Hell's Rayne (Book 1)

Chapter 28

“Jesse, can I talk to you?” I asked.

We'd spent the entire drive over to the church sat in a tense, uncomfortable silence. I'd been mulling over how best to breach the subject of the letter and my suspicions about Eric with him. I hadn't really come up with any good solution, but I'd also run out of potential 'alone time' with the man sat beside me.

Really I wanted to talk him sooner rather than later, allow time for the seeds of suspicion I was going to plant to take root and germinate before the opportunity to act presented itself. But, early as we had arrived at the church, there was already a steady trickle of people filtering through the large wooden doors, like it was some kind of macabre show – come early to be sure you get the best seat.

“Well yeah,” he said, an exaggerated frown wrinkled his brow, “you don't exactly need to ask permission.”

I couldn't help the smile that crept to my lips, even despite everything that was going on he could still manage to crack a joke; I wondered if what I had to tell him would kill that quality.

“No, I mean there is something I want to talk with you about, privately, so y'know before we get out of the car?”

“Okay...that sounds serious...” The frown on his face this time was genuine.

I still wasn't certain if there was a right way to go about this, so decided to just jump right in with both feet and hope for the best.

“Well, now don't get pissed off with me but, while you were at the trade centre yesterday, I kinda had a bit of a snoop around inside Eric's house.”

“You did what? Why?” He hadn't shouted at me which was a start, he even sounded mildly curious which I took for a good sign.

I shrugged. “I dunno, I was there alone and just couldn't help myself. I wanted to find out some more about Eric. He's just so...vile and unpleasant. From everything you've told me about your sister, I just can't understand what she ever saw in him, so I wanted to see if I could find some redeemable feature somewhere I suppose.”

Jesse nodded as if he understood my intentions, but I couldn't help but feel he didn't quite get what I meant – either that or my lie just wasn't particularly convincing.

“So, did you find anything?” It might have been the only appropriate question that popped into his head at that moment, but I also knew how much he disliked Eric, how curious he must have been about what I'd managed to dig up which overpowered any desire he may have had to reprimand me for my actions.

“Nothing that I liked much, nothing that changed my opinion of him anyway. Just some weird stuff.”

“Weird stuff? Care to elaborate on that?”

I took a deep breath, now we were onto the nitty gritty of it. “Just some things that made me wonder is all. Eric's work contract was open on the desk in the office, on the pages about misconduct and dismissal, and there were a load of law books sat with it. I think he's worrying about the security of his job for some reason, so I got a bit more curious about that and started to dig about in the filing cabinets. A whole months worth of his expense records are gone.”

“Well, he doesn't travel every month, so there just might not be any...”

“Yeah, that's what I thought too. But the other files are all there, empty, but still there. November was gone completely.”

Jesse frowned, “Okay, so that is kind of weird I admit. But why are you so interested in that? He's cocked up at work and landed himself in some shit, so what? He probably deserves it.”