For Richer, For Poorer
Page 28
He gulped. ‘I don’t know. I just wanted you to know.’
‘I have to go.’
This time, she had the door half-open before he responded. ‘Jess . . .’
‘What?’
‘I had fun this evening.’
She paused, wanting to pick her words but in the end it came out the same as it would have done if she had replied without thinking. ‘Me too.’
‘Are we going to do this again?’
‘Maybe.’
‘At yours?’
‘No.’
‘Are we going to tell anyone?’
‘No.’
They waited in silence for a few moments. She could hear him breathing across the room, practically hear his thoughts.
In the end, Jessica broke the impasse: ‘Go back to sleep, Arch. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
She didn’t want to wait for a reply but it came anyway, his voice barely a whimper. ‘Is this enough?’
‘Is what enough?’
‘This. Leaving at silly hours of the morning, not sleeping, pretending we barely know each other during the day.’
Jessica turned, holding onto her clothes with one hand. She whispered her reply before closing the door and heading to the sofa to get changed: ‘It’s this or nothing.’
Jessica padded through the corridors, trying not to make her feet echo too much on the hard floor. Lights turned on overhead as she walked, as if controlled by an omnipresent Big Brother tracking her progress, rather than a simple movement detector.
She should have stopped at the hospital’s front desk to ask permission to be here but she would only have been turned away. Ultimately, who cared if she turned up at almost four in the morning? Her eyes felt heavy, her hair was all over the place and she knew she looked a mess.
Had she driven drunk? Perhaps – she’d finished drinking hours ago but maybe there was something still in her system. What was she becoming?
Pad, pad, pad, pad.
There were only a few people in the corridors, so it was easy enough not to make eye contact. Keep your head down and walk. Most of the people not sleeping at this time of the night were lunatics anyway and Jessica was right there with them, following the black line of tape on the floor.
Pad, pad, pad, pad.
Eventually she arrived at the door: a dead end in a place where only the dead belonged. She pushed the door open and crept inside, hearing the whoosh of the machinery. For a moment, she stayed where she was, listening: a thunk and a hiss on endless repeat.
Jessica took a deep breath and stepped forward, away from the shadows into the dim light, moving the chair around and settling next to the bed. She closed her eyes, breathing slowly.
Thunk-hiss. Thunk-hiss.
She hadn’t been here in a few weeks because she couldn’t face it, not after that month where she’d barely left this place.
Couldn’t face him.
When Jessica opened her eyes again, she was staring directly at Adam’s broken, swollen, patchy skin. The heat from the car blaze had literally roasted him to the point where the skin was dripping from his body. He’d never woken and couldn’t breathe for himself; yet somehow he was still here, still alive, having a machine maintain whatever life was left in his body. His eyes were taped closed, his chest rising and falling only when the machine made it happen.
Thunk-hiss. Thunk-hiss.
Jessica slipped his hand out from under the blanket, running her thumb across the area where they had managed to graft the skin. She could feel the bumps and scrapes, see the patchwork of different colours blending into one another.
The tears hit the floor before she even knew they were coming, her single word of apology forever lost among the sobs. She’d said it enough anyway, over and over. One word that made no difference because he was here because of her.
‘Sorry.’
OUT NOW
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN
Kerry Wilkinson
Money can’t buy everything . . .
Jason Green’s life is changed for good after he is saved from a mugging by crime boss Harry Irwell. From there, he is drawn into Manchester’s underworld, where stomping into a newsagents and smashing the place up is as normal as making a cup of tea.
But Jason isn’t a casual thug. Fast cars and flash clothes don’t appeal – he’s biding his time and saving his money, waiting for the perfect moment to make a move.
That is until a woman walks into his life offering one thing that money can’t buy – salvation.
OUT NOW
SOMETHING WICKED
Kerry Wilkinson
There’s nothing worse than watching your child walk out the front door, never to return . . .
Nicholas Carr disappeared on his eighteenth birthday and the world has moved on. His girlfriend is off at university, his friends now have jobs and the police are busy dealing with the usual gallery of thieves and drunks.
But his father, Richard, can’t forget the three fingers the police dug up from a sodden Manchester wood. What happened to Nicholas on the night he disappeared, and why did he never return home?
A private investigator is Richard’s last hope – but Andrew Hunter has his own problems. There’s something about his assistant that isn’t quite right. Jenny’s brilliant but reckless, and he can’t figure out what she gets from working for him. By the time he discovers who’s a danger and who’s not, it might all be too late . . .
FOR RICHER, FOR POORER
Kerry Wilkinson has been busy since turning thirty.
His first Jessica Daniel novel, Locked In, was a number one ebook bestseller, while the series as a whole has sold one million copies.
He has written a fantasy-adventure trilogy for young adults, a second crime series featuring private investigator Andrew Hunter, plus the standalone thriller, Down Among the Dead Men.
Originally from the county of Somerset, Kerry has spent far too long living in the north of England, picking up words like ‘barm’ and ‘ginnel’.
When he’s short of ideas, he rides his bike or bakes cakes. When he’s not, he writes it all down.
For more information about Kerry and his books visit:
www.kerrywilkinson.com or www.panmacmillan.com
Twitter: twitter.com/kerrywk
Facebook: www.facebook.com/JessicaDanielBooks
Or you can email Kerry at kerrywilkinson@live.com
Also by Kerry Wilkinson
The Jessica Daniel series
LOCKED IN
VIGILANTE
THE WOMAN IN BLACK
THINK OF THE CHILDREN
PLAYING WITH FIRE
THICKER THAN WATER
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
CROSSING THE LINE
SCARRED FOR LIFE
The Andrew Hunter series
SOMETHING WICKED
Standalone thriller
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN
The Silver Blackthorn trilogy
RECKONING
RENEGADE
First published 2016 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2016 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-8091-0
Copyright © Kerry Wilkinson 2016
Photography © Alamy
The right of Kerry Wilkinson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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