Chapter 16
Hard at Work
The sound of the taxi died away. Nico and Daniel hustled back upstairs, leaving Gareth alone in the hallway, staring at the closed front door.
From one heartbeat to the next, the house felt too big and silent, like a church at night, and for a moment he didn’t dare move, afraid his steps would raise an echo.
He wasn’t as used to Jack rushing out to help at the drop of a hat as he’d believed.
Just keeping his composure while talking to Conrad and watching Jack pack a bag had been harder than expected.
As for moping in the hallway because he couldn’t fix things to his liking—Gareth growled at his own stupidity.
Jack wasn’t headed into battle. He was flying to Tokyo to help a friend, and however he felt about the sudden job, he would enjoy a visit to Japan.
Gareth stomped into the kitchen and turned on the kettle.
The pale pink light outside the window betrayed the ridiculously early hour, but he couldn’t go back to sleep when the other half of the bed was empty and cold, reminding him of Jack’s absence before he’d got used to it.
Measuring out tea leaves, pouring hot water, and breathing fragrant steam lent the morning a touch of normalcy, and once he’d had his tea, he’d go for a run.
Linear plan established, he set to work. Forty minutes later, he jogged away from the house at a slow trot to warm up, then stopped to stretch when he reached the woodland path.
He’d made sure Jack’s departure was as frictionless as possible. So why did it bother him that Jack had left with only a tiny grumble? It was a stupid notion when Gareth had done his best to catapult him out of the door.
He stepped out of his last stretch and started running.
Get a grip. Jack helps when someone asks. And he speaks when he’s ready, not while rushing out of the house at the crack of dawn.
The trail was familiar. An ocean of wild garlic edged it in early spring. A sea of bluebells followed, and then a carpet of ferns. Gareth ran it several times a week, but that very familiarity kept his thoughts churning.
They’d both come into their relationship working side jobs and had agreed this wouldn’t change.
Jack had changed, though. He’d stopped spending nights in clubs on the hunt for predators and now hunted mostly online.
He might go out for an evening to watch Paston’s back, or to give Baxter a hand, but he hadn’t spent a night away from home in months.
The soles of Gareth’s running shoes crunched on dry earth, the familiar rhythm doing nothing to soothe him. He picked up speed, turned off the main path onto a smaller one, a rock-and-root-strewn loop he didn’t run as often, to force himself to focus.
Jack’s out on a job, for heaven’s sake! Wasn’t it in Gareth’s best interest if Jack kept his mind on the problem in front of him instead of moping about the family he’d left behind?
Why do you encourage people to change if you then refuse to accept what they turn into?
Gareth remembered Jack’s voice, quiet and hesitant as he picked his way through a minefield of thoughts.
He hadn’t forgotten the jolt the words had given him, either.
Or the instinctive denial that had died a swift death when he recalled his mother making a similar comment after he and Lisa had ended their relationship.
Gareth was sure he’d ditched the tendency since then, but maybe threads of it still lingered. And that wasn’t acceptable. He’d allow nothing, especially not his own insecurities, to jeopardise their family. What they had built was too precious.
With effort, Gareth wrenched his mind from a discussion he needed to have when Jack returned and focussed on the broken surface underfoot.
He’d almost completed his loop when his phone chimed. Growling in annoyance, he slowed to a stop and unzipped his vest pocket. And found a photo of Jack sitting in some sort of futuristic pod, his laptop on a table in front of him and a TV on the wall.
Conrad sprang for business class. Feels a bit space-age in here, read the caption.
Gareth’s unsettled mood vanished at this proof of Jack not totally lost to his new task. While he stared at the image, a second text arrived.
Missing you already. Still wish we could have all gone together.
The wash of relief Gareth felt was unbelievable. Ridiculous, illogical, and an insult to them both. But while the worry had been real and needed dealing with, Gareth resumed his run with a wide grin on his face.
When he returned home an hour later, still absurdly comforted by Jack’s message, he found two pairs of trainers and two mostly empty backpacks sitting in the hallway.
No-uniform day, of course. Gareth had seen the note from the school.
Besides, he couldn’t imagine much work happening on the last days before the summer holidays.
He made a note to check if Rachel was picking the two up in the afternoon and followed the sounds of conversation to the kitchen.
Predictably, Daniel was cooking breakfast.
Not quite so predictably, Nico sat at the table with an ice pack over his left hand.
“Just bruised,” Nico said when he caught Gareth’s questioning gaze “We went to the gym while you were out running. I hit the bag wrong.”
Gareth lifted the ice pack off Nico’s hand. “Move your fingers.”
Nico did, and Gareth nodded. “Ice it a little longer. Then arnica before you head out.” Nico knew this but reminding him made Gareth feel better.
“Breakfast in five,” Daniel cut in.
Gareth took the hint. He headed up the stairs to shower and dress and returned to the kitchen to find breakfast on the table. Along with eggs, bacon, hash browns, and sausages, Daniel had also made a pot of porridge, proving that Gareth wasn’t the only one in need of comfort.
“Jack texted as he was boarding. He’s flying business class and look what he gets for a seat.” Gareth turned his phone so the two could see the picture of Jack in the pod, with a glass of fizz next to his laptop.
“Champagne breakfast, oooh.”
“TV in the cubicle. And the seat folds flat to make a bed.”
“He still won’t sleep,” Daniel said, eyes glued to Gareth’s phone.
Gareth wanted to get up and hug the two, all brittle and glitter, and braver than many grown men he knew. “Not surrounded by a bunch of strangers, no. But you know you can text him, right?”
“He has to turn his phone off.”
“If the plane has Wi-Fi, he can get texts. We chatted when I came back from Turkey, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, we did.” Nico brightened at the prospect.
“I’m going to help Nico research Mrs McTavish,” Daniel said, halfway through his porridge. “We agreed it last night, but I haven’t told Jack yet. Do you think I should?”
Gareth blinked. “I don’t see why not. Unless…do you have a reason to keep it secret?”
Daniel shook his head. “I don’t want to distract him. It’s just until Rachel needs me in the deli. But Nico thinks we can get it done during the first week of the holidays.”
“Knowing Jack, he’ll like to hear what you find. He hates being out of the loop.”
“Then he should have stayed here.”
Seeing Daniel so sullen was rare, but Gareth didn’t find it in himself to reprimand him. Not after he’d battled his own sullen thoughts. And not when he agreed so very much with Daniel’s sentiment. “Skylar needs help,” he reminded them all. “Can you imagine Jack leaving him hanging?”
Seeing Jack’s empty desk as he walked into Nancarrow Mining’s corporate security office gave Gareth a moment’s pause. He’s on a job, he reminded himself. End of.
He went through his routine of making tea, checking on his row of potted herbs, and sorting the contents of his in-tray. When nothing required his urgent attention, he stuck his head out of his door.
“Janet. Don. Come see me.”
He’d started the coffee machine and pulled the biscuit tin from the bottom of his desk drawer when the two trooped in, notepads in hand.
“Is Jack late?” Frazer asked.
“No. He’s off on a job and had no time to brief me before he left. Tell me where we are with things.”
Janet and Frazer shared a glance, then Janet nodded.
“I’ll start, then. I’m tracing corporate structures of the companies filing the competing claims, and the path of the funds used to lodge their rival applications.”
“And how’s that going?”
Janet shrugged. “Like treacle. The usual Russian doll setup of shell company inside shell company.”
“And the money?”
“Offshore accounts. Or hopscotch around the globe.” Her grin was wry. “We’ll get there eventually, but this stuff takes time.”
Gareth had known her long enough to hear something in her voice that made him sit up. “Tell me.”
“I may have a bit of a hunch, but—” She doodled on her notepad. “I don’t want to shoot my mouth off just yet. It’s only a hunch.”
Gareth narrowed his eyes. “Okay, but tell me one thing: does your hunch land anywhere near our dear neighbours?”
“No.” Janet shook her head, curls flying. “That’s part of what’s confusing me. Corporate structures are all wrong, and the names I’m finding in the filings don’t belong to any of theirs.”
“Frazer?”
“I’m going through names as quickly as Janet gives them to me,” the Scot said promptly. “And she’s right. None of the lawyers we’re used to trip over. None of the firms they use regularly.”
“Keep at it, both of you.” Gareth was making notes on his own pad. “I hate having unidentified opponents in the mix.”
“So do we,” Frazer said. “Speaking of. There was something I’ve been meaning to run past Jack first, but since he’s not here….”
“Frazer. Jack pulled you into this project because it needed three distinct specialities. Jack doesn’t fiddle with the finances.
He leaves that to Janet. He handed investigating the players to you, because that’s what you’re good at.
What I’m getting at here is that you make the calls on your work, Frazer.
You don’t need a nod from anybody else, none of you. ”