Dahlia - The Velvet Witch and Her Dark Spirit

PART 20 - WHERE IS SHE?

I burst through the door, ready to kill Dahlia if the police haven't gotten to her first. But she's gone. I find a detective's business card by the front door. I turn it over, expecting to see a message, but it's blank. They must have been and gone with no luck.

I need to find her. I need to see her eyes. I need to know why. I pick up my phone and hit Dahlia's number. It rings dead without going to her usual message bank. So I type her a text, 'Where are you?' and hit send.

Poor Magnolia. I brought Dahlia into her life, and she almost killed her. Maggie's innocent and defenceless against Dahlia's cunning and power. Fuck, how could I ignore so many warning signs? I ignored Ruben's sixth sense, his intuition and my deep-seated distrust of people. I went back on every rule I'd enacted to keep myself safe. This was just as much my fault as it was Dahlia's. I need to make it right.

But even if I do catch up with her, I couldn't possibly hurt her. Nor could I turn her over to the authorities. After all, they'd failed her too and were partly responsible for this mess. Maybe the best thing was to make a break for it. Run to France, hideout and wait for them to arrest Dahlia.

My heart sinks at these thoughts. A life without her now looks inevitable, and I can't handle it. The normality that would return, the hollowness, the lack of inspiration, the empty bed, the quiet phone, a broken heart were all waiting at the end of the line.

"Fuck," I yell loud enough that it clears some of the clutter from my mind.

I go to the kitchen, pull down the whiskey and swig straight from the bottle. I grab my phone and try her again. It rings out. Screw it. There aren't that many places she can be.

Down on the street, a lonesome cab is parked at the end of the block. The driver's sitting on his bonnet with a paper folded over his knee. He flicks pages with one hand and drinks a coffee with the other. Just keep walking Levi. This is stupid. Go to the Tube, get to Paddington, shoot to Heathrow and get on the first plane out of here.

I take ten more steps then stop.

"You working?" I call back to the cabbie.

"Sure, always," he says with a friendly Middle Eastern accent.

"I need to get to the Docklands," I say with no fucking idea what I'm doing.

"Sure."

The cab's a Tesla and completely silent. The huge computer screen in the middle of the dash shows Dahlia's factory marked with a pin and coming up fast. By the time we arrive, my hands are shaking, and I almost tell him to carry on.

"What's here?" the driver asks, sensing my apprehension.

"I'm not sure. Can you wait?"

"Of course," he says, then locks the door behind me.

I hit the buzzer. After a minute, a voice comes alive in the intercom.

"Hello?"

It's Laylah.

"Hey, it's Levi."

"Yeah, I can see on the camera."

"Is Dahlia there?" I say, trying not to give anything away in case she is.

"No?"

"Have you heard from her?"

"Not for a few days. Hang on. I'll come down."

It takes her so long the driver winds down his window and asks, "What's going on?"

"She's coming now. We'll be off again in a minute."