Page 87 of Catch My Fall

“I really advise that you do.”

“I appreciate it, but I’ll be fine. I swear if I experience problems or if my lungs hurt I’ll go to the hospital.”

Displeased by my answer, he gives me a reluctant nod before stepping away.

I look up at the house. That beautiful house that now stands mostly in ruins. The firefighters continue to tackle the blaze that has slowly began to fizzle out. The once bright white cladding on the front of the house is now charred, caked in scorch marks and a thick layer of black soot. Part of the roof has caved in and now lies in a pile of rubble in what was once the living room. All the windows have been blown out as a steady cloud of thick smoke billows out.

Alec’s childhood, all those happy memories he made here. All that history… It’s all gone.

My eyes blur with tears. Today was perfect, and it should have ended as such, but instead it ended in disaster.

How has it come to this?

How did they find us?

“May I have a word with you, Ma’am?” A male police officer asks me. “I understand this is a distressing time for you.”

“Where were you?” I ask.

He frowns. “I don’t understand, Ma’am.”

“I called you guys. I called you telling you someone was trying to break in and I was told a patrol car was five minutes out. What took so long?”

The young officer reaches for his radio that is attached to his chest. “Dispatch, this is Russo, did you receive a call about a break-in at this address sometime ago?”

“This is Dispatch. Yes. It was made at ten-thirty three p.m. but it says here it was logged as a hoax call shortly after.”

“A hoax? Does it look like a hoax to you? Who would do that?” I yell, my throat burning.

“Dispatch, who logged it as a hoax?”

“That would be… Officer Paul Jenkins,” the woman on the radio replies.

“Jenkins?” I gasp.

“You know him?”

“He was poking around here about a week ago. He said that a neighbour was concerned about there being squatters staying here since it hasn’t been lived in for so long.”

“Ma’am, to my knowledge, there have been no complaints or concerns raised in this area, especially not recently.”

My blood runs cold. “Then why was he here?”

“I have no idea, Ma’am.” Another officer calls him over, and after excusing himself, he turns and leaves.

Oh my God.

That’s why he was sniffing around the other day. He was seeing if we were here or not so he could report back to Austin.

I feel sick.

Did Austin pay him off? Blackmail him? How did Austin even find out where we were?

I shiver. Is there anybody we can trust? Not even law enforcement now apparently.

I clutch the foil blanket they gave me and pull it tighter around my body, my head drooping forward as I release a yawn.

I’m so tired. All I want to do is go to sleep but my mind is running at a hundred miles an hour it would be impossible to sleep now.