Page 119 of Stolen Ones

She wanted him annoyed; she wanted him agitated. She wanted him bursting with negative emotion.

Stacey had primed him brilliantly, and now it was her turn to go in for the kill.

Seventy-Two

‘You not gonna come and watch this, Penn?’ Alison asked him as the boss left the room.

‘Not right now,’ he said without looking up. He’d heard enough to know his colleague had knocked it out of the park.

‘You okay?’ she asked.

‘Fine.’

Alison tipped her head. ‘Did Jasper stay at Billy’s last night?’

‘No, I decided it was a bit much for Billy’s mum.’

Alison opened her mouth to speak but changed her mind and returned her attention to the screen. He was glad because he didn’t want to admit to her that he had made a terrible mistake.

He’d known it as soon as he’d walked in the door.

Jasper didn’t do sullen. He wasn’t a moody teen, but he did do quiet. And the quiet broke Penn’s heart.

Jasper had been at home for at least two hours before he’d got back from work. Hours he’d been waiting for Penn to come home when he could have been having a laugh at his friend’s house.

Penn had acted out of fear of Jasper pulling away from him and being vulnerable when all he was trying to do was dip his toe in the outside world and find his place.

Penn had realised too late that he had no right to stop him. He saw a long, honest heart-to-heart in their future, but right now he was just angry at himself for depriving his brother due to his own fears. He didn’t need to share his failure with anyone else.

He realised he’d been short with his colleague. ‘Sorry, Alison, just trying to crack this bloody password.’

He’d had the phone since 8.15a.m., and he was no closer to getting into the front screen.

Eleven characters.

He’d tried hundreds of variations of dates, names, places and he was only grateful that the phone didn’t have a limited number of attempts. Trouble was, even with the information he had, there were quadrillions of possible permutations.

He sat back and closed his eyes, blocking out everything around him. He needed to think more about the man himself. He liked to play games, he was arrogant, he thought he could do whatever he wanted. He liked to play with people. He liked people to get close but not quite get him. He did things to amuse himself, acted purely for his own entertainment.

‘Alison, can you ping me that footage of Harte on his phone?’ he asked, having a sudden thought.

‘Yeah, sure,’ she said, pressing a few keys. ‘On its way.’

He opened the clip and watched it, then scrolled to the point where Harte was on his phone. He was smiling as he did whatever he was doing. His fingers worked busily. He finished and then glanced at the camera. He already knew the camera was there so that glance was unnecessary. It was almost an unconscious message to them. A bit like ‘there you go’. Or ‘that one’s for you’.

Penn felt an excitement in his stomach. Was this another game? Was he playing with them and had mistakenly given himself away?

He returned to the beginning of the footage and watched carefully.

Harte walks in.

Harte looks around as he heads towards the seat.

Harte sits down, relaxes, looks up at the camera.

Jack enters.

‘Can I get you a drink?’