by Edie Baylis
Joe felt a cold flush spread from his feet, right up his legs and down his arms to the fingertips. It went up his torso and through the back of his eyes into his hair. This wasn’t over.
He knew, even though it choked him to acknowledge it, the man’s very presence meant they still expected him to deliver on their arrangement. He was still expected to get the keys to that old woman’s house.
This time, without any shadow of a doubt, Joe realised he’d have to make sure he did it because otherwise the consequences were loud and clear.
‘HIYA!’ Terri breezed cheerfully into Gwen’s office. ‘Just checking the rest of the weeks’ rota.’
Gwen nodded towards the large black folder on the shelf and resumed chewing her bottom lip. There was only one text she’d found on Lena’s phone when she’d taken the risk of scanning through it yesterday that rang any alarm bells, but even that wasn’t significant enough to denote anything categoric. She didn’t know what she’d expected to find, but she’d expected something.
Gwen picked at the skin around her fingernails. She’d already made one bleed today and it was beginning to look decidedly unpleasant. But nowhere near as unpleasant as the lurking feeling in her gut about Lena Taylor.
It wasn’t a text Lena had received that bothered her, it was one she’d sent. Seeing nothing of interest in Lena’s inbox, Gwen had looked in the Sent Messages folder and there was one to a contact called UR.
The text hadn’t said much – but Gwen could remember ever word:
Brill! Yes, it’s all in hand. I know, I’m amazing.
