[ 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘬𝘦𝘥 #44 𝘪𝘯 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 ]
--
It's an oft-quoted quote, and I'm sure you guys have heard of it. Two's company and three's a crowd.
But I just can't help thinking . . .
How about seven then?
Every family has their own dram...
I was not usually an advocate for violence, but right now I had a very strong urge to just
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Which would never do. Where would I get that funky helmet thingy-thingy anyway?
I sighed, rubbing my temples. Dead end, that was where I was. A complete dead end. I had been so sure Kaylan was Storeroom Stalker, and now that that theory was utterly thrown out of the window I was back to square one and zero suspects. My brother's clues had led me to Kaylan's house, so if Kaylan was not involved then it must be his parents. But both of them checked out clean. And now I had utterly no idea what to do.
I exhaled again, drawn out and heavy.
Now what?
As if in response, my handphone rang. I looked at the caller ID.
Fiance. Naturally, he'd insisted I put him down as that.
I picked up, putting on my best imitation of a cheery voice. "Darling, hey! Listen, I'm not really in the mood to deal with your psychopathic character at the moment, so I'm just going to hang up on you and wait until you've either died or disappeared for good, m'kay?"
A pause.
Then a low, soft chuckle. When Jasper spoke, it was with airy pleasantness.
"Oh I can think of something that will make you be very in the mood. Why don't you come down to the car park, sweetheart, and I'll bring you somewhere that you will absolutely love to go? And put on your Sunday best, will you?" he added. "There's someone you will be positively excited to meet."
The line went dead. I closed my eyes, willing myself to breathe even, before burying my face in my hands on the table top.
How long must this go on?
*
Jasper was actually wearing a suit. I looked down at myself, at my "It's All About ME!" T-shirt and blue denim jeans, then back up at him.
He gestured dismissively. "Oh it doesn't matter. I forgot to tell you that the person you'll be meeting with can't see."
Can't see?
All the way along the ride, Jasper was smiling non-stop. So many alarm bells were pinging off in my head that it felt like the inside of a fire station during a crisis.
Something is very not right.
"Ah! Here we are!" he exclaimed.
Here turned out to be an old warehouse, isolated and forbidding, and as I stepped out from the vehicle the niggling doubts in me turned to outright alarm. Old warehouses never bode anything well in the realms of fiction - unless of course they were the places where the good guys had a secret stash of bad-ass weapons. But there weren't any good guys here now, were there?
