Page 298 of The Black Trilogy

There I was, living up to my reputation of being a female dog with the world’s biggest bark.

“I never wanted to have to say this, but I’m disappointed in you.”

“Fine, join the club. You’re not the only one.”

I sat down on the nearest weight machine as Nick stomped off. Well, to put it more honestly, I collapsed. His words hurt me. Deeply. But no matter, I was sticking to my guns. I couldn’t feel much worse than I had before, so if everybody decided to be angry with me then that was just the way it was. At least they were alive.

Instead of dwelling on things I wasn’t willing to change, I threw myself into the drugs case I was working on and stayed away from Blackwood as much as possible. I ran the investigation out of my home, Little Riverley, and cultivated the image of a lone wolf. For the most part, people stayed away from me. It didn’t take a genius to work out Nate had told them what happened, and they’d all sided with him and Nick.

The only people who weren’t annoyed at me were Bradley, who shied away from any form of conflict unless it was on a reality TV show, and Tia, my ex-boyfriend’s sister who didn’t know the whole story anyway. She’d called me from England a few times, moaning about life in general and exams in particular. Just having her talk to me as if I was a normal person cheered me up more than she could have imagined.

“Exams are so pointless. What use is a polynomial function in the real world?”

She had me there. I didn’t have a clue what a polynomial function was, and I didn’t feel I was missing out on anything because of that.

“No idea, but you need to get good grades to go to university.”

“I don’t know if I even want to go to uni. You didn’t go, and you’ve done all right.”

“Don’t say that in front of Luke, whatever you do. He’ll think I’ve been encouraging you to abandon your education.”

I nearly added, “And I’m in his bad books at the moment already,” but I managed to stop myself. Information on a need to know basis only. Her brother, Luke, was dating my friend Mack. Mack was annoyed about my stance on Black’s killer, so by extension, Luke wasn’t happy with me either.

“Okay, I won’t. But I’m not sure I want to spend three years of my life stuck in more lectures.”

“Promise me you’ll at least try hard in your exams and keep your options open?”

“Fine, I will.” Tia didn’t sound particularly convinced.

“Look, if you get straight As, and Luke agrees, I’ll think of something fun for us to do afterwards. How about that?”

“Like a trip or something?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Gotta go. Need to study.”

Tia hung up in a hurry. Bribery worked wonders for politicians, so why not a teenager? Hopefully, she really would put some effort in.

I know I did. I worked stupidly hard that week, seething about my husband’s killer the entire time. In my head, I’d christened him Blanco—the anti-Black—and I imagined him as an over-the-top movie villain. In my quieter moments, I fantasised about dropping a house on him and seeing his feet shrivel up under the edge.

At least the DEA didn’t seem to care about what I wasn’t doing to catch him. In fact, the DEA didn’t seem to care what I did at all as long as I got them results. Over the next seven days, I took out three dealers, one supplier, found a decent-sized stash of bad coke stored in what looked like an ordinary suburban house, and gave them a fair few leads to the next step up the food chain.

I also got shot at twice, attacked with a machete once, twisted my ankle jumping from the second floor of a building, then got hideously drunk in a bar with my new DEA buddies at the end of it.

After waking up with a headache that convinced me the devil himself was holding a party in my skull, I decided perhaps I deserved a day off.

What’s more, it was my official birthday, as per my passport and the genuine fake birth certificate Black had supplied me with when we first met, and how better to celebrate than by spending the day in bed with a hangover, feeling sorry for myself and pretending the world outside didn’t exist? Thankfully Alex had the day off, or he’d have thrown cold water over me then dragged me out for a run. I knew this because it had happened before.

As it was, I managed to sleep until almost noon before Seth in the guardhouse woke me up. My phone blared with the sound of Pearl Jam’s Black, which I’d set as my ringtone after drinking most of a bottle of wine.

“There’s a guy here with a package for you.”

“So? Can’t you bring it to the house?

He ignored my tetchiness and kept his tone professional. “He’s insisting you come and sign for it yourself.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

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