Page 30 of Love Bleeds Red
Her face has gone still, her lips pressed into a tight crescent. I remember that expression from childhood, the same one she’d wear when I’d get home late without calling, a split lip and bruises adorning my face.
“Missing? What happened?” she finally asks.
“She was taken. I’ve been trying to find her for over a year now.” I avoid the harsh reality—words like trafficked, kidnapped, sold. Even letting them float around my mind has me clenching my pencil.
I add more details to my sketch, the scattering of freckles along the bridge of her nose, the hint of a scar on her chin from where she tripped on a rock when she was seven, the way her eyes narrow slightly when she’s deep in thought. Mum watches me draw, until her touch stops my hand in motion.
“You love her.”
Not a question. She knows me better. I swallow hard.
“More than anything.”
Admitting my feelings aloud to someone important feels like releasing myself from a cage. Like busting free into a full blown sprint and running and running until my limbs explode. I’ve been holding it in for so long, I almost forgot I was in a cage of my own making.
“Oh, son,” Mum croons.
I force myself to focus on my drawing, because I know if I were to look into her eyes, I’d see sadness there, and I can’t let myself break. I add shading to Bailey’s hair, remembering how soft it felt between my fingers.
Now that I’ve thrown open those cage doors, I can’t stop the words from spilling out. “She’s Jasper’s sister, Mum. My best mate’s little sister, and I failed her. She texted me the night she was taken, and I didn’t answer. I was in some stupid study group when I could have?—”
“Leon,” she cuts in. “Stop. Look at me.”
I drop my pencil and hide my face in my hands. She pries them free, one finger at a time, giving me no choice but to meet her gaze.
“It’s not your fault.”
I shake my head. She doesn’t know. Doesn’t understand. “How can you say that? If I’d answered her text, if I’d gone to meet her?—”
“You don’t know that. Whoever took her could have hurt you or worse. You cannot carry this burden.”
She pushes the steaming cup of tea in front of me. Instead of arguing, I sip and go back to my drawing. I want to believe her, but I can’t. I won’t. I know I could have prevented her being taken. There’s no guesswork to it.
“What’s her name?” Mum asks gently.
“Bailey.” Saying it aloud makes my skin tingle, my stomach flip. “Bailey Shea.”
“She’s beautiful.”
I take in the nearly finished sketch. Even in pencil, even from memory, Bailey’s warmth comes through. “She is. Inside and out. She was studying to be a teacher, wanted to help kids learn how to read. She bakes when she’s stressed and loves to joke around, especially with her brother. She’s fierce, but not afraid to be vulnerable, kind and unselfish, and so damn brilliant, and she’s been trapped in hell for eighteen months because I wasn’t there when she needed me.”
Mum is quiet, studying both me and the drawing. “And this business in London? It’s about finding her?”
“The trail led here. To people with connections...” I hesitate, then decide she can handle a version of the truth. I’ve told her this much already. “To powerful people,” I continue. “People who can make others disappear.”
“Dangerous people?”
“Yes.”
She sips her tea, her hand shaking slightly. I hope she’s putting the pieces together, because I don’t want to outright tell her much more. She’s wise, knows how to read the spaces between my words more than most. I never told her why I suddenly transferred universities and left home. Why I haven’t come back since. But I’m sure she has an idea.
“You can’t do this alone,” she says finally.
“I know.” I close the sketchbook and reach for my phone. “That’s why I need to make some calls.”
I hug Mum again, thank her for the tea and the chat, and head up the staircase to my bedroom. I want to analyze all the information I gathered at the global outreach office. It’s not much, but maybe it’ll offer another important detail, preferably about Orlov’s connection to my father. But first, I flop onto the bed and call Damon. It’s time I update him and the others on everything I found today.
He answers on the first ring.
