Chapter 4
FOUR
ELLIE
My feet ache, and I check the clock for the billionth time tonight.
Urgh. Still two hours to go.
It’s no wonder time seems to be going backwards, with no one but Old Martin propping up the bar. Martin, who nurses one pint for two hours while watching cricket.
Kill me now.
I’m two-thirds of the way to my total for heading abroad for a year. For ditching the grey skies and rain for sun and delicious food, and hostel hopping.
Gary scowls as I scrub at a particularly stubborn lager ring on the bar until his eyes drop to my tits.
Gross.
He’s about three steps short of the graveyard and pays with more pocket lint than pennies. As if.
I don’t know how Bernie can afford to pay me these days. Shifts at the busy sports bar near the uni are way more fun, but I have to take as much work as I can get to get out of England.
Some might say I’m running from Sam’s disappearance, but it’s not just that feeling of abandonment and unknowing that I’m trying to escape.
It’s my best friend being gaga over my foster brother.
And while I’m happy for them, there’s something weird between them.
I always feel like they’re hiding something from me.
So I need a change of scenery. A place to disappear into and try to find who I am now before I end up in full adult life with a sensible job and a sensible partner.
My last chance to be free. Sure, I hope for those things one day, but between university, Kat, my family and Sam’s disappearance, I’ve not felt like myself for a while.
The tinny voice of a newsreader interrupts Gary’s cricket, much to his chagrin. Missing man has my gut clenching until I look up and see that it’s not Sam. It’s a missing hillwalker in Scotland. My pulse stutters in my throat as I close my eyes.
You’d think after six months I could move on. Sam and I had barely even been dating, really, but it’s the not knowing what happened that gets to me. Had he been kidnapped? Did he have a secret family somewhere? Did he piss off abroad because he hates me? Is he even alive?
Gathering up my rampant thoughts, I stuff them back into the box in my head that I’ve created. A place to try to quieten them when they get too loud.
With no leads in months, there’s nowhere for the police to go with it. A dead end.
The bell over the door rings, and I look up as a rather dishy man walks in. All polo-neck and suit jacket, carrying a leather satchel. He has those crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiles at me, and for the first time in a long time, a glimmer of warmth uncurls inside me.
Well now, who’s this fine stranger?
He looks a bit academic, but this dive isn’t close to the university. A lost tourist? Tragic guy who’s picked the world’s worst first date location?
Colour me intrigued.
‘What can I get you?’ I ask as he takes a seat at the bar.
‘Just a lemonade, please.’ There’s a sweep of London posh boy in his accent. Not pronounced enough to be the Queen’s English, but enough that he can’t hide it.
‘Do adults drink lemonade in the pub?’ I say, raising a brow while fetching a glass.
‘They do when they’re on the job.’
Taking a look around the shitty pub, I can’t imagine what sort of work would take a guy like him into a place like this.
The soft drink tap splutters, dribbling out a weak flow of lemonade into the glass. It’s not often anyone chooses something other than tap-based beer or cider.
The guy doesn’t seem fazed when I put the not-so-fizzy drink down in front of him.
‘What kind of job brings you to a place like this?’ I ask, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
‘Less what and more who,’ he says cryptically.
A chill dances up my back. I don’t like the way he’s looking at me like I’m someone he knows.
Did I date this fucker and forget him? Bang his brains out on a night out and skip out before sunrise?
Hell, I haven’t slept with anyone for a while, so surely he couldn’t be someone coming back to follow up on a date from more than a year ago.
‘And who would that be?’ I ask.
The foppish guy sticks his hand in his satchel, and my gut starts sending danger signals into the rest of me. I feel around below the bar for something that might be a useful weapon in case this oddball pulls out a knife, or acid, or something.
Towel? No.
A glass? Better than a towel.
Fuck.
He gives me the weirdest look as he pulls out a business card and slides it towards me.
‘Oh,’ I say, picking it up and turning it over. Frederick Baker. Frederick? Jeez.
The Chester Mail. Ah fuck. A journalist. I should have bloody known. Plenty tried to catch an interview when Sam went missing, but I thought the vultures would have quit by now.
He must read the disgust in my face as he holds his hands up and gives an apologetic smile.
‘If this is about Sam—’
‘It is. I’m sorry; I know you probably don’t want to churn it all up again. I’m looking for my big break still, you know, the story, and I came across Sam’s disappearance.’
Of. Fucking. Course.
First cute guy I’ve seen since Sam absconded from my life, and he’s here to talk about my love life. Ex-love life.
‘I already told the police everything I know. Which is basically nothing. There’s nothing to tell.’
‘Sometimes things come back later, after a period of time has lapsed. Maybe there’s something you didn’t think was relevant…’
‘Unless you suspect me of chaining him up in the basement, I’m not sure what you think I’m going to be able to tell you, Frederick.’ I start aggressively washing glasses as he takes out a poncy little notebook, noticing the way he flinches when I use his name.
‘I prefer to be called Freddie.’
‘And I prefer not to be bothered by men looking to climb the ladder using other people's pain as the rungs, Frederick.’
He puts his pen down and gives me an analytical look. ‘Ellie, do you want to find out what happened to Sam?’
‘Of course I bloody do.’
‘Then what’s the harm in going over it one more time?’ Freddie tips his head a little to the left, and I can’t help but notice how fucking adorable it is. Damn. ‘Please?’
The draw of finally having answers makes it tempting. But why would this guy have them? He’s not in the police. He’s not a detective. He just reports on what happens. He knows no more than I do.
Still. I want those answers.
Sighing, I put down the soapy glass and dry my hands. ‘What do you want to know?’
There’s a spark of excitement in his eyes—green and rather lovely eyes—as he picks up his pen again.
‘Was there anything different about him in the week before his disappearance? A change in schedule or attitude?’
‘Nothing that I haven’t already told the police.
’ Freddie stares at me until I sigh. ‘He changed a few shifts and didn’t tell me.
I’d go to the coffee shop to see him, and he wouldn’t be there.
He had his phone off too. When I asked him about it, he told me he was having migraines.
I had no reason not to believe him. Not until he disappeared. ’
Freddie notes my words down. ‘And what do you suspect he was up to?’
Lifting my shoulder, I shrug. ‘No idea.’
‘Did he even mention anyone else?’
‘You think he was cheating on me? We were still in the honeymoon phase. He was sweet and never even looked at other women. He didn’t even like my roommate much, and trust me, she’s a grade-A hottie.’
His eyebrow quirked up.
‘Sam didn’t like your roommate?’
‘I mean… he never said so, but he always froze up around her. Not in a shy, have-the-hots way, but like he had a reason not to like her. I asked him about it, but he told me he only knew her from seeing her on campus.’
‘Did you ask her about it?’
‘She just thought he wasn’t my type. Which is true. But he swept me off my feet.’ Our romance had been so unexpected. But so sweet. ‘He wasn’t like other guys. We spent hours cuddling, and yet he never pushed it further.’
Freddie’s mouth gaped briefly. ‘You guys weren’t intimate?’
The hair at the back of my neck bristles. ‘Not everyone needs to rush into the bedroom.’
‘I don’t mean it like that. It’s just that you’re…’ Freddie swallows and looks me up and down. ‘Incredibly hot. It’s hard to believe that he wouldn’t be interested.’
My cheeks heat in both pleasure from the compliment and indignation. I’d been up for the intimacy, and yet Sam wasn’t. It was a bit of a blow to my ego, and now this guy is trudging it all back up and making me feel shit again.
‘Maybe he’s secretly into guys or something. Did he have any men he spoke about? Any guy friends?’
‘Sam’s not gay.’
‘And you know this because?’
‘He pursued me. Plus he never spoke about guys. Only occasionally asked about my brother, but nothing like that.’
Freddie taps the pen against the notebook, his brows scrunching as he thinks. ‘And your brother’s name?’
‘Is none of your business.’ I’m done with his probing, because bringing my family into this nonsense is a step too far. Liam was with Kat when Sam disappeared, in some sex-fuelled escape in his shitty flat. The police had spoken to them both and verified it. ‘It’s two pounds for the lemonade.’
Freddie opens his mouth as if he’s about to say something, then swiftly closes it and fishes two pound coins from his pocket. He hands them over without even sipping the lemonade, and stands.
‘A pleasure to meet you, Ellie. Sorry it’s under these circumstances.’
I roll my eyes and go back to cleaning, muttering under my breath. ‘I wish I could say likewise.’
When he smiles at me after packing his bag, I hate that I notice how pretty he is. In that rich boy pretending to be a poor academic kind of way.
Like a male version of Kat, but without the shit parents driving him away from the trust fund.
You assume.
Either way, I hope he finds a different story that takes his fancy, because dredging all this up with little hope of finding the truth will just hurt me all over again.