#2 In The Dark

Chap. 10_blackened scenes and calling cards?

It was only later on when Sarah noticed her mistake. It was after the police had come. After they'd taken everyone out of the room before her.

It was then.

She'd leaned down to pick up the knife that had dropped to the floor with a metallic clang a few minutes earlier. And she'd noticed that there were some markings on the table-legs. In fact, they were more than markings, but words. Words, written in familiar handwriting on the wooden surface.

And she finally twigged that she now could be easily blamed for the whole thing.

If she'd have just paid more attention.

If she'd have just stopped panicking for a second and noticed those two words, one on each table-leg.

The words were in Rob's handwriting, she could tell as she'd studied the letter he'd sent her rather too much that night. But even that wouldn't have given it away as much as the words.

That would have made her know what to do.

The right leg read, in black ink, Frank.

And the left leg, in capital letters, ME.

*****

"Rob, please," Sarah pleaded. Her eyes were starting to fill up again. Wet with the tears of sorrow all over again. "Please just talk to me."

They were sat in the front two seats of a stationary ambulance, Sarah in the centre, with a driver's seat to her right.

Rob sat, looking aimlessly out of the window. It was dark now. Everything had taken far too long to clear up at the hotel, and whilst Frank was being treated, Rob had just disappeared. Sarah had sat, with a towel around her shoulders, thinking.

But when Rob had got in the same ambulance as her – the one holding her wounded boyfriend -  then she needed some answers.

"Rob just tell me why," she said, now softer. "Why me? Why did I deserve that?"

Rob hadn't spoken at all. In fact, Sarah hadn't even heard him breath.

But he sat there, eyes open and darting across the blackened scene that lay out of the window. His chin was firmly rested in the crook of his palm.

But still, no response.

Who the hell does he think he is? Firstly he invites me here to talk about some stupid proposal that was probably all fake and now down the drain. Then he scares the living daylights out of me for two hours. Puts me on the spot. Keeps me under pressure, exactly where I don't want to be. And he doesn't even have the bloody decency to warrant me a reply. Who the hell does he think he is?

The grief had morphed into anger now. Yes, she hadn't spotted the writings on the table leg. But he'd purposefully put her in a position where she had to make a choice between the two. There was a chance of her killing someone. And that so nearly had happened. What was he hiding?

"Rob," she said, now forcefully. And miraculously he turned to face her. His deep, sunken eyes lay brooding, and he looked at her for a long time before responding. But he eventually opened his mouth.

"Jerry Adams is dead," he said, and his body dropped lower into the chair. "The papers say so. Every one of them. He jumped from the highest floor early this morning. One, two a.m., maybe?"

The heat was still there in that instant, and Sarah couldn't take it anymore. How can he expect me to talk about something else?

She slapped him. Hard. She even felt his jaw shudder as she made contact. It was the only way she could release it all.