Chapter Thirteen Honey Whisky
Chapter thirteen
Honey Whisky
“He’s… a character.”
Kenny shut the office door with a heavy sigh. “Yeah, he is.” He rubbed his temples, trying to calm his pounding headache. He needed to focus, to stabilise himself, before facing Jack. “Did you introduce yourself by your first name?”
Jack shrugged. “No idea. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. Why?”
“Just curious.” Kenny tried to play it off, but his tangled thoughts were spinning out of control. Did Jack say he was Jack? Or was that another trick of his mind, pushing him to see things that weren’t there? But above all, one question burned: how had Aaron known where he’d been Saturday night with Heather? What he’d eaten, what he’d drunk, and even that he hadn’t gone inside her house because he knew he wouldn’t have… performed.
“You look tired, Kenny.”
“I’m always tired.” Kenny ruffled back his hair. “You’re the one who just had a bag of shit case land on his desk.”
Jack studied him, and Kenny could feel the heaviness in that stare he’d once known so well. It jolted him back to when their relationship had soured from Jack’s constant questioning and Kenny tossing psychiatry at him. Six years as lovers, it was pointless to think Kenny could hide anything from him. Jack was a detective. Could sense when Kenny was holding back, evading the truth. And right now, Kenny was doing exactly that. He hated how easily Jack could see it.
Like he’d seen through his bullshit when he said he’d quit smoking.
Like when he’d said he’d stop going to the clubs.
Kenny had to bat it all away. “How long have you been back, anyway?”
“Couple of weeks. I had planned on telling you…”
Kenny tied his hair into a knot with the band he kept on his wrist. Jack might have been planning on telling him, but how and when was a factor Kenny knew would cause Jack anguish. And him, if he was honest. Too much had gone unresolved between them to consider it water under the bridge. They had a murky lake between them, with monsters lurking within.
“Where are you staying?” he asked to keep some normalcy about all this.
“We’re at my mum’s at the moment, but we put in an offer on a house yesterday. Accepted. No chain, so hopefully we’ll be in soon.”
Kenny dropped his arms from shoving his hair up. “We?”
“Yeah.” Jack bit his lip, masking the wince. “Me and Fraser. My fiancé.”
The gut-wrenching blow hitting Kenny was deep and crushing. Eight years. Longer, if he factored in the agonising decline of his and Jack’s tumultuous relationship, forcing Jack to leave his hometown, the constabulary that’d shaped him, his ageing mother and the childhood friends he’d grown up with to flee to Glasgow and escape him . The weight of it tightened Kenny’s chest. But, he knew, once the sharp sting dulled, the pure, unshakable relief would creep in and take its place. It’d take time. Not long. But at least he could see some semblance of a reprieve in his future.
At least he hadn’t ruined Jack for good.
So for now, he played the role expected.
“Congratulations.” He shimmied around Jack to his desk, looking for something upon it he could pretend he needed. “When’s the big day?”
“Next summer. Sort of the other reason I’m back. So mum can get to know him.”
Kenny nodded, still searching for he didn’t know what amongst his paperwork.
“How are your folks?” Jack tried to get into his line of sight.
“Dad died five years ago.” Kenny stalled his faux searching to deliver that news. Whilst Kenny wouldn’t put their past relationship in the normal realms, Jack had still known his parents. Had been part of his family for a while. Had had more than a couple of dinners with them. “Heart failure. Bit of a shock, as there were no underlining issues.”
“Oh, Kenny…”
“To be honest, I think he just gave up. Mum’s clinging on, though. In a home. But the dementia has taken over. She doesn’t remember anything.” Kenny scraped his nails, bowing his head.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Kind of envy her. Not knowing. Not remembering. Means she can rest in peace. Sort of.” Kenny perched on the edge of his desk, folding his arms and peering down at the past sitting in his office chair. “But tell me about your man.”
Jack’s smile lit up his entire face. It was painful. “Fraser. Thirty-eight. Glaswegian to the point I have to ask him to repeat himself most of the time.”
Kenny chuckled. “He a copper too?”
“No. A personal trainer.”
“Ah.” Kenny nodded. “Explains the body.” He gestured to Jack’s broader frame. Not only had he put on bulk, but it was all honed muscle under there, Kenny could tell. Jack had finally shed the boyish charm to be all man. “Unless that’s all from chasing inner city crims?”
“Ha. No. It’s all thanks to him. Met him literally first week on the job. He was the PT for the Glasgow team and we…hit it off. Got engaged last year. When the opening for a DI came up here, he agreed to come with me. He’s opening a gym in a warehouse on Bond Way. Launching soon, hoping to rack up the client list he had back in Scotland.” Jack tilted his neck. “What about you? You seeing anyone?”
Kenny’s habitual response wouldn’t have been any different if Jack hadn’t told him he was engaged, but at least it wasn’t a total lie. “Uh, yeah. A woman.”
Jack nodded, face down. Jack knew he was bisexual. Prior to their relationship, Kenny had mostly been with women. A couple of one-night stands with men, but nothing serious. It had taken Jack time to get used to. Kenny often found it was the gay men who had a harder time with his bisexuality than the women did. Or maybe it was because he only really told the men. When he was with women, it was just easier to slip into the role they expected.
Did he like one more than the other?
It was a delicate balance.
“Heather,” Kenny said, grabbing the flask on his desk and leaving out they’d only had the two dates. “A primary school teacher. Divorced. Mother to a teenage daughter. Early days though.”
“She sounds…stable.”
“Yeah, she is.”
“Just what you need.”
“Yeah, she is.” Which was why he had to make it work, even if he had to fake it.
Taking a sip of cold coffee from his flask, an eruption of applause from outside caught his attention. He peered through the office door window where outside, the admin staff were giving Autumn, the Associate Dean of Faculty, the usual send-off comprising cards, flowers and streamers to celebrate the start of her maternity leave.
Kenny turned back to Jack. “Does Fraser know about—”
“No.”
“I hadn’t finished what I was going to ask.”
“I know what you were going to ask.” Jack straightened his back. “He knows about you, yes. He knows we were…” he lowered his voice as if he couldn’t even believe the word himself, “ lovers …but he doesn’t know what you did for me.”
“That wise?”
“I don’t need it anymore.”
“Those needs don’t just go away. They’ll find another way to manifest—”
Jack held up his hand to stop Kenny mid-sentence. “Can you not.”
“Not what?”
“Fucking psychoanalyse me right now. Can we just have a normal conversation?”
“What’s normal?”
“ Kenny .”
“Fine.” Kenny drank his coffee, and the silence thickened, spider-webbed cracks searing across the space between them, highlighting the fractures in their shared history.
It was a shame. Once, long ago, they’d been perfect for each other. They’d been each other’s saviour and distraction from the horrors they encountered. Jack’s need to be submissive, to be childlike, gave Kenny his need to control and dominate. He took care of Jack the way he couldn’t any of the victims he’d come across in his work. The way he couldn’t take the pain away from his father. His mother.
His sister .
But that world didn’t exist anymore. And all Kenny could see reflected in the eyes he once knew as well as his own were unfixable jagged edges. They couldn’t salvage their relationship any more now than they could have back then. He wasn’t sure they could even be friends. So he set the flask down upon his mounds of paper files, the noise barely breaking the tension, regret hanging over his head as heavy as his past mistakes.
“I’m sorry—”
“It’s in the past.” Jack shook his head, counteracting in his body language what his mouth was saying.
Kenny knew it wasn’t. “Is it?”
“It has to be.”
“You left abruptly. Without even talking to me.”
“And what good would that have done? You’d have told me why I felt the way I did. Why you did what you did. You’d give me all the excuses and all the reasons, then psychobabble your way out of it. Like you always did.”
“That’s not…” Kenny let the lie die on his tongue.
“I left because I couldn’t take it anymore. And we both needed me to. You had no space in your obsessions for me. And I couldn’t keep being your…” He closed his eyes, then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. It did me the world of good to leave everything behind.”
“Then I’m glad.” Kenny meant it. He wanted Jack to be happy. To have found someone. To have something normal . After all, it’s what he wanted for himself. “I’m happy you’re happy.”
“And you have Heather, so perhaps it was the best thing for both of us.” Jack checked over the notes on his pad. “Anyway, what can you tell me about Aaron Jones?”
Jack probably thought that was an easier conversation.
Little did he know it was a larger can of worms than his and Jack’s tumultuous relationship.
“Not much.” Kenny scratched through his beard. “He’s a first year. I’ve taught him four times so far.”
“Uh huh.” Jack stood and peered out of the small window overlooking the campus.
Kenny joined him, watching Aaron beneath the building, vape in hand and inhaling some before rushing off to wherever he had to go next.
“Tell me you quit,” Jack said, eyes still focused on Aaron tumbling away and blowing out the vapour.
“I quit.”
“Didn’t go onto vapes?”
“No. They don’t give the same hit.”
“Good.” Jack smiled at him. “But you switched it for what other vice?”
An awkward silence blanketed over them. What he’d filled it with was far, far worse than nicotine. And way more hazardous.
“Cadbury’s Crème Eggs.”
Jack snorted. “You always ate far too many of those, too.” He bumped his shoulder to Kenny’s. “Remember that cake you tried to make with them all inside it?”
“You were sick. And I vowed never to bake again. Upheld that, as well. If you were interested.”
Jack chuckled, but when he peered back up, the veil on their shared reunion draped over him and Jack returned to the DI he now was by glancing out the window. “He’s…familiar.”
Kenny said nothing.
Jack cocked his head. “Do you not think?”
“I don’t know him.”
“I didn’t ask if you knew him. I asked if you thought he was familiar?”
“I teach hundreds of students each year. Some look like him.”
“He’s been in care?”
“Apparently.”
“Come on, Kenny.” Jack stepped closer. “You have access to his file.”
“And you can look up on the system what I know about him. Which is next to nothing. He was in care, yes. So were ten others in the current first year cohort across all faculties. He came from a college in London. Anything before that is off limits. I’m not privy. You might get access.”
“And the bruises? The hand?”
“He’s got himself into trouble with a kid in his halls. That’s not unheard of. Throw teenagers together for the first time, it’s expected. He’s seeing welfare. They have eyes on him.”
“But he knows you?”
“As his professor, yeah.”
“He called you Kenny.”
“So do a lot of my students.” Not many. Certainly not first years. His Master’s and PhD students were more likely to.
Jack cocked his head. “Okay. If you don’t have the facts . What can you tell me about his state of mind? Was he lying?”
“No.” Kenny shuffled over to his desk to fire up his laptop. He still had a job to do and a class to teach in half an hour. “Apart from the Saturday date, he was truthful.”
“Rather strange that. Why do you think he said all of that?”
“He likes to mess with people. Poke buttons.” Kenny logged into his laptop, opening up the timetable to check the room he was due in.
“Yours?”
Kenny peered up. “Looks like.”
Jack opened his mouth to say something, and Kenny was ever grateful for the bang on the door. “Yep,” he called over his shoulder.
PC Jenkins poked her head inside the room. “Sorry, sir, Dr Chong wants to know if we can move the body. The public got whiff and there’s an influx of onlookers trying to trample the scene. Could have TikTok sleuths already on it.”
“Shit.” Jack pocketed his notepad. “Thanks, Jenkins. Be right there.”
Jenkins hovered away and Jack took a breath before meandering forward to leave, but he stopped short of the door and, for a moment, the air stilled, and he subtly squeezed Kenny’s hand. Then, as if realising his mistake, he ripped his hand away and shook his head. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s been a confusing morning.”
“Can say that again. It’s like you’re jinxed.”
“Often think that myself.”
Jack stepped away. “You’ll tell me if anything else comes up? With Aaron?”
“Of course.”
“And when Chong’s finished her report, I might call you in.”
Kenny nodded, expecting as such, and Jack left, enabling him to breathe.
* * * *
The rest of the day went by in a heady haze. Kenny had to fill it with the usual demands of the job, ending at a senior leadership meeting where the discussions centred around Rahul Mishra. With the parents notified, his death had been announced to the student body. The media would have it by sundown. The investigation was underway. Both with the police, and internally with the university to discover if any of the blame lay with them.
If it was a suicide, it could.
If it was murder…
The official line was unexplained death. Because anything to the contrary wasn’t worth thinking about. It would be hushed. As it should be for the general population. There was no reason to scare the university students that there could be a killer on the loose. Suggestions of a curfew rang around the leadership table. But not letting students out would cause uproar, much like it had during the Covid years. Kenny was glad he wasn’t part of those decisions and he idly traced his pencil over his notepad, thinking and rethinking about the roses. What they meant.
What all this meant .
Why was the past edging itself into his present?
When the meeting ended, he made his way over to his car, and threw his bag on the backseat. Battling with his conscience, he got in. He didn’t need to get obsessed over this, too. He had to leave it to Jack and his team. Let them figure it out and traipse through the old files, dredging up a past that was never quite put to bed. What he needed to do was go home, get his head down. Plan the next week’s lectures. Put together his research budget. Give feedback to his PhD student’s introductory chapters for his thesis. Have a beer. Call Heather.
He did none of those.
Instead, he drove to the nearest off license, bought their best bottle of single malt whisky, then drove further out of town to the suburbs where he parked on a marked off bay next to a set of bungalows, relieved the lights were on inside the one he was here to see. He got out of the car, gripping the bottle with apprehension and anticipation spurring his ascent up to the modest, ivy-covered home.
It had been years since he’d last seen Harry Walker, Ryston Police’s former Chief Inspector, a man with a steely calm who’d been in charge of many of the operations and investigations Kenny had been involved with. He’d been a good friend of Kenny’s old professor when he’d been completing his PhD, which had allowed him the access he’d needed to get his head into the investigations back then.
Tonight, however, Kenny needed more than the comfort of reminiscing.
He needed answers .
So he knocked on the door and after a shuffle behind, it creaked open to reveal Harry, now bald and weary, but still holding a presence as solid as granite.
“Dr Lyons!” Harry grinned in surprise. “What brings you here?”
“Was in the area and realised I never got you anything for your retirement.” Kenny handed over the whisky. “So I brought you this.”
Harry took it with all the scepticism Kenny expected from ex-police. But he perused the label over his glasses, then angled his head. “You’re in luck. The wife’s at her writing group.” He twisted the cap on the bottle. “Meaning we can open this despite it not quite being six o’clock yet.”
“It’s six o’clock somewhere.”
Harry waggled a finger at him. “That’s why I always liked you.” He tapped his head. “Smart.”
Kenny chuckled and stepped inside the bungalow, wiping his dress shoes on the welcome mat. “You go ahead. I better not, though. Driving. Unless you want me to crash in your spare room.”
“They’re made up for the grandkids. Toddler beds. Coffee then?”
“That would be wonderful.”
“Take a seat in the lounge.” Harry hobbled off to the back kitchen and Kenny took his time to peruse the place.
It was habit. Checking out the inner décor of what someone called a home. What people put on display in their house revealed aspects of their personality, values and choices, and Kenny could use these to paint a picture of who they were. Harry’s walls and sideboards were how he’d expect a married couple enjoying their retirement would be. Dotted with photos of their three children, now all grown up, along with various grandchildren, with a pride of place canvas over their faux fireplace of the entire gang from baby to grandpa. Harry deserved the beaming smile he had in each photograph. Especially as Kenny was about to replace it with the frown he remembered him having far more often.
Taking up an armchair in the front room, Kenny settled back to decide how he’d approach all this. Harry came back in a short time after with a tray, on which were two mugs and the bottle of whisky. He slipped the tray onto the coffee table and gave Kenny a subtle wink as he opened the whisky and poured a generous amount into his cup. “The wife won’t ever know.”
“Until you fall asleep before the news.”
“Not the first time. Wait ‘til you get to my age.”
Kenny shuffled forward, taking his coffee, then slipped back in his seat. “I imagine you’re enjoying the peace. Your wife certainly must be. No more long nights chasing the dregs of our society.”
“Can’t say I miss it, but…” Harry relaxed back in his reclining chair. “Can’t say I don’t either. It’s hard settling down knowing what’s out there. What continues to be out there. As you’ll find out.”
“But you put a few of them behind bars before you put your feet up, so you should rest easy knowing that, at least.”
Harry eyed him for a moment. “So what brings you here, Dr Lyons? And not that bullshit about wanting a catch up.” He held up his coffee. “Not that I mind the gift, but I can’t be your first choice to be spending an evening with. No lady friend?”
Kenny breathed out a laugh. “I have a lady friend, yes. Not seeing her tonight, though.”
“So go on, then. What do you want from me?”
“Why can’t I just want your company?”
Harry arched an eyebrow. “You might be the mind doctor, but I can smell bullshit a mile off. I’ve been retired for three years. This unexpected visit hasn’t got anything to do with that young man found in the river today, has it?”
“How do you know about that?” It couldn’t have been on the local news yet, surely?
“You think I don’t know what happens in my town?” Harry sipped from his coffee with a tut. “I have my ear to the ground. Always will do. Even when it’s in the ground.”
Of course he would. “Jack pulled me in.”
“As he would. Glad he’s back. Would like to ring the neck of the man who had him running away from here.”
Kenny dropped his gaze to the carpet, a sharp pang hitting him in the chest. He was that man. And no matter if he and Harry got along, Harry would absolutely pummel Kenny to the ground if he knew Kenny was the reason his most promising constable left before he promoted him in-house. “He’ll make a great DI.”
“That he will. Especially if he called you back in. I’m guessing he did because this isn’t a cut and dry case?”
“No. It doesn’t appear that way.”
Harry reached for the whisky bottle and poured more into his coffee. “What are you thinking here?”
“It has remarkable similarities to the Howell victims.”
Harry paused. Looked straight at him. Through him. To the past. Kenny hated he’d sent him there. No one ever wanted to relive that case. But Kenny had an ulterior motive, and it wasn’t just to find out who was bringing all that to the surface, but also because of a hunch he had about a certain student of his.
One conjuring up more than the past.
“Copycat?” Harry leaned back in his chair, returning to the stoic copper he had to be to get the job done.
“It could be.”
“But…”
“But I don’t think it is.”
“Why not?”
“Because it makes little sense. Copycats don’t come out of the woodwork ten years later. It’s also not the right victim. Or scenario. To anyone else, this looks like a suicide. Or accidental death. There’s only a select few who’ll know from the outset that it isn’t.”
“And that’s you.”
“Yes. Or anyone else involved in the case. If Jack hadn’t found him, maybe it wouldn’t have been pieced together so quickly. I certainly wouldn’t have been called. And I wouldn’t be here now asking you to remember the case that haunts us all.”
Harry didn’t respond immediately, but when he did, his voice filled with unease. “The Howells… now there’s a headfuck.” He swirled the coffee in his cup, lost in thought. “Not seen anything like them before. Nor since. Not even in my long years on the force. And I’d seen enough. What we saw in public was nothing compared to what they hid.” Harry shuddered. “Almost can’t believe they’re human.”
“They’re human.”
“So you told us.”
“And clever enough not to arouse suspicion for so long.” Kenny leaned forward. “We both know their spree lasted longer than in the files. What we uncovered was just the surface. There’s more. We both know it. They had a deeper history of violence than we could ever prove.”
“We bulldozed that house to the ground. If there was more to find, we’d have found it.”
“There’s more. Trust me. There’ll be more.”
Harry sipped from his coffee.
“It has made me wonder, though.” Kenny swirled his coffee, then peered up to meet the old chief’s gaze. “The child?”
Harry’s jaw tightened, a subtle reaction but one that told Kenny he’d hit a nerve.
“What happened to the boy?” Kenny took a drink to keep his face under a professional mask.
“Why are you interested?”
“From a psychological perspective, it’s fascinating. He’ll now be an adult and I’d be interested to know what came of him.”
“For research?”
“Perhaps.” Kenny kept to a more professional stance, knowing that’s where he’d break in Harry to reveal what he needed. When this was all personal. “A child growing up in that environment would have affected him. It’s not just about the violence they could have witnessed. But the emotional conditioning, the manipulation, it leaves a mark. We’ve seen it in other cases, but this one. Well, this is different. As we know. And it would be beneficial to study.”
“You’re the expert there but, if you ask me, those kids were experiments.”
“Experiments?” Kenny kept his tone casual, reading Harry’s every reaction.
“Probably testing the limits of their own depravity. See if they could nurture what they didn’t have themselves—a conscience.”
Kenny bit the inside of his cheek. The idea wasn’t far off from what he’d suspected during the original investigation, but hearing Harry voice it so plainly made it more real, more horrific. The Howell case had become his obsession. And one of the many reasons he and Jack had torn each other apart.
Because Jack wouldn’t tell him a damn fucking thing.
“It must have complicated things for social services?” Kenny said, treading lightly. He didn’t want to ask outright. He needed to butter the ex-chief up. Tiptoe around it. Make him relaxed enough to spare the details Kenny knew he wasn’t privy to. The whisky was helping, too. “Considering his background? Where could they place him?”
Harry let out a heavy sigh, tension edging through his shoulders. “We were thorough. They had a hard enough life to begin with. No one wanted to add to it. But you know as well as I do, there’s no such thing as a clean slate. Not after coming out of that.”
Kenny nodded. The more Harry talked, the clearer it became that the child’s story was far from straightforward, and he leaned back in the chair, crossing his legs, waiting to see what else would come.
Harry fixed him with a look that held both caution and curiosity. “I’d hoped he’d have a chance, at least. He had the better one, and we took him far enough away. Gave him no access. New identity. Was that not enough?”
“It all depends. Sometimes, there’s a ripple effect. We hope a child can rise above their circumstances, but inherited trauma, even unwittingly, can leave its mark. Patterns repeat, identities come back to haunt. And they can look for answers where perhaps they shouldn’t.”
Harry added more whisky into his cup. “I’m going to assume you think there’s a connection here?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to look into it. Can you find out where he is? The new identity? His foster home? Anything about him.”
“Last I knew, he’d moved because of some trouble with the first family.” Harry winced, sipping his now mostly whisky. “I believe they discovered who they had in their home and let their feelings be known about it. To him.”
Kenny clenched his jaw. “Physical?”
“Oh, yes. Rather nasty, too.”
“How old was he?”
“Ten? Eleven? He’d had two years stable at that point. Unsure how they found out, but the foster father…well, he was jailed for what he did to him.”
Kenny closed his eyes, letting that sink in. “Did he get support?”
“The father?”
“The child.”
“I don’t know. As I said, they moved him and I lost contact. He popped up again in his teens. Another beating. This time I believe it was a…let’s say friend ?”
“Who beat whom?”
“Oh, they beat him. Not just beat either.” Harry shook his head as if ridding himself of the horrific images. “After that, he went back into the system and now he’s an adult, so it’s up to him. A need to know. I’m retired. I don’t need to know.”
“So, who does need to know?”
“There’s a case for allowing him the anonymity he deserves. But there’s also a case for those in immediate contact with him to be aware. He’ll have someone in his circle who knows.”
“And how do I find that someone?”
“It’ll probably be easier to find him yourself.”
That was the worry here. Kenny might already have. But he couldn’t say that. It was a theory. One, so far, unfounded. And one Kenny worried was just his obsession with it all. Had he told Jack any of this, Jack would tell him as such.
So he downed his coffee and stood. “Thanks for the drink.”
Harry’s gaze rose to meet Kenny’s, filled with fractured concern. “Could we have done more?”
“Perhaps the question is, should you have?”
“And should we have?”
“It would appear so, yes.”
Harry nodded, then his eyes glazed over when he said, “What’s his likely outcome, then?”
Kenny inhaled sharply. “If he didn’t receive the right interventions early on, the trajectory would likely mirror what we often see with other children in similar circumstances. Instability. Distrust. Anger. Moving from foster home to foster home disrupts attachment, leaving a child feeling abandoned, reinforcing a lack of trust. The abuse would compound this, instilling fear and resentment, manifesting in antisocial behaviours. By adolescence, the pattern would have cemented. Conflict with authority, emotional dysregulation, escalating aggression. Without proper therapeutic support, the cycle of trauma continues, intensifying into adulthood.”
“Intensifying enough to commit murder?”
“Without knowing him, I couldn’t say.”
“But the scene itself?”
“Was too clean. Too refined.”
“Thank fuck for that.” Harry tried to heft himself out of his chair. “We don’t need that pinned on our failings.”
“Don’t get up.” Kenny raised a hand to stop him. “I can see myself out. You enjoy your retirement.”
Harry fell back and offered a small smile of gratitude. Although, within it were also his apologies. His hope. And stark acknowledgement that he, none of his team, could have done anything more than they had.
Except they could have. They could have ensured the Howell child had everything he needed to develop healthy relationships. Nurtured him to make the right choices. Follow a different path. Kenny didn’t know if any of that wasn’t true yet.
But he was damn well going to find out. If it killed him.
It might.
“Night, Chief.”
“Night, Dr Lyons.”
Kenny walked out to the hallway, but before he made it to the front door, Harry’s voice sailed out to him. “And what about her ?”
Kenny pretended not to hear the question because he had no answers. Or none he wanted to divulge right then. Instead, he left the house and drove immediately back to campus.
Jack had been right.
He’d never sleep, anyway.