In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson (ebook reader for pc and android TXT) 📕

cuts me off. ‘We have our suspects. Robert’s pleading no contest.’ He looks at me pityingly. He really believes that Robert is guilty, that he’s got this whole case sewn up, but I can’t just let it go. Not until I’m shown absolute proof.

‘Just promise me you’ll look into it?’ I beg Nate. ‘Please.’

He sighs. ‘OK. I’ll look into it.’

He’s about to go back inside when the door opens. It’s the deputy who left his post yesterday when he should have been guarding June’s room. He sees me and nods. ‘Mrs Walker,’ he mumbles, tipping his hat in my direction, before turning to Nate. ‘Their alibis checked out.’

‘Shit,’ Nate mutters.

‘What does that mean?’ I ask.

‘Are they reliable?’ Nate asks the deputy, ignoring me.

He shrugs.

Nate huffs. ‘I’ll call you later,’ he says as he strides off.

I watch him vanish into his office. That’s good, isn’t it? If their alibis checked out that means they weren’t involved, it means that Robert is innocent . . . doesn’t it? But if he’s innocent of hiring them to rob us or kill me, what was he meeting with them about?

‘Wait,’ I say to the deputy, Jonathan, grabbing his arm to stop him from leaving too. I notice his badge, Jonathan Safechuck. ‘What happens now?’

He turns to me. ‘We have to let them go. We’ve got nothing to hold them on.’

‘What about Robert? Will they let him go too? That proves that he didn’t plot any of this.’

‘We’ve still got him on the conspiracy to commit insurance fraud charge.’

‘But the conspiracy to commit murder?’ I ask. ‘Are you dropping it?’

He grimaces. ‘You should talk to his lawyer.’

He tips his hat and then rushes off after Nate, leaving me standing there, swaying slightly, wishing the world would stop spinning for a moment and let me catch my breath.

Chapter 26

DAY 7

The door to June’s room opens and I look up in alarm. It’s Gene, looking like the vagrants who sleep under the bridge in the park. He’s wearing wrinkled, dirt-stained clothes, and looks like he hasn’t showered in days. His hair is lank and hangs in his face.

‘Where have you been?’ I ask.

He shrugs sheepishly. ‘Around.’

I narrow my eyes as he shuffles to the bed and looks down at June. Did he see the news?

He frowns and then drops into a chair on the other side of the bed. Is he stoned? He doesn’t seem it. His foot is bouncing up and down like he’s jazz drumming and his eyes keep darting about the place. If anything, he seems the opposite of stoned. He seems amped on something.

‘Where have you been?’ I ask. ‘Laurie said you weren’t staying with her and Dave.’

‘I’ve been at the house,’ he mumbles.

‘We have to move out,’ I tell him.

Gene darts a glance in my direction. ‘I know,’ he says, his eyes sliding back to June. ‘Dave told me.’

I finally checked my messages and the bank have given us a very generous extra two weeks before they’re sending around the enforcement agency to bodily remove us. I called the bank manager, full of apology, begging for more time, but she was unmoved. I need to sort out all our belongings. I don’t know what I’m going to do – sell what I can, put the rest in storage, I suppose, until I figure it out. The irony is that the insurance policy that Robert bought would cover us for all our medical costs and would pay off the bank loans, leaving us well off, but because he’s been arrested for fraud we can’t get a penny of it.

There’s a pause as Gene and I both sit and stare at June, who seems to have shrunk even more into herself. She resembles some kind of macabre doll. Her eyes have hollowed into her skull, the fine bones of her hands and wrists are carving out of the skin as her muscles start to waste away.

‘I need your help,’ I finally say, wondering why he hasn’t asked anything at all about his father or the police investigation. Why doesn’t he want to know what’s happening? Does he wonder, like me, if his father is guilty and he’s just too scared to voice it?

‘We need to sell some things,’ I say, taking a deep breath. ‘The paintings – there’s a Simon Caldwell painting that must be worth something – and my car too, maybe the dealer will take it back. I’ve hardly driven it. I need your help with that.’

‘What?’ Gene says.

‘We need the money,’ I tell him, as if it wasn’t obvious.

Gene takes that in and then turns back to June. He doesn’t react at all, just stares at her. What the hell is going on? Did he not hear what I just said? I need his help!

I’m about to yell at him but I stop myself abruptly, a sudden thought occurring. What if I’m being blind? What if it’s something worse than being stoned? I study him closer. His skin is paler even than June’s and sweat beads his brow at the hairline. His lips are chapped to the point they’re bleeding, and he’s fidgeting, scratching fiercely behind his ear as though he’s got a bite there. I wrack my brains, trying to remember the signs of meth addiction.

‘Gene?’

He looks at me finally and I see that his pupils are fully dilated. ‘Are you OK?’ I ask him. Please God. Not this too, is what I’m thinking. But then I stop my little prayer, cut it short, because it seems that whoever is up there has already decided that I’m his current plaything, like a Rottweiler with a new chew toy, and any exhortation on my part only seems to spur him on to maul me further.

‘I’m fine,’ Gene says, looking quickly away, scratching again at that invisible itch behind his ear. He jumps abruptly to his feet. ‘I need to go,’ he says, making for the door.

‘Where are you going?’ I ask, getting to my feet. He only just got here.

‘I’ll get started on selling