Heatwave by Oliver Davies

Author:Oliver Davies [Davies, Oliver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-04-18T16:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

“What do you mean, they’ve moved it?”

“I mean, they’ve moved messaging sites,” Keira said, giving me a flat look.

I swore quietly and rubbed a hand over my face. I’d wondered why the teens’ chat had gone so quiet suddenly, with barely a fraction of the messages that had been there before. The messages that were being posted were all asking the same thing that I’d wanted to know.

Where had everyone else gone?

Clearly, those had been the kids that no-one cared enough to invite to the new site, wherever that was. Like me, they’d been left behind, uninformed about what the teens would do next.

“They must have realised we were onto them, somehow,” I reasoned.

“Could it have been our visit to see Jules?” Stephen wondered aloud.

We were clustered around my desk, with Keira leaning her hip against the table and looking uncharacteristically tired. Work really had been putting her through the wringer recently with all the extra hours I knew she’d been clocking.

“We didn’t tell him we knew about it, did we?” I said, certain that we hadn’t. “Adams, you don’t think they could’ve seen you snooping? Realised that you’d found the site or something?”

“Please give me some credit.” She looked close to rolling her eyes at me. “I didn’t leave a digital trace that some teenager could pick up, Mitchell. If they found out about the site, it was from something you two did.”

“Jeez, thanks.”

“Mickey could’ve told them,” Stephen offered.

“We didn’t even know about the site when we spoke to him, though.”

“Yeah, but he knew we wanted to know about it, and badly. He could’ve made the connection when we turned up for this fire so fast.”

“We weren’t here when it was set alight. We could’ve just heard about the fire on the radio.”

“Sure, but we would’ve made the connection between the teens and the fire pretty fast, wouldn’t we?”

“You really think that they could’ve figured that out from that information alone?” I said, doubtful.

“I’ll leave you two to bicker- I mean, debate your opinions,” Keira said dryly.

“Wait, Adams. You’ll look for the new site they’re on, right? We really need-”

“Yes, I know. It’s absolutely crucial, urgent, top priority, cannot be delayed. Just like every other task I get sent.” She turned and left before I could respond, and I frowned after her.

“She’s not usually that blunt with me.”

“She’s stressed.” Stephen pulled a sympathetic face. “Her workload’s been heavy, and I think she’s got some issues with her brother. He’s struggling to get a job, and she wants him to move out, something like that.”

We’d dealt with Keira’s brother during a previous case relatively recently when he’d become embroiled in a blackmail scheme. Both of us had barely escaped being pulled to our deaths in the river when he tried to escape me running after him. It was safe to say that I wasn’t best fond of the guy, even though I had some sympathy for the impossible position he’d been put in.

“How d'you know that?”

“I have my sources for gossip,” he said, giving me a sideways grin.

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