Page 32 of Fortune's Ashes
Of course I could trust him; I just couldn’t trust myself. I reached across and touched his hand with the very tips of my fingers. ‘Midday,’ I said. ‘Right here. Laura will be at work. And I’m suspended, so I won’t be going anywhere,’ I added ruefully.
Lukas’s face tightened. ‘In that case, I’ll see you here.’ He turned his head away to indicate we were done for now.
I had to respect that. I nodded and hastily got out of the car – but I did stand on the pavement and watch him until he’d disappeared in the distance.
ChapterTwelve
Ididn’t sleep as well or for as long as I should have. After tossing and turning fitfully, I eventually lay flat on my back with my eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling for far too long.
I murmured an apology aloud. ‘Sorry, Jellybean. I know I should be resting, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen right now.’ I got up and, in lieu of a decent sleep, made myself a healthy breakfast.
Laura had left a scribbled note on the table and I smiled grimly at its contents. She’d been drafted into the morgue early to wait beside Alan Cobain’s body and either record his resurrection or perform a post-mortem. Apparently she’d been informed of my connection with his death.
That was a good thing, I decided, despite the obvious conflict of interests. I knew she wouldn’t keep me waiting for information, whichever way things went. I ate slowly and, by the time I had washed my plate and glass, there were only twenty minutes to go until Alan Cobain’s corpse would reveal his truth.
I drummed my fingers on the table then grabbed my laptop and searched for his name. There were plenty of news articles about what had happened last night. Although I was referenced, nobody mentioned that I’d been outside the flat where he’d been burned alive. That was positive. But it wasn’t last night’s events that I was interested in, it was Alan Cobain himself and his supposed phoenix abilities.
I followed the web trail until I found a link to a video from a few months earlier purporting to be of his death and his resurrection. I held my breath and clicked on it.
The quality was poor and I had to squint to make out a lot of it. Cobain had obviously set up the camera himself and nobody else was filming. There was no sound. I watched as he waved a gun around in silence, making a show of loading it to prove that there were live bullets inside. He placed the muzzle in his mouth, pulled the trigger and his body fell backwards onto the floor.
I peered more closely. Due to the angle of the camera, it was impossible to tell if he had actually died. It certainly looked that way but, without a zoom function or a different camera angle, there was no definitive proof. I grimaced.
The video was more than twelve hours long so I fast-forwarded, pausing a few times to check on Cobain’s body. There were no signs of life; however, at the twelve-hour point, his foot twitched and smoke started to rise from his stomach. Flames flickered along his arms and his legs then, seconds later, he rose up and gave the camera a wide grin. He mouthed two words.Ta-da.
My spirits sank slightly. We were all different, but whenever I was reborn after dying, there were always at least a few seconds of confusion before I remembered who I was and what had happened. There was none of that with Alan Cobain. The video looked real but his reaction didn’t.
‘I don’t want you to be properly dead,’ I whispered at the screen. ‘I want you to wake up.’
Alan Cobain gave me a happy wave from my computer screen. I sighed and closed the laptop. I didn’t know enough about video fakery to determine its authenticity, so all I could do was wait.
I looked at the clock – only five minutes to go. I stood up and started to pace up and down Laura’s small kitchen but I’d barely completed three circuits when the doorbell rang. Without thinking, I padded to the door to answer it. As soon as I opened it, I regretted not checking who was there first.
I tried to close it but Buffy was having none of it. ‘Morning!’ she trilled. She beamed and pushed past me into Laura’s flat.
I ground my teeth. ‘I didn’t say you could come in,’ I muttered.
‘Come on!’ Buffy said. ‘You know you want to hear how things went last night with sexy Fred, right?’ She winked.
‘This isn’t a good time, Buffy.’
‘You’re not doing anything else,’ she pointed out. ‘I heard you’ve been suspended so you’re not going to work. I thought you might appreciate the distraction.’
Not this sort of distraction. I sighed, but like a fool I gestured to the living room. ‘Go on, then. Sit down and tell me what happened.’
Buffy flung herself down on the sofa, grabbed a cushion and hugged it. ‘It was amazing. I mean, I knew we were compatible but I hadn’t realisedhowcompatible. We talked for half the night. We have so much in common! And then, when we stopped talking, and started to kiss…’
I held up my hands. ‘Please. No details.’
‘But you have to hear this!’ Her expression was earnest. ‘I felt this fizz. Here.’ She touched her belly. ‘It was like we were meant to be. I’ve never felt that way before. It was as if nothing in the world mattered apart from Fred and me.’ She nodded resolutely. ‘Thereisnothing in the world that matters apart from Fred and me. We’re soul mates, there’s no other way to explain it. I get it now – this must be how you feel about Horvath. I’d do anything for Fred. I’d lay down my life for him.’
I stared at her. ‘You’ve been on one date.’
‘But when you know, you know. Am I right?’ She giggled. ‘Of course I’m right.’ She punched me lightly on the arm. ‘You know what it’s like. You know all about love too.’ She hugged the cushion more tightly. ‘I’m never going to give him up, and that’s why I know that you should never give up Horvath. Go to him now. You can’t lose what the two of you have together.’
No matter what my feelings were on the matter, I was not going to listen to romantic advice from Buffy. ‘Okay,’ I said briskly. ‘You can go now.’
‘But I haven’t told you about how cute Fred was when I stumbled on the pavement and he rescued me from falling flat on my face.’
