His Obsession

Chapter 7: The Number With No Name

Amelia didn't sleep that night either.

She sat cross-legged on her bed with her laptop open, the clipping and the anonymous text sitting side by side in her mind like two puzzle pieces she couldn't force together. She'd read the article about the accident four times now. Each time, the details stayed the same, sparse and clinical.

Robert Blackwood, 52, founder and CEO of Blackwood Enterprises, died in a single-vehicle accident on the A3 coastal road late Thursday evening. Investigators have not ruled out mechanical failure. The case remains open.

The case remains open.

Four years, and it was still open.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand. The same unknown number.

‘Are you going to ask him, or should I?’

Amelia's fingers hovered over the screen for a long moment before she typed back.

‘Who is this?’

The reply came almost instantly, like whoever it was had been waiting.

‘Someone who wants the truth out as much as you do. Be careful who you trust in that building. Not everyone there wants you to find it.’

‘That's not helpful. Tell me what you know.’

Three dots appeared, then disappeared. Appeared again.

‘Not yet. Ask your father first. See what he says. Then we'll talk.’

The dots vanished for good after that. No matter how many times Amelia typed back, nothing came through again.

She sat there a long time, staring at the screen, feeling watched in a way she couldn't explain, in her own bedroom, in the middle of the night.

She called her father the next morning, before work, standing in her kitchen with coffee going cold in her hand.

"Dad. Can I ask you something?"

"Of course, sweetheart. What is it?" Daniel Carter's voice was warm, familiar, exactly the same as always…steady, a little tired, a man who'd spent thirty years fixing logistics problems for a living and never raised his voice at the dinner table.

Amelia hesitated. "Have you ever heard of Blackwood Enterprises?"

The silence on the other end lasted just a beat too long.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because that's who I work for now. Adrian Blackwood. And I found your name in one of their old contracts. From 2019." She kept her voice as steady as she could manage. "Dad, were you ever connected to that company?"

"Amelia." Her father's voice had changed…not sharp, but careful, the way you'd talk someone down from a ledge. "I need you to listen to me very carefully."

"I'm listening."

"I want you to quit that job."

Amelia nearly dropped her mug. "What? Dad, I can't just…"

"I mean it, Amelia. Today, if you can manage it. Tomorrow at the latest." There was something underneath his calm now, something she'd never heard from him before. Fear, she realized. Actual fear. "That family… that company…it's not somewhere you should be. Not you, of all people."

"Why? What happened? Sophie said you went away for two weeks in 2019, and you came back different. What were you doing for them?"

"That's not something I can explain over the phone."

"Then explain it in person. I'll drive down this weekend."

"No." The word came out fast, too fast, and Amelia heard him catch himself, soften his voice deliberately. "Not yet. Just…give me some time. Please. And in the meantime, stay away from Adrian Blackwood. Do you understand me? Whatever he tells you, whatever he seems like…stay away from him."

"He's not what everyone warned me he'd be," Amelia said quietly, surprising herself with how much she meant it. "He's actually been…"

"Amelia." Her father's voice cracked, just slightly, on her name. "Please. I am asking you as your father. Quit. Come home. We'll figure out the rest together."

Amelia stood in her kitchen, throat tight, staring at nothing.

"I can't just quit without a reason, Dad. Not without knowing why."

"The reason is that I'm asking you to." A pause. "The reason is that some things happened before you were even old enough to understand them, and I have spent years trying to keep you far away from the consequences. Please don't undo that because you're curious."

The call ended a few minutes later, unresolved, her father's voice still ringing in her ears… scared in a way she'd genuinely never heard from him, not once in twenty years.

Amelia set her phone down on the counter and stared at it like it might explain itself.

Whatever happened, it happened before you were even old enough to understand them.

Before she was old enough. Which meant this went back further than 2019. Further than some short-term consulting job.

This went back to the beginning of something.

She almost didn't go into work that day.

She sat in her car outside her flat for nearly twenty minutes, keys in the ignition, engine off, staring at the building without seeing it. Her father's fear had rattled something loose in her…not just curiosity now, but something closer to dread.

But underneath the dread was something else, stubborn and unwilling to let go.

If her father wouldn't tell her the truth, and the anonymous texter wouldn't either, there was only one person left who might.

Amelia started the car and drove to Blackwood Tower.

She found Adrian in his office an hour later, going over quarterly reports with a focus so total he didn't look up when she walked in…a habit she'd learned wasn't rudeness so much as a kind of armor, a way of controlling one thing when everything else felt unpredictable.

"I need five minutes," she said.

"I have a call in ten."

"Then I'll talk fast." She closed the door behind her…another rule broken, she registered distantly, though she couldn't remember which number anymore. "I called my father this morning. I asked him about Blackwood Enterprises."

That got his attention. Adrian's pen stopped moving.

"What did he say?"

"He told me to quit. Today, if I could manage it." Amelia's voice wavered slightly, and she hated it, hated how much this was costing her to say out loud. "He sounded scared, Adrian. My father has never sounded scared in his entire life. Not once. Not when our house flooded, not when Mum got sick, not ever. And this morning he sounded like he was talking to me from underwater."

Adrian set the pen down slowly. Something in his expression had shifted…the wall was still there, but there was a crack running through it now, visible if you knew where to look.

"You should listen to him," he said quietly.

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

"No." Amelia crossed the room, stopping just short of his desk, close enough that she could see the muscle working in his jaw. "You have more than that. I know you do. I saw it in your face in that hallway. I saw it just now when I said he sounded scared…you weren't surprised, Adrian. You already knew he would be."

Silence stretched between them, heavy and taut.

"Amelia." Her name again, unguarded, like it kept slipping past whatever careful control he usually kept over himself around her. "There are things about my father's death that I have spent four years trying to understand. Things I still don't fully understand. And every thread I've pulled on has led somewhere I couldn't follow…until three weeks ago, when your name came across my desk on a job application."

Amelia's breath caught. "What does that mean?"

"It means I didn't hire you by accident." His eyes held hers, steady and unflinching, and for the first time since she'd met him, Amelia saw something that looked almost like guilt underneath the control. "It means there's a reason you're standing in this office right now, and it has very little to do with your qualifications as a personal assistant."

The room seemed to tilt slightly.

"You hired me on purpose. Because of my father."

"Yes."

"Why?" Her voice came out smaller than she wanted it to. "Why me, Adrian? What do you think I have to do with any of this?"

His phone buzzed on the desk between them…sharp, insistent, breaking whatever moment had been building. He glanced down at the screen, and Amelia watched every trace of openness disappear from his face in an instant, replaced by something cold and alarmed.

"I have to take this," he said, already reaching for the phone.

"Adrian, you can't just stop there…"

But he'd already answered, turning slightly away from her, voice dropping into something clipped and urgent. "What do you mean she's not answering?"

Amelia froze.

"Who's not answering?" she asked.

Adrian didn't look at her. His knuckles had gone white around the phone.

"Find her," he said into it, voice tight with something that sounded, unmistakably, like fear. "Now."

He hung up and finally turned to face her, and whatever had been building between them a moment ago was gone completely, replaced by something urgent and dark.

"That was about Victoria," he said. "She's missed two check-ins today. No one can reach her."

"Is that unusual?"

"Yes." Adrian was already grabbing his jacket, moving toward the door with the kind of controlled speed that told Amelia this was serious, whatever it was. "Amelia, I need you to stay here. Do not leave this building. Do not talk to anyone outside my staff. Do you understand me?"

"What's happening? Adrian, talk to me…"

"Not right now." He paused at the door, looking back at her with an expression she'd never seen on him before…raw, urgent, almost pleading. "Please. Just this once. Follow the rule."

He was gone before she could answer, footsteps fading fast down the corridor, leaving Amelia alone in his office with her heart hammering and a hundred new questions crowding out all the old ones.

Victoria's missing.

He hired me on purpose.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. The unknown number again.

‘Ask him about Victoria. Ask him what really happened to her the first time.’

Amelia's blood ran cold.

The first time.