Unplugged (Blue Phoenix, #3)(73)

“Craig?”

“No, Liam.” He sounds put out. “Why did you think I was Craig?”

“He’s not here yet.”

“Oh. Okay. I’ve been waiting for you to call me. If she’s not home I’ll call back later.” The tone of his voice suggests he doesn’t want me to hang up.

I squint at the numbers on the DVD player display. “Shit, it’s ten o’clock. Where is he?”

“Being an awkward bastard probably.”

A shiver trips across my neck and down my spine. He’s never late, not this late. “I’ll call him. Speak to you soon.”

There’s no reply from Craig.

On the tenth voicemail in an hour, the uncomfortable prickling morphs into a stabbing anxiety. I call Marcella. “Is Craig there?”

“Craig? No, why would he be here?”

“I thought he might’ve dropped by with Ella to see you. He took her out today.”

“I haven’t seen him this week, sorry.”

Our conversations were never anything outside of polite, once me and Craig split. Since the custody issue arose, the cool in my exchanges with Marcella have descended into full-blown frozen so it’s impossible to tell if she’s hiding anything from me.

“He’s not answering his phone. Can you try? He might answer if it’s not me,” I ask as calmly as I can manage.

“I’ll call you back.”

An hour later, she hasn’t.

CHAPTER 32



LIAM



1 a.m. and I arrive in Cardiff in record time; f-uck the speeding tickets if I get one. If Cerys thinks something has happened to Ella, I need to be with her. I don’t care that she’s told me to stay away and stop worrying; it’s my f-ucking job to be there and help.

Cerys’s friend answers the door, the woman with long brown hair whose kid Ella plays with sometimes, but my mind blanks when I attempt to remember her name.

“Is Ella back?” I ask the woman, although her drawn face answers for me. “How’s Cerys?”

“Freaking out, as you’d expect.”

She steps back to let me into the house and I rush inside. Cerys is on the phone, hands gripping her hair as she waits for a response from whoever she’s speaking to. Her face crumples to tears when she sees me. I go over and pull Cerys into my arms and hugging her so fiercely, she gasps.

“I said don’t come until tomorrow, Liam,” she says as she pulls away, face streaked where her tears have rubbed into my jacket.

“I’m not leaving you alone to cope with this!”

“He’ll probably be here soon, he’s just doing this to punish me,” she says weakly.

“1 a.m.? So where is he?”

“I don’t know, Liam!” she shouts then drops to the sofa, shaking.

When I attempt to pull her toward me, her stiffened shoulders prevent me comforting her. I feel f-ucking useless.

Cerys’s friend hovers in the kitchen doorway and I go to her instead. “Have you called hospitals?” I say quietly.

“Yes. Nothing.”

“Police?”

“Liam, she’s with her dad; we can’t call abduction. Yet.” The woman worries on her lip, pale face matching Cerys’s. Do women have a sixth sense about this?

Abduction. The intense feeling that grips my soul, when I think about someone harming either Cerys or Ella, crawls into my veins. Is the man capable of doing something like that?

“You think he’s taken her somewhere?” I ask quietly, glancing at Cerys who sits and stares ahead, not speaking.

“It’s a possibility, isn’t it?”

“What does Cerys think?”

“I don’t think Cerys has reached that as an idea yet, but she will.” The woman rubs her face and sighs.

“It’s late, you should go home. I’ll stay with her,” I say.

“I don’t know.” She eyes me dubiously.

What does she know about me and Cerys? “Cerys, you’re okay if I stay, aren’t you?” I ask.

Cerys looks over as if we’re part of a hallucination. “What? Yes. Whatever. Thanks Phoebe.”

Phoebe leaves and my panic over what to do remains. I should get Cerys a drink. What should I get her? Shit. What do I do? Hug her? Because that’s all I feel capable of.

Instead, I make Cerys a coffee but the mug remains on the table untouched. She sits on the sofa gripping her phone, her breath coming in short bursts. Every time I attempt to speak to her, she closes me down.

“It’s late, you should get some sleep,” I say gently, touching her shoulder.

“I can’t sleep! I need to wait until I hear something!” she shouts and I move away again.

“Okay, I’ll sit up with you. We can’t do anything now, but in the morning, I’ll do everything I can to help you find Ella.”

At the mention of her name, Cerys rests her head in her hands and cries. The uselessness of seeing her pain and unable to fix it panics me. Carefully, I peel her hands from her head and pull her close. Cerys buries her face into my chest and I hold her shaking body as she sobs. With my sense of uselessness is an engulfing anger; somebody has hurt the woman I love, and possibly Ella. When I get my hands on that bastard, he’ll be f-ucking sorry.