“How can you trust him again?”
“Because he’s got enough guilt to remind him of what happens when he takes his eyes off the ball. He knows better than to lose sight of her again.”
“So where is she?” Freddie sprawls himself over one of the two sofas by the fireplace.
“At her sister’s.”
“How come Casper didn’t know?”
“We think she stays at our house when he goes over.”
“You think?” Picking up one of the small china bowls on the coffee table, he spins it on his finger. “You’ve got a tail on her and you think?”
“Fine, she stays at the house when Casper goes to Georgina’s. Better?”
“I don’t know, Christopher!” he snaps, sitting up straight. “Your daughter’s dead. Your wife almost died. And fuck, we’re still operating on thinks and supposes and who the fucks and what the fucks! We’re pussyfooting about bribing nobodies and making fucking deals with pricks!”
“What do you want, Freddie?” My bellow echoes around the suite because he keeps talking like he’s the one who had to watch his child die. Like it’s his wife who’s out there with another man.
“We’re not those people. Or at least I’m not. We’re going about in circles when we should be doing something. I’m fed up of doing fuck all every time something happens.” Pacing around the sofa in circles, he pauses by the fireplace. Opening the glass dome to the Cogsworth-looking clock, he spins the arms randomly before he closes it up.
“We are doing something.”
“It’s what everyone always says, and yet, we’re still here. People dying, missing…”
“We’re doing something.” I repeat, heading towards the bedroom I’m using. It’s the smaller of the two, but the other has too many memories of its own. “Fix the clock.”
“Killing that cunt isn’t doing much. It’s a mercy to the world.”
“Well, we can call it a mercy killing, then.” I shut the bedroom door as I head for the en suite.
I can sense him going off the rails again. His anger is rife. He’s thirsty for blood, and so am I.
“You good?” Leo asks from beside me as I pause at the entrance to the hospital.
The place is a fucking shithole. Half of it is crumbling while the other is being rebuilt. The glass sliding doors are shattered with a plastic film holding them together, and the pungent smell of piss and vomit punch the air.
The hallway is long, and the yellow lighting gives it an eerie feel that has my ribs constricting around my organs.
“You okay?”
No, I’m not okay.
It’s the first time I’m stepping inside a hospital since…
“Look, if it’s too much, you don’t have to be here. Freddie and I’ve got this.”
No fucking way.
The grating noise of the badly maintained doors runs through me as I carry on putting one foot in front of the other. “Let?
?s go.”
“He deserves this.” Walking beside me, Leo walks straight through the emergency room littered with people.
Looking down at my phone, I flick it open, my daughter’s photo glowing up at me, bright in the shitty hospital lighting.
This is all that’s left of her. The only memories I’ll ever have of my baby girl are of her fighting for her life.