Текст книги "Jessica Daniel: Think of the Children / Playing with Fire / Thicker Than Water"

Автор книги: Kerry Wilkinson

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Текущая страница: 42 (всего у книги 56 страниц)

7

Jessica knew there was no particular reason to have asked about the Sextons but was still annoyed with herself for not doing so. Izzy had stopped and turned and they both realised they had been seconds away from missing something obvious.

‘How do you know Eleanor Sexton?’ Jessica asked.

Kayleigh seemed confused for a few moments, before it dawned on her who this was. ‘Ellie’s involved?’ she said, her eyes widening in surprise.

‘We can go through that at another time,’ Jessica replied. ‘We need to make sure we’re talking about the same person.’

Kayleigh said that Eleanor was married to someone called Cameron; she also knew the woman’s maiden name. ‘We used to work together,’ she added, waving the two women back into the house and closing the door behind them. ‘It was years ago though.’

‘Can you remember how long?’ Jessica asked, leaning against the front door.

Kayleigh took the cue that Jessica was keen to get her answers and go, and didn’t move towards the living room. She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Maybe twenty, twenty-five years back? A long time.’

Kayleigh was only forty-three, so that meant half a lifetime ago.

‘Where did you work?’

Jessica thought she saw the woman wince slightly but it could have been a shiver because of how cold it was. ‘There was this casino thing in the centre. It’s not there any more. We worked on the floor, serving drinks and looking pretty, trying to get customers to stay for longer.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I was a bit younger back then.’

‘Were you good friends?’

‘I guess, I mean as close as you can be with work people. We didn’t hang around much outside of work but we got each other through the days.’

‘How long ago did you leave that job?’

Kayleigh sighed and started counting on her fingers. ‘I only worked there for around a year. I started when I was twenty-one, so I guess that’s twenty-one years?’ She looked towards Jessica to check that her maths was correct.

‘Did you stay in contact much after that?’

She nodded. ‘Sort of. It wasn’t as easy back then of course, we didn’t have mobiles and computers and the like. I lived in this flat and didn’t have a phone, while she was living with her parents. She would write me letters a couple of times a year but I was never very good with that kind of thing. We lived on opposite sides of the city but met for coffee once or twice a year.’

‘Have you been in contact recently?’

‘No, we drifted apart. She started going out with Cameron and her priorities changed.’ Before anyone could speak, she quickly clarified her remark. ‘It wasn’t a problem, I know these things go in cycles. Sometimes you’re really close, sometimes you grow apart.’

‘How long ago was that?’ Jessica asked.

‘Not long after they got married, so maybe ten years ago? I went to the evening thing but you know what it’s like; there are so many people around, you don’t get time to speak to each other. We hadn’t really been friends for a few years and I think she only invited me because we’d once been close. The last time I saw her was on her wedding night.’ She paused for a moment and then added: ‘Is she okay?’

Jessica nodded, wanting to offer reassurance without giving much away. ‘Why did you leave the casino?’

Kayleigh shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess it wasn’t what I wanted to do. It was only ever about the money – and even that wasn’t so good.’

‘Did you leave at the same time?’

Kayleigh stopped looking at her, instead glancing towards the wall and then the floor. ‘More or less. We’re both around the same age and wanted to do something else.’

‘Did you have another job lined up?’

‘Not at the time. I’ve done a few things since.’

‘You’ve not worked with Eleanor since, though?’

‘El-ea-nor . . .’ Kayleigh rolled the word around her tongue as if it felt uncomfortable. ‘She was always “Ellie” when I knew her . . .’ She tailed off before remembering what she had been asked. ‘Sorry, no, we’ve not worked together since.’

Jessica nodded and took a few final details before reaching around to reopen the door. ‘Okay, well, if you think of anything else, don’t hesitate to get in contact.’

The two officers made their way back to the car in silence. Once the doors were closed, Izzy asked what they were going to do next.

Jessica didn’t know if she should defer upwards but could guess the response would be along the lines of getting on with things as there were no officers free. ‘I’ll take you back to Longsight. There’s not much point in going to see Eleanor – Ellie – until we know some facts. Have a good look into this casino place, let’s find out who ran it and why it shut down, then see if you can find anything else to link these two women together, or to Oliver or his family. Check Eleanor’s maiden name and see if anything else pops up through that. Get Dave involved if you can stop him moping for five minutes. Call me if you find anything.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going off to be annoyed by teenage boys.’

Izzy seemed slightly confused but laughed anyway. ‘Fair enough.’ After a pause as if weighing up whether she should ask, she added: ‘Do you want to finish telling me what you were going to say about there being another reason for you not taking Adam’s name?’

Jessica switched on the engine and kept her eyes facing the front. ‘Let’s go.’

Oliver had attended a private school in Worsley on the far west of the city. Jessica had to jump through a couple of hoops in order to be able to speak to the two main friends his parents had told her about. First, she needed their parents’ permission, which had been granted on the condition any interview took place on school property. Because of that, she then had to gain additional permission from the school. If either of the boys had been suspected of anything, it would have been far easier but Jessica was simply trying to get some background from them.

As she drove onto the school’s grounds, Jessica couldn’t help but be impressed. The first thing she noticed was how much green there was. Her school had one playing field at the back that was on a slight slope. Each winter, someone painted the markings of a football pitch while after the Easter term break, they would return to find it had become an athletics track.

Everything around her was a world away from that. She could see a pair of tennis courts on one side, a cricket pitch on the other and what she thought was a running track with a proper synthetic surface beyond that.

She followed the signs until reaching a small car park at the back of a large mock-Tudor building. It was bright white, with black-painted beams running the length and height of it and baskets of bright flowers hanging down. Jessica got out of the car and took a step back to survey everything. It was so far away from her own experiences of education, let alone the comprehensive schools she had visited at various points around the city, that they were barely comparable. Some places had an almost menacing aura about them, where it would have been no surprise to find out there was a murky underworld, even among young teenagers. Here, it felt like an environment where people would be free to learn.

As Jessica well knew, that didn’t mean there wasn’t something under the surface.

She walked into the main reception, where she was met by posters advertising ski trips, formal dances and a weekend visit to see an opera in London. She remembered one of her own school trips to a former cotton mill. It wasn’t even a current working one, instead half an empty warehouse, half a museum. Quite a difference.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the receptionist asking if she could help. After having her identification checked – which included a phone call to the station, a lot of foot-tapping, finger-drumming and plenty of general hanging around – Jessica was finally led through to meet the head teacher.

Although the man was friendly, Jessica could see straight away that he had a presence that intimidated even her, let alone students. His voice was the sort that boomed across playgrounds, scaring the shite out of anyone even thinking about getting up to no good, while he wore a suit which fitted him perfectly and showed off a trim physique despite his grey hair. Of everything, it was the man’s gaze that showed his authority. Jessica knew eye contact could be an important factor when she was interviewing people, but the head took that to the extreme, locking himself into a stare with her and forcing her to look away first.

Despite the intensity, there didn’t seem to be anything untoward about his manner. He spoke of the entire school’s shock at Oliver’s death and explained there had already been a special assembly after he went missing. That would be followed by a second when it came to the young man’s funeral. He told Jessica how the school catered for children of all ages from nursery all the way up to eighteen-year-olds, with the emphasis on creating responsible adults. Still, that’s what they all said. Blah, blah, blah ‘social awareness’-this, blah, blah, blah ‘effective policy’-that. One day, Jessica would stumble across a broken head teacher who admitted, head-in-hands, the kids in their school were sodding awful.

After his own interrogation, he took Jessica through to an empty office and then left, before returning a few minutes later with two young men.

There didn’t appear to be a formal uniform for sixth-form students but both were dressed in smart black trousers, with a dark jumper over the top of a shirt. They sat next to each other, shuffling nervously and not looking up from their smart, highly polished, black leather shoes. Jessica already knew their names but had to clarify which one was ‘Terry’ and who was ‘Richard’.

‘I’m Richard, miss,’ one of them replied.

Jessica tried not to wince at the word ‘miss’. It made her feel old. She didn’t know if she should be correcting them, so let it go. His voice was clearly local but he had lost some of the twang that could make a simple ‘How are you today?’ sound like a threat depending on the strength of the Mancunian accent.

‘I’d like to get a bit of an insight into what Oliver was like,’ Jessica said. ‘I’ve spoken to his parents and the head but I’m guessing you guys know him a little differently than everyone else?’

The two half-shrugged, half-nodded almost in unison and Jessica knew she was going to struggle. She thought it might have helped to bring Rowlands with her. Even though he’d had the hump since breaking up with Chloe, he could still turn on the matey-charm thing with other young men, banging on about ‘the footy at the weekend’ or some stupid video he’d seen on the Internet.

‘How long have each of you known Oliver?’ Jessica asked.

They were both sitting up straight, hands in their laps, with Richard slightly the taller of the two. His brown hair was neatly side-parted, his skin showing a few acne scars. Regardless of upbringing, there was no escaping certain aspects of being a teenager. He peered towards Jessica but stared at a spot just to her right. ‘We’ve been coming here since we were thirteen, so five years.’

‘Is that the same for you?’ Jessica asked Terry.

The second boy had sandier-coloured hair but a posture which perfectly matched his friend’s. ‘I’ve been here since I was nine,’ he said. ‘We became friends not long after Rich and Ollie started, so five years too.’

They both spoke in a considered fashion and Jessica couldn’t quite work out if it was because they had been trained in the same way they had clearly been taught how to sit, or if it was because they were both in some sort of shock. Still, if that headmaster bellowed at her to sit up straight and pronounce her words properly, she’d probably do it.

She nodded towards Richard, waiting for him to look towards her. ‘How about you start? Just tell me about what Oliver was like.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘What type of things did you do together?’

The young man shrugged dismissively before responding and Jessica was pleased to see not every aspect of being a teenager had been coached out of him. ‘He liked scientific things, he was interested in the stars and constellations. He was talking about doing astronomy at university.’

‘He was pretty good at art too,’ Terry added. ‘But I’m not sure that’s what he wanted to do, even though he could.’

‘I noticed a few computer games at his house . . .’

For the first time, Jessica saw the two boys interact. They looked sideways at each other, sharing a grin. ‘We used to go to Ollie’s to play games,’ Richard said. ‘My mum and dad wouldn’t let me have any and Terry lives too far away.’

Jessica nodded. ‘What about girls? Was there anyone Ollie was seeing?’

The smiles vanished almost instantly, both young men’s gazes returning to the floor. Jessica suspected their awkward behaviour was simply because they weren’t used to being in a room on their own with a woman.

‘He wasn’t going out with anyone,’ Richard said.

‘Do you know that for sure?’

‘Definitely, we would have known. He was more interested in other things.’

From everything she had seen, Jessica had no reason to doubt that. ‘Were you into anything else? There seems to be a lot on offer around here: sports, trips, visits and so on.’

‘None of us really do sports,’ Terry replied. ‘It’s sort of encouraged around here but it’s not our thing.’

‘What about the trips?’

‘We’ve gone on a few,’ Terry replied. ‘It’s no big deal. Some people get involved in everything around here. They’re in every club and go on every visit.’

‘You don’t, though?’

‘Nope.’

For the first time, Jessica had an inkling that, although the trio might well be uncomfortable around girls and perhaps a little naive, they weren’t as perfect as everyone made out. Terry’s pronunciation had sounded carefully coached until the ‘nope’, when it had slipped back into his local accent.

Jessica slouched slightly in her chair. ‘So what do you get up to away from school? Come on, I know what it’s like being a teenager, you can’t just sit around playing games all day? You must have a laugh somehow? I got up to all sorts of stupid things when I was your age.’

Instead of getting the chummy reply she was hoping for, both young men sunk backwards. She could see any forced confidence they had drain away. Terry started to speak but, as the other boy’s body language tensed, he stopped and turned it into a cough.

Jessica looked from one to the other. ‘We’re talking privately,’ she assured them.

The silence told her the moment was lost. She had missed something but wasn’t entirely sure what.

Richard glanced at his watch, then at Jessica, this time looking directly at her. ‘We’re going to be late for a class . . .’

He stood before she could reply but Jessica knew there was little else she could ask anyway.

‘Let me leave you my number,’ she said. ‘If you think of anything, you can call any time. Even if you think it’s not important it might be helpful.’

She gave each of them her card and, even though it wasn’t something she would usually give out to teenage boys, wrote her mobile number on the back. If she started getting calls consisting only of heavy breathing, then at least she would know where they were coming from.

The pair shuffled out but Jessica saw them transform almost instantly as they entered the corridor. Their backs straightened again and they stood tall as they walked towards reception. Jessica closed the door and sat back in the seat. She took out her mobile phone, hoping she had missed a call from Izzy while it had been on silent. The screen was blank, so Jessica flipped through the contacts and called her friend instead.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked.

‘“Hi” to you too. We’ve got a few things on the go but you’re not going to like them.’

‘What have you found?’

‘We know who the casino owner was but Jack told me not to tell you everything today. He said we’ll talk tomorrow.’

Jessica checked her watch. It was the end of her shift but she was still confused. ‘Why?’

‘Let’s just say it’s complicated.’

8

Jessica was tired of living in someone else’s property. First it was Adam’s house, which never felt like home, now it was her friend Caroline Morrison’s flat. Adam was dealing with the insurance company and they knew that, at some point, they would be house-hunting. The house they used to live in had been seriously damaged by the fire and even if they were given the money to repair it, neither of them was keen to return. Jessica’s problem was that she had no inclination to spend her days off traipsing around other people’s houses as if she knew what she was doing.

When she’d been looking for a flat, before she knew Adam, her dad had advised her to ‘check for damp’. Jessica had no idea what that meant, other than physically touching the walls to see if they were wet. He had laughed for almost fifteen minutes on the phone when she told him what she had done. If it had a roof, some walls, an indoor toilet that flushed and no holes where there shouldn’t be, she would have declared everything ‘fine’ – which was likely why a career in surveying was never going to be on the cards. Knowledge-wise, it did rank her above a fair percentage of estate agents, though.

Adam seemed to have some idea of what he was doing, so Jessica was more than happy for him to ‘pick somewhere’. He wasn’t as enthused about making such a big decision on his own, which only annoyed her more.

The one aspect of Caroline’s flat Jessica would miss when they eventually left was the view. If there was nothing they liked on television, which was most of the time, Jessica and Adam would sit on the balcony watching the whole of Salford Quays beneath them. Even if it was cold, they would wrap up in coats and jumpers, put their feet up on the railings and play I-spy. It might seem childish but Jessica had as much fun doing that for free as she had paying for all sorts of other things.

The evening wasn’t too cold for the time of year, but Jessica was still wearing the heavy coat she had ‘liberated’ from the station’s uniform store a few years ago. Adam was wearing a T-shirt, which annoyed her as he kept insisting he wasn’t cold, even though he had only just got out of the shower. He was wearing a bobble hat, with small strands of his damp, long black hair poking out of the bottom of it, and he still hadn’t had a shave, leaving dark wisps of hair on his chin. He glanced over the rail in an exaggerated way, then turned to Jessica and grinned. ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with B.’

Jessica rolled her eyes. ‘You’re not peering through some woman’s bedroom window again, are you?’

Adam laughed. ‘Not while you’re around.’

‘You shouldn’t be looking whether I’m here or not.’ Jessica paused while looking over the rail and then leant back into her seat. ‘I don’t know, bin?’

‘Nope.’ Jessica gave an overstated ‘um’. ‘You can talk about work if you want,’ Adam offered.

Although he hadn’t asked her to, Jessica had been making an effort to try to keep office matters at the station. Largely she was succeeding but Adam must have noticed how distracted she seemed. ‘It’s fine,’ she said.

‘What about Jason? Is he still suspended?’

Jessica paused to think, wondering if it was a good idea to bring work home. She sighed. ‘I spoke to him last week and he’s not coming back. Even if they find in his favour, he’s done.’

‘Because he gave information to the papers?’

The exact ins and outs were more complicated than that but, at its core, that was exactly why the inspector had been asked to stop coming to work. The fact he had been right to do it, certainly in her mind, didn’t really matter when it came to the wrath of their bosses. You could be as incompetent as you wanted – as long as you didn’t make them look bad.

‘Something like that. He’s going to sit it out on full pay and then quit before he gets pushed. He hasn’t told anyone else yet.’

‘What’s happening with you, then?’

Jessica thought for a few moments before responding: ‘Building.’

‘Huh?’

‘I-spy.’

‘Oh right, no.’

‘Buggy?’

Adam leant forward. ‘Where’s a buggy?’

‘I don’t know, it begins with B.’

‘All right, no, not a buggy.’

Jessica nodded at the bottle by his foot. ‘Beer?’

‘Nope.’

Taking a deep breath, Jessica put her feet down and picked up the bottle by her own feet, taking a swig. ‘I don’t know if I want to go for the job. It’s a bit more money but it’s a lot more faffing. I don’t think I can be arsed.’

‘You can’t want to be a sergeant forever?’

‘Bird?’

‘Nope.’

Jessica swilled the liquid around and had another drink. ‘I don’t know if I want to do this at all forever. Do you want to be in a lab all your life?’

‘I don’t know,’ Adam said. ‘Maybe. I’ve not really thought about it.’

Jessica wished she could be like that. ‘Blonde?’ she said, nodding towards a tower block across the way from them. She could clearly see the woman’s hair colour as she shook a rug over the railing.

‘Nope but thanks for pointing her out.’

Jessica whacked him playfully with the back of her hand. ‘We’ll see. They want to interview me.’ It was a conversation they’d had before and Jessica didn’t know if he was asking to see if she had changed her mind or because he thought she should go for it.

Adam picked up his own beer. ‘How’s Izzy?’

‘She’s just Izzy. Happy being a mum, happy being at work. Now she’s had the baby, she’s back to having bright red hair and scaring some of the higher-ups. It’s good to see her around.’

Jessica clinked her empty bottle on the railing and turned to face Adam, raising her eyebrows. ‘I’m not getting up,’ he said, reluctantly passing across his half-full bottle.

Jessica took it and grinned. ‘I knew you’d give me yours.’ She took a swig, adding: ‘Balloon,’ nodding towards the horizon where a hot-air balloon was taking off.

‘No, that wasn’t there before.’

‘Bus?’

‘Nope. How’s Dave?’

‘Still being annoying. He’s trying to sort us all going to see Hugo later in the month. He has this residence thing at a comedy club. Are you up for that?’

‘Definitely.’

‘Breeze?’

‘You can’t see the breeze.’

‘Yeah but I can’t think of anything else beginning with B.’

Adam pulled his hat down over his ears and Jessica wondered if he was going to finally admit he was cold. She could see the goosebumps on his arms. ‘Have you told any of them yet?’ he asked.

‘I almost told Izzy but not yet. They were all so busy congratulating me on the wedding and everything that I didn’t have the heart to tell them.’

‘That doesn’t sound like you.’

Jessica finished the beer, then picked up her original bottle and stood. ‘Come on, let’s go inside before you turn blue while still insisting you’re not cold.’

‘I’m not cold.’

Jessica rubbed his arm. ‘What are these, then? Anyway, what’s your B?’

Adam pointed towards a flat on the building next to theirs where the washing was hanging over the rail. ‘Bra.’

Jessica opened the door and stepped inside. ‘Predictable.’

‘You didn’t get it.’

‘That’s because I’m not a perv.’

After sliding the door closed, Jessica took off her coat and hung it over the handle. She walked into the kitchen and opened the cupboard under the sink, dropping the two empty bottles inside. As she was about to close it, Jessica noticed a cardboard envelope which had been ripped in half. She took the pieces out and held them together, seeing Adam’s name and his work address written in black felt-tip.

‘What’s this?’ she called across the open-plan room.

Adam was looking at his phone but, when he peered up, Jessica could see his surprise, even from the opposite side of the room. ‘Er, nothing. Just work stuff. I don’t know why I brought it home.’ Jessica took another look at the envelope and was about to put it back in the bin when Adam offered another guilty-sounding: ‘It’s nothing.’

Although he had been nervous around her when they had first met, it had been quite some time since he had stuttered his way through a conversation, let alone been openly evasive.

Jessica crossed the room and sat next to him on the sofa. ‘What’s going on?’

Adam put his phone in his pocket. ‘Nothing, it was just a letter, I was in a hurry so I brought it home. It’s uni stuff.’

Jessica had no reason to think anything different, despite his odd behaviour. ‘You were a bit of a geek at school, weren’t you?’ she said.

Adam seemed grateful for the change of subject. ‘Well, I wouldn’t put it like that . . .’

‘But you were . . .’

‘Liking science doesn’t make you a geek.’

‘What does it make you, then?’

‘I don’t know, someone who likes science.’

Jessica snorted. ‘Whatever. Anyway, what types of things did you get up to with your mates when you weren’t being scared of girls or trying to steal their underwear?’

Adam took off his hat and ruffled his wet hair. ‘I don’t know. We just hung around. We watched rubbish old horror movies and thought about making our own. One of my mates had a games console which we used to play on. I wasn’t very good but we’d play a bit of football in this other guy’s garden. I did my homework too, unlike some people.’

He dug Jessica playfully in the ribs and she squealed. ‘Get off.’

‘Why are you asking?’

At first, Jessica wasn’t going to say but she figured Adam could only help. ‘There’s this kid we’re looking into. Everyone says he’s just normal. He likes astronomy, he plays games, hangs around with his mates and watches television. Everything normal that you’d expect. But then he went missing, before turning up dead. No one seems to have a clue why him.’

Adam rested a hand on her back. ‘Could it just be he was in the wrong place at the wrong time?’

‘It probably is. I guess I just want to think there’s something more to it than that.’

Adam kissed the top of her head and then stood. ‘I’m going to go dry off and then sort some clothes out for tomorrow.’

Jessica watched him walk into the bedroom, wondering what she should do with the evening. Izzy had refused to give her any further details on the casino owner, saying they had to check a few additional things and that there was going to be a team briefing in the morning. Whatever it was, it didn’t bode well.

She reached under the sofa but couldn’t find what she was looking for, so checked the cabinet underneath the television. At a loss, Jessica walked through to the bedroom, where Adam was leaning into their joint wardrobe. ‘Where’s the laptop?’ she asked.

Adam poked his head around the door and nodded towards the dresser at the bottom of the bed. ‘I was using it in here earlier.’

‘I’m going to email my mum while I’ve got nothing else on. She keeps going on about how I never call her – but then when I do I can’t get off the phone because she’s busy telling me about how Gladys in the village is finally having her hip fixed or how she saw someone making a quiche on TV, or something like that. She’ll try to talk me through it and then it’s onto whether or not I’m eating properly, how you are, how I am, how Dad’s doing. By the time I get off, it’s a week later. Emailing’s easier.’

‘Have you at least told them that we’re not . . .’

‘Not yet.’ Adam rolled his eyes. ‘It’s easier like this for now,’ Jessica added. ‘I’ll tell them when the time’s right.’

‘You can’t leave them thinking it for too much longer.’

Jessica picked up the laptop and walked back to the door. ‘I know. I’ll sort it.’ She walked through to the living room and plugged it in, waiting for the device to boot up, as she wandered back to the glass balcony door and stared into the darkness. She had long since regretted making the phone call from the airport to tell her parents and Izzy that she was flying out to get married. They had all understood at the time but Jessica didn’t have the heart to tell them what had happened.

As her mind began to drift, Jessica heard the computer beeping. Each time it did something she didn’t expect, her first instinct was to whack as many keys as she could to see if it helped. Her second instinct was to call Adam. The printer’s not working – ‘ADAM!’. The screen’s gone blue – ‘ADAM!’. Someone’s asking me to send my bank details to Nigeria – ‘ADAM!’. If all else failed, violence – or at least the threat of it – often did the trick.

Usually the laptop would have booted straight onto a screen from where she knew she could load the Internet browser. Instead, it had stopped at a password screen and was asking for a username.

‘ADAM!’

He came into the room holding two shirts. One was bright blue, the other grey. ‘Which one?’ he asked.

Jessica pointed to the grey one. ‘What’s going on with this?’

Adam hung both shirts over the doorframe and walked to the sofa. ‘I had to set us up separate logins. I’ve got all this stuff from the university which is confidential and sensitive. I couldn’t risk you accidentally deleting it or anything like that.’ He laughed as if it was a joke but Jessica could tell he was lying.

‘I don’t even look at all that stuff. I only ever use the Internet.’

‘It’s more of a just in case thing. It just means you’ll have access to your own files now.’

Adam typed in a username for her, adding: ‘You can pick your own password.’

‘I don’t want to pick my own password – I’ll never remember it. I just want it to login like it used to.’

Adam squirmed awkwardly, shuffling from one foot to the other. ‘Sorry.’

Jessica typed in a password and then watched the main screen appear. As Adam picked up his shirts and went into the bedroom, she checked the empty Internet browser history and wondered what he was up to.