Whisper For The Reaper, Jack Gatland [good books for high schoolers txt] 📗

Declan leaned over now, picking up one of the piles. It looked very much like the case files that Freeman had showed him earlier that day.

‘While I was waiting for you, I went and had a look around granddad’s study,’ Jess explained. ‘I remembered you saying that he always kept copies of his cases and assumed that it’d be the same here. I found them all under R for Reaper.’

Declan flicked through the pages. All twelve crime reports, mostly half investigated and believed to be suicides, all with his father’s familiar penmanship scrawled beside them.

‘It’s not all of them,’ he muttered. When Jess looked back questioningly, Declan realised he’d spoken out loud and forced a smile, waving to the sheets.

‘How did you print them?’ he asked, changing the subject. ‘Dad’s iMac was stolen a week and a half back, and I had my laptop with me.’

‘I’m not a Luddite, dad,’ Jess chided him. ‘I have my iPad. Theres’s a scanning app on it. You take a photo of every page and it turns them into PDF copies. I then wirelessly printed five copies of each one.’ She frowned. ‘Will five copies be enough? I have it as a digital file too.’

‘I didn’t even know dad had a printer here,’ Declan ruffled Jess’s jet black hair as he read through the report. ‘Did you read these?’

Jess nodded. ‘Every two years,’ she said, pointing at the first crime report. ‘If these are all correct, he started in 1990 and killed someone every two years from then, all the way to 2012 and Craig Randall.’

‘You believe he killed them?’

‘You believe it, and I believe you. And granddad did too.’ Jess almost jumped as she remembered something. ‘Oh, mum called. She said you need to remember that I have exams this year and I’m not to sit around doing nothing.’

‘She has a point,’ Declan looked at the paperwork. ‘As much as I appreciate this, you need to finish your schoolwork first.’

‘It’s half term,’ Jess started piling the piles of sheets together. ‘And I’ve already done everything they gave me. And besides, this is on-the-job experience, isn’t it?’

Declan watched his daughter as she hurriedly bundled the paper together. ‘What’s really the matter?’ he asked softly.

Jess stopped and audibly sighed; the sigh of a teenager was something that only a parent truly understood, and this was a sigh that Declan had heard many times over the years.

‘I don’t think I like Robert,’ she admitted. Declan nodded at this; Robert, or ‘Robbie’ Brookfield was an old friend of Declan and Liz’s, and a couple of weeks earlier Robbie had contacted Declan out of the blue, primarily to ask for Declan’s permission in asking Liz out on a date. It wasn’t phrased as such, but Declan knew what it was.

‘He’s just dating your mum,’ Declan said, putting an arm around Jess. ‘When he wants to be called ‘dad’, you can hate him. He’s genuinely a good man.’

He frowned.

‘What is it you don’t like about him?’

‘He’s not you,’ Jess muttered. ‘You weren’t supposed to stay away, you were supposed to both realise that you couldn’t live without each other, and get back together.’

Declan laughed at this. ‘I love your mum, and she loves me,’ he replied. ‘But, sometimes that’s not enough for a marriage. The job kept me away for long hours. And when I had to make a choice, I made the wrong one.’

‘Yeah,’ Jess muttered again; a judgement more than a response.

‘If you want this life, Jess, it’s a choice that you too will have to make at some point,’ Declan continued. ‘This isn’t a career. It’s a vocation. A calling.’

Jess nodded, understanding this even if she wasn’t happy about it.

‘Are you dating anyone?’ she asked. Declan had a twinge of regret at the question; there had been someone, but she was dead now. How did he explain this to his daughter?

‘No,’ he replied. ‘I’m not currently dating anyone.’ It wasn’t a lie, just a response that kept to the rules of grammar. Jess, however, had noted the slight delay and pressed on.

‘Were you dating anyone?’ she asked again, adjusting the question. ‘Kendis Taylor, maybe?’

‘Why would you think that?’ Declan asked. Jess shrugged.

‘Maybe because you were plastered all over the news as her terrorist handler?’ she continued. ‘Maybe because her husband apparently punched you out beside her grave a couple of days ago?’

Declan groaned inwardly. Of course Jess would hear about that. The whole bloody village was probably still going on about that. ‘It wasn’t beside her grave,’ he corrected. ‘It was beside your granddad’s grave.’

‘Oh,’ deadpanned Jess. ‘Because that makes it totally different.’

Declan sighed. She was right. And she had a right to know.

‘I love your mum, and I always will,’ Declan started. ‘But Kendis was my first love. We had a bond, of sorts. But then I didn’t see her for years. Down the line I married Liz, we had you… Life went on.’ He thought before speaking, phrasing his words now. ‘Kendis was working with granddad, on his book, and that’s how we got back into contact. But I passed her information on a case and that led her down a rabbit hole, one that eventually ended with her death.’ He knew it wasn’t a complete lie, but Jess didn’t need to know about the one-night stand right now. She didn’t need to know that Kendis was considering leaving Pete for Declan, and that she was torn between two loves. Or, more likely, that she wasn’t leaving Pete, and had played Declan like a fiddle for one last roll in the sheets.

‘Pete punched me because I caused her death,’ he finished. ‘And I deserved it. I deserved more.’

There was a moment of silence as Jess stared at her father in surprise.

‘I thought you were having an affair,’ she eventually said. Declan forced a smile, ignoring the voice in his head.

It was an affair. And you bloody well know it, you hypocrite.

‘I know,’ he replied. ‘And you’re old enough to know the truth.’ He stopped.