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Slide.
Grunt.
I knew that grunt, knew it intimately, because it was exactly the same grunt I made only hours earlier when I’d hoisted myself through the bloody kitchen window. It was the grunt of immediate regret.
Another rumble drifted up the staircase, low and definitely male. It was loud enough Dudley turned to the door, his tail beginning to flap in a semi-excited rhythm.
Thud. Feet on the ground.
That got me moving. I dove for Dudley, scooping the over-friendly terror up in my arms and covering his mouth before he gave us away. I didn’t drive twelve hours to star in a lame B-grade horror movie that wouldn’t even make it into cinemas. No, this shit would go straight to streaming. Or worse… DVD. Oh, the metaphors were coming thick and fast tonight.
Stumbling back a few steps, I clasped Dudley’s tiny body to my chest as my mind churned over its options…Calm down, nobody but Sydney knows you’re here.Shit. Nobody but Sydney knew I was here.I’m a dead woman.
I scoured the room for my phone while more noise sounded—cupboards opening, pots and pans being pushed around—only to realise I’d left it on the bloody dining table. I had only minutes before they noticed it and ventured upstairs. I needed a plan, needed to go on the offensive. A surprise attack was always the most deadly… or something like that. I was five foot two, but I worked out every second Wednesday. I was scrappy, like a Chihuahua.
“You got this, you totally got this,” I whispered assuredly to myself. Placing Dudley on the bed, I levelled him with the same“don’t you dare move” look I used when he spotted a slow pigeon at the park. Then I rifled through my bags for anything that could double as a weapon. My only options turned out to be a can of spray deodorant or a pair of spiked-heel boots. The boots felt like an obvious choice for causing pain, but the deodorant… that could incapacitate him long enough for me to grab my phone and call for help.
Decision made, I removed the cap and crept out the door, my bare feet making easy work of the dated carpet. The stairs were a different ball game, there I let muscle memory take the lead, stepping this way and that over loose floorboards with all the efficiency of a teenage girl sneaking out after dark to drink on the beach with her friends.
Light from the kitchen streamed from the cracked doorway, the intruder’s imposing silhouette flitting across the herringbone hardwood of the foyer.So brazen. I shook my head in disgust, clutching the can of deodorant tighter. What happened to cloak-and-dagger shit?
Sticking close to the wall, I let the continued commotion of his ransacking mask my footsteps as I tried to steady my heart rate. It was only when I reached the threshold and spotted the back of his messy brown head leaning over the kitchen island, drinking from Elsie’s favourite mug, that I saw red. All fear fled my body. I didn’t cower, didn’t think, didn’t breathe. Letting the bitter burn of justice fill my veins, I charged at him.
Three strides and I was on his gigantic back. He yelled out in surprise, immediately attempting to shake me off but I was too quick, wrapping my legs around his waist as I screamed, arms circling a throat the size of a small tree trunk to lock me to him.
The intruder lurched forward and back, hip crashing into the work surface hard enough to upend a chopping board. Carrots flew like tiny missiles as a wickedly sharp knife crashed to the grey tile. I could admit the sight was strange, a criminal pausing to chop vegetables mid-crime, but I was in too deep, the bloodlust too real. Nothing existed but this.
Distantly, I was aware of a dog barking. Two dogs barking. Dudley and another, the second louder and lower in baritone.“What the hell is happening?” The mountain man sounded dazed, dinner plate-sized hands coming up to break my hold. My grip began to waver, I had seconds at most before he overpowered me.“Who the hell are you?”
He sounded anxious.Good.“I’m vengeance, bitch,” I hissed out between gritted teeth—that line was completely improvised—before lifting the can and pressing the plunger. A puff of coconut blossom misted the air, coating not just his face, but mine. It was wet and clawing, stinging my eyes, stealing its way down my throat. We yelled out in tandem and if I thought I stood a chance before, I certainly didn’t now. I clung tighter as tears streamed from my eyes but it was like riding a bucking bronco.
He clawed at his face, expletives flying through the air, and then we were moving. One of my hands slipped free as my back met the wall above the radiator. I fumbled for anything I could find, soft material meeting my fingers. I hoisted myself onto the surface, reaching around to stuff the material in his mouth. He shook me again, lurching forward. Two of the dining chairs became collateral damage in our scuffle, crashing to the ground as the barking grew impossibly louder.
I wanted to search for Dudley to ensure he was out of harm’s way when this eventually came to a head, but the intruder stretched one of those bear paws back, grabbed me by the scruff of my shirt and sent me flying through the air.
“Oof.” The sound puffed out of me like a cloud of dust. Not pained but surprised, as I bounced twice then sprawled flat on my back across the sofa. A shadow loomed over me, but all my bleary eyes could make out was a mass of hair and beard and plaid before hands pinned my shoulders down. I thrashed and the deodorant fell from my grip.
“Jesus, you bloody hellcat,” he exclaimed, spitting the balled-up material from his mouth.“Explain. Right now!”
“Meexplain?” I tried to claw at him, but he anticipated the move, hands slipping to my biceps and bracketing me to the cushions. How could he even see when my own eyes had been replaced by flaming fireballs? His hazy silhouette wiped at both eyes with his shirtsleeve and satisfaction almost won out over the pain.“I’ve already phoned the police and they’re on their way. If you’re smart, you’ll get out of here before they arrive.”
“You phoned the police, aye? Who’d you speak to?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer.“I know for a fact Tom turns his phone off after nine.”
Damn this tiny island and its lack of crime!
Pushing all the authority I could muster into my voice, I stated calmly,“You, sir, are breaking and entering. Leave now and we can forget the whole thing.”
His snort was incredulous.“Look, lass—” He broke off, twisting his face as though a veil had been lifted and we were now citizens of Opposite Land, where everything he thought to be correct was a cruel falsity. He released me and scrubbed his eyes again.“April?” He spoke my name with reluctant familiarity, not recognition. Which meant heknewme. Not as April Sinclair, but April Murphy.“What are you doing here?”
Hands finally free, I tugged the hem of my T-shirt to my eyes, wiping until I could see him clearly too.
Shock rooted me in place. Upside down and disgruntled beneath that messy hair and beard I’d mistaken for brown when it was actually a dark blonde was Malcolm—Mal—Macabe.
Malcolm. Sweet relief poured through me.
It was unsurprising I hadn’t recognised his voice, I could count on one hand the times I’d heard him speak during the summers he worked with Kier at the distillery. His face—well, I had no trouble recognising that. The image above me blurred, shifting into the gangly teenager who’d teetered right on the cusp between awkward and beautiful. Too-large feet and restless hands that poked holes in the sleeves of his jumpers. Yet something about him had drawn me in enough to watch those hands become sure and steady when he slung barley off the back of a truck and loaded it into the warehouse. From ages fifteen to eighteen it was my favourite pastime.
Above me, his upside-down mouth moved and I realised he was speaking.“What are you doing here?”
