I nod, handing it over. He switches it on, sees the lock screen, and turns it over, popping out the SIM card and battery before passing it back. “That should help but you’ll be better off leaving it here.”
“Okay.” I feel naked without it, but I pop it on the sidetable and grab my jacket from the hook near the door. “Do you mind if I take my car? I don’t want to be stranded anywhere.”
Eddie stares at me with a frown, shaking his head. “Isn’t your car still over in Sydenham?”
Fuck. Yes, it is. Parked a few doors down from the murder house.
“Yeah, sorry.”
“You’re going with him?”
I twist back to face Sashe, nodding. “We’ll have to do Austen another time.”
She pulls me into a hug. A gesture that surprises me until she whispers in my ear, “I don’t think you should. Especially without your phone.”
“It’s okay,” I reassure her. The warning doesn’t really surprise me. After all, on our first meeting I’d stolen his keys, assuming he was a pervert. “I know him. He’s safe.”
“Knows me.” Eddie rolls his eyes. “You also whipped my arse at poker.”
“That was Finley,” I snap back with a smile, detaching myself from Sashe and following him outside. The wind has picked up, sending a chill straight to my bones. “Trent didn’t say…” My throat clicks and I have to clear it before continuing. “He said nothing else, did he? About catching my uncle?”
The investigator shakes his head, pressing his fob so the car beeps unlocked.
It’s a different make and model than the last one he was in. This one is a far superior upgrade, a roomy sedan rather than the beaten-up litterbox I last saw him driving. I stifle a smile of amusement that this is the car he drives to Trent’s house but the one he drove to mine was markedly worse.
“Get in the back,” he says when I try the passenger side door. “It’ll be easier for you to duck down if you need to hide.”
I follow his direction and he slams the door shut for me. Once I’ve done up my seat belt, I wait for him to finish fiddling with the multitude of buttons, bringing up a large screen of the surrounds while he reverses out of the driveway, then turning to a GPS map once we’re heading forward.
“There’s water back there,” he says like he’s a courteous Uber driver. “Snacks in the back of the seat if you’re hungry.”
“I’m good.” My stomach is so tightly knotted, I doubt I’ll be eating anytime soon.
I stare out the window, the afternoon weather turning worse with every passing moment. Specks of graupel hit against the window with increasing regularity. Even with my jacket on, I’m cold.
“Could you turn up the heat?” I ask, and Eddie stops watching the road while he searches for the right button.
Not his car, then. I file the information away, my eyes flicking towards the GPS, used to staring at screens so often that they miss the comforting glare of my phone.
We’re heading along Glandovey Road, and I frown at the slowly moving map, then turn my attention out the window again. I don’t have an internal compass—or, if I do, it’s broken—but this doesn’t seem like the right way to reach my mother’s new hospice.
I lean forward. “Are you sure you typed in the right address? We should head north. Her new place is out towards Belfast.”
“We’re just taking a slight detour first,” he says without concern. “Then we’ll swing by your mother’s place and make sure she’s safe.”
I sit back in my chair. The words sound innocent enough but there’s still a growing lump in my throat. I pluck at the skin of my neck, rubbing against my windpipe, trying to shake the sensation. Part of it’s just the healing bruises from Saturday. More of it is a reaction to his tone.
“What’s the detour?” He doesn’t answer and I shift in my seat, leaning forward to examine the contents of the pocket, before leaning back again. “Edwin? What’s the detour?”
“Just to drop something off. Don’t worry about it.”
“But are we—”
“Sorry, I can’t concentrate when I’m talking. Just relax, yeah? We’ll have you to your mum’s place soon enough.”
Now all my senses are tingling, blaring out a multitude of silent alarms. The map shows us driving farther away from my mother with each passing second, farther away from Trent’s, farther away from help.
My phone’s in pieces on a sidetable. All Sashe knows is that I left with someone I trusted.
