Out of Sight

by Rebecca Duval

  “Is it true?” Len asked him. “Are you planning to sell?”

  Tim looked to Isla, then back to his dad. “Yes.”

  Len nodded slowly, gripping the back of his chair with one hand. “Why?”

  Tim sighed. He took off his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This isn’t my dream, dad.” He waved his glasses vaguely. “It isn’t even yours. It’s an obligation, handed down through the generations.”

  Isla glanced at Len, afraid to see the hurt in his expression at his son’s words, but he mostly looked confused.

  “It’s a legacy,” Len said. “I always saw it as a blessing, not a hindrance.”

  “Well, I see it differently. I’m not saying I hate it, I don’t. I’m not saying I’ve always been unhappy working here with you because I haven’t...until lately.”

  Isla felt Tim’s eyes on her, and she stared down into her empty teacup. He was talking about her. He had to be.

  “But yes, if the decision was mine, I would rather sell, and build a new life for myself, than be shackled to the dying dream of someone else’s.”

  Len turned to his desk abruptly, but Isla caught the hurt in his face before he did, and she imagined Tim had too.

  “I had no idea that’s how you felt,” Len said at last. “You should have told me.”

  “Yes, I should,” Tim conceded. “I suppose I have Isla to thank for bringing the issue out into the open.”

  A fancy way of saying she’d grassed him up. Isla winced, and snuck a glance at Tim, expecting a furious glare, but when he met her eyes his expression was calm, neutral. He couldn’t really mean it, could he?

  “Yes, you do,” Len said, but he sounded far-away now, lost in thought.

  The shop bell rang.

  “I’d better get back out front,” Tim said, turning to go.

  “No,” Isla got to her feet.”I’ll go.”

  But before she could go anywhere, Zoe ducked through the curtain.

  “There you all are,” she exclaimed. “I was beginning to think the place was abandoned…” she trailed off as she noticed the grim expressions on their faces and the atmosphere. Her eyes met Isla’s. “What’s going on?”

  Len cleared his throat. “Tim, I think you should close up for the day. Isla, Zoe, can you excuse us? We have some things to talk about.”

  Zoe’s brown eyes grew round.

  “Of course,” Isla said. “Come on, Zo. Let’s go upstairs.”

  *

  Isla flicked the kettle on, and then changed her mind, and opened a bottle of wine. Zoe watched silently from the doorway of the kitchenette.

  Condensation trickled down the window and the radiators clanged, but Isla shivered.

  Zoe accepted a glass of wine, but she didn’t drink. “Well, are you going to tell me what’s going on, or am I supposed to guess?”

  Isla looked at the glass of wine she’d poured herself and realised she couldn’t drink it. She set it back down on the side and looked up at her best friend. “I’m pregnant,” she blurted.

  Zoe’s eyebrows shot up, and her mouth fell open. “You’re what? Oh my god, Isla, but who-” She broke off with a gasp. “Ethan?”

  Isla nodded miserably.

  Zoe blew out a long breath, and half-sat, half-fell into a dining chair behind her. “Shit. Does Len know?”

  Isla shook her head. “No. I almost told him, but then I ended up blurting out about Tim wanting to sell the business instead.”

  “Tim wants to sell?” Zoe screeched.

  “Shh!” Isla gestured to the floor. “Yes. He does. And you can imagine how Len reacted to that information.”

  Zoe pulled a face. “Not well, I expect.”

  Isla sighed. “I didn’t mean to tell him. Ethan has listed his piano in the auction, and I got upset, and I didn’t want to tell him the truth. How could I, Zo? Ethan was a client.”

  “Not just a client,” Zoe said softly. “And as much as you like to think you’re little miss subtle, Isla, I’m sure even Len will have picked up on that.”

  “Maybe. But my god, Zo...a baby. And my mum…” Isa’s voice cracked.

  Zoe shook her head. “Don’t even go there.”

  “What do you mean?” Isla frowned at her.

  “You’re not her, Isla.”

  “Really? Because from where I’m standing, it feels like it.”

  “Does it? Or is that just what you want to believe?”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  Zoe sighed. “That maybe it’s easier for you to believe there was something fatalistic about all of this. That history was doomed to repeat itself, that no matter what you did, you were always going to follow in your mum’s footsteps. But it isn’t true, and you know it.”

  Isla considered what she’d said for a moment. “Maybe not, but it doesn’t change the situation. I’m still pregnant, and alone. And depending on the conversation happening downstairs right now between Tim and Len, I might soon be unemployed, and homeless too.”

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “Len would never do that to you. Stop making it sound worse than it is.”

  “It’s already pretty bad.”

  “Yes, you’re pregnant. But you have options. What do you want to do?”

  It was the same question she’d asked herself every hour since she’d found out, but it wasn’t until Zoe voiced it out loud that she realised she knew the answer.

  Isla took a deep breath and met Zoe’s eyes. “I’m having the baby.”

  Zoe blinked. “Oh my god, Isla.”

  “I know.”

  “And Ethan? What does he say?”

  Isla bit her lip and looked away.

  “You haven’t told him?” Zoe guessed, but there was no reproach in her voice.

  Isla looked back to her friend and shook her head. “Not yet.”

  Zoe sipped her wine. “But you’re going to...right?”

  “Yes, of course. I mean...I think so.”

  One of Zoe’s eyebrows curved. “You think so?”

  “What if he doesn’t want to know, Zo? What if he’s like the man who fathered me, what if he doesn’t care?”

  “You already know that isn’t true,” Zoe said softly. She set her glass down on the table.

  “He broke up with me!” Isla pointed out.

  “And you let him!”

  “What do you mean, I let him? I didn’t exactly have a choice!”

  Zoe didn’t look convinced. “He told you he still loved his dead ex, and you accepted it.”

  “What the hell else was I supposed to do?” Isla threw her arms in the air.

  “Do you think Ethan MacRae loves you?” Zoe’s voice was quiet, and level, unlike Isla’s emotions, which were all over the place.

  “I don’t know.”

  “He said he did,” Zoe reminded her.

  “He said a lot of things.”

  Zoe sighed. “Isla, you’re having his baby. Now, granted I may have only met the guy once, but from what you’ve told me, he has some pretty major issues, and the night he broke up with you was not only his birthday but the anniversary of him losing both his sight and his girlfriend. Not to mention, his friend had just been in an accident eerily similar. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine what that might do to a person.”

  “I know that. God, do you think I didn’t think of that already? But when I told him that I could see that he was trying to push me away, that’s when he dropped the bombshell. That’s when he told me-” Isla broke off.

  “The one thing he knew would break your heart, and keep you at a distance?” Zoe finished softly. “Impeccable timing, hey?”

  Isla clapped a hand to her mouth. No. Surely not?

  “And it’s worked, hasn’t it?” Zoe said. “You accepted it as truth. Because it was what you were gearing up for all along.”

  Isla shook her head. “No, you’re wrong. I never wanted this.”

  “Of course you didn’t. But you expected it, right? You expected to have your heart broken? Because it f
it your world view. Your entire life your mum has told you that’s what men do. They break your heart, and they leave. They choose another woman over you, and you’re stuck holding their baby. But Isla, that was her story, and those were her choices. This-” Zoe gestured to Isla’s stomach, “-is yours.”

  “I have to talk to him,” Isla said, as the realisation hit her.

  “Yes, you do,” Zoe agreed.

  “But, I mean, right now.” Isla was already pulling on her coat.

  Zoe lifted Isla’s car keys from the table and held them out to her. “I know.”

  Forty Four

  Rosehill lay in darkness, a solitary grey fortress stamped against the inky sky, every single mullioned window was dark, with one exception. A glimmer of yellow light shone from the tower window.

  Isla swallowed. Her gloveless hands cramped from gripping the steering wheel, and her breath fogged the windshield. She brought the car to a standstill on the empty moonlit drive and turned the engine off. This was it.

  Outside the air was still. The steps up to the main doors already glittered with frost. Isla pulled her key from her coat pocket and slipped it into the lock, her breath hitching in her throat. From the direction of Rose Wood came an unearthly shriek that chilled the blood in her veins.

  A fox, that was all.

  But the hairs on Isla’s neck prickled, and she shoved hard against the heavy door, stumbling through it. She locked the door behind her, pocketing the key.

  No going back. She’d come here for the truth, and she wasn’t leaving without it.

  Isla moved slowly down the dark corridor towards the study. She passed the open doors of the ballroom, the space once again a dark, empty cavern, and a trickle of fear snaked down her spine.

  Something was off. Isla couldn’t say what, but a feeling gnawed at her gut and stopped her from calling out, to let Ethan know she was there. Ahead, the study door stood ajar, a faint glow slicing through the gap into the thick black of the corridor. Isla crept towards it, her heart hammering. She was nervous, that was all. Understandable, given what she’d come here to say.

  She pushed the door open, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw the faint glow of the fire and a pair of worn boots sticking out from one of the armchairs.

  “Ethan. It’s me, Isla. Before you say anything, before you tell me to go, I want you to know something. I’m pregnant.” Isla bit down on her lip, tasting blood. Her words hung in the dim air. The only light came from the dying embers in the grate.

  Isla frowned at the cooling ashes, the sense of wrongness returning, but then the feet of the armchair scraped against the floor, and her attention shifted to Ethan as he unfolded himself from the chair. At once, the niggling in her gut turned to a wrench. The size, the shape, the clothes...everything was wrong.

  A stranger turned to face her. “You shouldn’t have come back.”

  His black hair was cropped close to his head, and his complexion was ghostly pale. His clothes looked expensive but dirty and rumpled, and there was something wild and unnerving about his green eyes.

  Isla’s heart stopped, and she took a step backwards. “Who are you?” But even as she said it, recognition was dawning on her. “Wait, I’ve seen you before...in the old nursery. That was you.” The creepy workman.

  He didn’t deny it, but something still niggled at Isla- a sense that she’d missed something. She narrowed her eyes, and conjured an image, not of him in scruffy work clothes, but in a sharp tuxedo, holding a glass of champagne, his face unlined, his hair falling into his eyes. Isla gasped. He was the other guy in the photo she’d found of Ethan and Briony! But why would a figure from Ethan’s past be here now, and where was Ethan?

  “Who are you, really?”

  “My name’s Anthony. I’m Ethan’s best friend.”

  Isla frowned in disbelief. What?

  He cocked his head. “You look confused,” he said, taking a step forward.

  Isla took a step backwards reflexively.

  “Still haven’t worked it out have you?” He tutted. “And I thought you were supposed to be clever. Here, maybe this will jog your memory-”

  He reached one hand back to the armchair, and what he produced stilled the blood in Isla’s veins so suddenly, she thought she might pass out. He lifted it to his face, and Isla stared in horror at the jeering face of a court jester.

  “I did warn you, Isla.” He dropped the mask, and Isla felt a marginal flicker of relief beneath the adrenaline screeching through her body.

  “But...why?” Isla asked the one thing she still didn’t understand.

  “I wanted you to know who you were getting involved with, but you wouldn’t see it. You refused to see it. So I had to make you.”

  In the distance, the cellar door banged. Ethan. He had no idea what he was walking into, Isla realised. Neither had she, but it was too late for her now, the least she could do was warn him. She opened her mouth to call out, but too late, a hand clamped across her mouth. Anthony’s skin was rough against her lips and had a chemical-sweet smell that made Isla feel lightheaded from fumes, and recognition. Petrol.

  Isla yanked her head back, but Anthony only gripped her face tighter, his fingertips pressing into her jaw.

  “Not. One. Word,” he hissed into her ear.

  Isla listened helplessly as Ethan’s footsteps moved up the stairs, slow and steady.

  “Just time for a quick shower,” Anthony murmured. “And then I think we’ll join him upstairs. What do you think?” He spun Isla around, his hand slipping from her mouth, but before she could scream, she caught sight of the gun.

  Ethan’s gun. In Anthony’s hand.

  Isla’s mouth went dry. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

  “You genuinely don’t know, do you?” Anthony sounded amazed. “I knew he wouldn’t tell you, but I assumed you’d figure it out eventually.”

  “But, I saw a picture. You were friends…” Isla’s voice cracked.

  Anthony’s expression darkened. “We were. Best friends.”

  “So, what happened?” She wanted to keep him talking. Keep him here in the lit study. Keep him away from Ethan. Keep the gun away from Ethan.

  “He took something from me. Something I can never get back.” Anthony’s dark eyes flashed.

  A sudden wave of nausea rolled over Isla, and she was almost afraid to ask her next question, already knowing what the answer would be. Briony. It had to be. The three of them had been friends, but surely he couldn’t blame Ethan? Not when Ethan had lost her too.

  “What?” Isla forced out, in a hoarse whisper. “What did he take?”

  “My bride.”

  “Your...what?” Isla shook her head. “You don’t mean...Briony?”

  A flicker of surprise crossed Anthony’s face but was quickly replaced by something darker, that made Isla instantly regret saying her name out loud.

  Anthony lifted the gun and pointed it towards her. “So, you do know.”

  Isla swallowed, her eyes flicking from the barrels of the gun to Anthony’s face, and back again. “I know she was in the car with Ethan. I know she died, but I thought…” but Isla didn’t dare say what she’d thought, not when Anthony stood before her, aiming a shotgun at her heart.

  “You thought what?”

  Isla shook her head.

  Anthony’s expression darkened. “You thought she was his?”

  Isla didn’t deny it. How could she? That was exactly what she’d thought. Only now was she beginning to see how wrong she’d been. About everything.

  “We were engaged. She was mine. And he took her, and killed her.”

  “But, it was an accident.”

  Anthony’s nostrils flared. “If you believe that you’re an even bigger idiot than I took you for.”

  Isla’s mouth fell open. “So it was you...you sent the note, you locked me in the tower...the traps in the wood...” Isla trailed off as her mind scrambled to rearrange the events of the last three months to accommodate this new infor
mation.

  “Yes, it was me. It’s been me all along, trying to warn you, trying to make you see what you refused to see. Ethan MacRae is beyond redemption, and he should pay for what he did, not be rewarded with estates,” Anthony gestured around vaguely, “and friendship, and love.” Anthony spat the word out like it had a bad taste.

  Isla opened her mouth but quickly closed it again. Even she could see the risk in arguing with someone who held a gun.

  Anthony noticed though, and his eyebrows raised. “Don’t tell me that even now, knowing the truth, you’d still defend him?”

  Isla pressed her lips together as tightly as though they’d been sewn shut.

  “You would, wouldn’t you? You’d stand there, and try to tell me that he was a good person, a changed man.” Anthony shook his head.

  Isla daren’t even breathe, for fear he’d misconstrue it as loyalty to Ethan.

  “He’s a murderer. Just as surely as if he’d held a gun to her head. Briony wanted to come back to me, I know she did, and he couldn’t bear it. The jealousy ate at him until finally, he had to act on it. She would never have got in that car with him if she’d known the truth. She was a smart girl. Not like you. Why did I even bother trying to warn you away? It was clear that you were a lost cause from the start.”

  “He hasn’t forgiven himself,” Isla blurted. “He probably never will. It affects him in ways you can only imagine. I’m not making excuses for him. I’m just telling you. If you think he hasn’t already been punished, then you should know- you’re wrong. It haunts him every day.”

  The minute the words were out of her mouth Isla wished she could take them back. Anthony stepped towards her, bringing the shotgun barrels within inches of her body.

  “It haunts him every day?” he repeated her words between gritted teeth. His expression was wild, and Isla squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting his face to be the last thing she saw before she died since she was certain that’s where this was heading.

  “He was going to be my best man.”

  Isla opened one eye in time to catch the ripple of anguish that passed over Anthony’s features.

  “I’m sor-” Isla’s words were cut off by Anthony jabbing the gun barrels against her chest.