Page 24 of The Eleventh Hour

“That’s very unusual.”

“Is it? It didn’t seem strange to me.”

“Tell me about his family.”

I groan and shift in the seat. “We have been over this question, Dr Sparrow. He didn’t have a family. He told me they were all dead and gone.”

“Yes, but how can you have been together and know nothing about him?” Sparrow explodes.

I narrow my eyes. My suspicions were right. He’s after information about Louis, but why?

“He told me, and I believed him. I trusted him. Obviously, I was young and foolish.”

Sparrow mutters and adjusts his position on the seat. “That’s it for today.”

My eyes widen in shock. I sit, poised, ready to flee, but not quite believing my good luck.

“Go, before I change my mind.”

I spring to my feet and glide to the door. I’m out and down the street before I can even process it.

Jax

Ipull up at the park and sit in the car, listening to the engine tick. In the distance, I can see Rafael leaning against the high fence that surrounds Cinders Park. In the low light, he appears nervous, scowling at the road. The street lights are few and far between down here. I get out of the car and start walking towards him when another guy appears. One that looks familiar. He has his hands in his pockets, a large black jacket covers his body, but that beautiful face, even dimmed by the lack of illumination, is impossible to mistake.

I stop on the footpath, caught between horror and anger. It’s the guy from my apartment building. Dane Galbraith. They both seem to sense my presence and turn. Rafael moves towards me, his expression hopeful, a wondrous smile born and dying in a moment, but I spin on my feet and start walking away. Stupid. Totally and completely stupid. How naïve of me to think it would be so damn straightforward.

Someone grips my forearm and yanks me around.

“Jackie Blackwell, we need your help, and we aren’t going anywhere until you agree to help us.”

“Fuck you,” I spit. “I don’t know Jackie.”

Dane glares down at me. “Six years ago, my brother disappeared.”

I try to hold on to my anger, but ice rolls down my spine, freezing it out, and in its place, I’m just tired. So tired. Guilt and shame, my familiar companions, steal up instead, wrapping themselves around my heart and mind.

“Who was your brother?” I try for nonchalance, but it comes out strangled.

“Terrance Kyte.”

I don’t need to search for the memory of him. His image explodes into my closed eyelids, summoned from the depths of my mind. Deep green eyes like emeralds, always watching, a magnetism that drew me. A kind, gruff voice. I remember him. How many times have I prayed to bump into him? How many nights have I laid awake deep into the night mourning him, never realising it wasn’t my life keeping us apart but his? I could have loved you. I could have loved him so easily. Oh, god, what the fuck did I do? Pain seeps into every part of me, and a voice inside howls at the agony that is my life.

My moment of complete ruin isn’t missed by Rafael, who has moved closer. “You remember him?”

“Everyone would remember him,” I whisper. I remember where I am and glance around. “Come with me.” I tug my arm free of Dane’s grip and walk over to the fence and pull myself up and over.

Dane and Rafael drop beside me moments later. I lead them through the knee-high grass, ignoring the way my jeans soak up as much water as they can. The path is hidden, but in moments, I have us neatly hidden from the city of Hurricane. My own private oasis in the bowels of hell.

I smile bitterly and see a curious look on Rafael’s face while Dane scowls and swears at the branches that snatch at his clothing.

The clearing appears suddenly and without fanfare. A nice, perfectly oval shape of longer grass, with none of the thick trees that ring it. In the middle is a playground, rusted and broken. Falling past disrepair and into history.

“What is this place?”

“When they closed the mine, people ran out of work. There were too many people, not enough jobs, not enough food. Crime skyrocketed. It’s whispered that a man named John Durst was caught by his wife sleeping with his mistress. The wife had lost her father earlier that week, a stillborn a few weeks prior, and she just snapped. She set fire to the house.” I pause and my throat thickens. “She didn’t know her kids were home. She didn’t know the babysitter hadn’t shown up.”

I have their complete attention now.

---