Chapter Ten
Vara stared out of the car window, watching the people stroll past. She heaved a sigh and tapped her fingers on a photograph of a young woman. In the photograph, the woman stared straight ahead, her dark brown eyes made darker by her creamy skin and pale blonde hair.
She sat up straighter as the woman from the photograph appeared at the end of the street, her handbag slung over one shoulder and a grocery bag cradled in her arms. Vara watched her with narrowed eyes, feeling a sharp sting of annoyance at how even with an anxious frown on her face, Emily Green still looked pretty.
Vara glanced down at the photograph she held in her hands. Yep, that was Emily Green alright. Her long hair was tied into a messy bun and her pastel-coloured jumper was a different colour, but the feeling that this girl was as innocent and naïve as a newborn was still there. How fantastic. She and Vara were sure to become best buddies.
With another sigh, Vara chucked the photograph onto the dashboard and waited for Emily to get closer. She timed it so that when she popped open the car door and stepped out, she was face to face with Kieran’s secret.
Emily gasped and jerked back a half-step, the grocery bag crinkling as she adjusted her hold to stop it from slipping out of her grip. Pretty pink lips curving into an apologetic smile, she said, “Oh! So sorry! I didn’t see you get out of the car.” She forced another quick smile and made to walk past Vara.
Vara grabbed her arm.
“H-hey! I said I was sorry.”
Vara shook her head. “We have a conversation that needs finishing.”
Emily’s eyes widened as she obviously recognised Vara’s voice. Panic stamped itself across her face, her thoughts of dropping her groceries and doing a runner clearer than a pane of polished glass.
“Oh, relax,” Vara sighed irritably. “If I’d have wanted to hurt you I would have done it by now in at least a hundred different ways.”
Strangely enough, that didn’t seem to help the situation.
“Please,” Emily gasped, “let go of me. I don’t have anything you want. I don’t know anything about Kieran. I can’t help you. Just let go of me.”
“Look, we’re standing in a crowded street. There’re lots of people already alarmed by the fact that you look like you’ve peeped under you bed and seen the underworld. Just take a deep breath or two and act like we’re old friends. Alright?”
Emily’s eyes flickered from left to right, as though looking for some cape-wearing idiot to lend her a helping hand. Finally, she swallowed and nodded quickly, brown eyes still wider than Bambi’s.
“Right. No screaming, no running away, no dropping notes to strangers saying you’re being kidnapped. Which you’re not, by the way. Let’s just take a walk down the street, and pretend we’re having a good old catch-up.”
When she still hesitated, Vara played the best card she had.
“Kieran’s missing.”
It worked. The groceries slid from Little Miss Innocent’s hands and fell to the pavement, apples rolling everywhere. Both Vara and Emily dropped to a crouch, bending over the grocery bag. Emily looked like she was struggling for breath as she packed the wrapped stuff back in the bag. She stopped suddenly and tucked a loose clump of her hair behind an ear. The look of utter distress in her eyes made Vara glad that she didn’t have to tell Emily Kieran had also gone and shot his two buddies.
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
Vara snorted. “Oh yeah. I’m obviously lying. That’s why you went and dropped your groceries out of shock because of how convincing I am.” She shook her head. “You know I’m telling the truth, don’t waste my time trying to be brave. We’re on Kieran’s side.”
For a moment Emily just stared at Vara, then she nodded. “I knew something was wrong. I haven’t heard a thing from him in ages. Not since he told me he was going, like, a month ago. I just…I just dismissed it. I mean, it’s Kieran, right?”
Her eyes were pleading with Vara, hoping for some reassurance. Vara was too busy wondering how long Emily and Kieran had been keeping in contact. Oh, and trying to figure out what else she didn’t know about the SOB.
“H-how did he go missing? What were the circumstances? Is he in danger?”
Vara stood up, searching for the right answer. Emily also got to her feet, ignoring the grocery bag. “Please,” she said, sounding close to tears.
“It was a fight. In Africa. The other two with him were shot.” By him. “We haven’t heard a thing from him since he…vanished.”
“Oh God.” One of her hands flew straight to her mouth like she was trying to stifle a sob. A tear escaped from the corner of her eye and made a bid for freedom down her cheek. “Oh God.”
Vara watched her with a critical eye. A small part of her wondered if that was how she’d looked when the Master told her about Kieran. The other, larger part was trying to figure out how attached to Kieran Emily was. The fact that she looked ready to bawl her eyes out just ‘cause Kieran was taking playing Hide and Seek a little too seriously confirmed her suspicions.
She leaned closer to Emily.
“I need to know how much you care about Kieran. Would you help us find him and bring him back to safety,” Vara paused for effect, and then continued, “at the risk of your life?”
She didn’t know what she’d expected. For Emily to see through her manipulation and tell her to go to hell? Vara would’ve had a small spec of respect for Emily if she’d done that. Instead Emily lifted her chin and got this fierce blaze in her pretty, bright eyes.
“Yes.”
***
“I need to know everything about you and Kieran.”
They sat in Vara’s car, both ignoring the steaming cups of coffee they held. Their walk down the street hadn’t lasted. Somewhere between dodging the odd cyclist and trying to make herself heard over the crowd, Vara had realised their midday stroll wasn’t the brightest idea ever. So she’d persuaded Emily to give up on it, grab a drink and go someplace where they could actually talk.
Emily stopped gazing stupidly out of the window and fixed her eyes on Vara. Vara stared right back.
“Wake up, Emily. It’s important.”
“Wake up?”
“Grief. It’s making you groggy. Cheer up and wake up – it’s not like he died.”
Her mouth popped open. “He… He… You said he was abducted! That the two other people he was with were killed by the ones who took him! For all we know-”
“I never said any of that. I said he was missing and that the two others he was with were killed. Crying about it, thinking ‘if only’, won’t change a thing.”
Emily stared at Vara, looking caught between arguing and agreeing. In the end she just turned her head around and went back to staring out of the window. Vara was just about to tear her hair out when Emily said softly, “Were you there?”
“Excuse me?”
“Your eye. You look like you’ve been in a fight recently, I was just wondering…”
“No.” Vara’s frown turned into a full-blown scowl. “That has nothing to do with Kieran. So do you mind if we get back to talking about something that does?”
Emily heaved a sigh. “There’s nothing to tell. He never said anything about what was bothering him to me.”
“How long have you been meeting with him?”
Emily lifted a hand and began to play with a loose strand of her hair, twisting it around one of her fingers. “I bumped into him at a park about a year ago. He’d call me if he wanted to meet.”
“So that went on for a year and he didn’t say one word to you?”
She twisted the hair around her finger tighter. “He’d say he was unhappy, that he didn’t like what he did. He’d say that I should never tell anyone that I was meeting him or that he even existed. And he’d insult me, get annoyed with me, but that was okay. He needed to lash out; it made him feel in control.”
“And you were alright with him treating you like crap? You went back for more?”
Her finger began to turn purple. “He… he needed it. He needed someone to listen to him, to care about him. He acts tough, but he’s not. He’s vulnerable, so vulnerable…and now he’s missing…” She ripped her finger free of her hair and shook her head. “I should’ve made him talk. I should’ve made him go and leave whatever was bothering him all behind…”
“Well, you didn’t. And as touching as it is to know Kieran was actually all about rainbows and fluffy kittens, none of this is at all helpful.”
Emily twisted back around to face Vara, perfect eyebrows raised in astonishment. “Don’t you feel anything at all? Kieran is…” She blinked. “Ah, Kieran…” She raised a hand to her head and blinked again. Rubbing her eyes, she mumbled, “Kieran is missing… I…”
Vara watched her struggle, feeling nothing whatsoever. Through her waves of dizziness, Emily cottoned on to the fact that Vara wasn’t panicking like her. She lifted her head and gazed at Vara, eyes burning with accusation.
“You’ve drugged me,” she gasped.
“Only a little bit – in your coffee.” Vara reached for her seatbelt. “Can’t have you knowing where the Master is. I also don’t want to have to listen to you for the entire car journey.”
Emily tried to reply, but her head lolled forward and her eyes closed. Vara’s warm glow of triumph vanished when Emily’s grip on her coffee slackened. Hot coffee went everywhere, soaking Vara’s trousers.
“Goddamn karma,” she muttered, turning the key in the ignition.
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