He was right. There was no point in working herself up into a panic and then saying the wrong thing to Hannah. ‘Are you strongly suggesting that’s what I do?’
A slow, lazy smile spread across his face. ‘Yeah. Right in one.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SOMEHOW, IN JON’S COMPANY, the dreaded phone call didn’t seem so bad. When the time came to make it, she felt almost relaxed, sitting on the sofa next to him.
‘I’ll wait in the kitchen.’ Jon got to his feet.
‘Would you stay? I’d...like you to stay, please.’ The words still sounded odd in her mouth. But she wanted Jon to stay with her, the way he’d been right at her side through all of this.
He sat back down again. ‘You’ll have to tell Hannah that I’m here.’
She nodded and looked at her watch. Still two minutes to go but she couldn’t wait. Chloe found Hannah in her contacts list and dialled, putting the phone on loudspeaker.
Hannah answered on the second ring.
‘Chloe?’
‘Yes... Hannah, I’m so glad to hear your voice. Jon’s here with me.’
‘Yeah? So I suppose I can’t ask what’s going on with you and him, then...’
Chloe swallowed hard, feeling herself redden. Even if it had just been her and Hannah, she wouldn’t have known the answer to that.
‘You can ask.’ Jon’s voice was good-humoured. ‘Only if I asked you what was going on in your love life, you’d tell me to mind my own business...’
‘Me? I’m about as single as it gets. It’s you two I want to know about.’
Chloe wondered whether Jon had been quick-witted enough to turn the question around and find out whether Hannah was with someone. But he was giving nothing away, smiling into the phone as he replied.
‘Nothing going on here either. But Chloe needs to know whether you’re okay.’
‘I’m fine. Good, actually. And there’s no point in looking for me because I haven’t gone to stay with any of my friends.’
Chloe felt tears prick at the corners of her eyes and pressed her lips together. Jon had been keeping the conversation light, and that was the way it should stay.
‘Hannah, what do you expect her to do? If Chloe went missing, you’d look for her, wouldn’t you?’
‘She wouldn’t...’ Hannah’s voice was tinged with disbelief, but the silence told Chloe that she was thinking about it.
She plucked up the courage to ask the one question that had been hammering in her brain constantly for the last two days. ‘Why did you go, Hannah?’
There was a pause at the other end of the line. ‘Look, I’m sorry about that. I heard James and Carol talking. James said some things...’
Chloe’s mouth went dry. James could be outspoken at times, and Chloe had no doubt that he would have told Carol what was on his mind. ‘James says a lot of things, you know that. But he does love you.’
‘I know. And what he said he was right.’
‘Right?’ Something cold twisted around Chloe’s heart. This didn’t sound good. ‘What did he say?’
‘He said that if I was going to just leave Amy with you every time things got difficult, she’d be better off without me.’
‘Well, that’s wrong and James needs to apologise for saying it. You’ve always taken care of Amy.’
‘You don’t know, Chloe. I can barely hang on myself some days, let alone take care of Amy. James is right, she would be better off with someone else. Someone who’d love her the way that you do.’
‘Me?’ Chloe’s mouth went dry. How many times over the last two weeks had she wished that Amy was her child, and that she could look after her for ever? This must be some kind of punishment for wanting things that she had no right to.