The Warning by Sophie Hannah

Author:Sophie Hannah [Hannah, Sophie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Witness Impulse
Published: 2014-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14

THE SUGAR RUSH from my waffle—­which is probably delicious, but I barely taste it—­ought to make my brain move faster, but it’s not working. Neither is the caffeine from my second cup of tea. “I don’t get it,” I tell Simon. “I listened as carefully as I’ve ever listened to anything—­I don’t need you to repeat a single word—­but I didn’t hear anything worrying or suspicious.”

“Me neither,” says Charlie.

Simon jerks his head at Lorna. “What about you?”

She’ll never admit she spotted nothing. Never. After a few seconds, she says, “His three jobs—­did he move around by choice from company to company, or was he sacked? You say he ‘went’ from Sagentia to Intel, then ‘made another move’ to CamEgo . . .”

Simon lurches forward, nearly knocking over our flimsy plastic table. “That’s the question I was hoping to hear.” He looks happy, or what I assume is happy for him. Not grumpy, anyway.

“I think it’s a daft question,” I say. “Sorry, Lorna, but . . . Intel, CamEgo—­these are serious companies. He wouldn’t have got a job at either without amazing references from his previous employers, would he? And he wouldn’t have got those if he’d been fired.”

“Are you sure?” Simon asks me.

My breath catches in my throat. “No, but—­”

“Forget guessing and focus on what we know. Facts. Indisputable ones. When were you planning to tell me you tweeted Nadine Caspian yesterday?”

“You did what?” says Lorna.

“Do you want me to find out the truth for you or not?” Simon glares at me. “If you do, tell me everything.”

“Simon!” Charlie hits his arm with her toffee-­sauce-­stained plastic fork. “Chloe isn’t a criminal. She doesn’t have to tell you a single iota more than she wants to.”

“I didn’t mention it only because I thought it was neither here nor there,” I say, feeling my face heat up.

“Yeah, well, luckily I found it, and it points in the same direction as everything else. Your tweet to Nadine: ‘What have you got against Tom Rigbey?’ or words to that effect. Hers to you: ‘He’s a sociopath. Leave me alone. You’re blocked.’ You didn’t find that interesting?”

“No.” I blink away tears. “I found it nasty and slanderous and . . .”

“Slanderous?” Simon leaps on the word. “Because she didn’t back it up with facts?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“She gave you only one word to go on: sociopath. Still, it’s a big one, as words go. Has Tom said anything to you about being fired? Sorry, I’ll rephrase that: has he ever mentioned the circumstances in which he left either Sagentia or Intel?”

“No! I’ve hardly had a chance to speak to him about anything. We’ve only just met.”

And yet you’re wearing a diamond ring—­a ring that means you intend to marry him—­on a chain around your neck.

I don’t know why I do what I do next. It’s an urge I can’t restrain. Perhaps I’m impatient to have the worst over with. I remove my scarf, hook my finger around the gold chain and pull it out so that the ring is visible.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.