Chained Reaction Read Free

you’re wrong. What am I to you?”
    * * *
    That same accusation had been thrown at him
before. He closed his eyes as the memory took hold.
    “You want something, you get it and to hell
with the consequences. Have you told Lucy about travelling around
Europe for the next twelve months or were you going to send her a
postcard?”
    He had opened the door to a very drunken
Michael who was clutching a half empty bottle of whisky to him and
from the disarray of his clothing looked as if he’d been sleeping
rough for several days. Jamie glanced behind him; there was only
his own car in the driveway so he guessed Michael had arrived on
foot. He stood aside and allowed his cousin to stagger in.
    “Lucy has another year of study to do, so I
can’t expect her to drop everything. Besides I need to do this
alone, Lucy will understand, not that it’s any of your business.”
Jamie couldn’t help throwing that last line in seeing it was what
drove Lucy crazy, the fact that Michael wouldn’t move on and get
himself another girlfriend.
    “You had your fun, ruined her and made a
fool of me. This place should be mine and so should Lucy. She is…”
Michael started hiccupping and fell back onto the sofa.
    “Lucy isn’t ready to settle down with anyone
and neither am I.” Jamie was finding the conversation
uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure what Lucy and he had and tried not to
scrutinise it for fear of finding out the truth.
    “She hasn’t told you, has she?
     
    “Told me what? Lucy is a free spirit; she
can do and see who she likes. I made her no promises and she knows
that.”
    “Why you…” Michael launched himself out of
the settee with the whiskey bottle in one hand and a fist formed in
the other. Jamie jumped back and watched as Michael stumbled and
fell face down onto the wooden flooring, the whisky bottle smashing
and seeping liquor into the floor grooves.
    Jamie helped him up and was met with little
resistance as he half carried him into the spare room and pushed
him up and onto the bed.
    “Sleep it off. We’ll talk in the
morning.”
    “Go to hell,” Michael hissed back.
    He should never have taken his boat out and
left Michael supposedly sleeping it off in the spare room. When he
got back from trying to speak with Lucy, his car was gone and so
was Michael. When the police came knocking at his door, he feared
the worse, that Michael had been injured. Instead they were there
to arrest him, Jamieson O’Sullivan, the registered owner of a car
found abandoned, on suspicion of dangerous driving and fleeing the
scene of an accident. Jamie offered no alibi and no denial. To do
so would point the blame at Michael and he felt he had done enough
to him. He was accepting the consequences of his actions.
    Unfortunately the judge was out to make an
example of him seeing this wasn’t the first time he had been
arrested and charged for a criminal act. Back in Northern Ireland,
he’d been well-known by the local constabulary throughout his
turbulent youth. If it hadn’t been for his English grandmother
bringing him over to live in England with her, he would have been
behind bars long before now. He couldn’t pay her back by having
Michael, her other grandson and the one who was expected to help
run the family business once he had graduated, end up being sent to
prison. His cousin’s future would be destroyed because of something
he had in a way initiated by his relationship with Lucy. It was
obvious Michael was still in love with her.
    If he had known then that he would be
sentenced to five years and Michael and Lucy would end up living
together, he might have acted differently. It was too late to
change things, Lucy was back with Michael now and if he told her
the truth about that night, it would serve no purpose.
    Sure he had been tempted those first couple
of years, locked up in that concrete box, his cell buddies, a
serial burglar, a drug dealer, and a crazy guy who thought he was
God. If he could have got his hands on