A fear like none I’ve ever known takes hold. An all-consuming, ravenous beast. It welds my feet to the spot. All I can do is stand and stare and listen. I hear a shoe hit the floor and then another. The rattle of keys being slipped into a pocket. Footsteps. I don’t know whether Olivia hears it, too, or whether she is so connected to him that she senses his arrival, but she screams his name with such piercing, raw urgency, that I cover my ears.
Heath bursts into the room, skidding to a halt when he sees me. A kaleidoscope of emotion slides across his face. Panic for his wife bleeds into shock and confusion before crystallising into anger as realisation dawns.
Olivia is still calling for him. He charges at me. I lunge to the side, snatching a candlestick from the bookshelves and swing wildly. I can’t let him get to Olivia. He jumps back and throws up his hands as though to ward me off.
‘Caitie,’ he says, struggling to keep the fury from his voice. He swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and levels me with a cold, poisonous stare.
He’s wearing joggers and a soft grey T-shirt, as though he’s been out for a run. He is so much broader, so much taller, so much stronger, than I am. The only thing between me and him is a few feet of space and a brass candlestick. I try not to think about what he’ll do once he gets his hands on me.
‘Caitie,’ he says again, in the tone you’d use to soothe a wild animal. ‘Put that down so we can talk.’
Olivia, hearing his voice, has stopped shrieking. I imagine her on the other side of the door, ear pressed against the wood to listen. It’s possible Bryony is free from her bedroom. If she isn’t, I need to buy more time. We have a much better chance of leaving here alive if we work together. I lick my dry lips. ‘Is that what you told Elinor?’
He pales. ‘What?’
‘Your sister.’ Then I see it. A ghost moving across his face. A long-buried memory. A scabbed wound. I pick at it. Push my fingers into the hot, wet gash. ‘Did you tell her you just wanted to talk before you made her disappear?’
He freezes and I know I am right. There is no rush of triumph though, only a fear that tightens around my throat like a cord.
‘Stop,’ he growls.
I glance at the door behind him, praying Bryony will appear any moment.
‘Did you kill her, Heath?’
He bares his teeth. ‘Don’t.’
‘You can’t do it,’ I taunt. ‘You can’t love anything without destroying it.’
‘NO!’ he roars.
But I can’t stop. I have to keep him talking. If I’m honest, there is a burgeoning thrill at taking back power. Of hurting him. ‘Where’s her body, Heath? The woods? The padlocked bedroom?’ I raise an eyebrow. ‘The lake?’
His eyes are ablaze with green fire. He moves so fast, he is a blur. I am slammed against the bookshelves. Paperbacks rain down on us. The candlestick slips from my fingers and clatters to the ground. Heath yanks me forward and then rams me against the shelves again. His hands close around my throat. My bare feet scrabble uselessly against the wood. He squeezes, cutting off my air. I claw at his arms. His grip tightens and my vision greys. I grope along the shelves for something, anything. My fingers curl around something hard and cool. It’s heavy. I swing my unseen weapon. It cracks against the side of his head. I feel something give way. Bone breaking free from bone. His grip slackens and then falls away completely. Blood pours from his temple. He stumbles, making low, guttural noises. Then he collapses. I stare down at the bust in my hand, blood smeared across the white, pale marble of a woman’s face. It slips from my terror-numb fingers and thuds onto the rug beside him.
I sink down and with a trembling hand, I roll him onto his back. His eyes, fixed wide and unseeing, stare up at the ceiling. Blood pools, spreading thickly across the rug, soaking into it. I turn my face away from the hole in the side of his skull and vomit.