Justin ended his call to Alicia. He’d been relieved to hear that Radley hadn’t been in touch. Fury driving him, he hadn’t been thinking clearly, hadn’t considered what the consequences for Alicia might be when he’d stormed into that office. He hadn’t been capable of anything beyond his fervent wish to do him permanent damage. He almost had.

Realising the man was a coward and likely to react in the way cowards did and pick on someone physically weaker than him, Justin had been worried he might retaliate and choose Alicia. He hadn’t wanted to admit to her he’d been aggressive. In the normal run of things, he considered himself level-headed, and hated violence or confrontation of any sort. It rarely solved anything. Knowing Radley had threatened Alicia, though, that he thought he had a hold over her and was continuing to contact her when it was clear she didn’t want him to, that had been beyond discussion of any sort. The man was pond scum, which begged the question again: what the bloody hell had she ever seen in him? He doubted he’d ever know the answer to that.

Pocketing his phone, he checked the time on the dashboard. Two weeks, he thought, his gaze flicking back to the windscreen. Fourteen days. He focussed, calculated the hours, the minutes, the seconds Sophie had been gone. The time he and Alicia had been apart. He tried to pinpoint the exact moment things had started to fall apart and he hadn’t noticed. Or had noticed – he dragged a hand hard over the back of his neck – but had chosen to ignore it.

Why hadn’t he quizzed her? Why had he ignored it and allowed her lie to perpetuate? His breathing suddenly shallow, indicating an imminent panic attack, Justin concentrated on the coping techniques he’d learned when he’d lost his family the first time around: breathing in to the count of four, holding for seven, breathing out for eight, repeating four times: re-oxygenating his body, attempting to get his anxiety back under control.

He’d conquered this once, found a way to get a grip on his emotions when the anger at their senseless murder; the guilt that he hadn’t been able to help them, threatened to assuage him.

He didn’t stand a chance this time. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the images out of his mind: of Radley and Alicia together; of where Sophie might be, in some dirty, flea-bitten dive. On the streets. His fault. Whatever Alicia had done, he was the one who’d driven Sophie to run. He recalled the words he’d spat in anger when he’d found out. He’d played those words over and over ever since. And no matter how many times he did, what he’d said sounded exactly the way it would have to Sophie – that he no longer considered her to be his daughter. He would never forgive himself.

He should have done something when he’d suspected she might have overheard. He should have gone straight to see her. He wasn’t able to even begin to process the knowledge that the child he’d brought home from the hospital, loved with every fibre of his being since before she’d been born, might not be his; that his wife had had an affair with another man, had sex with another man.

He missed her. Missed what he thought they’d had.

Missed his children, so much his heart physically ached.

He might never have a chance to tell Sophie how much he loved her; that’s what hurt most of all. Whatever a paternity test might prove, she was his daughter. No one could take that away from him.

Apart from Sophie.

Justin swallowed hard on that thought. He would give his life to go back and undo the damage he’d caused the day he’d climbed into his car exhausted, distracted. But he couldn’t. All he could do now was pray. Pray and keep scouring the streets in the hope of unearthing some small piece of information that might lead him to her. He would keep searching. Had to. His past had been obliterated. He had no life now, no purpose, other than to keep searching. Without Sophie, without some knowledge she was safe, there was no future.