Page 104 of Breaking the Dark

“I’d love to speak to her, if possible. Could you give me a number for her?”

“What for?”

“I have questions about the water pump?”

“The water…” He stops, and she hears him hissing through his teeth. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah, deadly serious. Your children, Sebastian,” she continues, going in for the kill in an attempt to hit home with him just how messed up this situation is, “were given a key to a bar in Harlem when they were in the UK this summer. In that bar, twenty-six years ago, construction workers found the remains of three dead bodies buried under the dance floor in the cellar. They had been tortured and murdered and used for their blood.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“And I have been told that your girlfriend was doing some work at the Old Farmhouse.”

“Who told you that?”

“I’m a private investigator, Sebastian. I ask people questions and people tell me things. That’s how it works. So please. Let me have her number.”

He breathes in long and hard and then says, “Fine.”

She takes it down and says, “Name?”

“Becky,” he says. “Rebecca Brown.”

“Thank you.” She scrawls it down. “And, Sebastian. What was she doing at the farmhouse? Did she tell you?”

“Like you said, doing some work for them.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Beginning of the year, January?”

“Well, I’ve been in that house, and I can tell you for certain that nobody has laid a brush on that place in decades. So whatever she was doing there, it certainly wasn’t interiors.” Jessica pauses. “What do you know about her, Sebastian? What do you know about Rebecca Brown?”

There’s a brief silence and then Sebastian says, “Very little, to be entirely honest with you. Very little indeed.”

As she ends the call she looks up at Luke. She almost forgot he is here.

He looks down at her. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I’m okay.”

The time is 4:52. She hauls him off the couch and slings on her jacket.

“Where are we going?” he asks.

“We’re going to the Hit ’n’ Fit.”

“The what now?”

“You’ll see.”

This Year

Barton Wallop, Essex, UK

Amina and Audrey look nonplussed as they climb into the back of Arthur’s van.

“Where are we going?”