Read Online The Innocent: The New Ryan Lock Novel by Sean Black - Free Book Online Page B

sitting on the couch, the wine glass drained.
    The only way to do this, he’d decided, was to start at the beginning. He told her about how he’d driven out to the stadium and how he’d found her son in the showers. By the time he’d got to that part she was sobbing loudly, her body folded in on itself. She had aged by a decade, and Malik knew that the change would stay with her.
    As a player, then as a coach, he had realized long ago the power of words to inspire. This was the first time he had seen, really seen, their ability to crush.
    She looked up at him. ‘I’m glad you told me. It’s like, it’s …’ Her words fell away. She swallowed, collecting herself. ‘Things make sense now. How he’s been acting around me.’
    Malik nodded. ‘The man he was with? You know who it was, right?’
    She swiped at the mascara running down her cheeks with the back of her sleeve. ‘I can’t believe he would do something like that. He’s been like a father to Jack.’
    One fucked-up father figure, thought Malik. ‘Who has, Eve? Who was there with him?’
    ‘You don’t know?’ It was only then he realized that he’d told her the man had fled before he’d caught up with him, not that he hadn’t seen him.
    Malik shook his head. ‘I never got a good look at him.’
    There was a loud crash, like a window breaking. Eve got up and rushed from the living room. Malik followed her to the back of the house. The door, with its stickers and prominently displayed red and white ‘Private! Keep Out!’ sign, was closed. Eve tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. She pounded on it.
    ‘Here,’ said Malik, putting a hand on her back.
    Eve stood aside as he threw a shoulder against it. The lock flew off, and Malik’s momentum carried him into the room. Through the layers of tween detritus, Malik’s gaze snapped to the broken window.
    Jack Barnes was gone.
    He walked across to look at the jagged hole where the glass had been punched out. It crunched under his feet. It had been broken from the outside.

Twenty
    A breeze picked up, whipping the drapes into Malik’s face. He reached up, pushing them away and stared through the broken window, only to be met by darkness.
    ‘It’s not the first time he’s run away,’ Eve Barnes said. ‘That’s why I had to put the lock on the window.’
    She seemed not to have noticed the floor, or if she had, she hadn’t realized what it meant. Malik moved past her, almost tripping on a pile of dirty clothes. ‘He didn’t run,’ he said.
    He moved through the house, breaking into a jog, covering the ground fast. Eve was chasing after him. ‘What do you mean?’
    He didn’t have time to stop and explain. He reached the front door, threw it open and ran out onto the porch. For the second time in less than a week, he caught the red tail-lights of a car as it roared down the street. Eve caught up to him. He turned to face her. ‘You know where this guy lives?’
    She didn’t say anything. She still looked to be in shock. Malik grabbed her by the shoulder, trying to snap her out of it.
    ‘He wouldn’t have … I don’t believe that …’ she stuttered. ‘I mean, I’ve met his wife.’
    Lord help me, thought Malik. Had no one ever explained to this woman that being married didn’t mean anything when it came to stuff like this? Marriage was just a cover for people, all the better to make sure that kids and their parents lowered their guard.
    ‘Where does he live? You been to his house?’
    She nodded.
    ‘Good. You show me,’ he said, grabbing her and heading for his car.
    He bundled her into the passenger seat, and they took off. He got Eve to dial 911 and hold his cell phone up to his mouth as he drove. She was still far from coherent, in no state to talk to the dispatcher. He had to ask her for details, though.
    He glanced at her ‘What’s the guy’s name?’
    ‘Aubrey Becker,’ she said.
    He was taking a corner as she said it. The wheel slipped through his hands and he