Don't Come Looking by AJ Campbell (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📕

pauses to wipe her eyes again. ‘We adopted Luke when he was a toddler. At twenty-two months to be precise. And he recently found out.’ She glances up with a look of shame.

Sasha gasps. ‘I never knew that.’ She takes a long sip of her drink. She’s making me edgy. I don’t want another outburst like with Art the other night. ‘Does Harry know?’ Sasha asks.

‘I don’t know.’ Annie shakes her head as if she can’t believe her predicament. ‘Luke may have told him.’

‘So what happened?’ Sasha asks.

‘He found the adoption paperwork at Easter.’ Annie smacks the palm of her hand into her forehead and clenches her jaw. ‘It was tucked away in a filing cabinet in my stockroom at work. I was stupid. I never thought he’d go through my stuff.’ She necks the remaining half of her drink, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and reaches for the bottle. ‘He didn’t have a good start in life, poor boy. His father had issues. He beat Luke and his mother.’ Her bottom lip quivers. ‘When Luke was taken into care, he had welts across his back and was showing signs of malnutrition.’

‘That’s awful,’ Sasha says. ‘You’d never guess he wasn’t yours, though.’

I think I’d have to agree. They aren’t identically alike, but there are some similarities. Not physically, although they both have dark hair, but more so in their mannerisms.

‘Art and I couldn’t have children.’ Art’s problem, not hers, she hastens to add. ‘So we decided on the adoption route. And when the opportunity arose to adopt Luke, I jumped at it. Art wasn’t so keen. He said children with such disturbing beginnings develop problems later on in life. “Who knows what else went on?” he used to say. But I couldn’t walk away. Luke was such an endearing child, and I felt desperately sorry for him. I had to give him a home. There was us, childless, want-to-be parents, and there was a child desperate for the kind of home and love we could give him.’ Two tears drop from her eyes. Sasha pushes a handful of tissues across the table. ‘This evening, when we came home, Luke went ballistic. He wasn’t expecting us. We were meant to see our accountant after work, but the meeting got postponed until next week, so we were much earlier than we said we’d be. Luke started shouting, wanting to know why we’d kept details of his adoption and birth parents from him.’ She shivers. ‘He called us all sorts of names. Said we were fraudsters as well as cri–’

‘As well as what?’ I go to ask her, but Sasha gets in first.

‘Why tonight? Why did he wait all that time to confront you?’ Sasha says.

Annie shrugs. ‘Art always said from the beginning that we should tell Luke about his real parents, but I’ve always refused. He’s my son, not theirs. They never cared; they didn’t deserve him.’ She lifts her glass to her lips. The ice cubes chink. She reaches for the bottle of gin and pours herself another drink.

‘Where do you think he’s gone?’ Sasha asks.

Annie shrugs again. ‘He left in a hurry. He took a backpack he’d organised before we got home this evening. It was waiting by the door.’ She shakes her head. ‘Art’s been saying for years that something’s not right about him, we should get him “seen to”. I should’ve listened to him, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself. He’s always been too wise for his years, that boy. His parents’ evenings have always been exemplary. But every day, a different child walked through our door at home time. So defiant and uncooperative, and he’s got some kind of OCD, that’s for sure. Whenever I’ve tried to talk to him, he clams up.’ She nods, her features despondent. ‘Yep, I should have listened to Art, but you don’t want to believe the worst in your child, do you?’

‘I would’ve never guessed. He’s always so charming when he’s round ours. Marc was always singing his praises.’

‘He got on better with Marc than he did with Art. They had a special bond.’

‘That’s the computer geekiness in them both.’ Sasha frowns. ‘Maybe Harry does know something.’

‘Harry’s his only friend you know,’ Annie says. ‘Harry and Marc.’

‘The guy I saw getting into that cab earlier had a backpack. Did he take his passport?’ I ask.

Annie’s jaw drops. Her hand flies to cover her open mouth. ‘I didn’t check. He wouldn’t be going abroad, would he?’

‘What makes you think that?’ Sasha asks.

Words slip out of her mouth but don’t form a sentence. She stops speaking and shrugs again.

‘Where do you keep your passports?’ I ask.

‘In my workroom upstairs.’

‘Does he know that?’

She nods. ‘I’ll go and check.’ She takes another gulp of her drink before disappearing.

‘I bet you wish you’d never met us lot,’ Sasha snorts. ‘Where do you think he’s gone?’

I don’t know why she thinks I would know the answer to this question. I’ve noticed over the years that people think because you’re in the police, you have all the answers, but how would I know where her neighbour’s tempestuous teenager has taken off to?

‘That’s a silly question, isn’t it?’ she snorts again.

I don’t need to answer her.

Annie runs back into the kitchen, panting, shaking two passports in her hand. ‘He’s taken his. He must be thinking of going abroad. I need to stop him. You have to help me find him.’

‘Luke’s an eighteen-year-old man. He has every right to go abroad without your say-so. You can’t stop him. Have you checked his room?’

‘What for?’

‘Clues. See what else has gone. The type of clothes he has taken.’

She pauses at the door. ‘Come and help me look.’

Sasha and I follow her up to Luke’s bedroom. It surprises me. ‘However do you manage to make him keep it this tidy?’ Sasha asks. Unlike the rest of the house, everything is meticulously in place. Apart from a Mac, and a modest row of books arranged in size