Chapter 14
Hendricks
“Are you sure that’s what you heard?”
“Yes. She was talking to Benson. She’s leaving at Easter. Back to Australia.”
I knew this would happen. I don’t even know when, over the past few weeks, I’d convinced myself it wouldn’t. Story is leaving again.
“But I thought she was staying until the end of the school year.” Miles picks out a piece of cucumber from the salad and tosses it in his mouth. “That’s what Clare said.”
“Your intel is wrong.”
“It’s not wrong.”
“Milo. I heard her with my own ears. She’s going back to Australia at Easter.”
“Why were you up at Benson’s office anyway?” Lando interrupts before Miles and I start arguing again.
I take a deep breath, then another, but they’re ineffective.
What I want is a drink, a large glass of vodka, tequila, or whiskey.
Anything. But I’m on call. Therefore, I’m drinking sparkling water.
Just how my fucking day is going. I barely drink anyway, but on the one night I really need something to take the edge off, I have to abstain.
My teeth crunch together as I grit out the word. “Sienna.”
Lando looks from me to Miles and back. I can’t bring myself to continue. I’m too furiously swiping bread around my bowl of bolognaise and stuffing it into my mouth. If my mouth is full, then maybe it’ll give me a second to calm down before I punch a hole in the wall. Or cry.
“Sienna’s been calling him. We don’t know why. Hen called Arthur this morning, and Arthur’s not heard from her or the solicitors. He was seeing Benson because he wanted to warn the school in case Sienna showed up—”
“What? Is that likely?”
“Who knows. I don’t even know if she’s aware which school Max attends.”
They both turn to me, and I shake my head.
“She doesn’t even know what he looks like.” Miles shrugs, and there’s so much sadness in it.
“What did Benson say?”
“The school is secure. You can’t get into any of the buildings without a code anyway. No one’s going to hand over a child to a stranger—” The words, the insinuation . . . it’s too awful to think about, and I squeeze my eyes shut before the tears fall. “But they’re being extra vigilant.”
“Okay. Do you want security there?”
I shake my head. “No, I don’t want Max to be affected in any way. I’ll find out what she wants when she calls again. Or she’ll call Arthur. Or I’ll call her once I can calm down.”
“Maybe she wants more money?”
“No, it’s not that. Whenever she’s wanted money before, it’s always gone through Arthur. This is about Max. I know it.”
Lando places his arm around me and pulls me into his side. After today, and the fitful sleep I had last night, I’m weary, and the hold I have on my emotions weakens enough that the tears leak out.
“Hen, nothing will happen to Max. Nothing. I promise you that.”
It’s words I needed to hear. He’s so firm, his tone so serious that I believe him. “Thanks, Lan.”
“Ahhh, isn’t this lovely?” drawls Alex, walking into the kitchen. Only when I sit up and wipe my eyes does his smile drop. “What’s happened? I was only gone five minutes.”
“Sienna,” I snarl, scooping another helping of spaghetti into my bowl.
Alex pauses on his way to sitting down. “What’s she done now?”
One thing I really love and appreciate about my siblings is the murderous expression each of them have when her name is mentioned. I also love how none of them push me to talk about her.
Lando shakes his head and says, “Long story, catch you up later.”
“How’s Everly?”
My dilemma is forgotten, and a smile stretches across Alex’s face. It’s one I’m familiar with, one I had when Max was a baby. Still have.
“Asleep, thankfully. Her blanket had tangled.”
Miles picks up the bottle of wine and tops up Alex’s glass. “And the girls were worried we wouldn’t be able to cope on our own.”
My brothers and I are having a boys’ night at Burlington.
Good wine (I’m not enjoying), homemade pasta and bolognaise, two children soundly asleep despite how loudly the rain is crashing against the windows.
Clementine, our mother, and Haven are all staying in London tonight with Holiday, Lando’s girlfriend, who’s filming on a celebrity talk show to promote her new movie.
Therefore, we decided to take the opportunity to hang out ourselves.
Nothing to do with it being Alex’s first entire night on his own with Everly, or why he’s decided to sleep at Burlington tonight instead of his own place.
Lando has been traveling with Holiday over the past few months, and we haven’t seen as much of him as usual, so we used the girls’ absence as an opportunity to catch up.
It hasn’t been the four of us together for months, and with the busyness of everyone’s lives, it’s easy to forget how much we miss it.
“So what else is news?” Lando sips his wine. “How’s the committee going?”
I roll my eyes at his smug expression. He hates the committees, we all do, yet he insists on them and takes great pleasure in how infuriating we all find them. Until the time comes for his turn, then he doesn’t stop complaining.
A loud snort from Miles says everything. “I can’t believe you suggested the kissing booth. That is so lame. What’re you planning to do with it? Make out with Story for real this time?”
Alex’s fork stops halfway to his mouth. “Wait, what?”
“I don’t know why I suggested it. I’m an idiot.” I stare at my twin. “I was thinking about how you fucked it up that day. You know they haven’t had the booth since?”
“I did no such thing. And if I remember, which I do, I was the one who got punched in the nose. It wasn’t my fault that I tripped into the stand and broke it. That girl had clearly been taking boxing lessons,” he replies, twirling his fork around the spaghetti and shoving it in his mouth.
Alex and Lando are wearing identical expressions of amusement. It was the first time a girl had ever punched Miles. It wasn’t the last.
“And anyway,” he continues, with a sip of wine, “I’d been trying to get with Lauren MacCauley forever. Plus, you owed me. You lost the last game of Burlington Snaps. It was your dare.”
“I didn’t know Annabel Stenson was expecting us to make out—”
“Neither did I—”
“I thought I was just asking her on a date for you, when she launched herself on me. Story didn’t speak to me for a month.”
“That’s because she was in love with you. Still is.”
“I’m not getting into this again,” I snap, all my annoyance and frustration from everything that’s happened in the past twelve hours resurfacing.
I still remember that day at the fair as the first time I’d ever properly been angry with Miles.
“I don’t know how you’ve not been punched more, Milo.” Alex chuckles.
Miles’s response is a drawled, “I know when to dodge.”
Lando holds his hands up. “Sorry, just to rewind because I wasn’t really listening before, but you and Story? You’re friends again?”
“There is no me and Story,” I say as firmly as I can. Not sure it’s firm enough for me to believe it, though, but it’s worth a try. “We’re not friends again. She’s Max’s teacher. That’s it.”
“Then why the booth—”
“They’re both on the Valentine committee,” Miles explains, using a tone he usually only reserves for Max. “Hendricks got too caught up reminiscing about old times and had a lapse in judgment.”
“Ah. Got it—”
I’m glad someone does because I sure don’t, and whatever Lando is about to say next is interrupted by my phone ringing.
“If that’s Sienna—”
“It’s not, it’s the surgery.” I cut Miles off mid-snarl and answer, “Hendricks Burlington.”
“Hendricks?”
I recognize her voice immediately even though I’m confused why she’d be on the end of the line patched through from the vets. “Story?”
All three of my brothers sit up straighter. Miles practically leans across the table in a bid to hear what she’s saying.
“You have to come . . . Churchill . . . stuck . . . rain . . .”
They’re the only words I hear through the patchy signal we suffer from in the depths of the countryside. The panic in her voice stays consistent, though.
I stand so quickly that my chair is only stopped from clattering to the floor by Lando’s quick reflexes. “Story? Where are you?”
“Honeysuckle . . . La—”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Sit tight.”
Three sets of eyes and concerned faces stare up at me. “I don’t know what’s happened, but it didn’t sound good. I think she said something about Churchill—”
“That bloody goat.”
Alex is looking toward the back doors leading out onto the lawns. The floodlights do a good job of illuminating how hideous the weather is. “She can’t be out in this, surely.”
I snatch up a set of car keys, along with my surgery kit. “Dunno, but I’m going to find out.”
“Want one of us to come with you?”
“No, I’ll call if I need anything. If Max wakes up, just tell him I’m at work. He shouldn’t, though.”
“Take one of the estate Land Rovers, then you have the walkie-talkies in case there’s no signal.”
I wave the keys I’m already holding and grab my thickest raincoat. “Way ahead of you.”
If the weather looked bad from the warmth of the kitchen, it’s nothing compared to what greets me as I speed down the Burlington driveway and out onto the lane. The windscreen wipers are no match for the incessant sheet of water.
Racing around the fountain, Valentine High Street is empty.
From the looks of it, everyone’s taking refuge in The One True Love.
Slowing down as I hit Honeysuckle Lane, I realize that I have no idea where Story might be.
Or what car she drives. Even crawling along at ten miles an hour, I don’t spot any vehicle stopped.
When I hit the end of the lane, I turn around to look again.
This time, a flash of reflective material catches my eye from deep in the ditch at the side of the road. Story?
What the actual fuck?
I slam the brakes so hard the car almost hydroplanes to a stop, and I’m out of the door and sliding down the bank before I turn the engine off.
One look at me, and her face crumples. “Hen . . . Oh God. Thank you—”