Page 63 of Carbon

“It’s okay. I just can’t stop getting upset every time I think about it.”

“Do you want to go back to the house?”

I shook my head and pasted on a shaky smile. “No, I don’t.”

He stepped in close and turned my chin to face him. “You’re braver than you think, Augusta.”

Why did he have to be nice? It got me all confused. I wanted to hate Nye for what he planned to do to Ben, but at the same time, I liked him.

“I don’t know about that. Okay, I’ll leave the stationery behind.”

“Look around—Davies lefteverythingbehind. The only thing missing was in this space, and if I was a betting man, I’d guess he’d prepared a go-bag.”

“A what?”

“A bag with all the essentials he needed if he had to leave in a hurry. The man was prepared to run. But why?”

Nausea spread through my belly. Ben had planned to leave? I was as clueless as Nye.

“I really don’t know.”

“This time, Augusta, I believe you.”

* * *

“Now what?” I asked as we walked back to the house.

Nye had locked the door on the cottage, shutting away the remains of Ben’s life in Sandlebury.

“I need to get back to London. I’ve got a meeting at one.”

“About Beau?”

“No, about one of my other cases. I’m only working this one personally as a favour to your father—usually, I’d assign a missing person’s case like this to a member of my team.”

“Will you be coming back?”

“At some point. I need to speak to my police contacts and see if we can work together on this, plus run a wider electronic search on our mysterious Mr. Davies. I don’t suppose you’ve got a photo of him?”

Only an out-of-focus snap from his tenth birthday party, and Nye wasn’t having that. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“And your father told me there’s no CCTV on the estate?”

I shook my head. “Mother always hated the idea of having cameras everywhere, and so did Angie.”

“Because she used to sneak out?”

“Sometimes.”

A low vibration interrupted us, and Nye pulled a sleek black phone from his pocket and glanced at the screen.

“Hey, Jannie.”

He listened, eyebrows knitting together. “Sorry, for a moment there, I thought you said you’d cleared my entire schedule for the next month.”

And he really didn’t sound happy about it.

“But it’s just a missing suspect. Why is he so important?”

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