Dangers in the Dark

The Death of a Don 22.3

Holly POV
Barbara's Penthouse

For the last half an hour Lee had been easing Barbara into opening up about what she experienced while being held captive by the Ogre. There were parts that I already knew I couldn't hear, that I wouldn't hear but we weren't going near that subject yet. Thank the Gods.

But now, now we were getting into the more emotional side of things that made my stomach turn in anticipation. I was terrified about learning what Barbara had been made to feel through his manipulation.

"Jason saw right through me," Barbara said quietly. "He knew me instantly. Like I was naked. It was scary ... but thrilling. And ... aren't all the best guys a little scary?" Barbara then glanced over at me from the opposite sofa I had moved over to after comforting her previously. "I was way more scared of your dad the first date we went on. So butch and stern. That type, they-they often have a bad temper. But Jim was a sweetie. Spent half of the evening talking about you, Holly and then the other half speaking about me. He never once laid a finger on me. It was kind of surprising." Barbara's attention had now been turned back to Lee, who was looking increasingly uncomfortable with the topic of conversation, something I agreed on. "Does he ever hit you?"

"Me? No. Why?" Lee asked quickly. "Wh-why would he hit anyone? Any woman?"

"You know. Out of passion," Barbara said, and I quickly shot up from my seat.

"Anyone fancy some tea?" I offered.

"That's a great idea, Holly," Lee agreed immediately, my discomfort being clear. No way was I sitting in here for the conversation on that part of my dad's love life. Ew. Just a thousand times ew.

I could hear the murmur of conversation behind me as I began to make some tea for the three of us. Lee no sugar, me one and Barbara two. Easy enough, right.

As I waited for the water to boil, I leant against the counter and checked my phone, praying dad had sent a message saying everything was now fine and he was safe, but there was nothing. No message from him, Harvey or anyone. Knowing that Tanya would be stuck at her family dinner around this time (it was a tradition that every Sunday night they had her dad's parents around for dinner and she would be stuck listening to an hour of their offensive rubbish; let's just say I didn't envy her), I attempted to give Selina a call.

While she hadn't had a phone when I first met her, Selina had recently under some very extremely suspicious circumstances, acquired a new phone. Said that if I needed to talk to someone about anything that I could talk to her, and she'd give me some tough love response.

But as I let the phone ring out for the third time, I had a horrible feeling that something wasn't right. Selina had gotten good at answering. What was going on?

"Fancy a takeaway?" Barbara asked cheerily as she walked into the kitchen.

"Yeah, sure," I nodded, turning off my phone and continuing to make the tea, to try and hide the worry on my face.

"What shall we have?" Barbara pondered as she leant against the counter beside me and peered through the small list of the best takeaways that dad and I had made when we used to live here.

Before everything went to hell in regard with dad and Barbara, we used to get a takeaway once a week almost religiously. Any good ones were put onto this list, and I was surprised to see that Barbara had kept it.

"Whatever you like," I shrugged, grabbing the milk from the fridge.

Barbara was silent for a moment as she examined her choices before she dropped the list onto the counter.

"More in the mood for something sweet, eh. Should have a red velvet somewhere here ..." Barbara murmured to herself as she searched the cupboards for it.