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Thirty-Two
Seb
Jamie shocked the shit out of me just now. She has no idea I know how hard it must be for her to open herself up to me like that. I know she thinks I’m a player, a man-whore, but she doesn’t know I watched my mother suffer for years because of my father’s lying and cheating. That it fucking destroyed her until she couldn’t take it anymore and took her own life. My whole reason for never having a long-term relationship is because I always believed that I was my father’s son. That I’d never be able to love a woman wholeheartedly and completely, that I’d be just like him and cheat and lie and fucking destroy the woman who fell in love with me.
I never wanted to be that man.
After my mother died, I made a vow to never fall in love and never allow anyone to love me. If that meant I had to keep women at arm’s length, only ever sleep with them, use them and never let them close, even if it hurt them a little, I was okay with that. Surely, it’s better than giving them everything with one breath and ripping it away from them with the next.
Now, I realise I was never like my father. Could never be like him because I could never do to Jamie what my father did to my mother. And that’s because I’m so fucking in love with her and will destroy anyone that lays one fucking finger on her.
“Hey, man, you okay?” Jay asks beside me, and when I turn to look at him, his eyes are focused on my hands. My knuckles are white from gripping the steering wheel so tight.
Easing my grip. “Yeah, I’m good,” I reply as I take the next left.
When we pull up to the address Rick and I pulled from the facial recognition, I’m surprised. It’s a reasonable looking detached house, but it looks tired and worn, not the house you would imagine the director of a haulage company to live in. But really, I’m not surprised because I don’t think for one second Noah is the true director of the company.
There’s a black 2012 plate BMW 3 series in the drive, which I assume belongs to Noah. I’m hoping he’s home because I really want to have a nice little chat with him.
As we walk up the path, I look around and see the curtain in the downstairs window of the house next door moving. Nosy neighbours are always good when you need information.
I knock the door as Jay looks through the window to the right, then the left. No one answers and there doesn’t seem to be any sign that someone is home.
“Anything?” I ask him as he joins me back at the front door.
“I can’t see jack shit through the net curtains.” He reaches forward and lifts the letterbox before peering through it. “Oh shit! You might want to have a look at this, Seb,” he says moving out the way so I can look.
You know that feeling in your gut that tells you this is not going to be good? Yeah, I have it in spades right now. Leaning down, I take a deep breath and lift the letterbox. “Fuck!” I drop it, not needing to see any more. “Call Rick and find out what he wants us to do?”
“On it,” Jay answers, pulling his phone free from his jacket.
“I’m going to take a look round back.” I tell him as he waits for Rick to answer.
I leave Jay at the front door and head round the side of the house, coming to a stop when I see the side gate is open. I slow my pace as I step through the gate, careful not to touch anything and keeping close to the wall.
When I reach the end of the building, I take a peek round the corner, and when I see nothing, I step round. I look through the first window into the kitchen, but it’s empty. Reaching the back door, it’s already ajar, and using my elbow I give a gentle little push on it, opening it wider.
“Boo!”
I spin at the voice, fist raised and almost lay Jay out. “You fucking idiot.” Jay is clutching his sides and bent double in laughter. “Fuck you, Jay.”
“Sorry. I just couldn’t help it,” he says, still laughing.
“Did you get hold of Rick?”
“Yeah, man. He wants you to call it in.”
“Great. Our only lead is dead, and now I have to spend the next few hours explaining why we are here in the first place.” I make the call to Rick’s contact at the station, and Ray tells me he’ll be coming himself to cut through some of the red tape. “Jay, go speak to the curtain twitcher next door. She saw us arriving, so it’s likely she saw something yesterday too. I’m going to have a quick look around before the police get here.”
Once Jay has gone, I make quick work of checking the house, but there is nothing here. Even the office holds nothing but a computer, which I can’t touch, and an empty filing cabinet. Not what you’d expect for the director of a company.
When I get back to the front, Jay is just walking back down the path, shaking his head.
“She tell you anything?”
“Only that she doesn’t know the guy very well, lives alone, but he does have one guy that comes round regularly,” he finishes with a raised brow.
“Let me guess, our mystery guy from yesterday?”
