“Okay.”
The way she falls into line deepens my unease. I’d prefer her obstinance, her opposition, because that would mean she still thinks she can win the fight.
Her voice sounds incredibly young as she whispers, “No matter what happens, come back to me, okay?”
She pulls back, staring into my face, reading my tiniest change in expression. So, I haul a reassuring grin out of somewhere. “I promise. None of us are going to take any chances.”
And then I have to tear myself away from her and go, because to stay another minute would mean I never go at all, and the danger to her is too great to leave it in someone else’s hands.
I leave and when I turn to close the door, I take a snapshot of her for the road ahead. Even her worried expression, the way she nibbles at her thumbnail, the pinched concern etched across her features, aren’t enough to dim her beauty.
* * *
When I arrive backat the house, Stefan stands at the front door, Caylon a mini-me version beside him. His glance of concern is enough to stop me in my tracks. My boss is many things, but I’ve never seen him anything but calm, composed, capable of doing anything that needs to be done.
Now there are lines scored around his mouth, dragging down the corners of his eyes.
“You saw?”
He nods and Caylon can’t meet my eyes. My stomach twinges at putting him through this, especially after Robbie. It’s obvious to me he’s already on the cusp of falling apart and I don’t want to be the straw that breaks him.
“It’s okay if you want to leave,” I whisper to him, hopefully out of Stefan’s earshot. “You’ll be better off working your magic in trying to track down the mobile number or find where the cameras were feeding their images to.”
He stares at me expressionlessly for so long it’s like someone accidentally pressed his pause button. Then he breaks into an enormous smile. One that actually reaches his eyes. “How about you don’t tell me what I’m better off doing and I won’t tell youwhoyou’re better off doing?”
I strain for a second, then shake my head. “What?”
“Couldn’t hook up with a nice easy party girl. Oh, no. Had to go for the call girl with a heart of gold, like that cliché hasn’t already been done to death.” I’m about to remonstrate when he moves away. “The television was set on a timer. The video”—he holds a finger up when I go to speak—“which, before you ask, no I didn’t watch beyond grabbing screenshots of their faces, it was stored in the memory.”
Stefan wanders closer, joining in the summary. “The bodies have been here for three maybe four hours. Far longer than they were made to look. The rest of it was staged, the boiling jug, the missing cups, the text message to Rosa. Someone went to a lot of trouble to get information from these people—”
“No.” I interrupt him before thinking, earning the glare that follows. “That’s staged, too. Apart from the thumb—that, he needed—these people didn’t know shit about Rosa. She’d never even met the younger girl.”
He frowns, his face, already dark with facial hair, turns thunderous. “Then it’s all staged. Who the fuck is this guy? What does he want?”
Caylon taps on his phone, the sound annoying as hell. I try to concentrate on Stefan but can’t help but turn his way.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says without glancing up. “I’m working on something. This is Andy, yeah?”
I glance at the screen and nod. “You saw him already.”
“He looked different after you were finished with him. And this is the uncle from the video.”
He extends the phone again and I nod, then frown. “I only saw him on the screen for a second.”
“But it is. And this is a news article from his sentencing, after the automatic name suppression was lifted.”
I take the phone, expanding out the details. “And what am I looking for here?”
“His name.” Caylon points to it. “Andy and him. Their surnames are the same.”
“Shit.”
My expletive raises a smile. “Both of them are, by the looks of it, even though I’m not usually so judgmental.”
My mind struggles with the ramifications. “Have you told Rosa?” He gives me an incredulous look. “Right.” There hasn’t been time. “Of course, not.”
I pull out my phone, hands shaking with fury that someone this abusive, this monstrous, could still be in her life. When I call her number, it goes straight to voicemail. I try again, my hands fumbling so badly I could easily press the wrong thing, but this time I let the full message play out. It’s hers but she’s not answering.
