Despite its hasty conversion from a storage area, Gemma's bedroom in the flat provided the best comfort she had experienced since her childhood. The few remaining boxes had been cleared away, carving out plenty of floorspace to fit a spare mattress, an old chest of drawers, and a splintered but sturdy bookcase. With the table and chair Avery purloined from the pub's backroom, Gemma finally had a place to sleep, change, and relax all to herself.
Yet when the first brushes of sunlight filtered beneath her bedroom door, Gemma had been staring at the ceiling's patchy paint for a long time. While the dark gales that howled of grief and loneliness no longer disturbed her sleep, a new, gentler breeze had whistled within her last night. For the first time in years, a melody of home played in her ears, cloaked in the colours of all her conflicted emotions.
Gemma tossed her blanket aside and pulled herself out of bed, the bare concrete floor biting at the soles of her feet. Swirls of soupy musk wafted to the back of her throat from the pub's aged heating system, and restless pipes gurgled over her pattering footsteps. As the rest of the building creaked back to life, the kitchen murmured with the hum of hard work from the tireless laptop perched on its island. A long cable tethered Jacob's phone to the computer, its braided curls funnelling troves of invisible data between the devices. Early morning sunlight winked off their darkened screens, and the fan's rhythmic whispers called to her as the single soul stirring nearby.
The purr of the open laptop proved too tempting to resist, and Gemma slid onto a barstool and swiped her finger over the computer's touchpad. Light bloomed across the screen, and windows crammed with folders and files cluttered the desktop's compact space. The sprawling mess crowded Gemma's thoughts out in a flash, yet tiny specks of understanding glinted through the mire. In one night, she had gained access to more information about her brother's life than she had received in the past five years.
Fuelled by a flurry of curious optimism, Gemma's first few clicks brought little of note. An appointment diary, client addresses, and wage slip records seemed unlikely to lead to meaningful answers, though Jacob's salary was as enviable as Nathan had suggested. Her search muddled through list after bloated list of dull documents, the dead ends combining to entomb her withering heart.
Then she found the pictures. Through the muddle of miscellaneous snapped notes, a clutch of photos clearly taken outdoors attracted Gemma's eye. A small farmhouse sat at the centre of each image, its rotten thatch roof pushing the weather-worn stone walls below to the verge of collapse. Wild grass ran rampant over the house's front path, its dominance disrupted only by pops of purple from dew-soaked thistles. In the background, orderly crop fields rolled towards dense woodland or the bank of a leaf-strewn stream. It looked like many other ageing farmhouses around Milnhome, and yet there was no doubt Jacob held an interest in it.
"Someone's hyped to bust the shady corporate douchebags." Strolling out of her room, Avery clicked her fingers at Gemma on her way to the kitchen. Her bold white band t-shirt swayed like the windswept trees, and the young daylight leapt to highlight the soft amber roots that usually hid beneath her beanie. "I hope my portable Batcave here didn't wake you up, early bird."
"Don't worry. After years of sharing rooms with noisy kids and a noisier brain, your master hacker setup was no problem," Gemma answered, laughing at the smug bow of her friend's head. She brought up the first farmhouse picture and turned the screen to face over the island. "Jacob took a bunch of photos of this building. Do you know it?"
Avery paused with a pair of green-striped white mugs in her hands and glanced at the photo, yet no recognition flashed through her eyes. "I know it's way further out of town than I'd wanna go," she said with a shake of her head. As she set the kettle boiling and ground up enough coffee beans for them both, she wagged a long stirrer in Gemma's direction. "This is more Nate's gig. I'll forward the pic to him, and hopefully it'll ring one of his farm boy bells."
The woody, earthy scent of the dark-roasted coffee beans coaxed Gemma's senses from their slumber. As soon as her mug entered her hands, she clutched it close to her chest and let its soothing steam rise around her face. "I wonder why my brother was so interested in this place," she said, tapping her nails against her mug. She looked up in time to catch the first lines creasing across Avery's brow, a sight accompanied by the stilling of her friend's fingers over the keyboard. "You alright, Vee?"
"I just hit the jackpot, and you're not gonna like it," Avery said, spinning her computer around to display a text exchange between Jacob's phone and an unknown number. She sipped at her coffee, yet the drink only etched further creases into her troubled expression. "As much as I hate to say it, I don't think we can just blame Silverlake for Jake's death anymore."
Dread slung its leaden chains around Gemma's heart. Suddenly, the laptop's slim body scalded her fingertips with a single touch, and its furious fan blew the morning's peace far out of reach. She steered her gaze away from the safe harbour of Avery's face and, with a deep breath, plunged into the whirlpool of text messages on the screen:
I can't do this. This is messed up. I'm out and I'm telling everyone.
Don't be stupid, boy. It'll be your word against mine – and my cash.
You'd only get yourself locked up. I'd make sure of it.
They're not stupid and neither am I. I have proof.
Once I show them the room, they won't care about your money.
Keep telling yourself that while you're running away.
"What the hell? These were sent on the same day I got here." Shoving the computer away, Gemma buried her face in her arms on the counter. The solid counter pushed back against her weight, jostling a shrouded realisation to the front of her mind. "Wait, if Jacob really was caught up in something shady, then he wasn't just sleeping in his van. He was hiding in it!"
Coffee sloshed to the rim of Avery's mug as she slammed it down. "And he never said anything so we'd stay out of it," she muttered, running her necklace's polished pendant along its cord. With a sharp intake of breath, she slapped her palm on the counter. "Shit, what if Jake wasn't the one who brought you here? What if this unknown number freak found your info and tricked you into coming?"
Gemma's heart skipped a beat, and a fearful poison simmered in her gut's cauldron. Keen to quell the toxic cocktail before it reached its boiling point, her eyes darted to the beaded bracelet around her left wrist. "Luckily, I think we can rule that out," she said, slipping the bracelet off and passing it into Avery's hands. "I found that in Jacob's van, and I think he meant it as a gift to celebrate us coming back together."
"He had a hell of an eye. It suits you," Avery observed, studying the bracelet's feather charm. She fell onto the stool beside Gemma and sighed as her hand scrunched up the fabric of her shorts. "Not to kill your buzz, girl, but...how do you know Jake got this for you?"
"It's just like one I had when they took us away. Like most of the stuff I'd managed to keep from home, it 'went missing' pretty quickly between orphanages," Gemma said with a dismissive scoff. She looped the bracelet over her hand, her disgust evaporating as she ran its beads between her fingers. "I'm still surprised he remembered it, let alone thought to get me a replacement."
"Because he cared about you, Gem, even if he sucked at showing it." Knocking her knee against Gemma's leg, Avery unclasped her necklace and placed it between them. A fond film coated the surface of her eyes. "This was my mum's. She gave it to me before she and my dad left. Apparently, it was the first bit of jewellery she bought, and wearing it helped her feel confident enough to be herself instead of doing what her folks wanted. Call me a mushy loser, but I've worn it every day since."
The necklace was a simple, subtle piece made up of a walnut-brown leather cord and a dark, gold-scored steel ring. Aged cracks split the fabric around the cord's metal clasp, yet decades of meticulous care fuelled by boundless love had fought off any further decay. It was well-loved and, based on the fireworks that fizzed through Avery's starry eyes at the sight of it, it would keep being loved well for a long time.
With a slow nod, Gemma let her focus land on the gold markings along the ring's outer edge. "Your mum sounds like an amazing lady," she said, and against her better judgement, she gave voice to the question echoing over all her thoughts. "Just tell me if it's none of my business, but...where are your parents?"
Avery dropped her gaze and shrugged. "No idea. Nana knows, probably. I've never felt like asking," she said, drawing flushed circles over her thighs with her nails. The ensuing silence lured her eyes upwards, and she snapped herself out of her pensive state. "They moved overseas for work. Didn't think to tell me until the day before they were leaving, though."
"Are you serious? Why didn't they tell you anything before then?" Gemma's throat clenched and robbed the strength from the rest of her protests. She pressed her palms against the island and counted her breaths, letting the comforting blend of roasted coffee and Avery's familiar warmth ease her back into the moment. "And they didn't even bring you with them. It must've been so painful to hear."
"Oh, they wanted to take me. That was the worst part." As she spoke, Avery's expression shed its skin to reveal its hollow space behind her tired smile. "I wasn't about to let them drag me around while they chased promotions. Like my mum, I had to figure out who I wanted to be, with or without them. So, that night, I packed my bags and ran away to live with Nana."
"Gosh, Vee. You were a brave kid, standing up for yourself like that," Gemma said as she stifled her own memories of the cramped journey to Milnhome. She had only stepped off the bus a few days ago, yet it already seemed like a memory from a distant past. "I can't believe Iris didn't send you straight back from the moment she saw you."
Biting her tongue to hold back her laugh, Avery drummed her fingers against the counter. "I'd bet she thought about it, but she and my dad – her son – weren't on great terms around then. Trust Nana to piss off her only surviving family," she replied, her lips floating apart with featherlike grace. Locks of hair lined her brow as she cast her eyes to the high ceiling. "She did call to tell him I was safe, though. But as long as I helped around the pub, she was chill with me staying here."
Gemma snorted into her coffee mug. "As chill as she ever gets," she quipped, and the amused tip of Avery's head swaddled her aching heart with cushioned delight. "I'm glad she took you in. It looks like this place has been really good for you."
"As grumpy as she is, Nana's given me space to figure my shit out, for sure." Peace filled out Avery's eyes in smooth watercolours. After a moment's thought, strokes of a different shade breached the sides of the image. "Which reminds me – I've got something to tell you. Meet me after work and I'll have it ready. Until then, no spoilers."
"That's it? Come on, Vee!" Gemma complained with a playful swipe at Avery's arm. Her second strike swung through nothing but empty air, and she reached towards Avery's back as her friend swaggered towards her bedroom. "Do I at least get to know if it's good news or bad news?"
Avery paused by her door and winked over her shoulder. "Wait and see, she says mysteriously."
The door's closing thud tugged Gemma from her paralysis, yet the girl's spell lingered around her. A prism of iridescent lights flickered behind her eyelids, distant chimes sang between her breaths, and the ground beneath her feet slipped away to leave her stranded in weightless space. As she lifted her mug to her lips, the faintest hint of a disbelieving laugh rippled across the coffee's earthen surface.
Before a drop of liquid breached the drink's steaming spirals, a heavy knock trembled through the pub's walls. Rapid and determined, the noise lost none of its force over the long journey from the building's front entrance to the flat's steeping air. Gemma snapped out of her spellbound state and checked the clock, suddenly burdened by every hour of forsaken sleep.
"Zounds, never a moment of bloody peace!" Iris stomped out of her room, huffing and throwing the folds of a frayed blush-pink dressing gown around her wiry frame. "What on earth are they wanting at this time?"
"Don't know, but they could work for social services with a knock like that," Gemma said with a laugh to drown out the bitter memories. As Iris unlocked the flat door, Gemma slipped off her stool to stand at the woman's side. "Wait, you can tell who it is?"
Iris sucked air through her yellowed teeth. "Aye, and whatever brought them here, I know it's no good, neither," she muttered, aiming her scowl down the stairwell. "Nothing from the blasted Coxes ever is."
As the woman descended the stairs, the slightest shroud of unseen eyes slithered along the back of Gemma's neck. She spun on the spot, and the computer's dimmed screen stared back at her. Nothing stirred around her, yet a mournful bell tolled in the base of her core. Whoever – or whatever – had been coming for Jacob, they were coming for her now.