Page 121 of Fire Fight

It sounds reasonable, but it’s not the only possible explanation.

Perhaps he understood desperate people do desperate things and if your personal number is on the phone of a desperate woman, early damage control could be the best option.

I think of how she accused me of selling multiple bottles of Xanax to my friends when I’d only ever taken the one for Harriet and the one for me.

Those pills could have been taken by anyone with access to the flat, sitting in an unlocked bathroom cabinet.

And I think of Drake.

Of how he can’t accept his mother committed suicide.

For all this time, I thought it was a stubborn refusal to besmirch the image of the woman he loved without reservation. Now the angles shift, and I see another answer hiding behind.

The person closest to her saw no signs of renewed addiction and I can’t pretend Drake lacks the capacity to notice those shifts. Even the subtle ones. Not with his powers of observation.

He didn’t notice a decline.

He didn’t notice altered moods or compromised decisions.

And I know that means nothing by itself. Every day, people lose their loved ones and don’t see any signs leading to the tragic decision.

But sometimes those signs are absent because there’s nothing to signal.

Like when a powerful man, a controllingman, aviolentman, finds out his ex—a woman who witnessed his abuse firsthand—is talking to a journalist.

I stop, lost in thought.

The main bedroom is a foot away.

The pharmacist only swapped medication for sexual favours with Mum, and I believe she never gave a thing to Maggie.

Which leaves… who?

The man dating her.

The man who abruptly cut off contact until she left a pleading voicemail.

A sickening wave of nausea crashes over me. We have to leave. Get to safety then contact the police and tell them everything.

We can’t abandon Drake or let him pay for his father’s crimes.

I push open the bedroom door. “Mum?”

There’s no one in the bedroom.

No one in the en suite beyond or on the balcony.

I glance out the window, but she’s not in the garden and I spin on my heel, rushing to the lounge, trying to move quietly so Arnold doesn’t realise I’m panicked.

She’s not in here either.

I stare out the window at the glorious view. The patio. The viewing platform.

The cliff side path.

Terror strikes deep into my heart as I rush for the back door, then spin, hearing my mother’s faint cry from farther inside the house. I could sob with relief that she’s just in another room.

Her body isn’t lying twisted and broken on the rocks.

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