My mouth turned dry as the flight attendant began to tell passengers they needed to prepare. As everyone assumed the brace position I turned to Josh, made sure his seat belt was as low and tight as it would go. He couldn’t reach the seat in front of him, which meant he had to put his arms around the back of his legs, his head on his knees.
Everyone fell quiet. Totally silent.
Seconds ticked past.
I checked Josh again, pushing his head down a little more, making sure his knees were pressed together.
Engines screaming, the plane made a sickening lurch to the side.
I leaned close to Josh. ‘If anything happens, I want you to hold on to my hand and I’ll get you and your sister, your mum and dad–’
My words were snatched from me as we ploughed into the ground.
1 Present day
DC Lucy Davies stepped off the train at Bristol Temple Meads, one eye on the flow of passengers pouring along the platform, the other on the man in her peripheral vision who was walking four yards to her left. She’d first seen him when she’d boarded the train at Middlesbrough. Dark blue jeans and black leather jacket. Thickset. Strong-looking. She’d been walking along the platform when she’d glanced around to find him behind her. Their eyes had met for a split second. She wasn’t sure if she’d imagined his flinch, but her nerves tightened when he came and sat in the same carriage. It was the studious way he avoided looking at her that made her spine tingle.
Was he a problem?
A biting wind cut her cheeks as she approached the stairwell leading beneath the tracks and to the exit. She wished she could have driven to Bristol – she would have felt safer in a car – but since her Corsa had a faulty water pump and was with the mechanic, she’d been forced to use public transport. As she walked, Lucy willed herself not to look at the man keeping pace with her.
You’re paranoid, she told herself. Just because he resembles the man that kidnapped you last year doesn’t mean anything. Yes, I know his family cursed you, that his mother swore to have you killed, but it doesn’t mean that every solid-looking, dark-haired bloke is out to get you.
Does it?
Her shoulder began to pulse where her kidnapper had knifed her. She’d had twenty-five stitches and was lucky the knife hadn’t lacerated any tendons or done any lasting damage. She’d been working a murder case last year and when she’d got close to exposing the killer, they’d kidnapped her, stuck her in a hole and left her to die. Thank God she’d been rescued or she’d be nothing but a pile of rotting clothes and bones.
Before she committed to the tunnel she brought out her phone, pretending she’d just received a text, and slowed her pace. The man slowed with her.
Nerves now shrieking with alarm, she kept hold of her phone and began pushing through the crowd, panic building. She had to get out of here.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ She barged ahead, her overnight bag banging into people as she passed. A quick glance over her shoulder showed the man wasn’t far behind.
Lucy was almost running when she exited the station, her pulse pounding.
‘Lucy!’ Mac was waving but her attention was on the man, who’d followed her outside. He was walking straight towards her, eyes focused over her shoulder and then he was past her, and climbing into the back of a taxi…
Her knees went weak.
Definitely paranoid, dammit. When was it going to stop?
‘Lucy?’ Mac was by her side. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I just…’ She made a vague gesture at the taxi, which was completing the loop in the station forecourt. ‘Thought that man… but I was wrong.’
Mac looked at the taxi, then back at her, expression concerned.
‘I’m fine,’ she said brightly, even though her blood was still pounding. ‘How are you?’
‘Worried about you.’
DI Faris MacDonald. Mismatched grey eyes, curly brown hair and a serious expression. Her fiancé. They were to be married this time next year. A spring wedding. Some days she could hardly believe that the copper she’d met three years ago on a team-building exercise in Wales, the copper she’d fallen madly in love with back then, was going to be her husband. And she his wife.
They’d both been in relationships when they’d conducted their wild, out-of-control crazy love affair, which hadn’t made Lucy proud, which is why she’d ended it. But then Mac turned up at Stockton-on-Tees Station as her DI. Each time she saw him it had taken every ounce of self-control not to think about the spectacular sex they’d had and even more willpower not to look at him longingly as a lover, but as a work colleague. She hadn’t wanted to be professionally undermined by sleeping with her boss, but above all she hadn’t wanted him to truly get to know her. She’d suffered from moods as her mother called them since she was a little girl and was scared that if he saw her at either end of her mood spectrum, he’d dump her.
She’d had to drag her courage from the bottom of her boots to open herself up to him, and even now it made her anxious. Especially since Mac had purposely left Stockton and taken up his old job in Bristol to give them space. If it hadn’t been for her, he’d never have moved back.
‘Please don’t worry.’ She reached up and kissed him. It still surprised her how soft his lips were and she closed her eyes briefly, absorbing herself in the feel of him, his taste. Anything to try and forget the fear that had flooded her.
‘But if you’re still…’
‘I’m fine,’ she repeated.
‘…having flashbacks, you should see someone.’
‘They’re not flashbacks. I just get a bit on edge when I see someone similar, that’s all.’
Lucy tried to make light of it. She didn’t want to see a shrink. Yes, she’d had a
