Her idiot brother opened his mouth to protest, but Ewan kicked him in the shin.
“Is it charged?” She swiped the screen confirming that it did indeed have a full battery.
“Yeah, I charged it. Didn’t know if you’d still have the charger for it, since it’s the old type.”
If he expected thanks, he wasn’t getting any.
“You’ve not been working that route since the point of me losing this, so you’ve just…what? Hung onto it, all this time? You didn’t consider getting it back to me. That I might need it?”
“We haven’t exactly been in the same vicinity—”
“Again, as I pointed out earlier there are these modern inventions. In this case couriers… signed mail… heard of either of those?”
“Alle—”
She held up her hand to silence him, as she flicked through various apps, heart in her throat, hoping to find a string of unanswered messages from Spook. The void that stared at her instead tore a snarl from her throat. There ought to have been messages in her inbox, missed calls. Her and Spook’s entire history, but it was all gone. Every tiny piece of them, as if they’d never existed. Photos, phone records, the lot.
She could hardly keep her hands steady enough to search through the remains of her phone history. “Want to explain to me why my inbox has been tampered with?”
His shoulders were already hitched as high as his ears, but they jigged a fraction higher at the accusation.
“I haven’t done anything.”
“Flynn. All my messages to Spook have been deleted, my photos, fucking demo samples we’d exchanged. Someone’s gone through and systematically deleted it all.” Clearing her mailbox had always been a once in a blue moon kind of thing, but when it came to Spook, she hadn’t wanted to part with anything. That history gave her comfort on dark nights during the long stretches of time between their actual meetings. How many nights had she curled up with a drink and read back through the myriad of text exchanges? God, she’d craved those slivers of better times these last months. “If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
“Dunno,” he muttered, hiding inside the rim of his mug. “The back was off when I found it. The battery had come out.”
“Oh! You found it. It wasn’t merely handed in.” The twist of his lips suggested he realised he’d slipped up and given away something he hadn’t meant to.
“I guess,” he muttered, eyes focused on the middle distance, like he couldn’t remember. Bullshit, he couldn’t.
“Funny fact, last time I looked, taking the battery out doesn’t magically delete stuff.”
“Maybe it got wet. In like a puddle or something.”
Something seriously didn’t add up.
“I don’t remember many puddles in the arrivals lounge.” She raised her eyebrows, but it seemed he didn’t have an answer to that one. A quick look over her shoulder confirmed Rock Giant’s agreement over the lack of puddles.
She put the phone aside, only to pick it up again a second later, not yet ready to believe everything was gone. “Here’s the thing, Flynn. We grew up together. Do you think I don’t know what your shit smells like? If you didn’t delete these messages, you sure as hell know who did.”
He rose, reached for the phone, all huffy surliness. Alle tightened her grip, but Rock Giant prevented a tussle by leaning forward. All he did was break contact with the front of the washing machine. It was enough.
“I’m really fucking done with being jerked about, Flynn. Start talking, or so help me God, you can leave now and never come back.”
Flynn’s lower lip trembled, but she suspected it was down to stubborn fury rather than contrition.
“Fine. Get out.” She meant it.
Her eyes itched as she stared at her empty inbox. A part of her had believed he’d tried to contact her. That her texts and calls from her new phone had gone unanswered because they were coming from an unknown number. Now, she’d never know.
“Seriously, get out. Just…just leave. You’re as bad as Marshall. Both of you are pitiful excuses for human beings, let alone brothers. I don’t need your shit in my life. I’m done dealing with it.”
“Alle, come on,” he beseeched.
She slapped away his attempt to pull her to him. “Don’t you dare. He’s still missing, Flynn. The man I love is missing. He’s been missing for five bloody months having walked out of a hospital with three broken ribs and a line of staples in his head.”
Shock flashed in his eyes.
