Family Business by Sims Jonathan

Author:Sims, Jonathan
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473228801
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2022-10-13T00:00:00+00:00

13

Connections

Neither Diya nor Mary spoke for a long time. Around them, the sounds of the cafe had quieted to a burbling background murmur. A thousand questions swirled through Diya’s mind at what she had been told, coffee long gone cold between her hands. How much of it could she believe? Surely she should take them for exactly what they were: half-remembered stories told by a dead brother, and strange discoveries made by a grief-fuelled imagination. It wasn’t as though George was around to confirm any of his sister’s wild assertions. But there was no deception in Mary’s face, and after everything Diya had seen and heard over the months they had worked together, she couldn’t just dismiss what she had heard.

‘What did you do with it?’ Diya asked at last, her voice surprisingly calm. ‘The notebook and the other stuff?’

‘What could I do?’ Mary did an admirable job keeping her voice steady. ‘I threw the stuff away and cleaned it up. Xen wouldn’t have understood and Dad, well, I don’t know how much I trust him with this.’

‘But you said it was protective, if you got rid of it …’ Mary did believe this stuff, after all.

‘What? My brother might die again?’ Her voice stung with bitterness. ‘It didn’t work the first time, did it?’

‘No,’ Diya said. ‘No, it didn’t.’

‘You don’t have to believe me,’ Mary said, and for a moment Diya worried she might just be psychic after all. ‘But I thought you deserved to know.’

‘Yeah, thanks.’ Even having listened to the whole story, Diya wasn’t sure what she did know. She took a deep breath. If she was going to accept any of this, she might as well dive all the way in. ‘You said George started getting marks on him? Injuries?’

‘When they started getting really bad, his visions.’ Mary nodded. ‘That was around when he stopped talking to me about them.’

Diya slowly slid up her sleeve, showing the half-healed scrape she’d received at Cottage Grove. Mary watched, like she had been waiting for this moment. Like she was finally about to be believed.

‘What does it mean?’ A half-sob escaped Diya before she could stifle it. ‘What is happening to me?’

The sudden break in her friend’s demeanour caught Mary off-guard, and she fumbled for an answer.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Could it be …’ Diya tried to pick her next words carefully. ‘Could it be something to do with your dad?’

Mary shook her head violently.

‘No. With Grandpa and Uncle Dave, I’ve no idea, I only know what George told me. But I know, I know that my dad would never have hurt George. He’d have died himself before he let anything happen to him. And even if … George just slipped in the shower and broke his neck. The bathroom door was locked. No sign of a struggle. Nothing suspicious. Just an accident.’

Her voice had become flat as she rattled off the words that police officers must have repeated to her over and over again when it happened.

Diya didn’t respond immediately.

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.