Chapter Twenty-Nine
Mia
Knocking at my bedroom door woke me on Monday morning. I rolled over and threw a pillow across the room. “Piss off, Gus.”
“No,” he said. “I’m coming in, so put some fucking clothes on.”
Thankfully, I was still wearing underwear and the T-shirt I’d had on the day before, so I didn’t move when Gus barged in. “What do youwant?”
“Um...to tell you thepolicewoman from the other night is downstairs? Are you kidding me, Mia? I already knocked five times and told you already.”
Shit. I sat up faster than my piña-colada-bruised head really wanted to. Vague memories of Gus calling my name filtered through the haze, but I’d honestly thought I’d been dreaming. “Fuck. How long has she been here?”
“Ten minutes. Why do you have a cocktail umbrellain your hair?”
I had no idea. The hours Luke and I had spent at the tiki lounge were a blur. Beyond rum-fuelled dancing and a cocooning sensation that we’d always be so blissfully happy, I could barely recall a thing. The only clue that we’d stumbled home to my bed together was a stray black sock on my bedroom floor.
Warmth and fondness warred with the hefty dose of reality waiting forme downstairs. I shooed Gus out, scrambled for some clean clothes, and fudged myself presentable before venturing down to the living room.
The policewoman—Rebecca—stood to greet me. “Sorry to barge in unannounced. My preliminary enquires didn’t take as long as I thought, and I wanted to go over a few things with you.”
“Wow.” I took a seat in an armchair. “I only saw you on Friday. I thoughtit would be a few weeks before we spoke again, if nothing else happened.”
“Has it?”
I shook my head. “All quiet.”
“That’s good.” Rebecca pulled some papers out of a folder, angling them so neither Gus or I could see them. “Perhaps we are looking at something random then, or that the incidents you’ve reported are unconnected to each other.”
Gus’s brows drew together. “What makesyou think that?”
“Well, I’ve spoken to various agencies and I can’t find any obvious record of Mia’s ex-partner harassing anyone else, and as far as I can tell with the reach I have, he’s still in France and hasn’t recently travelled. That’s not to say he didn’t send the packages you reported, but it’s unlikely he was here on Friday night, or the week before when the car appeared to be followingMr. Daley.”
Appeared to be.I fought the urge to roll my eyes. Was she taking the piss? Luke was the least dramatic person in the whole world—romance aside, obviously—did she really think he’d imagined a car stalking his every move, then gunning towards him at fifty miles an hour? “So what do I do? Just wait for something else to happen?”
“Technically, yes. I can’t investigate your exany more than I have without just cause, and to be honest, I’ve overstepped already. My boss only let me go to Interpol because of a training initiative we had in place this week. Ordinarily, it would’ve been a wait-and-see strategy in the first place.”
“That’s insane,” Gus said. “What has to happen for this to be taken seriously? A horse’s head on the doorstep?”
“Not quite.” Rebecca tappedher pencil on her notebook. “But unless there’s a threat of assault, or to life, my resources are limited. I realise that’s not what you want to hear, but I can only tell you the truth.”
I understood. After all, what had we really given her to go on? The only thing that connected the car following Luke to me was the fact that our vans had both been vandalised on the same day. The rest of itwas either his problem or mine.
Ten minutes later Gus saw Rebecca out, then came back into the room. “This shit is ridiculous.”
I sighed. “Don’t get worked up. There’s nothing else she can do.”
“I know that. But telling you to ‘be safe’ is hardly doing much to figure out who’s doing all this.”
“Maybe she’s right, though.” I turned my gaze to the window, cataloguing the vehiclesparked on the street. “Laurent obviously sent me the package, but if he never left France, there’s no way he did the rest of it. Maybe it is a coincidence after all.”
Gus didn’t seem convinced, and for once I was inclined to agree with him, but I couldn’t find the words to do it. What was the point? If this turned out to be way darker than any of us had imagined, this conversation wouldn’tchange anything. I wouldn’t look back on it and thinkfuck yeah, he was right. I’d still think he was an overbearing dick—a loveable dick, obviously, because he was the brother I didn’t deserve.
Inexplicably I giggled. Gus stared at me like I’d grown horns, then turned on his heel and left the room. I let him go, and let my mind wander too, searching for the happy I’d brought home last night.My legs ached from the bike ride, and my head was fuzzy from the booze, but despite its fractured state, my heart was full.
And ImissedLuke. Where the hell was he, anyway?
I trudged back to my room to retrieve my phone. The screen lit up with a message he’d sent at eight a.m.
Luke:gone to sort my tyres. catch u later if you still want to visit Billy with me?
I’d clean forgottenabout that, but my reply was instant.
Mia:Of course. Call me when you’re ready.
I set the phone aside and flopped on my bed. Driving to whatever shithole Billy had wound up in was the last thing my hungover self wanted to do, but I was fast learning that with Luke by my side, any journey was a blessing.
The sense of foreboding in my veins as I drifted back to sleep was incidental...right?
