Dirty Daddies(32)

I ignore it until Brooklyn’s session is wrapped up, of course I do, but my fingers are clumsy on the handset once he’s out through the door, racing to retrieve my call log.

My heart drops when I see Jack’s number appear on screen.

Shit.

I sigh as I press to hear his message, feeling like such an asshole for keeping him in the dark through this. His house isn’t a hostel, and his friendship is worth more than keeping secrets of this magnitude, even for the sake of just a few days.

His voice is gruff enough to take me aback. His message chills my blood.

You’d better get here. Now. I’m in my fucking living room with your missing fucking person. Get here, Mike, before I call the fucking police.

I check the call time. Forty minutes ago.

Fuck.

Holy fucking fuck.

I grab my jacket from the back of my chair and make a dash for it, hating how frazzled my explanation sounds when I ask Pam to please cover my appointments for the rest of the afternoon.

She looks worried, and I feel like more of an asshole by the second.

“Are you alright, Mike?” she asks, and I count on looking as fucked up as I feel when I tell her I think I’ve got food poisoning.

She nods. “You don’t look well.”

I don’t feel well, either.

I make a sharp exit, barely even offering her a goodbye in my haste to be out of there.

I jump into the car and speed off for Jack’s, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel all the way. Please, for fuck’s sake, don’t call the police. Please, for fuck’s sake, don’t let her run.

Every set of traffic lights conspires against me, and the usual five-minute journey takes over ten. My tyres screech as I pull onto his driveway, stopping just short of bumping his Range as I kill the ignition and bail out.

I don’t knock, just charge on in and expect to find a war breaking out, but it looks as though it’s already happened.

Muddy boot prints everywhere, and oh fuck how I cringe inside. I stare open-mouthed at the state of the living room, cursing as I spot the smashed frames on the mantelpiece.

I’m calling his name as I charge down the hallway, following the boot prints through to the kitchen and on through again to the dining room.

I take a breath as I find them, my heart thumping with the relief that she hasn’t gone running. Not yet, anyway.

“I can explain,” I begin, but Jack’s face looks like thunder. “This isn’t Carrie’s fault.”

“Which fucking bit of it?” he snaps, and I cringe again as I notice this room has hardly fared better than the others.

Carrie’s voice is breathy when she speaks. “I tried to save a crow. His leg was stuck in a fence. He freaked out, flew everywhere.”

I try to take in the story, breaking out in a cold sweat when I notice Jack’s sculpture is missing from the top of the display cabinet. I notice the brush and the pan full of glass at his feet and the furniture polish in Carrie’s hand.

No.

Oh God, no.

“I’ll pay for the damage,” I say, and Jack sneers at me.

“Yeah, just PayPal me your retirement fund, why don’t you?”

Carrie looks on blankly and I hope he doesn’t elaborate and tell her how expensive that ornament was.

He doesn’t.

“This is so fucking out of order,” he snaps and I nod because it is.

“I’m sorry,” I say, which is the truth of it. “I was in a corner. I was trying to do the right thing.”

“The right thing would have been to book her into a fucking hotel, Mike. The right thing would have been to let me know you’re using my fucking house as emergency accommodation. The right thing would have been to fucking tell me you found her in the fucking first place.”

I nod through all of it. Yes, yes and more yes.

I feel like a fucking idiot, more off the rails than even I fully realised.

“It isn’t his fault,” Carrie offers and her simple defence makes my heart pang.

“It is my fault,” I counter. “This was my decision, Carrie didn’t ask to come here.”

“The crow’s your fault,” Carrie tells Jack and I will her to shut up before she talks herself into a bigger hole than we’re in already. “You need to fix your fucking fence. It’s dangerous.”

It’s a three way stand-off, all of us staring and nobody speaking a word.

Jack’s pissed, his shoulders rigid and his eyes dark as he looks from one of us to the other, but he hasn’t called the police, and Carrie is still standing here, still staying put amongst the chaos.

I gesture her toward me. “I’ll book you into a hotel in Coleford. You’ll be safe there. Get your things and wait in the car for me, I’ll be out just as soon as I’ve finished up talking to Jack.”