Page 87 of Second Story

“No. He decided to get started today. It’ll all be done by the time I knock off work tonight. Anyway, that isn’t why I’m keeping an eye on the time. You told me when to be here.” He taps the face of his watch. “It’s almost time. What’s happening at eleven?”

I stand in the shadow of a statue holding scales of justice, but I can’t find the right balance between asking Josh questions about Isaac’s mother and making accusations. I end up giving a desperate order.

“Come with me. Now. We need to hurry.”

I head for the Underground entrance, only Josh stops me. “Hey. I didn’t just call in a favour for me. Where are we headed?”

I’ve been in plenty of cop cars for criminal reasons. Today is the first time I voluntarily get in one and ask the driver to take me back to prison.

Josh is instantly on alert. If he wore boxing gloves, they’d be raised. “Youarein trouble.”

“Nope.”

But that isn’t true, is it?

“Yes.”

I’ll be in the worst trouble of my life if I don’t get to keep Isaac. And Josh.

Fuck.

I’ve never wanted Dad to bail me out more. Better still, I’d want him in the driver’s seat of this vehicle that slices through the city like a hot knife through butter. I can’t help rubbing my chest like Noah whenever he remembers the blade that almost cost him his life. I’ve never understood his silence more than at this moment.

Speak and potentially lose your family.

Stay silent and keep bleeding.

I break a silence of my own once we get out of the car and stand opposite a prison exit. “I fell for someone over a year ago. Got a second chance with him in Cornwall. Want to build a life with him. Could make a family with Isaac for his little brother.”

“Yeah?” I don’t expect Josh to give me another glimpse of Mum. She’s right there in his surprised smile. “Meera said you’d struck lucky down there.” He’s gruff. “Wondered if you’d tell me.” If my heart wasn’t already close to breaking, this would do it. “I want to meet him.”

“You will soon.” I can’t seem to clear my throat enough to speak without my voice grating. “You’ll get to meet Isaac right here, because he’s visiting someone who I hope to fuck is wrong.”

“About what?”

“About who set the wheels of a Wintergreen drugs raid in motion. I really don’t want it to be the person his mother is certain she saw that day.”

“Your new bloke’s mother is banged up in there?” Josh squints across at the prison building. “Who did she see?”

“Me.”

His frown deepens. “You? When?”

“When she was arrested. Doesn’t make sense, right?” I slot pieces together like the puzzles Dad challenged us to solve together. “Because I’m the last person who’d watch another family get fractured. Only Isaac’s mum says her arrest was down to me. Said she heard that I provided the intel and then she recognised me from a photo, only I don’t have the police connections to make anything like that happen, so it couldn’t be me. That only leaves?—”

“Me.”

“I was gonna say it only leaves someone else who looks like both of us, because it couldn’t be you either, could it? You’re back office, not front line. Civilians don’t go out on raids.”

My twin crushes my last hope just as a door opens across the street from us.

“I did once. And if it was that raid, then yes, itwasdown to me, and I was pretty happy about it going ahead until it was over.”

Across the street, Isaac leaves the prison with someone wearing a suit—the school’s legal counsel, I guess. I can’t pay attention to that stranger when I see Isaac stop dead.

He must witness a confession that breaks my heart. Has to see my last hope for a case of mistaken identity shatter. And I’m as sure as my suddenly blurred vision allows that Isaac sees how badly Josh’s next promise stings me.

“I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

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