Page 75 of Two for Joy

Fred took them off, then backed away. Romeo brought his hands to the front of his body and massaged the pinched flesh. It was the first time in almost a year he’d been in a room with people without his hands cuffed at his back.

The DI gestured to the chair in front of Romeo, and he sat down, trying to read their expressions. They ranged from Zac’s defeatism, to the DI’s anger, to Gareth’s remorseful, darting eyes.

“Leave.” The DI said.

Paul and Fred scarpered from the room, and the door slammed shut behind them.

“At 4:30 this morning, we received a call from Mary King’s house. We immediately went to Mary’s cottage, thirty miles out from Hatton.”

“The killer got his number two.” Romeo said. “Not Chad, everyone in the county is looking for him, there’s no way he could’ve done it.”

Gareth closed his eyes and hung his head. “It’s not Chad.”

“You’ve got to find him, get him somewhere safe. He won’t be so reluctant to be found now the Copy—”

“Wait.” Zac said, holding his hand up for Romeo to stop.

“Why…”

The DI cleared his throat. “We searched around the cottage, the wooded areas, the fields, and we found a car we believe Chad has been using.”

“A car.” Romeo said, looking at each of them. “So what?”

“We believe the killer has Chad.”

Romeo stopped breathing. He held his breath and searched each of their eyes in turn. They weren’t lying, they looked as if they’d already given up, Chad was as good as dead.

Romeo’s head got hotter, felt stuffier, muffled, full of cotton wool, and he was pretty sure he was about to pass out, then someone grabbed his hand.

The most unexpected person out of the three of them. Gareth had reached across the table and took hold of Romeo’s hand. The unexpectedness cleared Romeo’s head, and he got himself under control.

“Help us find him, please.”

Romeo looked at Gareth, the desperation in his eyes, the twitching of his brow, the nod of his head. Romeo exhaled hard, then gulped for breath. Gareth seemed to come to his senses too, he looked down at his hand on Romeo’s then quickly snatched it back.

“You found the car he’d been using,” Romeo said. “That doesn’t mean the killer’s got Chad.”

“On the driver’s seat there was a rock with Chad’s blood on it… The car looked as if it had been placed, not abandoned.”

Romeo closed his eyes. He’d knocked Chad out with a rock, that was common knowledge.

“And there was a note.”

“What note?”

Gareth reached down for something, then placed an evidence bag in front of Romeo. He hesitated, flexed his fingers, then reached for it. Printed in the middle of an A4 piece of paper were the words; Theonethat got away.

“He’s got Chad.” Romeo said.

It hit him harder when it came from his mouth. He was struck dumb, unable to say anything else, unable to think beyond that thought.

Someone had Chad.

Another monster.

“We seized Holly’s laptop.” The DI said. “We’ve got her files and notes. We’ve got techs going through it, seeing if the laptop was used on the day of the break in, seeing if the documents had been saved to an external hard drive.”

Romeo nodded. “The killer must be someone who knew Holly was writing about me. It must be someone at the Canster Times.”

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