Not much. He’s exhausted all his ideas. He doesn’t know where Spook is. Same as you don’t. Same as Ash doesn’t. Same as Luthor. Same as me and everybody else.”
“They all say that but—” Irritation simmered beneath her skin, but she reined in her tongue. It was wrong to take her frustration out on Ronnie, who had done his level best to be the friend she needed throughout this. He and Ewan were the only reason she wasn’t locked in a padded cell right now. As for the Black Halo guys… The truth was, there was nothing to suggest they knew any more than she did. She’d witnessed them walking around in the same sort of daze. It was just getting harder and harder. In the early days after Spook went missing, they’d talked all the time. It was all any of them did. All they could do. Over and over, round in circles, until they were sick with it, nerves jangled into a miserable stew of guilt, regret, and anger. Their lives had been constantly abuzz with sightings and maybes. They’d filed the missing person’s report together and pinned their hopes on the police to give them answers.
Yeah! One problem with that. Turns out it wasn’t illegal to go missing.
The police didn’t suspect foul play. They got nada.
Rage followed.
Then distance.
Now silence.
And with it, suspicion.
