She propped the shovel against the wall, put her box on the grass and shouldered past him to close the door and lock it. She put the key in her pocket. “People have long memories.”
He rolled his eyes.
Jesus.
Not the crazy witch thing again. “Who cares about your past enough, or even knows what happened all those years ago?” he pointed out reasonably.
She gave the doorknob a shake, checking the lock. “The wardens rely on the boats for supplies—the boats come from the town.” She raised a dark brow and Ben noted again how it contrasted with her hair. Did she color it that bright blond shade? Some kind of disguise? “There are people in town who hate me.”
He thought about it for a moment. There had been that bully in the bar, but it still sounded nuts. Thank God they didn’t have witches in Chicago or Colombia. Drive-by shootings, kidnappings up the wazoo, terrorists and gang warfare, but thankfully no sorcery.
“I know you don’t believe me.” Her eyes narrowed as she straightened her backbone, growing taller and more remote by the second. “Let me spell it out for you.” She lowered her voice when some tourists came into sight. “I found my daddy’s corpse on a beach where it should never have washed up. I found him lying at my feet with no recollection of ever leaving my bed.”
Damn. “Okay, that’s weird but—”
“The next day Duncan Mackenzie—that guy from the pub—and his cronies grabbed me on the beach.” Her voice was raw, her eyes shimmering with memories. “I was ten years old, and I’d just lost the person I loved most in the world.”
He wanted to backtrack. He didn’t want to know what those boys did to that little girl. He knew how destructive bullies could be, but despite the hurt he saw in her eyes, he needed to let her finish. This was his job. The edge of the cardboard box buckled beneath his fingers.
“They stripped me naked, tied me to a washed-up log and piled driftwood around me.” Her voice went flat, contradicting the emotional fireworks discharging behind her eyes. “I struggled as hard as I could, but I couldn’t get away.” Her fingers curled into defiant fists.
Anger raced through his system but had nowhere to go. There were worse things than being nearly drowned as a kid.
Sorcha bent to pick up her box. “Anyway, I was lucky. Duncan tried to light the wood with his brother’s cigarette lighter, only it wouldn’t catch. So he set fire to my hair instead.” Her lips were bloodless, eyes unfocused.
Sickened, Ben strove for something to say.
“Maggie Johnstone came out of her cottage, the one where you’re staying, and got me to safety before they had time to fetch kerosene.”
It was difficult to hold on to the hardness, tough to maintain the mistrust, but this could all be a lie. It could be part of a complex scheme to gain his sympathy and obstruct his investigation. Ben shut down the compassion she evoked, mustering his cold sonofabitch persona.
It was a hell of a lot more difficult than it should be.
“My Gran sent me away after Dad’s funeral.” A single tear escaped, she smeared it against her shoulder. “I was gone for fifteen years, but nothing’s changed.” She balanced the box on one knee and grabbed the shovel, but he took it from her and she released it without argument. “And now, like the paranoid lunatic you obviously think I am, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being stalked.”
***
He hesitated at the backdoor of Sorcha’s cottage, opened his senses to search for others in the house. Nothing. He knew Sorcha was on the island and Carolyn rarely came home during the day.
He had a key. He let himself in, walked through to the living room and felt the cold, sticky presence of Iain Logan.
“Go away.” He was knackered after being up half the night getting rid of Evie. For a wee bitty thing she weighed a ton. Hopefully, attached to a rock, she’d stay put long enough for the fish to eat her to the bone.
A yawn overtook him, stretching his mouth wide. He blinked and looked around the room. He didn’t have time to sleep. He had to look for the journals before that bitch found them. He needed to know exactly what Iain Logan had written before he died.
He checked the bookcase, systematically scanning the titles. Nothing. That would be too easy. He opened the cupboard beneath it.
Christ
. It was jam-packed with papers. He dragged his hands through his hair. He didn’t have time for this. Why didn’t people sort out their junk?
He sat on the sofa, fingered the amulet, closed his eyes and concentrated on the journals.
Where are they?
Before he got his answer a chill settled over him and the hair on the back of his neck snapped upright, taut as steel-wire.
“Piss off.” But the spirit didn’t budge. And no matter how hard he concentrated, he couldn’t get an image. He massaged his neck, looked up at the ceiling and smiled. Upstairs.
Wary, he climbed the stairs. His escape route was cut off if the girls came home without warning but he had his amulet, which glowed hot when danger approached.
He went into Sorcha’s bedroom and glanced around. It was a big room, sparsely furnished. He checked the walls, but there were no hidden spaces. Down on his hands and knees he looked under the bed. Aside from one empty suitcase and dust bunnies, there was nothing. He went over to the dresser and pulled open the drawers, one at a time. Searching carefully through her clothes, he got aroused by the soft touch of her underwear. A pair of black satin knickers hooked the ring on his finger. He dangled them in the air, threw them back in the drawer and shoved it closed. The journals weren’t here.
Sorcha’s jewelry box sat on top of the dresser. Inside, silver glistened like moonlight. He ran his hands across the cheap trinkets and lifted a black velvet bag. It was heavy.
Familiar vibrations tingled in his fingertips as he opened it and dropped a pebble-size piece of turquoise into his palm. A protective amulet.
Bloody hell!
Anger sealed his throat shut.
The sound of a key turning in the front door made him drop the stone in panic. Why hadn’t he felt a warning? Because he was distracted and upset.
He grabbed the stone off the floor, crept to Sorcha’s bedroom door, sliding his feet over centuries-old floorboards. Gently he pushed the door until it was almost shut. He touched the knife at his waist. Heard female giggles. The sounds of bags being dropped and deep, guttural breaths. He closed his eyes and concentrated, saw Carolyn kissing a man. Snogging him so hard she must be sucking on his tonsils.
Slut.
They barely made it up the stairs. The guy’s hands were down her jeans, and she was trying to free his dick, giggling and moaning the whole time. They stopped outside on the landing, a mere foot from where he stood on the other side of the door. His hand tightened on his knife and he held his breath.
“Right here. I’m going to do you right here.”
“Oh God, yes.” Carolyn got the guy’s jeans undone and sank to her knees, eyes sparkling as her lips parted.
Oh, fucking magic
.
He shifted so he could see more through the crack in the door, only the guy had his hands in her hair, blocking the view as sweet little Carolyn Jamieson went down on him.
Hate seared his veins. Thrown off balance by what he was watching and the way it turned him on, he needed to get out before he used the knife on that prick and wrecked everything. He couldn’t afford to take that sort of risk. He had plans.
So how did he stop Carolyn from sucking off the guy right in front of him?
Smiling, he sent a foul essence directly into her mind. She pulled away before climbing to her feet.
Undaunted, the guy jerked open her blouse and unhooked her bra, baring her breasts to the cool air.
God help him, now he was so aroused it hurt, but he bit down on it. Controlled it. The other guy shoved her jeans and panties to her ankles where they got caught on her trainers. She kicked everything off and stood stark naked before the guy nailed her to the wall. Her flesh jiggled with each thrust of the guy’s hips. Lips the color of wet rubies opened as she gasped for breath. She hooked her ankles around the man’s back, fingernails clawing at his shirt as he pounded into her.
For a moment he slipped inside the guy’s mind, felt her squeezing him tight, felt lust flaying his senses. It took every ounce of self-control not to moan out loud. He fingered the knife. The desire to sink the blade into that fucker’s flesh was gaining in intensity.
Finally the guy lifted Carolyn in his arms and kicked open the door to her room. They stumbled through.
Close the door, close the door, close the
fucking
door.
He poured the thought into their heads without any subtlety at all, and at the last moment it slammed home. Looking skyward with relief, he blew out a breath and slipped silently out of Sorcha’s room. Down the stairs and out the door.
The blood pulsed through his body so forcefully he felt lightheaded and weak. He put his hand in his pocket to adjust his trousers and jumped when the amulet burned red-hot against his skin. How had he missed the warning? What the hell had Sorcha done to him?
Sorcha whirled and strode down the path toward the Low Light, not caring if Ben Foley followed or not. What was he doing here, anyway? Didn’t he think she took her work seriously? Didn’t he know how hard it was to study for a Ph.D. without dealing with this other crap?
Already freaked out by Peter Hughes, she’d been crushed when she’d dug up the camera and found ripped wires and smashed glass. The fact Ben had caught her talking to her imaginary friends just made her mortification complete.
The sabotage—and that
had
to be Peter, though he’d never given her any trouble before today—meant that when the puffins arrived for the breeding season, she’d have to stay on the island fulltime to guard her equipment.
With
Peter Hughes. Otherwise she’d never collect enough data to finish her thesis—she’d be stuck here year after year until she finally gave up.
I will not give up.
Remembering his touch, gooseflesh appeared on her arms. She felt dirty and was furious with herself for not kneeing him in the balls when she had the chance. Next time he pulled that crap, she’d shove his testicles into his eye sockets.
As if ghosts weren’t bad enough. Wait till she told her supervisor what had happened…Except she couldn’t do that. Not unless she wanted to be labeled a troublemaker for making sexual harassment claims.
Hell.
She needed to be practical, to install a deadbolt on her dorm room and buy some door wedges. And maybe a shotgun.
The lash of wind whipping out of a gully cooled her temper.
Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Ben strolling down the hill about a hundred yards behind her. She hadn’t asked for his help and yet here he was. She stopped and waited. What it was about him that jangled her nerves so effectively? He had a sexy walk, an easy, loose-hipped stride. And he certainly was good-looking if you liked the dark brooding type.
She hadn’t realized she had.
Bruce was a blond, built like a sun-bleached god. A sculpted athlete who lived for fitness and honed his physique in Gold Coast breakers until he looked like a beautiful statue. And hadn’t he known it.
Ben Foley was lean and fit. Enigmatic and mysterious. And wasn’t it ironic that he seemed to hate water with the same intensity Bruce worshipped it? Maybe there was something to be said for that.
Sorcha tried to brush her hair from her eyes without dropping the box.
The wind cut inside her jacket and she shivered. Her muscles burned and she shifted the box higher in her arms. She’d poured out all her frustration on the one person who’d actually helped her over the last few days. No strings attached.
Pasting on a smile, she made a peace offering. “How’d you like a tour of the island?”
“Sure.”
The warmth of his smile shocked her. She didn’t deserve that flash of pearly white teeth against that tanned handsome face. Not after her earlier outburst. She was ashamed she’d told him that stuff. She barely even thought about it herself anymore, except since she’d been back…since she’d been back, it felt as though it was building—the resentment, the voices, the intangible malignance that shadowed her.
“I’m sorry, Ben.”
“Hey.” He gave her an easy grin. “No problem.”
She wasn’t quite sure how to react to his allure. “I need to put this equipment back in my dorm room.” She hurried along the path. Peter had only moved her equipment to annoy her. She’d put it back in her room and definitely talk to her boss about that, then take the camera to the lab to be repaired.
Suddenly she felt cheered. She would not be cowed. She loved this island, and she might as well spend a bonus hour exploring it before she caught the tide home.
With Ben as backup she walked confidently through the front door of the Low Light. Maybe that was what she needed, an extra-large boyfriend for protection. But the place was empty, the warden probably out making nice with the tourists.
Shouldering open the door to her dorm room, she froze. The hair on the nape of her neck rose and a thousand nerve endings exploded. “Oh my God.”
“Holy shit.” Ben stood behind her.
Her sheets and duvet were shredded, feathers clinging to every surface with static. The photos she had tacked to the wall were ripped to pieces and littered the floor like confetti. A kitchen knife stuck out of the pillow at the top of the bed.
Dread settled over her shoulders. Notice had been served. This was no childish prank.
Icy rage displaced the emotional whirlwind she’d been riding. Fear tried to edge its way into her mind, but she wouldn’t let it smother her. She wasn’t a kid anymore.
There was something next to the knife. Forcing herself forward, she walked into the room, stirring up feathers in her wake. She dumped the box onto the floor and stepped around it to look at the Barbie doll that lay naked on the pillow. Barbie was tied to a block of wood, her blond hair scorched, plastic flesh charred.
Sorcha picked up the doll.
“Leave it.” Ben grabbed her arm. “The police can examine it for trace.”
Obviously he watched way too much TV. She shook him off and lifted the doll. A stainless steel pin pierced the doll’s left palm and a second pin was embedded in her synthetic skull.
The police couldn’t prove anything. This was Peter Hughes’s realm—he had an excuse for handling everything that came onto this island. Everything except
her.
The scald on her hand throbbed from where Peter had poured boiling water on it earlier. With a hiss, she jerked the pin free of the doll, but the pain didn’t recede.
Because it was hocus! Rubbish!
Aimed to intimidate and scare her away.
Staring at the pin that impaled Barbie’s head, she wondered if the warden somehow knew her secret. Or was he just playing with her? Gently she removed the spike and laid both pins on the wall shelf.
It was stupid to hesitate, to wonder if she was now free from some voodoo curse, but she did. Only to feel a mix of antipathy and relief when she heard her name murmured as if from a long dark tunnel.
“Sorcha, Sorcha!”
Ben shook her shoulders and looked down at her, his eyes pinched with concern. It was such an unfamiliar expression that for a moment she almost didn’t recognize it. His hands gripped her shoulders, and he seemed to be holding her up.
Her lips felt numb as she forced them into a smile. “Told you.”
A roar rushed through her ears, and her vision tunneled black and white and started to fade. She pushed away from Ben’s arms and staggered onto the bed. A large hand shoved her face between her knees.
She took three deep breaths, but the mustiness and feathers started to suffocate her. “I can’t breathe.” Ben’s hand was firm, but she knocked him away, choking back a sob. “I’ve got to get out of here.” Clutching Barbie, she lunged for the camera before she raced out the door.
Because there was no way in hell she was going back.
Cold air burned her lungs as she tore up the path. She needed to keep moving in the vain hope constant motion would keep her demons at bay.
Ben stuck right to her shoulder as she ran past the Beacon and along Palpitation Brae. “Shouldn’t you report that?”
“To whom?”
“The police?” The sarcastic edge to Ben’s tone made her teeth lock.
“Ha! Funny.” Why was he still around anyway? Her life was a merry-go-round of disaster, and this week he’d witnessed them all.
“The cops could help.”
Yeah. Sure.
He kept up with her easily, not even out of breath. Cresting the hill, she stopped running, scanned the tourists who dotted the island. She spotted Peter Hughes’s khaki sweater down by Kirk Haven landing where the ferry was moored.
She gripped the Barbie doll tight as she considered confronting him, only he was talking to Tom McClelland, the boat’s captain, and so far she’d encountered no trouble from Tom. She didn’t want to alienate others with a display of hysterics.
Peter would deny her accusations, and the timing coincided with the tour. Anybody could have trashed her room in the Low Light.
“The police couldn’t prove anything.” Bitterness edged her voice. She turned to face Ben, aware that he must think she was a complete nutcase. “And Uncle Davy would only worry.”
The hard lines of his face shifted into annoyance. God, he was handsome, and she didn’t want anything to do with him—except he made her feel safe, and at the moment that was as precious as the oxygen she breathed. But he wouldn’t be around forever, and she wasn’t going to run away from the likes of Peter Hughes or Duncan Mackenzie. Their tricks weren’t as chilling as the voices of the dead, not yet anyway.
“Barbie might want to press charges.” She forced a smile and tucked the vandalized icon into her knapsack. For some reason it was suddenly important to prove she was a normal woman with an ordinary life. “Are you scared of heights?” she asked him.
The way he bristled midstride would have amused her if she hadn’t been rattled from the inside out.
“I’m not scared of anything.” His voice was a growl. “I just can’t swim.”
Liar.
His fear of water was so palpable it made
her
feel sick.
“Good.”
The May Isle wasn’t half a kilometer wide, though the landscape was wild and varied, from lush green meadows to steep rocky cliffs. The dirt path they walked along was dry, the footing secure. Rough winds swept kittiwakes off the cliffs and up into the air in a breathtaking display of aerodynamics.
A tingle of excitement raced through her as she rounded the next corner and there they were, standing on top of the towering cliffs that fortified the western side of the island. Thrift and
sea campion scented the air. On the opposite side of the cove, tumbled hexagonal steps formed the Chatter-Staines across from Pilgrims Haven.
As if to prove his courage, Ben stepped up to the edge of the cliff and peered over the rim to the dangerous rocks below. But he controlled his breathing as surely as she battled her anxiety—the grinding of his teeth an outward betrayal of that studied calm.
“Why are the rocks white?” he asked.
“Do you really want to know?” She flashed him her widest grin, determined to conquer some small part of her life. She would not be intimidated.
“Not bird crap?”
“Yep.”
Despite the brisk wind, a seam of moisture ran down Ben’s forehead. Even though he tried to hide it, the sea freaked him out. So what was he doing on an island surrounded by ocean?
“Why do you hate the water so much?” The question tripped off her tongue and she winced as he shot her a look. It wasn’t any of her business, but he’d witnessed all of her recent screw-ups.
He was silent for so long she didn’t think he would answer. “A couple of older boys thought it would be cool to take turns holding me underwater when I was a little kid.” He shrugged, as if being nearly drowned was of no consequence.
“That’s awful.” It scared her, what children did to one another.
His eyes were hooded, too dark to read. “Being resuscitated by a hot chick was more embarrassing than nearly drowning.” His lips formed a smile, but anger anchored it.
“What happened to the boys who did it?”
The expression on his face didn’t contain an ounce of self-pity. It was arrogant and laced with satisfaction. He took a step closer and leaned down to whisper in her ear. “I grew.”
She studied him. Revenge was a powerful motivator. What had he done to the boys who’d tried to drown him? “Are they still alive?”
She hadn’t meant to say
that
out loud. Her tongue had a mind of its own. Too many nerves, not enough tact.
His grin was as dangerous as the rocks below. “Last I heard, they were doing ten-to-life in the state pen.”
Sorcha’s jaw dropped. “What did they do? Shoot somebody?”
“They were drug dealers.” Steel underpinned the words. “They got what they deserved.”
She shifted and looked away. Admitting he scared her on one level but made her feel safe on another sounded as crazy as confessing she heard voices in her head.
“What about you? What did you do to the kids who tied you to that stake?” he asked.
Blinking rapidly, she whirled and faced the sea. Emotion choked her. She hadn’t done anything. They’d won. “My grandmother sent me away immediately after Dad’s funeral. To live with my mother.” Her voice scratched her throat.
On top of her father’s death, the shock of the abandonment by the only family she’d ever known had nearly destroyed her. It had taken years to trust again. Years to forgive. She watched whitecaps break in the distance. “I never came back until now.”
His hands rested on her shoulders, the weight of that connection heavy and reassuring. Clever fingers kneaded the knots of tension in her neck and she closed her eyes, dropping her head forward. The press of his lips against the nape of her neck nearly made her knees buckle. The screech of gannets reminded her where she was and what she was doing. She stepped away, forced her breathing into a normal pattern in order to stop the flutter of her heartbeat.
She glanced over her shoulder and found him watching her, an unreadable expression on his face. “I don’t know what you want from me,” she admitted.
Something flitted across his eyes before he looked away. Neither spoke, and for a moment only the sound of birds filled the air.
Ben broke the silence and gave her a wry smile. “I’m no expert, but I don’t see anything that looks like a puffin around here.”
Sorcha let him change the subject. “They leave the island in August after the breeding season is over. I’m just trying to get the bugs out of the system before they come back next spring.” It was autumn now, and Sorcha wondered where the comical little birds had flown.
Ben leaned down and poked his hand into the narrow entrance of a burrow. He squinted at her. “They live in these?”
“When they’re nesting, yes.” She dropped to her knees beside him, picked up a shiny black feather. Handing it to him, she watched his long fingers smooth out the plume. They were connecting on one level, maybe becoming friends, maybe becoming something else. She liked him and that worried her. “A lot of the work I do is lab-based, but I’m hoping to do some tracking next winter. We’re going to put transmitters on a pair of adults and a juvenile. And I want to film them during the summer to try to estimate the baby bird’s food intake, and correlate the information to mercury levels obtained from feather clippings.”