Page 37 of Irish King
“Hey, Diamond!” Despite how we were hardly on friendly terms, I made my voice chipper anyway.
Silence. Then, “what do you want?”
She’d only said a few words, but I could tell that something was very wrong.
“Listen, really sorry to bother you. I just wanted to see if you’d heard anything new about Kat, sorry, Kiki, like if she came home or called or anything like that.”
More silence.
“No. Kiki’s not back.”
Still more silence.
I didn’t want to butt into Diamond’s private business, but the short conversation was already managing to put me ill at ease.
“Hey, everything alright over there?”
“I’m… I’m fine.” She said the words in a tone that made it more than clear that she wasn’t fine, not at all.
“And listen, you can’t be calling me like this no more, alright? And you can’t come poking around here asking about Kiki.”
“Huh? What’s going on, Diamond?”
“Nothing. Just… just listen to what I said.”
The phone beeped, and I held it away from my face to see that Diamond had ended the call.
The strangeness of the conversation only piqued my curiosity more. I pulled up Trevor’s number, calling him next.
“Yo, Claire!” Trevor sounded friendly and affable as ever. “What’s the word?”
“Hey, Trev. You haven’t heard anything from Kat, have you?”
“Nope. Truth be told, I was on the verge of texting you asking the same thing.”
“Yeah. Figured it was a longshot, but you know how it is.”
“We’re both grasping at straws here. I hate it, wish there was something more I could do.”
Silence fell as I tried to figure out how to say what I had on my mind.
“Listen, something weird just happened.”
“Something weird?”
“Yeah, don’t know how else to describe it.”
I filled him in on what had happened with Diamond, how she’d sounded strange, almost scared during the call.
“Thatisweird,” he said. “Maybe someone talked to her? Told her that she’d better let the whole thing drop or she’ll get in major trouble?”
“Exactly what I was thinking. Trev, listen, I know you want just as badly as I do to find out what happened to Kat, but the more I look into this, the surer I am that bad people are behind it.”
“That sounds like all the more reason for me to help you out.”
“No, that’s where you’re wrong. See, I know criminals; I work with them on a regular basis. You, on the other hand…”
He let out a bloodless laugh. “I, on the other hand, am just some clueless construction guy who risks getting in over his head.”