‘Mac? I left the old bastard where he dropped. I didn’t need him. Only you.’
‘But something hit him. He was injured. He needs help.’
He laughed, the sound like the scraping hiss of a possum in mating season. ‘You are such a stupid bitch.’
That voice. It sounded so familiar. Not like when he’d come to see her as a patient, or flirted with her shyly, or when he’d helped her with Flynn after the explosion. ‘You.’ His was the voice on the phone, the one that had been calling and threatening. ‘Why?’ What had she done to him to make him hate her so much that he’d threaten her and burn down her house and set fires in places she’d recently been?
‘Why?’ He laughed again, the sound slipping and sliding madly up and down, making her shudder. ‘You know why. You stole him from me. Stole what came to him that should be mine.’
‘What are you talking about?’
He lunged at her, his expression enraged as it came to within an inch of hers, unrecognisable as the shy man she’d treated and who had flirted badly with her. He was yelling something at her, but she didn’t hear it, her gaze fixed on his eyes. One blue. One brown. Just like Carter. ‘Your eyes.’
He jerked back a little, his lip curling into a sneer. ‘Yes. Quite something, aren’t they?’
‘But, they weren’t like that before.’
‘Of course not. I wore contacts. Couldn’t have you guessing who I might be before it was time.’
Realisation hit her with a slap. ‘You’re the man pretending to be Carter’s dad?’
‘It’s not pretend.’ He jerked his finger towards his eyes. ‘This is proof. He’s mine. And what’s his should be mine. Not yours. Never yours, you bitch.’
‘You can’t have him. Sam didn’t name you as the father. No judge will ever let you have him. Not over me.’
‘Judges are fucking idiots. They all deserve to burn too. I mean, who would choose you over me?’
‘Everyone.’
His face screwed up as she said that. ‘I’m doing the world a favour getting rid of a whore like you. Married to a gay man and screwing someone else. You’re no fit mother for my son. I’m doing him a favour taking him from you. You’ve turned him into a bloody sissy. I’ve seen how he is. It’s pathetic. I’m going to turn him into a real man when I get my hands on him and the money.’
Fear was inside her but it was nothing to the rage that fired through every part of her as he spoke of Carter that way. ‘You stay away from Carter. Don’t you touch him. Don’t you touch him.’
He laughed again. ‘You’ve got fire in you. That’s one thing you share with Sam. I thought maybe you and I could have had something together like Sam and I had, but just like her, you pushed me away.’
‘You’re insane.’
He laughed. ‘That’s what Sammy used to say.’ He sobered as fast as he’d laughed, his eyes focusing on something she couldn’t see in the distance. ‘She should never have run from me. It’s her fault that I did what I did.’
She had no idea what he was talking about but knew she needed to keep him talking. Flynn would have to have noticed she was missing. How long had she been gone? Surely he’d go to the house when she didn’t answer her phone. He’d find Mac and they’d come looking for her. Except, she could be anywhere.
She looked around her, fear enabling her to focus past the pain in her head. She hadn’t noticed her surroundings before, all her attention on the madman before her, but now she did, she recognised the kitchen of the cottage. Oh god. Cherry. Cherry had been down here doing some work, reorganising the schedule so she could stay with Flynn and start seeing patients tomorrow. ‘What have you done with Cherry?’
‘The redhead?’
Prita nodded, afraid, so afraid of what he might have done to her friend.
‘She tried to run.’ He shook his head. ‘Not smart. Not smart at all. I’m way too fast.’ He spun the knife and then flung it across the room. It landed with a slicing thunk, blade in, vibrating in the kitchen door. ‘She’s not going to be running anywhere any time soon.’ He laughed.
She bit back a sob. ‘If you’ve killed her, you’re going to pay.’
‘Who will know? She’ll be found here with you, burned to a crisp. Everyone will just think she died in the fire as well. Nobody will know anything about me. I’ve been too careful.’
‘The police know about the phone calls. They know someone set the fire at my house. Flynn figured out all the fires in the area lately are connected to me, that someone is after me. They’ll know. They’ll figure it out.’
‘They’ll have no connection to me. I’ve made you all look the wrong way. First to the idiot men who live around here. They made themselves look so guilty, I hardly had any work to do for you to blame them. Then your gay husband turns up and argues with the bloke you’re fucking and now he looks like he’s guilty as well. There are so many guilty people around here, nobody is going to be looking at me. Especially when I was nowhere near here when any of this went down.’
‘People have seen you, talked to you. They’ll know. Flynn saw you.’
‘He won’t remember me. Nobody ever remembers me. I make sure of it. This isn’t my first time at the rodeo, you know.’
He laughed again and the sound slid up and down her spine like a knife edged in razors. ‘My papa knows about you,’ she said, ashamed at the desperation edging her voice.
‘Diarmuid Brennan.’ The name was a sneer. ‘I used to like his music but now I know him for the stuck-up fucker he is. Trying to keep
