Page 87 of Carbon

“Acting out? She thinks I’m acting out? She and Gregory wanted to send me to a psychiatrist.”

“They’re just worried. We all are.”

“Try worrying about her. Have you seen how much she’s been drinking lately? Vodka for breakfast, gin for lunch, a bottle of red with dinner.”

He ran a hand through his hair that was now more silver than brown, leaving it a mess at odds with his perfectly pressed suit. “Dorothy made me aware of the problem. But this is a difficult time for your mother, and you need to allow her a little leeway.”

“I’m allowing her plenty of leeway by moving out.”

“Augusta...”

“Look, she needs help. She’s impossible to live with, and you’re never around.”

“Things have been busy at work.”

“And work comes before family; I know that.”

“That’s not how it is.”

“It’s exactly how it is. I’m sorry, but I just can’t be at home right now.”

A crowd had gathered around the gate, and I didn’t have the composure to push past them at the moment. Father tried to follow as I walked back into the cemetery, but I waved him away.

“Not now, okay?”

Emmy trailed me back to Angie’s grave, and damp from the grass seeped through the fabric of my dress as I sank to the ground beside both of them.

“This is all such a mess,” I whispered.

“I’ll help you fix it if you’ll let me.”

The black hole yawned beside us, and I didn’t want to attend another funeral in the near future. Ben had already been hurt once. What if the man went after him again? Being dead was worse than being in jail, and neither of us could do this alone anymore.

“His name isn’t Beau.”

“We figured as much, but I’ll admit we’re struggling with his history. Do you know who he really is?”

“Ben. Ben Durham.”

“He told you that?”

“Kind of. It turned out I already knew.”

The whole story came spilling out, from the way I’d fallen in little-girl love with Ben as an eight-year-old to realising he and Beau were one and the same person.

At the end, Emmy shook her head incredulously. “I figured there was more, but never that much more. So, he wasn’t running away when he arrived at Shotley Manor, he was running to someone. You.”

“I guess.”

“Shit, honey, this must be destroying you.”

“Pretty much.”

“We’ll find him; I promise. Now we’ve got a name to go on, things should get easier. Are you ready to head back to London?”

“Right now, I want to curl into a ball and rock.”

“Could you do it in bed? It looks like it’s about to rain.”

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