Red After Dark (Blackwood Security #13) - Elise Noble Page 0,46
doesn’t it?”
By lunchtime, we’d spoken to half the people on Stéphane’s list, but all of them denied coming to Lone Oak Farm. Some hadn’t even heard of the senator. Harriet had gone back out to the horses, and Stéphane was seeing to Irvine, who seemed happy to eat his lunch today. My voice was hoarse from talking, but Alaric still sounded smooth in every way.
“Is this what you do every day?” I asked him.
“Fortunately, no. I usually deal with intelligence gathering at a higher level. Take a break, sweetheart. Drink something.”
“But there are still so many names left.”
“A lot of these people seem to be busy filming in the afternoons. I think we’ll have better luck trying again tomorrow morning, and I need to call Judd in any case.”
Gemma had phoned in sick, and apparently Hugo wasn’t happy since she’d also taken the whole of last week off. But when she pointed out that she’d most likely got her imaginary cold from his coughing and spluttering, he soon piped down. The baby was eating and pooping, she said. Mostly pooping.
Alaric propped his tablet up on the table, and I squashed onto the bench next to him. Urgh, Judd looked terrible. Had he slept at all since the accident?
“How’s it going?” Alaric asked.
“I’d forgotten how bad hospital food tastes.”
“Why are you eating hospital food?”
“I’ve been here the whole night.”
“What about visiting hours?”
“What can I say? The nurses like me.”
“How’s Hevrin? Any change?”
Then we heard a weak whisper coming from the speakers. “Why does everyone keep calling me Nada?”
Judd’s head whipped around, and in the background, I saw Hevrin for the first time. Slender with dark hair, fine features, and wires sprouting from both arms.
“Hey, you’re awake,” Judd said.
“Where am I?” She tried to sit up. “Where’s Indy?”
“Indy’s your daughter? She’s fine. We’re taking care of her.”
Hevrin’s voice rose in panic. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“You’re in the hospital. A car hit you. And I’m… Well, it’s a tad complicated. You were looking for an American man, and…”
Hevrin leaned forward, piercing eyes fixed on the screen, and then she seemed to relax infinitesimally.
“It’s you?” she asked, and I realised she was talking to Alaric.
“Yes. I’m sorry I can’t be there in person.”
“I still don’t understand what happened.”
“You were talking to Gemma outside the Pemberton gallery when a woman got impatient and shoved you under a car.”
Hevrin closed her eyes again. “I don’t remember. I was going to go to the gallery, but I don’t remember.”
“My friend here came with you to the hospital, and he called you Nada because he didn’t know your name at the time. None of us wanted to see your little girl taken in by the authorities.”
“Did she get hurt too?”
Alaric smiled. “Not even a scratch. Gemma caught her.”
“Alhamdulillah,” she breathed, her voice barely audible.
“Are you up to speaking? Or would you like to see the doctors? Get them to check you over?”
“I’ve been through worse.”
Alaric squeezed my hand under the table. “That doesn’t make it okay.”
“I can talk. I just wanted to thank you. That’s why I came. And also to tell you that I’m not living in my flat at the moment. The food…”
Judd’s brow furrowed. Guess Alaric had forgotten to mention the part about the care package to him.
“What happened to your flat?”
“The police are in it.”
“Why?”
“There was a bad smell, so the council came. They took apart the plumbing and found… Eunice said it was pieces of leg. A person’s leg. Then all the stuff we normally flush down the toilet got stuck behind it, and the blockage got worse, and the bathrooms near the bottom of the tower flooded. Some of the pipes run behind the walls in my flat, so now the police are pulling them down.”
Oh. My. Gosh. I regretted the chicken I’d eaten for lunch because it nearly came straight back up again.
“They found body parts?” Alaric asked, and he sounded incredulous too.
“That’s what Eunice said. They didn’t tell me much, just said I had to go.”
“Go where?”
“To a bed and breakfast. In Ealing.” She cracked the tiniest smile. “The hospital is actually nicer.”
A door opened, not in the farmhouse but in the hospital. Judd’s head turned to the side, and I heard a female voice.
“Mrs. Millais-Scott, you’re awake. Good. How are you feeling?”
Hevrin looked puzzled, but only for a second.
“Much better, thank you.”
The screen went blank. Wow. Working for Sirius was like living in a soap opera.
Alaric didn’t say anything straight away, just poured himself a glass of