Scorch (Virtues & Lies 2)

“Yeah, dates.”

“Of?”

“See that’s the funny thing, most of them appeared to be insignificant. But there was one that meant a lot more than I thought…to Freddie.” The solemnness in his voice is staggering as I pace the length of the hearth. “I can’t stand Harry Stanton. The guy’s an arrogant prick, but the date of his daughter’s disappearance is on those papers. I don’t know much on it; I remember it being all over the news one minute and completely hushed the next. I always thought it was strange that Laura never mentioned it. She was so vocal about everything else, but never about her sister.”

Nobody talks about Lucy Stanton. Not even her dad, the one man who has endless resources at his fingertips to find her or at least what happened to her.

“That’s the lead he found?”

“You knew?”

“He said something, but I…” Fuck, now I sound like the worst kind of motherfucker. “Freddie thinks he finds a lead and goes crazy, then it turns out to be nothing. I assumed it was the same thing. If he’d told me the whole deal…”

“There’s more. The other dates, they’re all missing people. Female and male. They’re all somehow connected to someone high up in politics or industry, someone with sway, but every single one of those missing people is pretty much forgotten about. It’s like they cease to exist.”

His expression pinches as he buries his face in his hands. Shaky breaths fill the air, and if we were different people, I’d attempt to comfort him. Those nameless and faceless people aren’t the only ones who disappeared into nothingness. Forgotten by a world they left invisible footprints on.

Kit, Carina, and Grandad are already old news, their lives a blip in history, unfortunate victims of fate to a world spared of its reality.

My heart aches with my chest threatening to cave in at the way everything is conveniently brushed under the carpet.

This is the life we live though, and as unjust as it is…

“Leo, we have enough on our plate without chasin—”

“I’m not Freddie.” His statement is blunt and final. “But someone tried to take Cassie too.”

Bingo!

It should’ve been obvious where this was going. I know Leo well enough to know he doesn’t let shit go. The only way he lets go of a grudge is by eradicating the source. It’s why he fucked over his family’s firm.

To get back at Lucian. Except in the end it wasn’t Lucian who was the bad guy.

Standing here, I can feel his frustration over it. I feel it eat at him.

“I’ve never put you and Freddie into comparison.”

“You’re looking at me like I’m mad,” he spits. “But think about it, the minute we were on their tail, they went for Cass. What’s to say it wasn’t the same people that took the Stanton girl?”

This conversation is familiar. Different to the last conversation Dad and I had with Grandad in this house, but it feels the same.

How are we having the same conversations even after everything that’s happened?

We’re still chasing after shadows.

“How does a girl like Lucy Stanton disappear into thin air? She was on every fucking magazine, newspaper… She was just like Cass and Bella.”

“I understand what you’re saying, and no, I don’t think you’re mad. However, we have nothing that says your suspicions are right.”

“Those pages say it’s got to be more than coincidence, and I think they all know. It’s why they’re blocking us.”

“That doesn’t make sense. And as much as I want to have someone to fucking blame for all this…” Turning away from the fire, I sit on the antique upholstered coffee table. The old Georgian piece creaks as it bears my weight. “Look, we can sit here and put everything together to paint a picture we both want, but in the end if it’s wrong, what’s the point?”

“The point is we’re all being played. It means that someone on the inside is fucking every one of our plays. And Francis and Benedict wouldn’t hang us out to dry. There’s only one person that has managed to stay on the outskirts of all this.”

“Charles has to.”

“He has to keep things clean, not stand in our way.”