Saving Grace

45

When Scott knocked on the door, I nearly shot him through the wood.

"Richie, it's me."

I froze, hands clamped around the twelve gauge shotgun, eyes wide, sweat pouring down my back and seeping into the waistband of my jeans. I cracked the door, left the chain on the hook. Scott smiled.

"What's with the Fort Knox impersonation?"

I sighed, took the chain off and let my brother inside.

"Well, we do have some psycho dog-killer out on the hunt for us," I said. "Forgive me for being paranoid."

Scott chuckled, shrugged off his jacket.

"I come bearing gifts."

He held out a folder, thick as a vertical fifty cent coin. I frowned.

"What is this?"

"Nick Somerton. Godric and I were at the pub when one of his guys emailed all of Nick's information. He knew what a Luddite you were so he had one of the bar staff print it."

I walked to the table, dumped the folder on hard oak. Scott went to the fridge.

"What are we drinking?"

"Alisa."

"Of course." He smiled, rummaged around in the fridge. "You're out of coke," he said, holding up the empty bottle.

I frowned.

"I only bought that this morning."

"None left now. Looks like we're drinking neat tonight."

Scott grabbed the scotch from the table, poured us both a drink.

"Nicholas Theodore Somerton, age thirty three, born February 2nd, 1987, to Louise Somerton. Raised by his aunty, Rita Highton, and older cousin, Wallace. Suspicions of abuse circled the family, but nothing could ever be proven."

"Godric managed to pull his hospital files from those years," Scott said, turning the page. A horrific picture of a nine year old Nicholas Somerton stared at me through swollen eye sockets, his ribs painted a splotchy purple and his lip busted open from chin to gum. "They said he fell down the stairs."

I clenched my jaw, turned the page back.

"He, um," I cleared my throat. "He ran away from home at fifteen. Police did very little to find him, and there was no sign of him until he was in his mid-twenties, when he was given a restraining order against his first victim for cyberstalking, incessant phone calls and general stalking behaviour. When he was twenty nine he got a job building ship replicas for the Fisher King's Boating Club. He worked there for years but was let off when the owners went bankrupt and sold the club to the Pearson family. After that, he got a job as a janitor at the Sinatra Stroll, but lost his job there too when he was caught stealing." I paused. "And nobody has seen him since."

I shook my head, flipped through to the last page of the file – some sort of record from three years ago.

"Where's the information on where he is now?"

Scott cleared his throat.

"I'm sorry, Rich. Godric's men looked everywhere, but Somerton hasn't used an ATM, credit card, or been caught on any surveillance in the city since the night he got his walking papers. It's like he just fell off the map."

"But there has to be something. We have to find him."

"We will, Richie. But you need to calm down first."

"No, you don't understand," I snapped, scrunching the paper into a clenched fist. "Grace came to me today. She bought us plane tickets. She said she wanted a life with me, to see the world, to find a place somewhere where we could settle down. And I couldn't, I just couldn't tell her the truth." I bit back my tears, clamped down my frustration. "So I need to find this guy. I need to get rid of him before we can do any of that. If I don't, I'll spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder, and I won't live like that. I can't."

Scott, in his typical Scott-like way, furrowed his eyebrows, pressed his lips together, and offered a stiff smile.

"We will fix this, Richie," he promised. "We will save her."

He patted my shoulder, topped up my drink and changed the subject the best he could, before my rage woke Grace from her upstairs slumber.

© A.G. Travers 2018