Page 67 of The Lost Zone (Dark Water #3)

Chapter Nineteen

Josiah

Josiah lay awake for half the night thinking about Neil Grant.

This was the best lead he’d had since this frustrating case had begun; nothing else had panned out.

Neil had tried to steal Alex from the show on that Saturday night, and by the following Tuesday morning, Elliot Dacre was dead. Was that a coincidence? Surely not.

He gave up on sleep in the early hours and slipped out of bed to shower and dress. Then he dropped a kiss on Alex’s sleeping face and headed to work.

He didn’t want to take Reed off the search for Tyler’s blackmail files, so he launched his own investigation.

He was no data tech, but he was a good detective, and within a few hours, he’d pieced together a timeline of Neil’s life after he’d left Lytton AV.

Nobody had wanted to employ him, which was hardly surprising given how high profile the trial had been and the somewhat murky part he’d played in it.

He’d had money to start with – presumably from Tyler – and he’d used it to set himself up in his own accountancy business.

Still, decent clients were hardly going to be attracted by his notoriety, and he seemed to have struggled – as evidenced by how progressively downmarket his addresses had become.

After sending Reed an update, he drove to the most recent address he’d found for Neil. It was on one of those new pre-fab floating cities that had been springing up lately, with fanciful names completely at odds with reality. This one was called Arcadia, a misnomer if ever there was one.

It was nothing like Ghost Eye, which had been built by private investment companies.

This new wave of floating cities had been constructed by the government, with the sole purpose of easing the housing and refugee crisis that had been ongoing since the Rising.

Even decades later, there were still too many people and not enough land.

These pre-fab cities were intended to be an answer to that.

He supposed they were marginally better than living in the Quarterlands, but not much.

The new cities were slotted together like children’s building blocks, created by a cash-strapped government simply to house people, without much consideration as to whether they were nice places to live.

They weren’t. They crouched low on the surface of the water like crooked teeth, row upon row of ugly, squatting huts, linked by central spines.

Driving along the narrow highway that linked the different spines together, he found the particular little house where Neil lived.

Maybe “house” was too strong a word for it, as the dwellings were tiny.

There were no gardens, no wildlife or nature to speak of.

It was a strictly utilitarian kind of place.

With no space on the narrow road, and parking bays few and far between, he ended up stopping some distance from Neil’s house and walking for a good twenty minutes across the spines that connected the tiny dwellings.

The surface was uneven beneath his feet, and the constant hum of generators filled the air, mixed with the sounds of rushing water and creaking metal.

From a distance, these cities looked solid and sturdy, but up close, Josiah could see the shoddy materials used in their construction, and occasionally, a loud mechanical noise would erupt from their interior workings.

Finally reaching Neil’s house, he knocked, wondering if he’d catch him at home.

Maybe Neil was at work, but he hadn’t found any evidence of what the man actually did for a living these days.

He paid rent and owned a duck, but there was nothing about his profession.

As Josiah stood outside the ugly building, one thing was certain: Neil Grant wasn’t rich.

Nobody would choose to live here if they could avoid it.

After a short wait, he heard movement inside, and then the door opened, and Josiah found himself face to face with Neil Grant.

He looked considerably older than he had during Alex’s trial, which was understandable, but still came as a shock.

His shoulders were stooped, his hair thinning, and his startlingly dark eyebrows clung to his forehead like two disgruntled slugs.

He was a big man – almost as tall as Josiah – and stocky with it, but without the solid weight and heft of Josiah’s muscle mass.

He could have been eight years older than Josiah, not younger.

He was wearing a pair of brown Eco-Dry trousers and a faded green polo shirt, and his shoes were old and shabby.

However, behind his horn-rimmed glasses, his brown eyes glimmered angrily as he gave Josiah a hard stare.

He didn’t look surprised to see him, and he was clenching his fists tightly, as if spoiling for a fight.

“Investigator Raine,” he said in an offhand, almost grumpy tone.

“You were expecting me?” Josiah asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I assumed it’d happen at some point. I’m just surprised it took this long. You have Alex, and he and I have a past. I’ve been following it all on the news.”

“So, you don’t know specifically why I’m here?”

A multitude of fleeting emotions played across Neil’s face: anger, panic, and a sense of grievance and resentment that was almost tangible. “No,” he said shortly. “Do you want to come in, or were you intending to take me in for questioning?”

“I’ll come in, if that’s okay. You aren’t under arrest. I only want to ask you a few questions.

” Josiah was intrigued by Neil’s body language.

He was clearly uncomfortable, his muscles taut and strained, but there was a sense of low cunning about the man, as if he were playing a game and already two steps ahead of Josiah.

Was this about Elliot Dacre? Or something else?

Neil turned abruptly, and Josiah followed him into the house.

He was immediately in a tiny living room, which also doubled as a bedroom, as was evident from the pile of bedding on the floor.

A little galley kitchen and a closed door that no doubt led to an equally tiny toilet and shower room completed the pint-sized dwelling.

The entire house would have fitted comfortably into Josiah’s living room.

“How is he?” Neil asked, throwing himself down on the sofa bed. There were no other chairs in the house, and no room for them, either, so Josiah remained standing.

“Alex? He’s fine.”

“They shouldn’t have given him to you. It’s a clear conflict of interest.” Neil scowled up at him.

“It’s a temporary arrangement until we’ve resolved… various matters.”

“Are you fucking him?” Neil’s eyes were dark with suppressed rage. Josiah wasn’t offended by the question, but he was intrigued. What kind of man asked something like that of an investigator on official business?

“Yeah, I am. He’s hot, isn’t he?” he drawled, to see the reaction. It was immediate. Neil’s fists clenched so hard they were white and his eyes flashed jealously.

“It’s inappropriate,” Neil snapped. “He’s not a fuck toy to be handed around.”

“I’m surprised to hear you say that, given you bought his services at a show recently.”

Neil jumped to his feet, looking furious. “Did he tell you that?”

“Is it a lie?”

“No, but it’s not the truth either. Jesus, I had to plan for months to get close to him at that show. I wasn’t doing it for me, I was doing it for him.”

“How was trading for him like a piece of meat helping him?” Josiah demanded. He sensed that making Neil angry was key here. Clearly, his emotions ran like a dark, volatile seam just beneath the surface, and he was struggling to contain them.

“I was trying to save him. I spent ages finding the right boy in the Quarterlands to tempt that idiot Dacre so that he’d swap Alex at the show. I had to pay that boy a small fortune to do it, too.”

“I’ve never been to one of these shows. Is that how it works? You swap indies?” Josiah couldn’t keep the derision out of his voice.

“Oh please! I didn’t want to go to those stupid shows but I had to, in order to help save Alex.

I tried to reach him a few times, but he was always guarded by those big black SUAVs, and every time I tried to get close, they blocked me.

Then I discovered that Dacre was taking Alex to shows and swapping him for the night with other young men.

I went to a few to see how they worked, and to figure out the kind of boy Dacre was interested in before making my move. ”

“So, you brought along a young man you thought Dacre would like in the hope he’d do a swap, and you’d get a night alone with Alex?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t about sex. I needed to see Alex, to speak with him.”

“He said you tried to persuade him to run away with you?”

“I was trying to rescue him! I had it all planned. My duck was outside ready, and then it was a quick ride to the coast to a boat I’d hired. I’d have had him out of the country before morning, and then we could have started our life together, the way it was always supposed to be.”

“That’s technically speaking stealing, given you don’t own Alex’s contract.”

“Oh, and what are you doing with him then? Borrowing him? Like a library book?” Neil asked scornfully. “Don’t you dare judge me when you couldn’t wait to get your filthy hands on him.”

Josiah decided to back off a little. “He was going to stay with you, then, once you got him out of the country?”

“Of course.”

“Are you sure he wouldn’t have run off at the first opportunity?”

“Absolutely not. Alex and I have a complicated relationship, but we’re connected. Soulmates. You wouldn’t understand.” Neil shot him a look of unmitigated contempt.

“Try me.”

“I’ve loved him since the day I first saw him, and I’ll love him until the day I die.”

“But he doesn’t love you back,” Josiah pointed out.