Finders Keepers by Edie Baylis (epub ebook reader txt) 📕

He grimaced. That was not the attitude needed in a situation such as this and was not helpful by anyone’s standards. It was certainly not the attitude he took, but it looked like he was on his own where sorting this out was concerned.

He stared out into the deserted showroom. They didn’t even have any customers, for fuck’s sake!

Opening a new Google tab, Heath clicked on the Maidenhead news website he’d been following closely since Helen’s death. From what he’d read the other day, he got the distinct impression the police investigation had been scaled down. Being as they’d wrapped up at the house too, it didn’t look like any further news would be forthcoming on that story for the time being, which didn’t leave him much more to go on.

With nothing further in the papers, no Helen, Teagan blatantly ignoring him and Robert nowhere to be found, there were no means to source more information. He frowned. The only real direction to head and the one his father was adamant he didn’t take, was to go to the Feathers himself and deal with it from there.

Heath was convinced the men he’d seen at Footlights the night of Helen’s death were something to do with that firm who ran the Feathers - the ones who it was believed were the cause of his grandfather’s death, as well as Helen Shepherd’s. If it was them, then surely that was the only avenue left to explore?

Wait! What was this? His eyes focused on the small section of obituaries:

Helen Shepherd – Funeral to be held on 3rd July at 11.45am at St Peter’s Church, Maidenhead, followed by a wake at The Temple Hotel. All flowers to be sent to Greaves Funeral Directors, Stone Road...

Heath smiled. Well, that was it. He’d go to Helen Shepherd’s funeral. Teagan would be bound to be there.

Fourteen

ROLLING HIS SLEEVES UP, Robert silently scanned the sitting room at Footlights. Although he and Teagan had broken the back of cleaning up this particular area yesterday, a lot more could have been achieved had it not been for getting side-tracked.

As it was, he’d been up half the night, unable to sleep, haunted by the combination of disappointment and confusion about his unexpected parentage, along with the simmering resentment that no matter how much he attempted to dilute his anger for his mother’s hiding the truth from him all these years, he couldn’t stop it from bubbling under the surface.

Both of those unpleasant situations were contradicted by the unfamiliar aching for Teagan; the woman who had been lying mere feet away the other side of the wall in the next bedroom all night.

These things clamouring for attention in his mind did not belong together and made relaxing enough to sleep properly impossible. To make matters worse, the small amount of sleep he had snatched was filled with vivid dreams; the lucid and graphic images of Teagan causing him to frequently wake, mortified to find the proof of his hunger on his sheets in sodden patches. How old was he? 12?

Robert snatched up a pile of stacked paperwork from the floor. He prided himself on his ability to remain above base desires and raw emotion. This strength had always served him in good stead; giving him a modicum of control that most people were unable to maintain, but now he was becoming just like them and hence in unfamiliar waters.

Shaking his head with irritation, he opened his mother’s bureau to place the paperwork back where he presumed it had been pulled from.

His eyes kept wandering to the newspaper clipping, now folded on the top of the sideboard, but he resisted the urge to look at again. He didn’t need to study the image of Michael Pointer further because it was indelibly ingrained on his brain as clearly as the reflection he saw each time he looked in the mirror.

No, he was better off not using any more energy speculating over things he was unlikely to get the answers to. But he’d keep that clipping. Maybe once the shock subsided he would search for answers elsewhere?

Stuffing the paperwork back in one of the bureau’s compartments, Robert frowned, again wondering if Helen had been aware of this, whether it explained any of her behaviour?

Unable to fit all of the paperwork into the bureau, Robert tugged at a small drawer. He’d shove some of it in there. It could all be sorted properly later. Right now, the most important thing was to get the house back into a habitable state. He still had the whole of the upstairs to do and that he really wasn’t looking forward to.

Absentmindedly cramming in as much paperwork into the small drawer as possible, huffing when it wouldn’t fully close, he yanked it open again, pushing his fingers to the back, feeling something trapped.

Robert pulled a small leather-bound notebook out. Staring at it he hesitated, but despite his reluctance, felt unable to stop the pages falling open and stared at the handwritten notes. His mother’s handwritten notes.

‘ARE YOU DRUNK?’ LENA whined, watching Jonah throw his suit jacket scruffily over the back of the sofa. For God’s sake – he smelt like a brewery. If she’d known he would bathe in whisky she wouldn’t have bothered torturing herself with that mouthwash to mask the smell of the vodka she’d chugged.

‘I’m not drunk,’ Jonah snapped, making his way to the drinks cabinet. That wasn’t entirely true - he was more than half-cut and if he had it his way, he would get very drunk tonight. At least that way he might get a bit of peace.

How dare Saul dictate his personal life. It wasn’t up to his brother who he goddamn married. It wasn’t up to anyone – apart from himself and if he wanted to marry Lena, then he would do just