by Carys Jones
‘I’ll call you in an hour or so and you can come and pick me up,’ she leaned back into the car and forced herself to smile at Shane, hoping she looked more confident than she felt.
‘I won’t leave town without you,’ Shane told her, his green eyes misty.
‘I know,’ Amanda’s smile widened as it became genuine.
‘One hour,’ Shane said tightly. ‘And then I’m coming to get you. And that’s non-negotiable, you understand?’
‘One hour is more than enough,’ Amanda looked towards the little roof, wondering what Will was doing at that moment. Was he sat in a window bathed in sunlight, head bent down towards a book? Or was he sat in the cottage’s small garden looking out to the sea which shimmered distantly on the horizon?
‘Any sign of trouble you call me,’ Shane ordered. ‘And I’ll be here right away.’
Amanda nodded, wondering what kind of trouble Shane envisioned occurring? She braced herself for the painful truth that Will was living another life, that he had some Scottish wife stashed away somewhere. She touched a hand to her chest, wondering if her heart was strong enough to handle it. Glancing back at Shane, she knew that she was strong enough because she wasn’t alone. Shane was willing to be there at her side, to bear witness to her showdown with Will. He’d even risked his beloved job to help her. The level of his dedication to her made Amanda’s knees briefly weaken. She reached for the car to support herself. At the end of their relationship she’d desperately wanted Shane to put her at the top of his list. And now he had.
‘You okay?’ Shane was instantly peering up at her, his voice pitched with concern.
‘I’m fine,’ Amanda stepped away from the car and edged purposefully towards the field. ‘See you in an hour,’ she threw a quick wave over her shoulder and entered the field, letting the grass tickle against her legs. The sun was bright overhead and the air held a sweetness to it. But all Amanda could hear was the steady drumbeat of her own heart as she forced herself to move forwards, to approach the cottage which she prayed contained her husband and all his secrets. Secrets which might possibly destroy them both.
20
Amanda ignored the metallic taste in her mouth and did her best to focus. Sunlight was bleeding in through the windows in the small kitchen, casting ornate shadows upon the bare wooden floors.
But Amanda didn’t notice them. Nor did she smell the heady aroma of heather floating in through the open door or hear the gentle rustle of the long grass outside as a cooling breeze brushed its way through it.
All she saw was the barrel of the gun looming inches away from her head. There was only darkness in its depths. And possibly her own death. Her fate hung on the twitch of a trigger. Amanda had known fear like this before when she was eight years old and she’d almost tumbled over the edge of the cliffs near her home. The sun had been shining that day too.
Only now her father wasn’t waiting in the wings to save her.
‘Why did you come here?’ he growled the question at her, each word drenched in angry disdain.
Amanda swallowed, using the second to gather her thoughts. She couldn’t risk saying, or doing, the wrong thing.
‘I had to.’ She squeaked out the words like the frightened mouse she had become.
‘No,’ he was shaking his head but the hand holding the gun remained eerily stoic, like his muscles were well rehearsed in steadily managing its weight. ‘You should never have come here.’
The taste in Amanda’s mouth grew sharper. Just as it had that day when she had begun to fall over the cliff edge and saw the sea and jagged rocks swirling beneath her. She defiantly raised her chin to meet his gaze.
‘I had to come,’ she told him, her voice strengthening along with her resolve. ‘I had to find you.’
‘It’s too dangerous here,’ Will’s words came out as a roar. Amanda licked her lips and reminded herself to stay calm, to look her husband in the eye. But each time she tried to meet his gaze she found herself locking eyes with the dark abyss which existed down the barrel of the gun he was holding.
The cottage had seemed so quaint when she approached it, as though it had been lifted directly from the pages of a fairy-tale book. It had a wooden blue door and the walls were covered in climbing rose bushes which reminded her of home. Amanda had felt calm, almost serene as she knocked briskly on the door. But the second the door swung open Amanda’s illusion of tranquillity was shattered. She noticed the gun before she saw her husband. Her legs shook and she struggled to follow his order when he commanded her to get inside.
In any other circumstance she’d admire the pretty tiles on the kitchen walls, how some of them contained painted images of bottles of wine and thistles. But Amanda kept looking at the gun, not daring to take her eyes off it.
‘Why did you leave?’ she forced out the question that haunted her the most, unable to stop the tears which began to slide down her cheeks.
‘Amanda,’ the gun lowered, just a fraction. Enough to give Amanda hope.
‘Weren’t you happy, Will?’ she pulled in a tight breath and lifted her eyes to look directly into his. His gaze appeared cold, detached. ‘Or should I say Jake?’
‘So he told you?’ Will raised one large hand to scratch at his cheek.
‘Who?’ was he referring to the caller? To the wrong number which had changed everything?
‘Your little cop ex-boyfriend,’ Will’s lips curled in revulsion. ‘I bet he relished that.’
Amanda was too stunned to reply. Will rarely spoke about Shane. He preferred to stay mute on the subject of Amanda’s ex-boyfriend.
‘So now you know,’ he narrowed his eyes at her, ‘and yet you still come here to judge me?’
‘You’re my husband,’ Amanda kept her voice soft, trying to placate the man she once knew. The gun lowered another inch.
‘You don’t think I’m a monster?’
‘I—’
‘After all those things I did? All those people I hurt? People I…’ Will broke off, suddenly unable to look at her.
Amanda’s entire body went cold as if she’d just been plunged beneath the ice on a frozen lake. She’d ignored Shane when he protested that Will might be dangerous. She refused to believe that her gentle giant would hurt anyone. But now Will was admitting that he was what, a murderer?
She thought of the field full of long grass. Shane was no longer waiting on the other side of it; he was back at the bed and breakfast, giving her the allotted amount of time she’d so stubbornly fought for. And if she ran would Will follow her out and need only one deadly accurate shot to end her? Prior to entering the cottage she’d have never believed that her husband would hurt her. But now everything she knew to be true was crumbling at its foundations which had been built on precarious lies.
‘What did you do?’ Amanda breathed, her eyes wide and full of fear. Every nerve in her body felt raw as though she’d shatter into a million pieces at the slightest touch.
‘You don’t know?’
Amanda shook her head.
‘Sit,’ Will gestured with the gun for her to sit at the little kitchen table made from oil-stained wood. Her body felt stiff as she forced it into one of the spindle-backed chairs. The floral cushion at the base offered little comfort.
Will sat down opposite her, laying his gun on the table and angling the barrel towards her. It made a dull flat sound as he released it from its grip, telling Amanda how heavy and reliable it was.
‘I haven’t led the best life,’ Will began, watching her intently, but there was no warmth in his expression, no flash of the smiling man from their wedding pictures. ‘Growing up I got involved in things. Bad things. I did a lot of bad deeds for bad people. But my life here in Scotland… it was complicated. I did what I had to do to survive. But six years ago things went bad. Really bad.’
‘How bad is bad? Why should I even believe you? And your name?’ Amanda clasped her hands in her lap like she was back at school, rigidly sat upright and waiting to be punished by her old h
eadmistress.
‘It’s Jake Burton,’ Will sighed. ‘Pretty much everything else was true I swear.
‘Were we true?’
Jake ignored the question.
‘I guess you’d say that I got mixed up in organized crime. It started off small; I’d get paid for boosting a car here and there. Then it was breaking and entering. Then it was drug smuggling. And I got caught, did my time.’
Amanda shuddered. This wasn’t the man she’d shared a bed with, planned to spend her life with. She was speaking directly to Jake Burton. Will was gone.
‘I did what I had to do to make money. And when I got out of jail, there were even fewer legit jobs available to an ex-con like me.’
‘And your brother?’
‘He was caught up in the same shit I was. Only he didn’t play by the rules.’ Jake massaged his neck and for a brief second a shadow of regret passed over his face. Amanda swore she saw the birth of a tear glint in the sunlight.
‘What happened six years ago?’ Amanda wanted to keep him talking. As long as he was talking he wasn’t thinking about killing her, at least she hoped not.
‘I was involved in a job that went badly. Billy… he—’ Will cracked his knuckles. Was he talking about his brother? Amanda didn’t dare ask. ‘I had to disappear,’ there was fire in his eyes when he looked back at her. ‘Jake Burton had to go. I had to become Will Thorn.’
Amanda remembered the cocky voice on the other end of the line, how the guy had been so confident that Jake Burton was at her house. And he’d been right.
‘The guy who called the house, you think it was what, your boss?’
‘Or one of his lackeys. Either way he’s coming for me. He believes that we have a score that needs to be settled.’
‘But doesn’t he think you’re dead? Or at least that Jake Burton is?’
‘Clearly not any more. I always prayed that he’d never find me. But I guess you can only outrun the past for so long.’
Amanda licked her lips, absorbing all the information. So Will had fled because he thought he was in danger? But he’d left her alone at the house when someone dangerous knew he’d lived there. What if his old boss had turned up and found her there?
‘You left me,’ her chin trembled as she made the accusation. ‘You left me there when I might have been in danger.’
‘I thought I was leading the danger away,’ Jake glanced down at the gun on the table.
‘And now?’ What did he intend to do with that gun? Shoot down his old boss? What if more than one guy came to the little cottage? If Amanda had managed to find him then other people would too. The darknet didn’t discern about who it allowed to access its questionable sources of information.
‘And now you’ve led the wolves right to my door,’ Jake snarled at her.
‘I just wanted to find you,’ Amanda stated desperately. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were all right.’
‘Well now we have to leave. I’ve already stayed here too long.’ Jake got up, reached for the gun and shoved it into the waistband of his jeans. Amanda’s eyes flickered to the door, wondering if this was her chance to run. She sprung up, about to seize the opportunity when Jake moved around the table to her, grabbing her by the arms. She’d forgotten just how much strength her husband possessed. There was no wriggling out of his grasp.
‘Just let me go,’ Amanda demanded, flailing against his grip. ‘I won’t tell anyone where you are. I just want to go home.’
‘It’s too late for that,’ Jake was hauling her towards the door. ‘I can’t risk you telling that little cop of yours what you know.’
‘Please, Will, I won’t,’ Amanda pleaded, hoping that buried deep down within this dangerous criminal was some semblance of her husband. Jake threw open the door and tightened his hands around her arms. Amanda yelped, feeling her veins start to expand and pound uneasily in her upper arms as though she were having her blood pressure measured.
‘It’s Jake,’ his voice was so cold and unfamiliar when he spoke that Amanda started to wonder if she’d imagined Will Thorn, if her husband had never actually existed at all.
‘Please, let me go,’ Amanda made one last-ditch attempt to get free. She wanted to run through the field, run all the way back to the little hotel with the faded floral wallpaper and collapse into Shane’s waiting arms.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Jake tugged her through the door, not bothering to shut it behind them. He pulled her through the long grass like she was a disobedient child, all her pleas for release falling on deaf ears.
Amanda winced against the force being applied to her arms and the way her legs were dragging behind her, kicking up clouds of dirt. Will would have stopped, would have made sure she was okay. At the very least he’d have tossed her over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. But Jake just hauled her along by her upper arms, causing them to stretch and burn beneath the pressure. His face was pinched, his thick eyebrows pulled together. He looked like a man suffering beneath a great burden. She felt his palms grow clammy as they moved. Was he afraid? She’d never seen her husband truly afraid so she wouldn’t know.
They walked for five pained minutes and then Amanda noticed the sheer surface of a car’s roof glistening in the sunlight. It shimmered like a silver sea. Jake dropped one hand from her to wrestle some keys free from his jeans pocket.
‘Jake, just let me go. I’ll never bother you again or tell anyone what I know, I swear.’
She heard him unlock the car and swing open one of the doors. He roughly forced Amanda inside, pausing briefly before he slammed the door closed to give her a hard look. Jake Burton looked frighteningly formidable silhouetted against the sun. He was all muscular power and simmering dark rage. His reply to Amanda was curt, leaving her quivering fearfully in the passenger seat; ‘You’re coming with me.’
21
They drove in stony silence. Jake forced the car down narrow lanes at a frightening pace. All the while Amanda watched him, wondering where her husband had gone.
She’s never seen Will scared before. He was always the strong one. The one who listened to the rumbles of a thunder storm as though it were nothing more than fingertips tapping on glass. He was unshakeable. Infallible. But now he was afraid. He wore his fear like an iron mask, narrowing his features.
The car careened towards a tight corner and Amanda clutched at her seat belt as the vehicle swerved and she was thrust against it. Beyond the window she saw the road give way to a sharp incline. A mossy hillside led down into grassy depths. Amanda swallowed, the metallic taste in her mouth sharpening.
‘You need to slow down else you’re going to kill us both.’ She kept her voice level, calm, trying to create some illusion of control for herself as much as Will. Jake. She hadn’t even known her own husband’s name.
‘You’ve ruined everything.’ Jake’s knuckles were white as he gripped the steering wheel with unnecessary force.
‘I just… I wanted to find you,’ Amanda reiterated, feeling helpless. ‘Please, let’s just go back and talk about this and—’
‘He might die now because of you.’ Jake’s words were sharp and Amanda felt each one pierce her chest.
‘Who?’ she wondered gently. ‘Shane?’ the thought made her blood ice in her veins as above them dark clouds began to gather. The warmth of the sun was quickly diminished as they rounded another hill. Shadows lingered in the empty road as the air quickly cooled.
‘No, as if I’d care about that asshole,’ Jake gave a brisk shake of his head and kept driving. Kept speeding down roads that twisted through the hill landscape like an unsprung coil.
‘Then… who?’
A raindrop. It landed on the windscreen in an inelegant splatter. The sky was growing ever darker. A storm was coming.
‘Will?’ Amanda squeaked his name, then realizing her error she cleared her throat. ‘Jake?’
‘Just sit there and be quiet.’
More rain. The road was quickly awash with it. Jake turned on the w
indscreen wipers but didn’t lessen his speed. Amanda tensed in her seat, imagining the car spinning out on the slick road, her and her husband tumbling down a hillside. Over and over until metal and glass collided together and she was nothing but a collection of broken limbs. Is that how Shane would eventually find her – torn and broken and beyond repair?
‘Jake?’ it was the tone she used back in their home. Back in their marriage. The tone which meant that he’d done something wrong. Perhaps he hadn’t picked up the dry cleaning when he’d promised to or he’d accidentally deleted Netflix off the television. Again.
Something in Jake broke. It was a faint twitch, naked to most eyes but not Amanda’s. She knew what it meant; that she was getting through to him.
‘Talk to me,’ she urged as the speedometer slid down from a precarious seventy to a worrying sixty miles per hour. ‘Who is going to die?’
Jake stopped the car so abruptly that Amanda was flung against her seat belt, momentarily winded. The brakes squealed as he pulled up onto the side of the road. Rain was bouncing off the roof in an uneven melody.
‘Jake?’ Amanda reached out a hand towards him and then stopped herself. This wasn’t her husband anymore. She needed to remember that. But Jake looked so wounded against the darkening sky outside. His hands were still gripped against the wheel, his gaze locked beyond the windscreen, his eyes wide but unseeing. ‘I’m your wife. I don’t know what this shit is that you’re going through, but I’m here.’
Amanda tried to forget how it’d felt when Jake had aimed a gun at her. Tried to ignore her own fear.
‘The person who is going to die…’ Jake clenched his jaw and kept looking ahead. Amanda didn’t speak. Instead she held her breath and silently urged him to go on. ‘…Is my son.’
A grumble of thunder accompanied the bombshell. It tumbled away from them through the mass of gathered pewter clouds. Amanda blinked. For a brief second she thought that perhaps she was hallucinating. Surely Jake hadn’t just said—
