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Violet has quite a lot to say to this, but I’m too mortified by Jett’s causal dismissal of the idea that he might see me as anything other than a problem to be solved to want to hear any more. I start chattering loudly to Leroy, asking him what he’s been up to since I last saw him, and, after a few minutes, thecar door opens and Jett gets in, looking like he’d rather be doing almost anything else than this.
So we’re off to an excellent start, then.
“Let’s go,” he tells the driver, not looking at me.
And so we go.
Glenroch is only a few miles away, but it takes a good 25 minutes to get there, on winding mountain roads which Leroy says remind him of Disney’s Space Mountain, as we navigate them in the dark.
Jett, meanwhile, says nothing, and neither do I. It’s almost as if the weight of all the things wecouldsay to each other — all the unspoken questions that hover in invisible speech bubbles above our heads — is so heavy that it muffles all thought; so we just sit there in uncomfortable silence, me bravely resisting the almost overwhelming impulse to lean over andlickhim.Sniffhim, I mean. I want to sniff him. I want to inhale that familiar, musky scent of his, then commit it to memory somehow (Can you memorize a smell?), because I know this is probably the last time I’ll ever be as close to him as this again.
Sitting next to him is like an exquisite form of torture, and I don’t know whether to feel disappointed or relieved when we finally pull up outside her house, and the torture finally ends.
Or not.
“There’s no answer,” I say, coming back to the car after five fruitless minutes spent standing in Mum’s overgrown garden, and hammering on the front door. “She’s not there.”
Jett pulls out his phone and scrolls through the contact list before handing it to me wordlessly. Mum’s number is on the display (So hedidstill have it saved, like he’d said. I wonder if he still has mine, too, or if he deleted it after that night?), and I hit the call button, and listen to it ring out as I get back into the car and buckle my seat belt.
“No answer there, either,” I say, handing the phone back after my fifth encounter with Mum’s voicemail. I don’t leave a message; there’s not much point when I don’t have a phone for her to call me back on, is there?
“Can you think of anywhere she might be?” asks Jett, unexpectedly. I look at him in surprise. I’d assumed he’d want to go straight home now, having done his bit to try to help me, but he doesn’t seem ready to give up quite yet.
I probably shouldn’t read too much into that. He’s most likely just trying to make sure this is dealt with, so he never has to see me again.
“Just the pub,” I tell him, not even having to think about it. “That’s the only place she goes, really, other than work. She… well, she doesn’t have a lot of friends.”
This statement instantly goes into the running for Understatement of the Century. When our family distillery started to fail, Mum tried to sabotage Jack Buchanan’s, to try to get rid of the competition, I guess. She’s even more of a social pariah than I am these days; and that’s saying something.
“Okay,” says Jett, his voice giving absolutely no clue as to what he’s thinking. “Let’s go to the pub, then. Where is it?”
***
Fortunately for us, Glenroch has only one pub, and it’s technically just the bar of the town’s one and only hotel: a narrow, white building which looks out over the coast, with a small, circular tower sticking up from the front of it.
“Is this a castle?” says Jett as we walk in. “It looks like a castle.”
“You Americans think everything in Scotland’s a castle,” I reply teasingly. “Remember when you asked me if the Heather Bay branch of the Bank of Scotland was a tourist attraction?”
Jett chuckles at this, and for one tiny nanosecond, things feel almost normal.
“Anyway, no, it’s not a castle,” I go on, as the moment fades. “It is quite nice, though. Well, nicer than The Crown, anyway.”
“That wouldn’t be hard,” says Jett, as we make our way through the reception and into the bar that lies just beyond it, which is small but cozy, with a roaring log fire and big squishy armchairs set invitingly in front of it. “That’s one place I didnotthink was a castle. I was surprised Grace booked it, to be honest: although not as surprised as I was to see you working there, by the way. Doesn’t really seem like a Lexie Steele kinda place, somehow.”
“It’s not,” I reply bluntly. “It’s… well, it’s a long story. Or a short one, I guess. Anyway, Mum’s not here, either. I’m really sorry, Jett. This has been a bit of a wild goose chase.”
Sure enough, the bar is completely empty; which I guess is good news for Jett, who at least won’t have any screaming fans or intrusive phone cameras to deal with, but not so good for me, because it means I’m still no closer to finding Mum — and the answers to my many parentage-related questions.
“That’s okay,” says Jett, looking around the place with interest. “I quite like wild goose chases. So, where next?”
I shrug, defeated.
“I’m not sure,” I admit, feeling suddenly exhausted. “I can’t think of anywhere else she might be at this time of night. I guess I’ll just go home and try to find her tomorrow.”
“You wanna have a quick drink first?” Jett asks, looking at his watch. “It’s not that late. And I think they have that new blend of The 39 here. Look.”
He points at the little bar, which is lined with bottles of Jack Buchanan’s latest whiskey. My shoulders slump even further at the sight of it.
