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‘I’m searching for a fugitive from Scotland. She’s travelling under the name of Emily Reid? I’ve reason to believe she was on your bus a few nights back.’
‘Slow down,’ the driver said, his moustache twitching as he watched my lips moving.
‘This woman,’ I said, holding up my phone and bringing up the picture of Esther and Maeve, tapping on Esther’s face. ‘Was she on your bus?’
The driver looked at the picture for a moment, his face creasing with indecision. Eventually he took another look at my badge before letting his shoulders fall a touch.
‘Yes. She was here.’
‘Did she get off in this village?’
‘She did. She was attacked and is staying at the taverna until she is better.’
I thanked the stars for small village gossip before another feeling crushed at my gut. Someone had hurt Esther? Whom? I shouldn’t care. If she didn’t comply, I’d have to hurt her too, but it didn’t stop the twisting in my stomach.
‘Who hurt her?’
‘A local, they don’t know who, or so they say. The police here are unlikely to come all the way out here for a tourist who being mugged.’
Relief swept through me. So that’s why she was still here. If she had been mugged, she’d have no access to money, which should make her much more amenable to being taken home. She’d never lived without money, never felt hunger gnawing at her stomach in the night like a pack of rabid rats. She’d never gone without. Maybe she’d even be glad I showed up to take her back.
‘Thanks,’ I said, stepping off the bus. ‘Do you know where the taverna is?’
‘Top of the hill.’
Within fifteen minutes, I was across the street from the taverna, trying to spot Esther amongst its patrons. There was an older couple running it from what I could see, but no sign of the green eyed runaway. After an hour, my muscles were bunching, needing movement. Perhaps the driver’s gossip was incorrect. Maybe she’d moved on after all. Either way, I needed a piss and something to drink, but couldn’t use the taverna until I’d confirmed if she was there. I headed back down the hill, looking for somewhere to relieve myself.
A smirk stole across my face as I pulled myself into an alcove, spotting a curvy brunette sitting in a cafe. A shiver of excitement stole up my spine as I waited for her to turn. I was almost certain it was Esther. I’d know her freckled skin and the softness of her curves almost anywhere from my years of watching her. At last she lowered her hand to the table and turned, looking around her as if sensing that she was being watched. My fists tensed as I saw a series of ugly brown-green bruises up her jawline, an old cut healing on her lip. The last time I’d seen those lips, they’d been perfectly pink and set in her unblemished freckled face as they wrapped around my cock. The mugger had done a number on her, and I wish I had time to find him and make him pay. I blinked hard, knowing that it was irrational to care. I was there to drag her back to a life she dreaded enough to leave everyone and everything she held dear behind. Hardly a Prince Charming.
She stood up, brushing crumbs from her clothes as she gathered up a shopping bag and swung it onto her shoulder. With a final, agitated look around, she started back up the hill.
I smiled as I went over to the cafe, dragging a finger along the rim of her cup where her lips had been before going inside.
I found you.
THIRTEEN
ESTHER
The evening had gone by in a flash, with the taverna being busier than usual with a quiz night that Jock hosted once a week. I didn’t understand a word of the questions, but I enjoyed watching the excitement bubbling between the patrons.
As the last patrons stood to leave, I smiled over at Jock and Eva, his arm slung around her waist and her head on his shoulder. Their love was like a well-worn leather jacket, comfortable, warm, worn in by years gone by. A pang of want ate at my insides. I would kill to have that simple love with someone. To be the centre of someone’s world. Not just in that first all consuming lust, but in the comfortable love that comes with time gone by.
‘I’ll do the outside tables,’ I said, loathe to break up their sweet moment. Grabbing a cloth and some cleaning spray, I made my way from table to table, wiping up the nights detritus. Then that same prickle from the morning snuck up my spine. Was it the mugger?
Frozen, I looked up and gasped when I saw someone all together more dangerous watching me.
Alec.
How did he find me?
I stumbled back, dropping the bottle of cleaning fluid, feeling it splash up my leg as the top came off.
‘No,’ I said, fear making my insides crumble.
‘Hello, Esther.’ His voice was dark and gravelly, chock full of quiet anger.
‘No!’ I turned on my heel and ran back to the door, crying out when his fingers grabbed at my arm. Yanking hard as I turned into the doorway, I sent him stumbling over a low plant, his curses filling the air behind me.
