Read Online Concealment by Rose Edmunds - Free Book Online

standards? And heck, I’d been too feeble to stop Ryan when I came to my senses. Feisty Lisa would be appalled at my weakness.
    I trusted no one else at work—my fellow partners were colleagues rather than friends, and several had ambitions to usurp my leadership role. The climate of suspicion created by our CEO not only prevented people from uniting to depose him, but made it impossible to trust anyone. I wished so much I had a close friend, someone unconnected with work, to confess my idiocy to. But close friendships didn’t come easily to me, and nor did confessing my deficiencies.
    So I toughed it out, unaware that Monday’s events would render all my worst imaginings trivial by comparison.
    ***
    I’d been in work for all of five minutes when I spotted Lisa ambling towards my office, carrying coffee for both of us and obviously keen to talk. I hoped she’d reflected over the weekend and decided to fight for her promotion after all, because the place would be unbearable without her.
    She was almost at the door when a visibly distressed Ryan shoved her out of the way in his haste to reach me first.
    ‘Piss off, Ryan,’ Lisa said. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s bad manners to push?’
    ‘I need five minutes to tell Amy something,’ he shouted.
    A sudden nausea hit the pit of my stomach. Ryan’s appearance suggested he’d lain drunk in a gutter since Saturday. His red eyes hinted at raw emotions. Had I been responsible for this?
    Lisa opened her mouth to protest, but Ryan cut in.
    ‘It’s bloody urgent,’ he snarled.
    Lisa gave me a knowing glance, smart enough to recognise when she was onto a loser.
    ‘OK, keep your hair on. If it’s so important, you go first,’ she said.
    She handed me my coffee, although I fancied I’d need something stronger to get me through this particular encounter. My heart pounded faster than on the early morning treadmill session I’d just endured.
    I closed the door and invited him to sit down. The formality of the office setting accentuated the stupidity of Friday night’s events, as everyone watched us through the glass with curiosity. Ryan’s reflections in the mirrored panels embodied an infinity of anguish—an anguish of my creation.
    ‘You look dreadful,’ I told him, unhelpfully, as I braced myself for the coming outburst.
    There was a long, painful silence while he fought to control himself.
    ‘Issy’s gone missing,’ he said at last.
    I held my breath. They’d rowed about me—she’d stormed off. Shit.
    ‘Missing? Since when?’
    ‘I’m not sure exactly—she arrived home after the party on Friday, because her jacket and phone and everything were inside the flat on the dining table. But when I got home last night, she’d gone.’
    My mind raced.
    ‘No contact during the weekend?’
    ‘Nope.’
    My relief was both profound and selfish as I discounted the possibility of any connection between her disappearance and my idiotic fling with her boyfriend.
    ‘You said you got back
last night
? What were you doing since Saturday morning?’
    ‘Now see,’ he said, ‘I spent the weekend with Greg, like I told the police.’
    ‘The
police
are involved?’
    ‘Yes—that’s what you do when someone’s missing—you report it to the police.’
    ‘And you told them you’d been with Greg.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘But…’
    ‘But nothing,’ he said nastily. ‘I stayed
most
of the time with Greg, after all. What the bloody hell difference does it make?’
    Quite a lot, as it transpired.
    ‘You didn’t tell Greg about…’
    ‘How can you be so egocentric? Issy’s missing and all that bothers you is people finding out what a slut you are. Issy is
missing
,’ he repeated. ‘This is serious shit.’
    ‘So where does Greg believe you were on Friday night?’
    ‘Christ—will you shut up worrying about yourself.’
    ‘I wasn’t,’ I lied.
    ‘You don’t get it, do you? No one has seen hide nor hair of Issy since Friday. She’s