Chapter Thirty-Seven
ADAM
What a fucking mess. I drove to the Holiday Inn, and asked them to ring Jeff Clarke’s room, and tell them I was waiting for him in the bar. I couldn’t text or ring him, because he no longer had his phone. I mean, I tried. Just to sell it. Just in case records were checked later, and someone realised that I already knew his phone was gone.
He took about ten minutes to join me, while I sat with a strong coffee, and an epically bad mood.
“Adam?” I looked up to see Jeff Clarke standing in front of me. He was dishevelled. Normally smart in a freshly-pressed shirt and trousers, but this time in a crumpled shirt and jeans. I felt a fresh wave of guilt as I looked at him. His face was bruised. One eye slightly swollen.
“What the fuck happened?” I blurted, trying to stand up, getting as far as leaning heavily on the table, before I gave up. He grimaced, taking the seat across from me.
“I was mugged, if you can believe that. Like things aren’t awful enough already, some bastard took my wallet and phone. I was only down the road.”
“Jesus… are you okay?”
He frowned at me. “I’ve never been further from okay, Adam. My son is dead. Above all else, I’ve lost my only child. Tell me how I’ll ever be okay.”
I offered to get him a drink then, and he shook his head. “No. I don’t want anything but my boy. They won’t even let me see him. Why won’t they let me see him? They’re not telling me anything.”
I sighed, glancing down at my coffee.
“I have an update, Jeff. It’s not anything you’re going to like hearing, but I don’t want you to have to hear this from a stranger.”
He groaned. “What can be worse than losing my boy? Huh? His murderer is at large, and they can’t catch him?”
“Jeff… there is no murderer. It was an accident. He hit his head, and he drowned. Nobody hurt him. There’s nobody to hold accountable, I’m afraid.”
He stared at me, silent, and frowning, for maybe a minute. Please believe me, please buy this bullshit I’m selling you.
Finally he spoke. “What about the Bennetts he mentioned?” Fuck. He didn’t realise that he was risking both of our lives, by even saying that name.
“I’ve found nothing related to anyone or anything with that name. Are you sure it wasn’t a prank?”
He stared at the table. “Of course, without my damn phone, I can’t look at it again. It’s okay, though. One thing my son taught me was how to back things up to the cloud. I’m picking up a new phone after our chat, so I’ll be able to restore it. I also need to get my neighbours to send it to me here. I can’t ring them until I get my phone numbers back. It’s so frustrating how we don’t keep phone books anymore, isn’t it?”
I barely heard anything after his mention of backing up the image to the fucking cloud. How the fuck would we fix this? I was starting to wonder if I could even keep him safe from the Bennetts at all. And would it really be a huge loss at this point? This man was standing between me and Julie having a future together, because everything fucking centred around him, and his fucking pervert son.
“Right… well, I can’t do much more until I hear back from people, and you don’t have the photo at the moment, so-”
“But you do. I sent it to you, remember?” Bollocks. I frowned.
“Hmmm… I don’t think I’ve still got it. I had an uh… firmware issue… lost a whole bunch of shit. I’ll check though.”
“Bit of a strange coincidence. Are you sure these people don’t exist? If they did, and they were dangerous enough for my son to be afraid of them, surely they’d have the means to hack phones and things.” My god. I needed to get away from this man, before he guessed the entire fucking situation.
I patted my pockets. “Actually, I think I left my phone on charge at home. Crap. I need to get back. I could be missing updates and stuff. I’ll keep you posted, Jeff. Wait to hear from me, please.”
I got the hell out of there, before I could fuck anything else up. I sent Nige a text, warning him that I was on my way to him.
When I arrived, I watched impatiently as his camera focused on me for a moment, before the door buzzed open. I used the new keypad code he’d texted, to get into the usual room I visited. I vaguely wondered what would happen if I tried it on a different door, but figured it was probably just stupid to even think about it.
My phone buzzed as I walked in, and I pulled it out to check.
LittleAngel: I’m sorry about earlier. I was freaking out. Everything is happening so fast, that I get scared.
Oh my sweet girl. I wanted to be there with her, rather than here, like a fucking idiot, walking further into the lion’s den than I’d planned.
Me: Here’s what I want you to do, little angel. Get those fluffy pyjamas on, koalas, kittens… surprise me. As soon as I’m done here, I’m coming over, and I’ll peel them from your delicious little body, and lick every fucking inch of you.