Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,42
a woman. I’d assumed he meant work took priority at that time, but what if he’d been trying to tell me in a roundabout way that he preferred men?
“Beth?”
“Oh,” was all I managed to say.
“Shit, I’m sorry. You like him?”
“Alaric’s just a friend. Really. If he’s happy with Ravi, then I’m happy he’s happy.” Desperate to change the subject, I latched onto something else. “What were you doing up with Judd in the middle of the night?”
A long pause.
“I was a bit upset. Everything…it just got to me. I was trying to stay quiet, but Judd must have superhuman hearing because he heard me crying and came in to check I was okay. And when I wasn’t, he took me downstairs and made me hot chocolate. See what I mean? He’s nice. And he looks out for me. He drives me to work every day and picks me up, and…and…that’s the main reason I’m calling, actually. Judd said not to say anything, that he’d handle it, but…”
See? I was right, even though I wished with all my heart I’d been wrong.
“What happened?”
“Judd picks me up from the gallery, and he waits out the front in his car. Did you know he drives a Jaguar?”
“No.” And I didn’t care either. “Gemma, what happened?”
“There was a girl standing outside this afternoon with a baby in her arms. Really nervous looking. And she asked if I knew an American man who’d been asking questions on the Bellsfield Estate.”
Alaric. Or possibly Ravi. It had to be. And they’d been asking those questions right before we’d killed a man. Me, Alaric, Ravi, Emmy, Sky, and Gemma. We’d all been involved.
Shit.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing! I had no clue what to say. Judd got out of the car, and I thought he’d help me, but then this woman walked past on the phone—one of those hoity-toity types, you know the ones—and she wasn’t watching where she was going. She just walked right into the girl. And the girl fell into the road, and there was a car coming…”
Now I felt even sicker. “The baby?”
“She tried to jump out of the way, but she lost her balance and kind of threw the baby. I managed to catch it, but Judd couldn’t get to her in time.” Gemma gulped back a sob. “She bounced off the car and hit her head on the pavement.”
It was a good thing I’d sat down already. This whole case was jinxed. More than once, Alaric had muttered about the Becker paintings being cursed, and I was beginning to believe him.
“Is she okay?”
“I don’t know. She’s in the hospital. We followed the ambulance in the car, and the police were on their way, and I was panicking because what if she knows what we did and she tells them? And Judd told me not to worry, that he’d sort it out.”
At that moment, I wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“What did he do?”
“Well, they wouldn’t tell us anything at first because apparently they can only talk to next of kin. So he fibbed a tiny bit.”
Uh-oh. “What did he say?”
Another pause, and I imagined Gemma biting her lip the way she always did when she got nervous.
“He told the nurse that the girl was his wife and the baby was his.”
“He did what?”
“The good news is that we’re allowed in to see her now—I’m his sister, by the way—but Alaric isn’t answering his phone and neither is Emmy, so Judd basically made up a name for the girl because we have no idea who she is. Plus we also have a baby to look after. I don’t suppose you know where Alaric disappeared to?”
“No, but he’s meant to be coming to pick me up soon.”
“Oh, thank goodness. Could you get him to call Judd? And don’t tell him I told you any of this. We didn’t want to worry you.”
Usually, I tried to avoid swearing out loud, but “fuck” really was the only appropriate word in that situation. It just slipped out.
“Where’s the baby, Gemma?”
“On the sofa. Judd’s gone to the shop to buy food and nappies.”
“Is it old enough to eat food?” And I couldn’t keep calling the baby “it.” “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“Neither of us has looked yet, but Judd found a growth chart on the internet, and we measured it with a ruler. We reckon it’s about six months old.”