The Becoming of Noah Shaw (The Shaw Confessions #1)(44)

Your Faithful Wife,

Sarah





26


THE DEVIL GOES ON

THE SOUND OF MY MOBILE vibrating on the metal desk gives me a start. When I look up from the letter, the sky beyond the window is dark.

I stand to pick up my phone—hours have passed. Worse, there’s another text from Daniel. I turn the phone off without reading it and nudge the lid of the trunk shut with my foot, leaving the letters, the keys, everything on the floor.

I desperately want it to be a coincidence that a nineteenth-century letter, written by one Sarah Shaw to one (apparently deceased?) Simon mentions “the professor.” Surely there were many professors in Victorian or Georgian England or whenever the fuck they were written, the ink on the dates is smudged.

But it’s him. All roads lead to him.

Enough. I’ve had enough.

I cross the room to leave, but as soon as my palm touches the knob, it twists and—

Mara’s on the other side of it.

“Did you hear?”

“Hear . . . ?”

She seems a bit jittery. “Daniel said he texted you.”

“He did,” I say. “Asking for an update.”

Her eyebrows draw together for a moment before she shakes her head. “Check again.”

“I’ve turned it off,” I say, rather bitchily. “Just tell me.”

“Stella’s missing,” she says. “Apparently.”

“What do you mean, missing?”

“Daniel said Leo texted him, and he thinks we should go over there. And that we should bring Goose.” She rushes out, her footsteps echoing in my skull. I shake my head, rub my temples. My body feels heavy, as if I’ve been sleeping for days, and Mara’s voice sets my teeth on edge.

“Come downstairs!”

I follow her slowly, not sure how to process this news, trying to will myself to stop ruminating and drag my mind back to the present. Jamie’s voice carries from the first floor.

“What do you think?” I hear him ask Mara, but her reply is muffled. Walking downstairs feels as though I’m wading through mud, as if it’s sucking at my trainers, making every step aggravatingly slow.

She and Jamie are standing together in the living room when I get there, while Goose is in the kitchen, slicing at something.

Not ready for Mara just yet, I turn to Goose instead. “What’s all this?”

He separates two translucent slices of meat. “Prosciutto.” He holds a paper-thin slice up in offer.

“Pass.” The smell of it turns my stomach for some reason. I twist to look at Jamie and Mara. “Have you heard anything new?” I ask him.

Jamie glances at Mara before answering me. “What?” I press.

“She’s not missing,” Mara cuts in. She’s standing on the balls of her feet, her body taut, brimming with energy.

“You seem quite confident,” I say.

“I am.”

Because she doesn’t trust Stella, for obvious reasons?

Or because she knows where she is?

I don’t even think I want to know, at this point.

“But we’re going anyway,” Mara says with a sigh. “Daniel’s on his way there.”



Daniel’s waiting alone, standing at the cross streets by the house. The neighbourhood balances on the knife-edge of gentrification, and he looks rather relieved to see the four of us, assembled as instructed. We walk to the house together, no one saying much of anything because, I imagine, none of us is quite sure what’s to be said. Daniel’s the one Leo texted, so he’s the one who knocks.

Rolly’s head pokes out from the gate below the stairs, as out of place as a hard-boiled egg. His eyes sweep over us before he pops back inside just as Leo opens the door.

“Thanks for coming,” he says. “We really appreciate it.”

It’s a damn sight harder to get a read on him today, as I’m not at all up to scratch.

“What’s with that guy?” Mara mutters.

“Rolly?” Leo asks, waving us inside. “It’s his house.”

“You rent it?” Jamie asks.

“Not . . . quite.”

Jamie and I exchange a look. “He doesn’t let you live here rent free . . . ?”

“Like I said when we met, you’re not the only one with a gift for persuasion,” he says to Jamie.

“I’d like to meet the others,” Jamie says.

“Help me find them before they kill themselves and maybe you will.”

Off to a rather rough start. “So what happened?” I ask him, forcing myself to scrape this afternoon from my mind.

Leo sits down on the leather chaise, and the rest of us crouch/drape/lean on whatever other surfaces are available. I take the ottoman opposite him.

Leo bends forward, elbows on knees, and rubs his forehead. “Stella didn’t come home the night before last.”

Bloody hell. “That’s all?” I ask, feeling annoyed and superior until I realise that the night Stella went missing is the night we last spoke.

“It’s not like her,” Leo says, eyebrows knitted, talking to himself. “She always comes home.”

Home. I take in the brownstone again, the shabby, abandoned look of it.