Coming Home

Chapter 11 - The Truth

We arrived at Harry's to find him sat in the kitchen almost buried in papers and important looking documents. He ushered us over to the stools we had sat in last time, handing me a picture in the process. I was a picture of Jack. There were two men with him, one was tall and thinner, the other looked like a bodyguard, he was heavily muscled and wearing a black suit.

"Oh my God, how did you get this?"

"It's taken from CCTV footage at a train station, about a week ago. The train they boarded was heading to Lancast. I called in a few favours and a friend of mine saw this last week, thought it was strange, such a young boy with those men."

My brain barely registered what he was saying. Lancast was another six hours north. I looked to Logan for help; he nodded at me and stood up.

"We really appreciate this, we'll head there now. Do you have a map we could take?"

Harry opened a draw, rummaged around for a second before pulling out a large map.

"Ah, here it is. Well, good luck. Sorry I couldn't be any more help."

"Logan, you need to tell her." We all looked over to see Helen enter the room.

"Tell me what?"We were wasting time; I wanted to set off for Lancast. Helen ignored me.

"Please, it's not fair to keep her in the dark anymore."She was looking at Logan.

"Logan, you're scaring me. What is it?"He looked at me with tortured eyes. I heard Harry and Helen leave the room.

"Cassie, you were never mean to find out about this."

"About what? Just tell me, we're wasting time."

"My job. Do you remember how secretive I was about it when we were together? I wouldn't let you meet any of my work friends-"

"Yes!" I was getting impatient now.

"Well, Harry's not an old friend of mine. He's my boss. And I think that whoever has taken harry has done it to get to me."

"What? But you work at the College..." I didn't understand what he was telling me. He looked away from me.

"No, I had to lie to you, that's not my real job. I guess you could say it's like working for the police but...not. I'm like a private detective or investigator. Harry tells me where to go and I follow the person around then report back to Harry. Usually it turns out they're dealing drugs but about three months ago Harry told me to Inspect George, you met him remember? I saw putting a body into his car, turns out he likes to hurt people and went a little too far that time."He sighed.

"At the Christmas party last year, he must have seen me with you and when he found out I had been...spying on him and he took Jack to hurt me."

I listened to him as he told me this, as he told me that he had been living a lie with me during our whole relationship. I didn't think anything could hurt more than the day he broke up with me but this did.

"Let's just go." I couldn't waste anymore time here. At least if we left now I would feel like I was getting closer to Jack.

Harry and Helen were waiting in the hall.

"I'm sorry Cassie. I thought you deserved to know. It's better this way." I nodded Helen and walked out, wondering whether I was better off not knowing.

We climbed back in Logan's truck and set off.