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“Why would someone force that man to cover it up if they hadn’t done it themselves or been behind it in some way?” I ask him, knowing that my logic in this area had to at least ease my dads burden and responsibility. It wasn’t his mistake or nothing would need to be covered up.
“That’s true. Whoever it is knows where Gray is,” he concludes.
“Who’s looking after that man’s family, Crow? You can’t just leave them with these people around,” I tell him, the guilt gnawing away at me.
“They’re protected. I wasn’t lying, Char.”
“By who?” I question.
“I don’t agree with your dad on many things but I do in this – some things you don’t need to know.”
Sixteen
I’ve been sat on Crow’s bed with the envelope in my hands, staring at it for what feels like a lifetime. I feel both numb and tingly—one with dread, one from anticipation. I want to know, and yet I don’t.
I was so desperate to tear it open when the man had handed it to me but now that I know that whatever is inside is potentially the last thing Gray intended for me to see, I’m petrified. What if it’s a suicide note and we’ve got it all wrong about someone sabotaging his car? I know that he had been stressed over the last few months, but I had no idea if he had suffered with depression. Maybe he had. Perhaps I didn’t pay as much attention to him as I thought. Would I have noticed the signs? Were there any?
What if it was a note to say that he was running away? Or maybe it was just a list of what he wanted to get me for Christmas.
I won’t know until I open it.
As my fingers dance along the seal with trepidation, Crow comes barging out of the ensuite attached to his bedroom.
He has a towel around his waist, leaving the rest of his body bare and dripping with water from his shower. His hair is ruffled and messy, his face a soft mask of concern as he looks my way, and his body as tense and godly as every other time I see him.
“Do you want to open it on your own?” he asks tensely as he dries himself off and throws a t-shirt over his head, covering the sight of his bare chest and pulling me back to the moment. Gray’s letter.
“No, I don’t mind you being here, I’m just nervous. I don’t know if I want to know what’s inside,” I tell him weakly.
He quickly goes back into the ensuite to pull some jogging bottoms on and then comes to sit next to me on the bed.
“I’m here for you, whatever you want to do.”
His fingers lace through mine, filling me with the warmth and protection that Crow’s mere presence brings.
“Whatever it says will help us in some way. That can’t be a bad thing,” he tells me quietly, and I know that he’s right. Even if it’s a mundane note that holds no real importance or relevance to the situation Gray found himself in, we’ll know that we're not missing out on information, whereas if I don’t open, we won’t know if it does or does not hold information that could help us find him.
“You’re right.” I nod solemnly as I take my hand from his and open the envelope to find Gray’s messy handwriting scrawled all over the page.
I'm hoping it’s gonna be you reading this, Chars, and if someone else has opened it then fuck you, like seriously. Respect a girls privacy, will you?
Anyway, if you’re reading this then I want you to know I'm going to look for mum. There's some shit going on in the world that is so much more than you could even begin to realise and I need to start working it out. Check my room, you'll find some stuff in there on where I am.
Either I've said goodbye and gone willingly in which case you'll never see this and I'm writing for no reason, or they've got hold of me because they know I know.
Either way, I’ll figure it out and come back and explain it all. Promise.
Love you, Chars!
Oh and for fuck sake—stay away from Liam when he gets out. Tell Crow I was right and have proof but don't do anything about it until I'm home. I'll come back, I swear.
As I finish reading the letter out loud, my mind whirls. He was going to find our mum? What did she have to do with any of this and who was he referring to having got hold of him? What did that even mean? Does that mean someone took him? I rationalise that he probably felt he couldn’t delve into too much information in case the letter got into the wrong hands but a little more of an explanation would have been great.
And then there’s Crow.
“What was he right about?” I demand, angry that he had kept something, anything about my brother away from me in this mess we’re in.
But Crow already has his phone to his ear, saying that stupid code thing again.
