Page 86 of Handle with Care
“I did. I am. It’s a museum emergency, at least. I… I hope you understand, I’ve been trying to get a hold of Will all week except he’s not answering my texts or calls and I’ve tried going to his flat but I don’t think he’s there because it’s totally dark three nights in a row and at work they—they’ve told me he’s—”Finally, I suck back air, my voice suddenly raw. I can’t say the word. “Yeah. So, I had to come find you. To make sure he’s okay. Because I can’t reach him.”
Gray’s expression softens at my obvious distress. “He’s had better times,” he acknowledges. “He’s also had worse times. He’s been at our parents’ home, out with a migraine for about three days, but he’s doing a little better today, I heard from our mum.”
“Shit. A migraine. I knew it.”
“It’s been a lot lately. But he’s safe at home with them, our parents.”
I sag with relief. “Thank God.”
Gray’s smile reassures me. Definite older-brother energy.
“I can’t… I’m so sorry for turning up unannounced like this. I didn’t know what to do. What to say. I miss him so much. I need him,” I blurt, my face burning.
He gives me a sympathetic look. “Do you want to try to talk to Will in person? I hear he’s out of bed today.”
I stare. “Please. Anything. It would mean so much. It would mean everything. Even… even if he tells me to go away to my face. Then, at least I’ll know.” I search his eyes. “Do you understand?”
He gives a small nod. Gray adjusts his leather bag over his shoulder like he does actually understand what I’m talking about. Then, it occurs to me he must have a life and a partner or at least evening plans to get to, but he’s unconcerned.
“Let’s go,” Gray says easily. “We’ll need to pick up my car from home.”
Together, we end up walking down south along the road I came in on from the station. We head down some side street where all the old houses look the same behind their lush hedges, providing privacy from the road and passersby. I follow him onto a small gravel driveway, where his sports car is parked. It’s not the red McLaren but an Audi.
Before long, we’re on our way to his family home, listening to the radio as we drive out of Cambridge through a series of shortcuts. I’ll never be able to find my way back again. It’s dizzying. I’m anxious but determined. I focus on my breathing.
“We still don’t know what’s happened with the missing exhibits,” I explain. “Everyone’s been looking. But I know we took the exhibits straight from the truck inside the museum and then downstairs. They can’t just vanish.”
“How many crates?” Gray asks.
“No crates. Only one box.” I gesture. “Not huge. Like a medium-sized box that I can carry. I swear we’ve looked everywhere. It was labeled, and we have photos too. And the loan receipts and everything.”
“If it’s not that large and space is at a premium, look inside everything that could fit a box. Someone may have put it away, trying to maximize space.”
“It’s got to be downstairs.” It doesn’t make any sense otherwise. “I’m still looking for it. We’ll find it, and then everything will come right.”
And all I can think of is Will.
Chapter Thirty-Five
After about half an hour in the car, we’re out in flat farmland in the Cambridgeshire fens, Gray tells me, and we drive up a long lane that loops around a display of trees and up to a country house. Beyond the house, there’re horses grazing, and there’s landscaping with the mature garden as impressive as the old Victorian house. It looks like something out of a postcard.
Doing my best to not gawp like a tourist at the stunning two-story brick house or the cars parked to the side on the loop: Will’s Rover, a Mercedes SUV, and now Gray’s sports car beside them.
Gray checks his watch after he turns off the engine. “Mum’s in, but she’s texted to say she had a meeting running late. Give me a moment to drop her a text back.”
We get out of the car, and I wait, glancing around in awe while Gray’s preoccupied with his phone. Birds sing in the late-summer warmth. The nearby grasses have turned golden. Pink roses climb the front of the house.
“Wow.” It escapes me before I can suppress it. I haven’t seen anything like this before.
Gray glances up and smiles. “We have a family farm.”
“Right.” I nod, wide-eyed. “Is that, um, a peacock?”
He chuckles. “Yes. There’re a couple of them around. Also, plenty of deer. And my mum’s horses. We also board them. The horses, not the peacocks. The peacocks are freeloaders. There’s about sixty acres or so.”
My eyebrows climb. “Huh.”
And here to think I grew up in the inner-city suburbs of Vancouver in a small condo. The closest park was a paved hardscape. Great for music festivals, not so great for the whole nature thing. This is totally beyond anything I could imagine.
