Page 149 of Everything That Kills Me
Was Robert going to introduce him? Zeph tried not to look nervous. He pressed his nails into his palms.
“Go through everything you’ve done from the time you were asked to look for Al-Talib,” the stranger said. An American.
Shit.Zeph looked at Robert who nodded. So maybe there wasn’t going to be an introduction. Zeph did as he’d been told, including some of his work of that morning. The only thing he left out was that he’d discovered the CIA were involved. He guessed this guy was CIA.
“You were looking for a link between a man you spotted shadowing Al-Talib and what happened yesterday.” Grey man pinned Zeph with his gaze.
Zeph couldn’t afford to hesitate or to lie, but thank fuck he’d left those details in place and only deletedhisfile. “Yes. There was no evidence he was a shadow. It could have been coincidence. He was only seen three times.”
“There is no link,” grey man said. “Stop looking.”
Oh.Zeph looked again at Robert who nodded his agreement.
“Okay.”
“He’s dead.”
“Right.”Oh Jack!Though even as Zeph thought it, he wondered if that was the truth. It all seemed a little too convenient. “Is that all?”
“Yes,” Robert told him. “Start working on the identification of those demonstrating outside New Scotland Yard.”
“You don’t want me to keep trying to identify the twelfth man?”
“No,” the American said. “Leave it.”
“Okay.” Zeph left the room.
As he closed the door, he heard the man chuckle at something Robert had said.Weird.
Zeph had been tempted to take a photo of Jack and look in the system, but he hadn’t. Now he was even more relieved he’d dismissed that idea. He couldn’t protect Jack if he came to the attention of the wrong guys. If he saw information about him, he couldn’t delete it. Zeph’s throat closed up.I don’t like this.
He spent the rest of the day doing his job, wondering if Jack would be there when he got back to his flat. Whether this time, he’d be gone and would never come back. That sounded all too familiar. But Zeph needed to talk to him about the future, if Jack saw one with him in it because Zeph couldn’t keep letting this happen. Jack had to decide what he wanted.Am I brave enough to ask him?Or brave enough to do what he was planning that afternoon. It was reckless. Zeph was not reckless.
Forty
Once Jack had his hands on his grab-bag—he had them stashed in a number of cities—he felt a little more settled. The bag contained passport, cash, prepaid credit cards for when he couldn’t use cash, an Omega watch he could pawn, a folding knife, a small medical kit, phone, two SIM cards and a packet of wet wipes. Nothing that would incriminate him. Nothing he couldn’t explain if the police searched him. Hopefully.
The backpack held everything he needed to move on, to start again.
Almost everything.
He stopped for a coffee and took out his phone, turning it over and over in his hand. He felt lost without Thomas, which shocked him. Thomas had been part of his life for so long. He’d been far closer to him than most fathers were to their children. Thomas had taken Jack’s education very seriously. He treated everything as a learning experience and now Jack wondered if he’d thanked him often enough.
The thought that it was too late brought a lump to his throat.
Jack had done countless missions on his own, but every job had come through Thomas. Advice, criticism and payment, all through Thomas. Like Thomas, Jack was both good guy and bad. He was plausible deniability. Saint and sinner. He removed players from the game, accepting that he could be removed himself at any moment.
Was that what he wanted?
It had been.
He’d travelled thousands of miles, stayed in hundreds of hotels and guest houses from five-star luxury to grubby rooms. But Thomas—regardless of which house he was currently using—had been his home. Someone to come back to. That had gone. Jack had to keep moving yet he was running from no one inparticular. No matter what precautions he took, he could be found. The more wet work he did, the truer that became.
Thomas had always told him retirement wasn’t possible. But Jack wasn’t Thomas. He had Zeph. Zeph with his sweet smile, his quirky sense of humour, his brilliant mind and forgiving nature. Zeph whose kisses set Jack’s world on fire. The world had thrown such crap at Zeph. A shitty, homophobic father, a stepmother who didn’t care about him, a crazy stepsister, cancer—twice, a disaster of a boyfriend who kept letting him down… But Zeph had never told him to fuck off.
He would never tell me to do that.
He loves me.
