Page 64 of The Reaper
“Come on, let’s get out of here. Let’s go home,” I said, leading Leah out of the church.
“Home? As in, my home? Or The Sanctuary?” she asked.
“The Sanctuary. Our home,” I replied, like it was a stupid question, and then I winked and she smiled, shaking her head at my assertiveness.
I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket with a few incoming messages. The signal in the church must’ve been low and they were all flooding onto my phone at once, so I pulled it out to see what was happening.
Adam: We found nothing on an Eddie or Edward Hall. We did track down an Edwin Hall to a halfway house on the other side of Brinton. According to the records Tyler hacked, he got out of prison about three months ago. He did time for armed robbery and assault. Sounds like the kind of man we need to pay a visit to.
It had to be him. I could feel it in my bones.
Me: Don’t do anything yet, not until I get there. I’m bringing Leah home with me.
Adam: You call the shots on this one. We’ll hang fire until you say otherwise.
I slid my phone back into my pocket and put my arm around Leah May.
“I’ve got a feeling things are about to come good for us,” I told her, and she laughed.
“Things are already good.”
I pulled her closer to me and kissed her head as we walked towards my car.
“They are, but it’s about to get a whole lot better.”
“It gets better?” She peered up at me, quirking her brow.
“It does. Hold on tight, baby.”
ChapterTwenty-Nine
LEAH MAY
“Tell me about the first time you saw me,” Devon turned to ask me as we were sitting on the grass at the back of the asylum. “I know the first time I saw you––on your doorstep, when I brought Jodie home that Sunday morning. But I want to know about when you saw me.”
Tyson was running around like a mad dog, chasing leaves that were swirling in the air and occasionally coming back to us with a stick that he’d drop at our feet for us to throw. I watched as he spun in circles, barking and then rolling over in the mud without a care in the world.
“It was years ago,” I said, playing with the hem of my sundress and smiling to myself at the memories. Memories that I kept locked up in a special box in my head––not just because of Devon, but for my mum.
She’d been so proud of what she’d pulled together that day at the coffee morning. The images of her beaming as she chatted to the community, her brightness helping to lift others was seared into my brain. It was one of my favourite images of her.
“It was at a coffee morning my mum had organised through Dad’s church. Who knew that a windy, April Saturday morning at Brinton Manor Community Centre would change my whole life?”
I started to fill him in on all the details about the event, the special things my mum had organised, and what I’d been doing there. Devon listened intently, furrowing his brow as he concentrated, and then it was like a lightbulb went off in his head.
“The coffee morning with the church? I remember that. My mum took me and Brooke because she thought it’d be good for us to mix with the other kids from the neighbourhood. I’d been excluded from school for something, I can’t remember what, probably fighting, but I really didn’t want to go to that cake and coffee morning. I remember telling her I thought it was lame and I wanted to stay at home, avoid seeing any of the kids from my school, but she had her ways of talking me round.” He smiled fondly, then added, “I don’t remember seeing you though.”
“Probably because you spent most of the time outside, hiding down the bottom of the gardens, sharpening the tool you were crafting out of a branch.” I picked up one of Tyson’s sticks and gave Devon a playful poke in the arm.
“Hey.” He frowned, pretending to look hurt and rubbing his arm. “I’ll have you know that was a bit of master craftsmanship going on there. I transformed that branch into a weapon any samurai would be honoured to wield.” Then he shook his head. “Damn, you have a good memory. I can barely recall that day.”
He rubbed his chin in thought then added, “There was one part of the day I remember. Brooke came outside to play a game of pass the parcel with some of the younger kids. I always got nervous when she wasn’t with me or Mum, but she was holding a girl’s hand.”
“Dark hair, wearing a black pinafore dress?” I asked, feeling my heart begin to race in my chest.
“I don’t know what she was wearing, all I know is she was holding Brooke’s hand.”
“And she did the music for pass the parcel?” I added.
