Chapter 234: Hunters, Part 17

Richard

My phone buzzes.

“Hello, James. How is she now?”

“Much better. A good sleep has worked wonders. Would you and Beth like to come up when it’s convenient. She wants to talk to all of us together.”

“We’ll be there in a few minutes.”

I sit with Elizabeth, who keeps her fingers laced with mine. James is relaxed, a smile playing around his eyes as he sits by Charlotte.

Michael is otherwise. For a man who is normally warm and easy, he seems distant, almost disconnected. On the several previous occasions when I have seen him with Charlotte in similar situations, he has been, as James phrased it, her anchor. Now he barely looks at her and there’s a set to his jaw that I’ve not seen before.

Beth notices it too, eye-pointing me across to Michael. I quell her with a warning glance and a squeeze on her fingers.

Charlotte sits by James, but her glance repeatedly skitters across to her blond fiancé, who doesn’t return it.

Better do my bit in support….