I nod and then I look her in the eye. ‘I knew he was a jewel thief. And I didn’t care. He was stealing from the super rich. He was like a Robin Hood.’ My voice breaks on a sob. Listen to me. I sound like a total idiot. Robin Hood. He used me to steal from my friend. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry he stole from you. I’m sorry I brought him to your house.’
‘Oh, Bill! Please don’t be sorry. I would have given you those jewels if I thought you wanted them. They are not important to me. You are.’ She pauses for a moment. ‘And Jaron. Jaron is important to me too.’
‘What do you mean? He lied to me and abused your trust and friendship.’
She shrugs. ‘I liked him from the first moment I met him, but I always had reservations about Ebony. So I’m not going to believe the worst of him until he has had a chance to explain.’
I look at her, shocked that she wouldn’t give up on Jaron. At her refusal to judge him. Her phone rings and she takes it out of her bag and looks at it. ‘Let me take this call. It’s Blake.’
‘Hi, darling,’ she says into the phone and then starts listening. For some minutes she listens. Then she rings off and turns to me.
‘This is what Ebony is claiming. Most of the heists are executed by Jaron alone, and once or twice she has been involved, but this time they connected with some low-level Mafia and it went wrong.’
‘Yes, he did tell me that he mostly works alone.’
She frowns. ‘After all these years why would he contact the Mafia this time around then?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Something doesn’t feel right.’
I feel too exhausted and miserable and angry to answer. The shock is dissipating and in its place is a burning ball of anger. I don’t feel forgiving or loving or like I don’t want to judge him. Jaron Fucking Rose is a bastard!
Twenty-four
I feel overwhelmed by a dizzying sense of loneliness. I don’t fucking need him. I lie on the bed holding my vibrator. I lean my head back on my pillows, close my eyes and part my legs. I switch it on. And I think of him. I think of him when he kneels down in front of me and puts his mouth between my parted legs and drinks from my sex, and the desire roars through my body like a storm. The way dark blood rushes to my clit and everything becomes a flooding liquid. Just sucking and heat and hunger and furious fucking. I open my eyes and throw the vibrator across the bed.
I have a key to his home.
I call for a minicab and go to his house. I stand outside and look around me. A woman is walking her beautifully coiffured poodle. She gives me a condescending look. As if I’m in the wrong neighborhood. At another time I would have said something to her. But my mind is blank. I go up the steps and put the key in the door and then I realize I cannot go in. I will set the alarms off. I left the code at home.
I ring the bell. No one answers. I turn away and walk toward the Tube station and feel even more unhappy than I had felt before I came and saw the deserted house. Maybe I’ll get the code and come back, but I know I won’t. I feel drained.
I take the Tube home in a blank daze. I sink heavily into a seat and look up at the map. Only five stops and then I become so sad I can hardly move when it is my stop. I force my stiff body up and stumble out of the doors. At home I go and sit on the bed. For a while I am so stunned I sit and stare blankly into space. It doesn’t matter what he has done, I want him so bad I want to punch him for being so stupid, for using me, for cheating. Eventually I work myself up to a grand rage.
Absolutely livid, my mind falls upon the idea of getting drunk, getting so totally wasted that nothing matters anymore. I think of the vodka bottle that is in the kitchen cupboard. A full bottle. I haven’t touched it since I made that promise to Jaron at the island. I haven’t needed it. I need it now. I feel like a caged animal. Today I need that feeling of calm spreading in my belly. Like warm milk. I will sleep then.
I go into the kitchen and yank open the cupboard door where the vodka is kept. With a furious grunt I yank it from the shelf and something flat and small wrapped up in a piece of paper falls to the ground. My hair stands on end. For a few seconds I cannot do anything but stare at it. I put the bottle on the counter and run my suddenly sweaty palms down my trousers. Then I pick up the package curiously. The paper is a note and it guards a key. My throat feels dry. I unscrew the vodka bottle and take a swig. My head feels as if it is spinning. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and look again at the note.
Go to the other place.
Beware of being followed.
112986316
It’s all yours. JR
For many seconds I do nothing. My mind ticks furiously. He knew what I would do, but he also hid this note. The first thing I do is let my eyes carefully scan the room. Sorab’s cereal box is out farther than I usually leave it. I walk out into the living room. The leg of the sofa is not sitting in its old indent on the carpet. I run to my workroom and my drawings are in totally different places from where I left them.