Page 70 of Jacob

A hairy motherfucker too.

Shoulder-length hair, a full bushy beard, and dark-as-coal eyes.

Walter places a laptop on the table and starts tapping away on his keyboard. “We are only staying here for a couple of minutes, then we will go to my car. Just be patient with me, Jacob.”

I don’t know what the hell he’s doing. But his enormous size and bear-like hands tell me not to question or mess with him.

My phone is blowing up. Never-ending swooshes and dings alert me to dozens of notifications, but I don’t bother looking. Skye’s mom said she would call as soon as she heard anything. That’s the only call I’m interested in, and this meeting with Walter is more important.

He pulls a bottle of water out of his backpack, hands it to me. “Drink.”

I look at him, confused.

“You’ve probably not eaten or drunk anything since you made your discovery this morning, am I right?”

Christ, he’s good. I down the bottle of water.I’m so thirsty.

I wonder if Skye has drunk anything since she was here yesterday, and a wave of sadness hits me like a tsunami. My body and mind are being pushed in so many different directions, I don’t know how I should be feeling.

I have never felt this level of devastation before.

It’s fucking awful.

Where is my beautiful Skye?

Is she safe?

Is she alive?

Walter coughs, pulling me from my thoughts. “Okay. We can go.” He pushes the chair back, making it screech across the tiled floor.

I follow him back to his blacked-out Range Rover Sport, and I hop in when he tells me to.

Once seated, he opens his laptop again and points at the screen. “Is this Skye?”

Fucking hell. It is.

Did he just hack into the security system at the coffee shop?

My beautiful girl looks so innocently unaware of what’s about to happen. How could any of us have known?

I stare at the screen, watching her smile every now and again. The smile I want to be part of every day. The smile I have yet to see today.

I let out a sound I’ve never heard myself make before as I clutch my chest.

Is this what heart failure feels like?

A sinking feeling turns my stomach as I watch her interaction with Jules, or whoever the fuck he is, knowing what comes next; she goes missing.

When she heads to the bathroom, two minutes later, I follow her into the women’s restrooms.

We both watch intently as Jules follows in the same direction. He hovers in the hallway outside, pretending to read the noticeboard, but every few seconds he eyes the bathroom door.

Walter changes the camera angle so we can get a better look.

A girl appears in the corridor, head back, laughing at whatever her friend, who slips off into the gents’ bathroom, says to her. She pushes the women’s restroom door open. Standing inside is Skye with her hand wrapped around my tie and we’re so close we look like we’re kissing.

The security camera shows Jules’ whole stance change as his body becomes rigid. He turns on his heels faster than a bolt of lightning.

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