There was a shout and series of thumps, and then silence. Heather stood very still, waiting.
Later, Heather wouldn’t be able to say how long she had stood at the top of the stairs, bleeding from three knife wounds and staring down into the dark, waiting for her brother to come charging back up. When she thought of that time, she remembered the sound of the sea, somewhere beyond the windows, and the steady drip of her blood splashing onto bare floorboards.
Eventually the spell, whatever it was, broke, and she snatched up her phone and the knife before heading, very slowly, downstairs. At the bottom she found a light switch, which she flicked on, and there was Lyle Reave, lying in a heap just to one side of the final step. Gritting her teeth, Heather pressed her fingers to his throat—she thought, for a moment, she felt a flicker there, some movement in his blood, but then she seemed to lose it; it was difficult to tell if he was alive or not, over the thumping in her own head and the pain in her arm and stomach.
Nikki.
Nikki was in the Folly, possibly with another woman, possibly under the care of something Lyle had called “the old wolf.” Heather had no idea who that could be—it couldn’t be Michael Reave, who was, presumably, still safely locked up—but whoever they were, they would be expecting Lyle. Lyle could get into the Folly, could probably even get to the women. It was where he was supposed to be.
As quickly as she could, Heather stripped off his stained shirt and his jeans—underneath them he was lean and scarred, little round marks on his thighs and stomach suggesting that someone had once used him as an ashtray—and, dumping her own clothes on the floor, dressed in them herself. They were a little large, but not significantly so, and she rolled down the sleeves of the dark shirt to cover the wound on her arm. With the wicked little knife, which had landed on the stairs, she stood and cut raggedly at the back of her hair, chopping off the last three inches or so that curled at her neck and at the sides of her face. Feathery pieces of dark hair fell across her brother’s face and chest as she did so.
With her phone and the big knife shoved into the jeans pocket and the lethal blade in her hand, Heather stepped back into the night.
CHAPTER44
BEFORE
SHE HAD THOUGHT she was safe. She had thought she had walked away from it all, had left that dark time behind her.
Yes, she had made a mistake. It was about as bad a mistake as anyone could make, that was true, but they happened. Colleen had always been a trusting girl, an optimist; the sort to believe the best about everyone. It was a good thing, surely, to be so sure that people were good at heart? She still thought that. Or at least, most of the time she did. When she stumbled from her bed at 3AM, both babies screaming fit to bring down the heavens, and she sat with their warm little shapes curled under her breast, her mind would return inevitably to the babies born at Fiddler’s Mill, and the women who had vanished over the last few years. Her inherent goodness, her relentless optimism hadn’t saved them. There would be a price to pay for her weakness.
So, perhaps that was why, deep down in her bones, she wasn’t surprised when she opened her door one night to see them both standing there. Michael, looking not so much angry as bewildered—he had lost weight since she’d seen him last, there were hollow places on his cheeks—and the old man, his eyes gleaming with triumph. She made a noise in her throat and went to slam the door shut, but Michael pushed his boot in the gap, holding it open easily.
“You were pregnant?” was all he said.
She lifted her chin, setting her face into an expression of determination she didn’t feel. “Oh? And I was the only one with secrets, was I?”
Michael didn’t move. He looked hurt, and ludicrously, she felt a pang of sorrow. Once, she had genuinely loved him—had thought of him as her wild, country boy, had craved his rough, scarred hands and every moment they had spent alone in the woods together. When she had missed her first period, she’d experienced a trembling moment of euphoria. This baby, she had thought, would be blessed—born of love and raised to have a love of nature … it had all seemed perfect. And then she had seen the inside of his van.
“That child belongs to Fiddler’s Mill.” The old man elbowed his way in front of Michael. “More than any of them. It’s ours.”
“Come back,” said Michael simply. “Please, I want to see my child. To know them. Was it a boy or a girl? Please, Colleen.”
“I’ll call the police,” she said, glancing past them at the road. It was late on a school night, and the little cul-de-sac was empty. She was renting the tiny house for a pittance; a favor from the owner of the women’s refuge, and no one knew where she was. Too late, she realized, what a mistake that was. “I’ll call them right now. You can’t threaten me like this.”
“Do you think the police can keep you safe, lass?” The old man grinned, baring all his long, yellow teeth. “You know better than that, I reckon. The child is ours. Give it to us, now, and think no more of it. I know you ran away and had that baby in secret. Who even knows about it? Not your parents, I reckon.”
Colleen looked at Michael, hoping that he would be outraged
