Page 102 of A Secret Scottish Escape

The redhead indicated to Shelley and said, as though we hadn’t already guessed, “She’s a journalist.”

I eyed the girl. “Who with?”

“What?”

“What paper are you with?”

The blonde girl blanched. “Er … The Loch Harris Tribune.”

I frowned over at her. I was on friendly terms with the staff there but I didn’t recognise her. Maybe she was a new recruit.

I turned back to Mask and inwardly pleaded with him to tell me what was going on. Rafe Buchanan? Was that his real name?

But he refused to even look at me. Instead, he retreated back into his doorway. Then he turned his annoyance on me. “Is this why you two came up here this evening? You knew that she would be coming?”

I rubbed my brow, frustration and fear gnawing at me. “I wanted to help you. I found out this Belle Raven character was intending to come up here and—”

Mask’s dark eyes glittered in the shadows. “I want you all to leave. Right now.”

My mouth popped open. “But can’t you tell me what’s going on? Maybe I can help.”

I shrank backwards at his snarling tone. “I’m not a sodding charity case, Layla! What? Does it make you feel better about yourself to help the local weirdo?”

I swallowed hard. “I’ve never thought of you that way. I never would.”

Tom placed a hand on my shoulder. “Come on. Let’s go.”

I hesitated, my stomach rolling.

“And as for you two,” barked Tom to the two women through the dark, “I suggest you leave right away, unless you fancy a night in the cells.”

The Australian woman snatched open her door. “You haven’t heard the last of this, Rafe. Even though you’ve run away to Scotland, you can’t escape what you did.”

Mask watched the reporter dart back inside the car. I could see his chest rising and falling under his hooded top. “It wasn’t my fault,” he erupted, baring a flash of white even teeth. His breathing was ragged. “I did what I could!”

I made a move towards him, but his cold stare dared me to go any further.

“Layla,” said Tom, an edge to his mild Scottish burr. “Let’s go.”

Mask fired me the briefest look as he retreated back into the cottage, and as he banged the door, the optimistic feeling that I was finally getting to know him trickled away, leaving only a painful thud in my chest.

It turned out I didn’t know him at all.

Chapter Fifty-One

I dropped Tom outside his flat on the outskirts of the town square.

As I drove away, his warning rang in my ears. “Don’t get involved, Layla. If there has been any criminality, it’s up to the law to address it.”

I had opened my mouth to argue, but Tom stuck his head through the open window.

“Sometimes people don’t want to be helped. Or at least, they want to try and deal with things on their own first.”

I had nodded, but still wasn’t convinced.

My bruised feelings crowded in on me as I pulled up outside my cottage and killed the engine.

I sat for a moment in the car with the dark pressing in on all sides. Why was I so affected by tonight’s events? Why did I feel so deflated? It couldn’t be true, could it? Mask couldn’t have actually murdered someone?