Berlin (Leo & Allissa International Thrillers Book 3) by Luke Richardson (my reading book txt) 📕

That’s west, Leo thought, perhaps Hamburg, or Hanover. Or anywhere else. That was the best thing. No one knew where they were going. Not even Minty.

78

“This way,” Leo said, starting in the direction of the station. “What time is it?”

Allissa checked her phone. “Just before five.”

“The trains should be running again by now. The station’s just up here.”

The pair walked in silence.

Leo’s mind twisted and turned with the events of the evening.

Ahead, a pair of starlings darted across the path and landed on a branch overhanging the road. Their chirruping song pierced the silence. As Leo and Allissa approached, the birds leapt into flight again.

“One question,” Leo and Allissa both said at the same time.

Realizing the coincidence, they looked at each other.

“You go,” Allissa said, her expression fierce.

“No, you,” Leo said, trying in vain to appear serious.

He yelped as he felt Allissa’s elbow dig him in the ribs.

“What! What was that for —”

“Why didn’t you keep in touch with me?” Allissa’s expression darkened. “We’re supposed to be a team, which means you keep me involved.”

“I know, I was tracking Borya. Couldn’t exactly ring you.”

“A message would have been fine. I was worried about you.”

Allissa walked ahead and Leo ran three steps to catch up.

The starlings watched from their perch on the branch.

“How did you find me?” Leo asked.

“Remember the ‘Find Your Phone’ app?” Allissa asked, pulling out her phone.

“Ahh yeah,” Leo said, tapping his pockets. “Oh shit! Borya made me give the phone to Anafisa. I’ve got to go back and —"

“Leave it,” Allissa said, her expression thawing. “We’re not going back there now. If the police aren’t there already, they soon will be.”

Leo looked at Allissa. Circumstances had forced him to travel across the world for her, and now she’d done the same for him. They both risked their lives for what was right, and for each other.

“I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch,” Leo said.

“And…”

“And what?”

“Thank you for saving my arse, again…” Allissa said.

“Well,” Leo said, “I had it totally under control. I would have —”

Allissa silenced him with a look before quickening her pace.

Leo watched her and smiled.

One starling shuffled closer to the other on the branch. Their rhythmic twitter mingled with the dawn.

Looking at Allissa, her face awash with the glow of the coming morning, Leo thought about the embrace they’d shared a few days before. Right now, he wanted that more than anything.

Leo took a few quick steps and caught up with Allissa. Inhaling a reinforcing breath, he lifted his arm and put it around Allissa’s shoulders.

“What’re you doing?” Allissa said, looking up at him.

“I’ve just missed you, I suppose,” Leo said, leaning towards her.

“Go put your arm around Borya,” Allissa retorted, shrugging off Leo’s arm and accelerating again.

Leo watched and laughed. Maybe one day, he thought, circumstances would let him close that final distance.

Allissa paused and looked back at Leo. Her beaming smile showed that she had missed him too.

Leo didn’t notice though; he was watching the starlings skitter together in the direction of the woodland.

Epilogue

“So, let me get this right,” Allissa said as she walked towards Leo sat at the desk in their front room. Through the window, the grey-blue patchwork of the sky looked cold. Leo had wedged the ancient sash window open with a guidebook, and fresh salty air streamed in. “She wants us to follow her husband there, just to see what he gets up to?”

“That’s it.” Leo spun on the chair to face her. “I know we don’t usually take this sort of jealous marital stuff, but —“

Leo and Allissa got offers of work from wives and husbands all the time. Generally, the missing partner had just left because the relationship had run its course. The client didn’t need the services they offered, but those of a therapist.

“What’s the difference here?”

Leo spun to his computer. Allissa saw the map of an island she didn’t recognised on the screen.

“She knows where he is, for one.”

“So, he’s not actually missing —”

“No.”

“So, why are we doing it?”

“This is where he is.” Leo tapped the map, and the image of a flawless beach filled the screen. Clear blue water lapped against white sand. Palm trees hung lazily. “And she’s going to fly us there and book us into a five-star hotel just down the road from where her husband is.”

“And what do we have to do?” Allissa wasn’t convinced. It sounded too good to be true.

“We just have to monitor who comes and goes from his house. She’s not even said why — just monitor. I said we weren’t into trespassing and that. She said that was fine. The house has a long approach road we could sit out of sight on.”

“Oh, so we’ve got to sit in a mosquito-infested bush all day in some tropical paradise.”

“Well, we would.” Leo clicked to another internet browser. “If I hadn’t just ordered this.”

Allissa leaned in to see the screen. It was a battery-operated remote-control camera system attached to a stake that could be pushed into any flower bed, bush or pot plant.

“Didn’t we see —” Allissa said.

“Yep, Minty had one outside his house. That’s how the sneaky bugger saw we were spying on him. It just got me thinking how useful something like that could be, and then this lady contacted us —”

“Is it legal?”

“I… I don’t know.” Leo spun back to the computer screen. “It doesn’t say. But do you really care? We’ll put this thing near the guy's house, and we can watch the lot from beside the pool.”

“I see.” Allissa straightened up, beaming. “Now we’re talking. When do we leave?”

Leo’s answer was disturbed by the buzz of the flat’s door entry system.

“Oh, that thing’s working.” Allissa turned towards the door where the handset and screen were mounted on the wall. Allissa picked up the phone and looked at the screen. Black and white lines flickered, but no picture materialised. A distorted, incomprehensible voice cracked from the speaker.

“I’ll come down,” she said into the handset before replacing it