The Darkness Beneath, page 6
Through the window she watched his tail lights disappear into the night.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The last person Luke expected to see when he arrived home from the barbecue was his girlfriend, Stacey. After everything that had happened earlier he had believed it was over for good, so when she appeared in the doorway of the bedroom as he was removing his tie, a scowl on her face as she tapped the toe of her stiletto on the wooden floor, he took a step back, eyes widening.
‘I thought you were gone?’
‘You hoped I was gone, you mean.’
‘Don’t twist my words, Stacey. You know it’s not true. I love you. I never meant for this to happen.’
‘Well you sure have one hell of a way of showing it! Did you have fun at the barbecue with your brother and his friends? Did you tell them why I wasn’t there?’
‘I told them you’re jealous and possessive and you’ve never trusted me. Though I think they already know that. What happened tonight was your fault, Stacey. Don’t try and play the victim. You have no idea how much you’ve hurt me.’
‘I hurt you?’ She took a step towards him, throwing her head back laughing when he took a step back. ‘I can smell perfume on you. Who is she this time?’
Luke put his hands to his head, sighed in exasperation. ‘You’re crazy. There is no other woman. It’s just you. It’s always been you.’
‘So why can I smell her? Who the fuck is she, Luke?’
‘She was no one. You were supposed to be at the barbecue, Stacey, remember?’ When Stacey remained silent, he continued. ‘Autumn was there, but you already knew that, because she was disappointed when you didn’t show, and Michael’s sister, Nell, has moved to the island. You would like her. She’s living in Bella Golding’s guesthouse.’ He didn’t add that Nell had been a pleasant surprise. Pretty, blond and so very different to her brother. Stacey didn’t need to know that.
‘And you want her, don’t you?’
‘I don’t! She’s Michael’s sister for Christ’s sake.’ Luke let out an exasperated sigh. ‘I’m not sure what it is you want from me, Stacey? I don’t know what I can give you anymore.’
‘Are you asking me to leave?’
‘You know I don’t want that. I would give anything to fix what happened tonight.’
Stacey studied her manicured nails. ‘I think it’s a little too late to make things right.’
‘So you are leaving?’
She didn’t answer, gave a catlike smile and sauntered out of the room.
Luke sat down on the bed, rested his head in his hands and sucked in a deep breath. She was the only woman he had ever truly felt anything for, and he meant every word, knew he would give anything to fix the damage.
He finished undressing, slipped into bed and turned out the light, part of him hoping she would join him. She didn’t and, as he waited for sleep to pull him under, he wondered if she had ever loved him.
*
She had been gone four days.
Four days, during which Caleb Sweeney had experienced many different emotions. The first had been white-hot rage. He had arrived home from work early Monday evening, stepping into the townhouse they shared, irritated immediately when he couldn’t smell food cooking in the kitchen. Nell had known they had plans, that they had to eat early so they could attend his mother’s museum benefit. When he found the kitchen empty, the work counter clean, intimating she hadn’t even started preparing the meal, he stormed upstairs expecting to find her in her studio, having lost track of time. She hadn’t done that in a long while, having learned the consequences the hard way.
Clearly it was time for a reminder.
He pushed open the door to the studio, surprised to find it empty. Her tools were all in place, but there was no canvas being worked on. Feeling a trickle of fear, he had gone into the master bedroom. The bed was neatly made, with cushions evenly scattered across the pillows. He had called out to her then, irritation building into anger when there was no reply. As the mist built inside him, pounding his head, he had raced from room to room wondering where the hell she was, promising himself she would pay dearly for scaring him this way. She knew the rules, knew he didn’t tolerate having them broken.
As he sunk onto the edge of the bed, trying to deliberate where she might have gone, his attention was drawn to the closet and he noted the door to the room was slightly ajar, the light on inside. Aggravated she would leave it this way when she knew he needed order in his life he got up, the anger building.
What the hell was she playing at?
He had flung the door open, half expecting to find her inside, but not prepared to find it empty of the majority of her clothes. The pretty dresses he had spent a fortune on were still mostly in place, but the everyday shirts, sweaters and t-shirts she favored were all gone.
Panic clawed its way up his throat as he pulled open drawers, noting her jeans were missing and all of her underwear, through into the bathroom where the shelf that held her perfumes and creams now stood empty. Back downstairs to the hallway closet; her jackets no longer hung beside his, and her boots were gone, along with those ugly sneakers he hated to see her wear. Fear and anger balled together into furious rage and Caleb thumped his fist into the closet door, smashing through the wood, before sweeping his arm over the hallway table, knocking the china figurine he had paid a four-figure sum for, along with various picture frames, to the floor. It smashed into pieces and he kicked the table over, watching impassively as it land on top of the shards.
Furious with Nell for daring to disobey him and with himself for trusting her not to, he skulked through to the living room and snatched up a decanter full of bourbon, pouring himself a large glass.
That fucking bitch.
He pulled out his cellphone and dialed her number, almost beside himself with rage when it went through to voicemail. She knew never to ignore his calls. He left a foul-mouthed rant, laden with threats and warnings, offering her the chance to return without consequence by midnight.
She never called back, never walked through the door and as her deadline approached, Caleb poured more bourbon, eye on the clock, plotting in his head the ways he would make her pay when he finally got his hands on her. He had drunk himself into oblivion that night, the alcohol blurring rage into sorrow. How could she do this to him? He had tried to give her everything. All she had to do was follow the rules.
When he woke early the following morning, having slept on the couch in his suit, he was hungover and ashamed. He had called her, this time leaving her a contrite voicemail, apologizing for his last message and begging her to come home. He stared at his phone for over an hour, expecting her to call. Even at his most despicable he had always been able to win her around with an apology. It was while he was in the kitchen putting on the coffee pot that his phone rang and he practically leapt over the back of the couch to retrieve it from the cushion, new levels of irritation searing through him when he realized it was his secretary reminding him he had an eight o’clock appointment.
He barked at the woman to cancel it and not to disturb him for the rest of the day, flung the phone back down on the cushion and paced, hands balled in tight fists, wanting a target for the fury building deep inside of him. In an attempt to calm himself he went through to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. Staring into the mirror above the basin, he grimaced at his reflection. His dark brown eyes were bloodshot, his cheeks and shaven head pink with rage, even his neatly trimmed goatee looked unkempt, while the suit he had slept in made him look as rumpled as a tramp.
Nell had a lot to answer to. She was responsible for this.
Needing to take action he had called the bank and the credit card companies as soon as they opened, had her funds stopped, put a call in to the police, tried to report her as a missing person, losing his rag with the officer he spoke to when he was told it was not possible because technically she was not missing.
He called her friends, their mutual acquaintances, sucking in his anger and playing the role of the concerned doting fiancé. No one had seen her, or if they had they weren’t saying. Nell, it seemed, had disappeared without a trace, and Caleb couldn’t help but suspect she had been planning this for a while. Over the next twenty-four hours he systematically tried to cut her off, leaving only her cellphone connected, aware it was the only medium he had to reach her. He spoke with the phone provider, demanded they track her cell and give him the location, raging when told this wasn’t possible. She was out there somewhere and she would have to know he was looking for her. He would eventually find her. At a loss over what to do he continually called and texted her number, hoping against hope she would eventually relent and answer. The calls and messages ranged from sorrowful to enraged, and he offered up all kinds of bargains and threats, contradicting himself in every message.
Having already dealt with the banks, he turned his attention to her buyers, making it clear to everyone who had contact with Nell on a professional basis that they were not to deal with her direct and must alert him if she tried to approach them.
It was going through bank account and credit card statements online that he discovered the charge for the flight ticket to San Francisco, noting it had been purchased the day she had left. He remembered she had a friend who lived there, an old college roommate. What the hell was her name?
Nell had already deleted and blocked him on Facebook, but he checked her other social media accounts, eventually finding her name on Nell’s old Myspace page. Rosie Garcia. He managed to locate the woman, calling and emailing her, livid when she didn’t respond, hopping on a flight the next day and showing up at her apartment. Rosie hadn’t been pleased to see him, her knucklehead boyfriend stepping in when the confrontation threatened to get ugly. She told him she hadn’t seen Nell, hadn’t had any contact with her in the past couple of years. Caleb hadn’t believed her but left the apartment, checking into a hotel down the street from where he discreetly stalked Rosie for two days, eventually concluding she was telling the truth. If Nell had gone to San Francisco she hadn’t made contact with her old roommate.
From San Francisco he flew straight to Ohio, heading for the town where he knew Nell had lived with her mom, but it was a fruitless exercise. Robin O’Connor had passed away and there was no family left there. Still he stopped by the house where she had grown up, visited the high school she had attended and the diner where he knew she had worked, hoping against hope. With Ohio giving nothing he returned home frustrated, arriving back at the townhouse late Friday night.
He remembered there had been a brother, Michael, an older guy who had visited once with his boyfriend. Caleb hadn’t liked him, remembered only that he drank cheap beer and told bad jokes. He wished now that he had taken more notice of who he was and where he had come from. Despite having nothing to go on he spent a couple of hours googling Michael O’ Connors, irritated that the man had such a common name. Frustrated he was getting nowhere, he eventually threw his iPad on the couch.
It felt as though Nell had disappeared without a trace, but he knew there had to be a clue – something that would lead to her location – and he would rip the place apart until he found it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Nell ran her fingers back through her hair in frustration as she stared at the calculations on the page. She had spent the past hour working out her finances, knew the money she had squirreled away to see her by for a few weeks was already dwindling fast. She was going to have to start looking for a job. She had known she would have to find one eventually, that the money wouldn’t last forever, but she had hoped to buy a little more time. It was also yet another reason to put the guesthouse back on the market. Deciding she needed to clear her head, she headed downstairs and grabbed her purse from the kitchen counter, figuring she would walk down to Michael’s to fetch her car.
The temperature was cooler than the previous day thanks to a light northerly breeze, but the sun was out, burning bright in a cloudless sky that contrasted against the vivid blue-green swell of the ocean. Sail and fishing boats were out in abundance, bobbing on choppier waters. Nell took the path along the main road, enjoying the view through the trees of this more rocky area of coastline; her route took her down a steady incline through lush woodland until the road snaked to the right and she could see the rooftops of the houses on the outskirts of the town.
Weekends were busy on the island, a mix of locals, holidaymakers and day trippers, and the main ferry ran every couple of hours. The streets nearer to the town center would be busy, but for now she got to enjoy the solitude of the near-empty road, the only noise coming from the birds in the trees, the distant sound of waves hitting the rocks, and her own sneakered feet beating against the asphalt.
She was about fifteen minutes from Michael’s when she heard the sound of a car in the distance, approaching from behind. As it neared, the engine slowed, and Nell glanced round.
The window was wound down and Luke Trainor grinned up at her from the driver’s seat, as he pulled the car up alongside her.
‘You walking down to get your car?’
‘I am. Figured I’d better not leave it too late.’
‘Hop on in. I’ll give you a ride.’
Nell had been enjoying her walk, but if Luke was heading in her direction she figured she might as well catch a lift with him.
‘How’s your head?’ he asked, as she closed the passenger door.
‘Not too bad. I think I was lucky though. Your brother was a bit heavy with the rum. Autumn knocked back more of those daiquiris than I did, so I doubt she was feeling great this morning.’
‘She was a little unsteady on her feet when I dropped her off last night.’
‘You’ve been in work?’ Although Luke was dressed casually in jeans and sweater, she noted he’d moved his briefcase from the passenger seat when she had climbed in the car.
‘Yeah, I had a few bits I needed to finish up in the office. I’ve just dropped some papers off with one of your neighbor’s, Bob Pilgrim.’
Another name Nell remembered. She pictured the face of the cranky old farmer, recalling he had scared the hell out of her and Lizzie one time when they had accidentally trespassed on his land, while hiking through the woods. ‘I’m surprised he’s still around. He had a hell of a temper on him, I’d have thought he’d have given himself a heart attack by now.’
‘Still has. Hence why I didn’t keep him waiting for his papers. Not one of my favorite clients.’ Luke glanced across at her. ‘So did you wake up with a fresh perspective about what to do with the house?’
‘Yeah, think I’m gonna put it back on the market. I thought I’d go talk to the realtor after I picked up my car.’
Luke nodded. ‘Well, I’m happy to handle the legal side of things for you. Twenty per cent discount?’
‘That would be great. Thank you.’
Nell toyed with telling him about Sam Kent, but if she told him about Sam then she would have to get into the whole thing about what happened to Lizzie. Chances were he already knew the story; almost certainly he would know about Lizzie’s death. It was early days and she didn’t know Luke well enough yet, plus the conversation between them had so far been light. She didn’t want to ruin things. She would visit the realtor, get the house back on the market, and look for somewhere more manageable in town. Once she was out of Bella’s house, she’d no longer have to worry about Sam Kent. No need to burden anyone with what had happened.
Luke pulled his car up outside Michael and Newt’s cottage, killing the engine and following Nell out of the car. Michael had already heard them arrive and stood on the front door step, beer in hand, waiting for them. He didn’t miss the look that Nell shot him.
‘Hey, it’s Saturday afternoon. I’m just kicking back and relaxing.’ As though to make his point, he took a healthy swig and grinned at her.
‘I never said a word.’ Nell pecked him on the cheek, brushed past him into the house, noting the three empty beer bottles already stood on the kitchen counter, her thoughts immediately going back to their father. She kept her concerns to herself though, determined not to become a nagging sister.
Newt came in from the decking, greeting her with a hug and a kiss. ‘Hey, Nell, Luke, great timing, I just put the coffee pot on.’
As the four of them sat on the back deck chatting, Nell decided to bring her brother up to speed with her decision to sell the guesthouse. She had assumed he would favor the idea of having her living closer to town, so she was surprised by both his reaction and his proposal.
‘You don’t want to do that.’
‘I don’t? Why?’
Her brother shared a glance with Newt. They both looked excited. ‘Listen, Newt and I have been wanting to talk to you about something.’
‘You have?’
‘Yes. We know the guesthouse is run down and needs a lot of work, but we have a proposition for you.’
‘Go on.’ Nell was intrigued.
‘We want to help you renovate the house and reopen it as a guesthouse.’
‘You want to reopen it?’
‘Yes. Of course the final decision is with you. It’s your place, but we have savings, enough to do the work needed and then some more. Plus of course I have the contacts to do much of the work. Your guesthouse, but we go partners on the business. We could put in a pool and a hot tub, make the place fancy. There’s too much potential there to sell.’
‘Wow.’ Nell needed a moment to take it all in. She had no idea Michael had been harboring these ideas. ‘It’s a big project to take on.’
‘It is, but between us we could do it.’
‘And who would run it?’
‘You would, with our help. Newt has been thinking about a career change for a while. He’s pretty good in the kitchen. I can look after the upkeep of the place and any maintenance issues, and we can always look at employing extra help if we need it.’
