Free The Fallen by Jassy Mackenzie

way. Twenty-twenty vision. And I can see well at night.’
    ‘Just like my father. I didn’t inherit his eyesight, unfortunately. I wear contact lenses.’
    ‘What does your dad do?’
    There was an awkward silence and then an abrupt response from Craig. ‘Not much. He’s dead.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘It still … it’s still shocking when I think about it. It’s barely been six months.’
    ‘What happened?’ Jade felt a coldness inside her. She didn’t want to ask the question, but she knew that now it would be expected of her. That Craig was already preparing himself for the pain of answering it.
    ‘A crash up in northern Africa, in a town called Freedom. The stuff nightmares are made of. I went to go and identify his body, but it was so badly damaged that I couldn’t.… They had to do a DNA comparison. That was how I met Elsabe—at the crash site. She also lost family there, including a child. Half a year on and I’m still trying to deal with it. It’s even worse for her.’
    Jade didn’t reply immediately. She had also lost her father in a horrific crash. Emotion overwhelmed her as she remembered seeing the smashed and buckled car in which he had been a passenger. He’d been trapped inside the stalled vehicle, unable to undo his jammed seatbelt, as a huge truck had come hurtling down a side road and smashed into it.
    Only later did Jade realise that his death was no accident, that it was murder, an organised hit hastily arranged to protect the criminal whose identity her father had uncovered as he investigated a sensitive case.
    The driver of that car had been the first man she had ever killed.
    Had her father suffered? Had he died in terror, watching the truck’s large, angry grille thundering towards him?
    Jade had prayed that his death had been quick, that he had been distracted by the deliberately jammed belt, unaware of the approaching vehicle. That it had happened in an instant. One moment alive, dead the next.
    She wondered if Craig had prayed for the same.
    ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ Her voice was shaky. ‘I’m so sorry, Craig.’
    He sighed deeply. ‘Time heals, apparently, but I’m still waiting.’
    Jade didn’t think it was possible for the rain to get any harder, but suddenly it was as if the floodgates to the Gariep Dam had been opened. Icy water fell in torrents from the sky. Hailstones stung her bare legs and ricocheted off the back of the leather jacket.
    ‘Inside!’ Craig shouted.
    They raced to his chalet. A brief fumble with the padlock and they were inside, standing in the middle of the lounge, water dripping off them and down onto the tiles. As the door slammed behind them, Jade found herself waiting for Elsabe to call out from one of the bedrooms or appear in the passage, asking what all the noise was about.
    She eased the jacket off her shoulders and hung it on the back of a dining-room chair. It had provided some protection against the rain, but her T -shirt was now sporting huge damp patches and her shorts were soaked. Luckily the heat that the storm had chased away outside was still lingering inside, so she wasn’t cold.
    Looking round, she realised that both the doors in this bigger, two-bedroom chalet were open.
    ‘Where’s Elsabe?’ she asked.
    Craig shrugged. ‘She went into town to visit a friend. Said she wouldn’t be back tonight.’
    The reluctant way in which he said it made Jade think that the person Elsabe had gone to visit might be more than a friend, and that Craig himself was upset by this.
    ‘Well, thanks for lending me the jacket,’ she said. ‘I’d better be going.’
    ‘Wait. Your champagne.’
    He’d put it in the fridge. Now he took it out and handed it to her. Strong, tanned fingers clasped the neck of the bottle. Water trickled down from his sodden blond hair.
    Jade shook her head. ‘You might as well keep it,’ she said.
    Now his eyes met hers and she saw concern in them.
    Hazel eyes. Brown, with flecks of green and