Free Next Of Kin (Unnatural Selection #3) by Ann Somerville

gratefully accepted. “How long will it take to drive to
Beagá?”
    “Five, six
hours. Don’t worry, I’ve done it many times.”
    “I’m not
worried. Not about that.”
    “This is
terrible news about Nick.”
    “If it’s Nick.
Am I crazy, Gabriel? Have I created this illusion because I can’t
accept Nick left me?”
    Gabriel
stared at the view from the balcony and took his time answering. I
drank my beer and tried to quell the sick feeling in my
gut.
    “You
know him better than me. His friends, you, all say this is not like
him. You showed me how it’s possible for someone to pretend to be
Nick and still use his identification. His policeman friend said
someone else could have used
his passport. There are questions. You are not crazy to ask
them.”
    “But....”
    “But...it
could be him. Are you prepared for this?”
    I exhaled.
“No. Not even a little bit.”
    He winced. “I
cannot advise. I have never been married. But I will do everything
I can do to help.”
    I
saluted him with my bottle. “ Obrigado .”
    “De nada. You
want something to eat?”
    “No, I don’t
think I can. Are you happy to leave early tomorrow?”
    “Com certeza .
I’ll speak to Reception, explain we have to leave sooner than we
planned. They will understand.”
    I showered and
went to bed, as I hoped we would be leaving immediately after
breakfast in the morning. Gabriel puttered about but went to bed
not long after I did.
    The mattress
was comfortable, the room quiet, and I was worn out. But I couldn’t
sleep, a problem I’d had for weeks now. I gave it an hour, then got
up, fetched one of the beers, and went back onto the balcony. The
air was still warm and humid, the city lights twinkling
prettily.
    Nick would
have loved it. I swore that when—not if—I found him, and if he
still wanted to be with me, we would come back here properly, wash
bad memories away.
    But that
assumed two things. That Nick was still alive. That Nick still
loved me. Wanting them desperately to be true, didn’t make it so.
My only, best hope was the craziness of the whole narrative. None
of it made sense, either in parts or as a whole. Was that only
because I was missing so much information about the story? Or
because someone was leading me around by the nose, trying to make
me believe the impossible?
    And who was
that someone? Was it Nick himself? Was it someone who had Nick in
their control?
    The picture
shifted every time I tilted it. One second it was a straightforward
relationship breakdown, the next a mad, paranoid fantasy that Ian
Fleming would have scorned as unrealistic.
    If it wasn’t
so late, I would call Karl because he had a way of laying things
out calmly that didn’t necessarily make them better, but at least
they felt more manageable. The best I could do was talk to my inner
Karl and ask him to shuffle my thoughts into a less circular
pattern.
    It took
a couple of hours and another beer, but inner Karl finally did as
much as I could hope for. Beer consumed, I used the loo, and hoped
my bed would seduce my tired body into some kind of rest.
Eventually, it did.
    ~~~~~
    “A French
tourist found this wallet on the ground in an alley yesterday. The
shirt was a little distance from it, balled up. The ground was
soaked in what is estimated to be one litre of blood, type O
negative. Do you recognize the shirt or wallet?”
    Both the
wallet and shirt were drenched in blood. I didn’t want to touch
either, even wrapped in plastic evidence bags. I nodded. “The
wallet...was a gift. An anniversary gift. I don’t recognize the
shirt.”
    “And these
things were inside the wallet. This business card is yours?”
    “Yes. That’s
Nick’s driver’s license, and his police ID. He...uh...is type O
negative. Is it his blood?”
    I nspector Ferreira ’s hard gaze held no
sympathy. “We don’t know yet. Once we extract the DNA, we will have
to match against a sample provided by the British police. Do you
have anything with you we can use? A