When He's Not Here (The Sharif Thrillers Book 1) by Carrie Magillen

Author:Carrie Magillen [Magillen, Carrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781913692001
Publisher: Little Robin Press
Published: 2020-08-09T22:00:00+00:00

As always, J brought me coffee before he left for work, but he didn’t speak to me. He didn’t even kiss me goodbye. His silence hangs in the air as if he’s still here, and his words – you need to get out of the house more – still echo around the apartment’s high ceilings.

My mobile sits on my dressing table and I stare at it while scrabbling around in the drawer for my folic acid and vitamin tablets, which are more important now than they’ve ever been. I fight with the childproof caps before downing them with my coffee as if they’re meds for the mentally unstable.

Next to my phone sits the notepad with the woman’s Oxford number written on it. What the fuck am I thinking? I snatch up my phone, throw it across the room, and make Teddy jump when it thuds on the bed. Then, notepad in hand, I go and get it, sit on the edge, and stare at the screen. Teddy nuzzles into me for reassurance.

Preceding the number with 141, so mine can’t be traced, I dial.

I hang up.

Then dial again. Hang up. And dial again.

The phone rings for a painfully long time before a woman answers.

‘Hello?’ She sounds groggy. I’ve woken her. ‘Hello? Is anyone there?’ Her accent is thick, American. From the south, like J’s before it mellowed. ‘Hello?’

I hang up and stare at her number. This woman is here, in town somewhere, but J’s firm is London-based. Is it a coincidence that one of his clients – an American client – just happens to live in the same city? Why not hire a local lawyer?

Although J is guarded over what he reveals of his cases, he knows he can trust me. He doesn’t reveal confidential details, but he always tells me what he’s working on. Perhaps this case is so confidential he can’t reveal a single detail, but why not mention an American client?

I remember his tone: that resentful familiarity. Surely, he wouldn’t speak to a paying client that way? A member of his family, maybe, but not a client. But J has no family. He was an only child, his parents died when he was eleven, and he lost contact with all of his friends when he left America. When we got married, his side of the aisle was filled with work colleagues. She must be a new friend, someone he made an immediate connection with because of their common birthplace, perhaps. But then, why not tell me? He’s never mentioned anyone named Vi.

I massage my eyelids, as if that might knead sense into my fogged brain. My eyes are dry and sore. I lean across the bed and fumble around in the bedside drawer for the pregnancy test, trying to buoy myself up by staring at the positive result, but the screen is blank. Its batteries have died.

I need to see it again.

I can cope with anything as long as my mind stays on the endgame. But the pregnancy doesn’t feel real yet, not when I’m not showing.

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