Page 81 of Second Story

He pauses as if waiting for an answer.

I can’t give one. Can’t breathe. Can’t give him anything but silence.

“Isaac, you gotta trust me on this.” His own breathing hitches. “Please.”

Who knows why that final word snips through a strangling crab line, but I can inhale enough to wheeze out, “How?”

“By...” I hear his swallow over the clack of wheels on train tracks. “By giving me until tomorrow to make Josh tell you himself. Before your emergency visit, yeah? Shit, no. It’s right when I’ll be at court. I’ll postpone,” he offers. “I’ll make it happen. Leave it to me. You get the next train, and I’ll meet you—” His next curse is muffled. “No. That won’t work either. This is the last train out today, and the first one in the morning won’t get you there in time.” He’s as strangled as I feel. “Thank fuck I fixed your van.”

I can move then. Can end our call to sprint across a station car park towards a rusty Transit. The driver’s seat is a weird place to replay what Luke once listed outside a school chapel, butfight hits hard regardless, and it’s a good thing Joe’s brother isn’t in Cornwall. I’d lash out first and ask questions later.

I can’t count how many times I’ve wanted some alone time with whoever made her arrest happen, never once thinking a da Silva would be a contender. I told myself that prison was too good for whoever took her from us. That I’d incinerate every single thing they valued.

My last sight of Joe was of him already ashen, and my next urge to fight should only be for my missing parent. Or for Len, who lost so much more than his voice. It’s Joe I can’t stop picturing, which is a mindfuck given what else Mum typed.

You can’t trust him.

I battle that, but like Luke promised about fight, flight swoops in next for a rollercoaster ride along the coast road. Freeze slams me hard on the approach to a familiar lay-by where I pull over to message Ruth about having to leave a day early. And thank fuck for her quick thumbs-up. I can set aside worrying about my brother when I know he’s in her safe hands.

Another message arrives from Joe.

Please, please drive carefully.

Flight takes the wheel again on the way out of the county. My hands clench around the wheel as I make slow progress behind Friday traffic just when I need to hurry. Who knows what the hell I’m thinking—there’s no way I’ll be fast enough to catch up with Joe’s train at the next station.Besides, what would I tell him?

All I know for sure is that if Mum isn’t mistaken, I can’t be around his brother.

Ever.

How can I, when I’ll only want to end him?

A car horn beeps behind me. That blast barely registers. Neither does the sun starting to set in my rearview mirror, andif there are stars above the road north later when traffic finally starts to pick up speed, I don’t see them.

All I see is Joe.

He’s visible in the outline of each sleeping giant formed from granite. So must be the heart of the da Silva who led the drug squad to my mother instead of leading her away from danger.

Like Joe would have.

I feel that to my core, and not due to another trauma response Luke first suggested.

I’m not fawning. What I am is certain that Joe wouldn’t have kept this from me. He’s as steady as my van’s engine, which doesn’t cough or rattle now he’s taken care of it like he did with me.With us.With my whole family.

He’s the reason Mum could even make this devastating contact and rearrange our visit. Joe’s an open book, like his talk today confirmed. I try to be the same once I give up chasing his train and pull over to call him, only to find voice note after voice note from him already waiting.

I press Play and have to close my eyes while listening to what starts with a rare-for-Joe order.

He barks, “Don’t call me back while you’re driving.” I hear his breathing shudder. “I mean, I’m assuming you’d want to call me back, and that email doesn’t mean we’re over, because you have to know…”

It’s hard to hear him above the background noise of his train when he whispers this repeat of his first phone call.

“Isaac, you have to know there is no way she saw me, because I wasn’t there. And I can’t believe she saw Josh. He’s…”

Police-adjacent.

A back-office data expert.

Someone who prefers code to people.

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