Page 110 of Darkest Obsession

My stomach twists as I think about that morning. The smell of her vomit mixed with the smell of her shampoo in the cruelest way. She was so cold.

“Will we have to make this one disappear?” she asks calmly.

“We? You’re not talking to him, are you?”

“We’re married until we’re not,” mum replies. “Of course I’m talking to your father.”

“I don’t want him involved in this.”

She scoffs.

“Nonsense. He’s a sociopath, Thomas. You want work like this done, he’s who you need.”

Her blunt acknowledgement of the unspoken truth about my father doesn’t stir either of us. I shake my head.

“I don’t need him. I just need money. That’s it.”

“Who are you going to kill? Please tell me it’s not a Barclay…”

I shake my head.

“Give me a name,” mum says, taking a small black notebook out of the pocket of her Chanel suit. I think she bought Vi the same suit in yellow… It’s one of her favorites. She clicks open her ballpoint pen, waiting for me to put her to work. This is what she does, our mum. She holds the family together.

“Her name is Molly. I think… She might be a Harrington. But she’s going by another name.”

My mum purses her lips. “Are you serious?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“You’re going to do worse than killing a Barclay.”

“What? How?”

“She’s a Fox.”

Oh, mum. I’m about to get myself in deep fucking trouble.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Clover

I hear him walking over to his Jeep to have a smoke. He does this every night around midnight. I’ve had to keep tabs on Thomas for practical reasons, not because I’m stalking him. It’s been a week since Kola went missing and Sylvia told me he went to London tonight. I don’t know why he went to London, because we haven’t spoken since Halloween.

He notices me immediately and stops a few feet off, lighting a cigarette before stomping through the leaves in his Doc Martens right where I’m sitting on the hood of his Jeep.

“I wasn’t going to come tonight,” he says, puffing gently on the cigarette and then leaning against the hood next to me. The sleeves of his shirt ride up even more as he leans back and I try not to stare at his tattoos.

“I’m not trying to be a creep.”

“You shouldn’t be out here at night alone,” Thomas says. “I’ve noticed you out here.”

“I wasn’t alone,” I tell him. “You were here.”

“You know what I mean.”

I sigh and lean forward, pressing my forehead into my hands. He doesn’t seem bothered at all that I’ve been keeping a close eye on him.

“I don’t know what to believe about Kola,” I admit. I feel guilty as hell for admitting it, but the timing of her disappearance forces me to consider what I don’t want to believe.