Page 78 of Dead to Me

Once Dom had returned to his desk, and presumably to reading or checking what he’d been sent about Anna, Reid opened his own phone and loaded up Anna’s email.But he couldn’t seem to focus on the screen.Even unlocking the keypad was difficult, and then the tiny email font was next to impossible to decipher.Plus, the screen started to do weird things.Like locking itself.

Every time it did, the time seemed to have jumped forward by five minutes without warning, and Reid felt like the phonewas messing with him.He wanted to hurl it to the floor, but part of him remembered that this was important.

He was feeling too hot.Suffocated by the shirt and tie.Why had he put them on?

He pulled at his collar and then realised in a rush that he was going to be sick.So he lunged for the waste bin and vomited a stomach full of bile into it.

‘Jesus,’ he heard Dom say.Reid could hear him moving over but felt unable to lift his head.‘Reid, mate, are you…?’

There was a sudden painful, sharp sensation on his cheek, the only signal to Reid that he’d fallen sideways onto the wiry carpet.There was noise behind him and then the sound of Dom muttering, ‘Fuck,’ before, closer by, he heard, ‘OK, mate.We’re going to the hospital.’

‘You can’t,’ Reid said, though it was a loose-lipped blur of sound.‘Need to find her.’

‘It’ll take an hour to get you through A & E, tops, the state you’re in,’ Dom said, ‘and I’ve got the team on this.I can be on the phone.’

Reid pushed himself up to his knees and shoved the phone into his pocket.At least if he had that, he could do something, too.

And then he was sick again.It was a thin dribble of liquid this time, but his body still wanted to keep retching for a while.He tried to straighten up once he was done, before feeling a strong grip under his arms.

He was more glad than he’d ever been that Dom was six feet of muscle-bound, trained-up MMA fighter.His legs felt like snakes somewhere beneath him.

‘Come on, mate,’ Dom said, and in strange little bursts of awareness Reid found himself moved into the lift and then down to the underground car park.

He did his best to help Dom bundle him into the car andfelt overwhelmingly relieved when he was finally sitting down with the door closed and his seat belt on.The headrest felt like soft bliss behind him.

It was only as he was drifting off into a strange sleep that he thought of the tablets Dom had given him.The sickness.The fact that nobody else had seen him leave.

Dom, who he couldn’t really trust.Who was corrupt.

Forcing his eyes open, he picked up his phone to try to send a message, but the screen was a shattered mess in front of his eyes.Moments later, his eyes had slid shut and there was nothing he could do to save himself from the blackness.

31.Anna

These last few days.I’d actually kind of like to forget them.To pretend that Aria Lauder really was a whole other person and that none of this involved me at all.

But I have to write it all down.There are a lot of reasons why that’s more important now.

The pressure on me stepped up three days after the Pitt Club dinner, during my Monday check-in with Gael.I’d expected him to be happy about the big confrontation between James and Kit, but I could see frown lines building as I went on talking, and after I’d finished he was silent for quite a while.His brooding expression was out in full force.

‘Maria is concerned that you’re not really achieving anything there,’ he said.‘Your main story is slow to come together, and her comment on your notes is that you don’t seem to be finding actual scandal about the Pitt Club to write about.There’s nothing to justify the outlay, which is…’ He gestured at one of the expense forms I’d submitted, and I wanted to tell him that Iknewit was ridiculous.It included my newly submitted ticket to the May Ball for almost £300; enough for a mini-break.I hadn’t even mentioned I was going to need my hair and nails done, and I had a dinner coming up to pay for, too.

As I opened my mouth to answer, he held up a hand.

‘I told her you were on to something here, so don’t think I’m hanging you out to dry,’ he said, and my heart rate slowed a little.I know you aren’t a fan of Gael’s, but that’s one of his good sides.He has my back when I need it.‘From my point of view, I’m just worried you’re not going to get there in time.’

‘Hey, come on,’ I said, trying to keep it light.‘It takes a little while to gain people’s trust, but I’m there now.I can feel I’m close to getting to the heart of it.I’ve set up a webcam outside my house in case anyone leaves any more weird notes, and I feel like I’m on the verge of things opening up.’

‘But you need to push harder,’ Gael said.‘We don’t have time to go gently now.You have ten days left, assuming we let you stay until the end of May Week.’

‘I’m pushing!’I said.

‘But, look.This dinner was on Friday, right?It’s Monday now.And you haven’t found out why Kit said that to Ryan, or gone to confront James Sedgewick about the big argument yet?’

I grimaced, feeling a sense of genuine shame.Ihadwanted to confront James, but it had been difficult to find a way of seeing him without Kit getting to hear about it.James hadn’t appeared at any of our socialising at the weekend, allegedly because he was working, though I could tell from Kit’s tight, hurt expression that it was more than that.

The truth was, I was anxious Kit might have found out I’d seen James behind his back after their row.More so now that Kit was expecting us to have stepped up into an official relationship.And I couldn’t really explain why I was letting that anxiety get the better of me, but it was complex and I think had something to do with already having felt like I’d betrayed Cordelia along the way.

‘James has his final exam on Wednesday,’ I said, as convincingly as I could.‘I figured…’

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