His mouth felt so soft against mine and it was all I could think about. My mind had been swarming with thoughts and noise, and now everything was quiet enough that I could collapse into this feeling of bliss. It felt like an eternity, but when he stepped back it felt as if it had been too brief.
“So, is that a yes?” I smiled.
“It’s a yes,” he laughed. How on earth was I supposed to get anything done after that? I felt week at the knees from it, but we had so much to do. Shell’s Day couldn’t come quickly enough.
We got down to the dock, jumped into the boat and pulled away from the shore on our way to Skerry. I was smiling from ear to ear as we travelled around the island, ruining any chance I had of playing it cool. Within a few minutes we were dropping anchor off the Skerry shore and hopping out into the shallows.
The three men that had been preparing to fire a cannon at Green Holt were each sitting on deckchairs, intently staring at the crumbled wall between the two islands.
“Good morning!” I shouted. The shortest one gave an acknowledging wave, but never broke his glare at the rubble in front of him. I pulled the photo up on my phone, the one that I had asked Effie to send to me, so that I could show the men what she had captured underwater.
“Do you think they had anything to do with Jeff’s attack?” Miller asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I think that their missing aunt is tied up in the story of what happened to Robert and I figured that we should find out what her name was. If she was Robert’s girlfriend then their relationship may have been another motive for his murder.”
We approached the men, stopping directly in front of them so that they were forced to look at us.
“Hey, a group of Green Holt folk could come charging over that wall any second, we need to keep an eye on it! You are blocking our view!” the tallest one shouted.
“Yeah… I doubt that’s gonna happen. I wanted to ask a few questions about your missing aunt,” I began.
“Like what?” the short one asked.
“First of all, what was her name?” I asked.
“Aunt Allie?” the short one replied.
“Do you have more than one aunt that’s gone missing?” I said.
“Good point,” the tall one laughed. “Yeah, we all called her Allie, but her full name was Natalie Jazz Scott. Honestly, our middle names are probably our best feature, Skerry is famous for coming up with some wicked middle names.” Natalie Scott. It was her.
“Were you aware that she was in a relationship with Robert Barton? He’s the man we found dead in the bunker on Green Holt,” Miller explained.
“Urgh, no way,” the short one scoffed. “No one in their right mind would date someone from Green Holt. Even if she thought about it, there’s no way our dad would have allowed that to go very far.”
“Your dad?” I pressed.
“Yeah, that’s her brother. He was always so protective over her, it broke his heart when she disappeared,” the tall one said. “He’s always instilled in us the understanding that it is completely unacceptable to fraternize with anyone from Green Holt. He said if he even heard a rumor that we’d been talking to a Green Holt girl that he would never speak to us again.” Charming.
I looked at Miller and felt as though I knew he was thinking the same thing as me. Jeff told us that Natalie and Robert were an item, they both got passports around the same time and Robert had two tickets to Australia. They were planning to elope.
“Never speak to you again?” I echoed.
“Yeah,” the tall one nodded. “I heard about a girl that dated a guy from Green Holt and her parents locked her in a basement for 3 months! I heard about a guy trying to flirt with a Green Holt girl and his brother got into a huge fight with him over it, throwing fists all over the place they were!”
“Our dad is kinda, I dunno, he has a short fuse. Let’s put it that way,” the middle one said. “Quick to anger, slow to forgive.”
What would Natalie’s brother have done if he’d known the truth? Would he have been angry enough to kill Robert? If so, would he have killed Natalie too?
16
I grabbed Miller by the arm and pulled him far enough away from the men to talk to him without being overheard. As I explained my theory, I could see the confusion on his face turned to one of agreement. I could be right, but unless we spoke with Natalie’s brother, we might not get anymore answers.
“Where is your father now?” I asked the tallest one. We still had time before we had to meet Jeff for the drop off for his mystery blackmailer.
“He’ll be up in the tower, he’s always up in the tower,” the tall one replied. He glanced at me sideways and saw me hold my palms upward in a ‘what are you talking about?’ way. “Oh right, you haven’t been here before, not properly. Well, dad built a tower to spy on Green Holt because they’re all sneaky little snakes. It’s up on the top of that hill, there’s a path over there that leads to it.”
I looked in the direction he had pointed and saw that there was a dirt track sloping upwards into the trees. I couldn’t see the hill that he was referring to, but I didn’t have time to waste. I thanked them for their help and started jogging towards the path. Miller was close on my heels.
“What are you hoping is gonna happen up here?” Miller asked. “Do you think he will confess to killing Robert? What if he’s dangerous?”
“If he’s dangerous then we will
