Mrs. McKenzie noticed. “Lost your keys?”
“Lost my bag.” Mrs. McKenzie would keep her talking all morning if she didn’t cut her off now. “You’ll have to excuse me but I was just going to have a lie down—”
Mrs. McKenzie waved a dismissive hand. “Here, let me.” She seized the key and opened the door and, without invitation, barged into the hallway.
Eliza paused, and took a deep breath to hide the irritation. Just count to ten. She’d reached three when Mrs. McKenzie spoke again.
“I see you still haven’t finished packing up your grandmother’s things yet?”
Eliza peeked around the door. It wasn’t all that bad… Packing boxes piled five high and tilting like Pisa. She squeezed past her neighbour, bashing her shin against the bottom box. The cardboard tower swayed, and before she could stop it, the boxes of wrapped ceramics tumbled across the floor like broken Lego. Eliza rubbed her leg and hitched up the hem of her soiled uniform. A small bruise had already turned her skin a darkened shade of pink.
“Oh dear. I guess that’s a few less boxes you need to worry about,” Mrs. McKenzie began. “Still, your grandmother had an awful lot of clutter. Never liked to throw anything out, that one.”
Eliza bit her lip and watched her neighbour’s intrusive stare scan the rest of the knickknacks and photos that remained on show.
“I’m surprised you’re not staying with your father until the house is sorted – especially after the traumatic evening you had last night.”
“How do you know about that?”
Mrs. McKenzie cocked her head to one side. “I bumped into Agnes. She hears and sees everything, that one.”
Her red varnished nails curled around the dish Eliza held, and seized it. “Tell you what, I’ll just pop this in your refrigerator, dear.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
Eliza didn’t bother to move from the doorway. She didn’t want Mrs. McKenzie in her kitchen, or in her refrigerator for that matter, but the woman was going to do what she wanted. Best let her see the refrigerator was almost bare and be done with it.
Eliza rubbed her knee again, the newly formed bruise turning purple before her eyes. She blew on it, hoping it would somehow mask the ache. It didn’t. “Actually, I really need to get out of these clothes and take a bath.”
“I won’t keep you long, my dear...”
Eliza let her mind drift. The red light on the answer machine flashed impatiently, and Eliza hit play. Mrs. McKenzie continued to rabbit on in the kitchen, and it didn’t seem to matter that Eliza no longer listened. The machine beeped and announced a message had been left little more than an hour earlier. Then Billy’s voice stating her father had called him and he was super angry. He finished saying he’d pop by later tonight to check on her.
Eliza’s stomach knotted. No doubt he’d bring a curry and a bottle of wine, and a million more reasons she should believe him about dad.
She loved her brother more than anything, but that was something she just could not stomach. Not tonight.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tiredness had come and gone.
Eliza stood at the kitchen door, the ceramic mug hot in her hands, and blew on the liquid. Circles rippled across the surface, but she didn’t attempt to drink any of the steaming tea. Mrs. McKenzie had jabbered on about food and packing boxes for over forty minutes before Eliza finally had to ask her to leave, and by the time the bath had filled with water, Eliza had fallen asleep on the bed. She woke to find the tub overflowing, and water fast on its way towards the landing. She thought about just leaving it there and letting Billy mop it up when he arrived. He was trying to get her on side after all, and by his reckoning this would have scored him some major brownie points and earned him another shot at convincing her of Dad’s murderous crimes. Instead Eliza spent most of the afternoon cleaning up, and then left a message for Billy at the station saying she was tired and not to come round.
Outside, the afternoon sky had turned gloomy and dark, and torrential rain beat down upon slate rooftops and gushed into the gutter. It was a dramatic change from the earlier heatwave the South of England had experienced, and one the forecasters definitely hadn’t seen coming. At first, Eliza welcomed the change in weather. In her garden, the flowers had looked wilted as they sat in the dehydrated earth, and a good downpour was just what the ground needed. But now, saturated mud and excess water slid down from the hills and puddled the patio, bringing with it a whole heap of new problems.
The musical tones of the wind chime sung in the air. Eliza loved to hear the breeze dance its way through the metal pipes. Her grandmother used to say the sound of the wind chime denoted the arrival of bad spirits and other diabolical evils. Eliza reinterpreted that to be a warning against heinous men. The memory brought a smile to Eliza’s lips, but the movement caused the dull ache at the back of her head to intensify. She grabbed two aspirin from the counter, popped them into her mouth, and lifted the mug to her lips. Its warmth moistened the tip of her nose and scalded her tongue, and she jerked the mug away. Tea sloshed over the edge, splashing across her hand and covering her white T-shirt.
“Shit.” She slammed the mug down on the counter. The handle broke away and the sharp ceramic sliced her thumb. “Shit. Shit.”
Blood seeped from the slit at a slow pace. The cut wasn’t deep, but it stung like hell. She grabbed the tea towel, dabbed at her hand, and then at her T-shirt. But the more she wiped the mark dry, the more prominent the stain became. It was official. Eliza had become her grandmother. Whether gravy from a Sunday roast or chocolate from an ice cream flake, as far back as Eliza could remember, her gran always had one blemish or another dried into her clothes.
Giving up, Eliza threw the towel over the back of the chair. The rain showed little sign of easing, and as thunder grumbled across the ocean, the promise of a storm seemed evident. Eliza checked her watch, wishing she would feel tired again so she could catch an early night, but sleep was nowhere in sight. She rinsed out the handle-less cup and sat it on the drainer, staring at it for a moment. Memories from the previous evening emerged. Had she really broken that light bulb using the power of her mind? She stared harder at the cup, for what reason she wasn’t quite sure. To move it? To prove to herself that last night wasn’t a freak event? That she hadn’t imagined it?
She stared until the back of her eyes hurt.
The cup didn’t move.
What was she doing? Trying to recreate a scene from a Stephen King novel? Stress. That was what was wrong with her. And it was all Billy’s fault. Then again, her father’s suffocating hold around her life was also sending her a little nuts. Maybe moving out of his house and into her grandma’s wasn’t far enough. Maybe she had to put miles between herself and the two men in her life, rather than just streets.
Lightning flashed across the sky, followed moments later by the rumble of thunder. The kitchen light extinguished, leaving nothing but natural light streaming through the kitchen window, but even that grew bleaker by the second. Day turned to night before her eyes and she hesitated, unnerved and willing her eyes to hurry and adjust. Outside, the early arrival of the moon eclipsed the sun, the same halo of green she’d seen the night before orbing it. Rusty hinges creaked and groaned, and the back door slammed shut. On the wall behind, she just made out the door hook swinging from side to side.
Eliza stood rooted to the spot, the coldness of the floor now evident under her bare feet. Outside, the metal rods on the wind chime smashed together, losing all of their serenity. Lightning flared in the sky, briefly illuminating the kitchen before plunging it back into an even gloomier darkness. Gradually, the outline of familiar appliances began to materialise: the fridge, the sink, the oven. Eliza’s hand slid across the cold granite work-top and searched for a glass jar. Power cuts were frequent in Polperro, and her gran kept boxes of matches everywhere. Inside the jar, Eliza found the long-stemmed variety used to light the hob. One strike and the head fizzed to life, the smell
of sulphur lingering in the air long after the flame had calmed. It was a smell Eliza loathed.
The match burned down quicker than she liked, and she reached in to the cupboard beneath the sink, lighting a candle just as the flame singed her fingers.
An eruption of thunder followed, bellowing its way through the murky sky, and it was a few seconds before the sound of the rain could be heard once again.
Rain streamed from the brim of Roman’s baseball cap and flowed down his black overcoat. He was drenched, and could no longer see the suede of his Timberlands for soggy mud.
Lightning flashed across the sky, and for a brief moment both he and the inside of Eliza’s kitchen were visible. He’d seen the entire show. When the match burned her, he’d nearly laughed out loud. Eliza certainly wasn’t what he expected. In fact, he wondered why he bothered wasting any more time here at all. This girl wasn’t a Mind Mover. The old man had gotten it wrong thinking her blood was the key. She’d shown no strength or power while being attacked on the station platform, and she certainly didn’t display any here now. And yet the Shadow came for her. Why?
More to the point, why did Roman remain watching her?
He refused to believe it was because of guilt. He needed a conscience to feel guilt, and he’d shed that curse years ago. And it definitely wasn’t pity. Roman was the first to admit that apart from his beloved Jane, he had zero respect for women. And this girl didn’t resemble his Jane at all. Their looks, their mannerisms, every attribute was as far from one another as could be. Yet, every time he so much as thought of Eliza’s fate and the part he was to play in it, Jane appeared to him, and guilt – no, not guilt, this alien feeling that he was doing wrong, reared its ugly head. He needed to get his mind back in the game. Eliza was weak. But there was something else, something inside him that found her clumsy, half-witted behaviour oddly familiar and attractive. There was a stirring in his groin and, surprised, he shifted position.
Fuck this.
Roman took one last drag on his cigarette, readjusted his deflating manhood, and threw the butt on the floor. It hit the patio and bounced into a puddle, the ember glowing for a second before it fizzled out. He glanced back into the dark kitchen. He couldn’t ignore the feeling in his gut that this girl was important. The Shadow had failed in its quest to kill her last night, but if she was a Mind Mover and it caught the scent of her blood in the future, it would come for her again, more ferocious than ever, and not stop until it had obliterated her bloodline. If the Shadow killed her, Roman didn’t stand a chance of opening Heaven’s Gateway and reuniting with his Jane again. Preserving his own future overruled any sense of guilt… or whatever the fuck it was he felt. He pulled off his hat and tilted his head back towards the sky. Rain splashed against his face and he closed his eyes, letting the cool water refresh and invigorate him. He ruffled his hair, challenging the early evening breeze to un-clutter his mind.
He needed leverage.
He needed Eliza.
No woman could resist that sweet-arse charm of his. He’d be in Eliza’s house within two minutes and, with the pretense of dinner, have her in his car within five. The chloroform in his pocket would stop her from giving him any grief and, within half an hour, he’d have her tied up in the cabin and be negotiating with the old man. He almost felt sorry for the poor girl.
A burst of lightning brightened the room, and for a split second Eliza’s surroundings became visible. The lightning dispersed as quickly as it had arrived, but it was enough for Eliza to see her way to the fuse box.
The doorbell chimed and Eliza’s shoulders tensed.
Please, not Mrs. McKenzie again.
She hopped off the table and limped into the hall, avoiding the packing boxes as she went. Thunder boomed through the sky, and the hairs on the back of her neck spiked. She paused at the front door, and her fingers dropped from the handle. She leaned forward and pressed her eye to the peephole, seeing the silhouette of a man, head bowed, his baseball cap protecting his face from the torrential downpour – and from Eliza’s vision. The stone floor felt cold as she quickly hurried back into the kitchen. She rounded the table, not really knowing what she was looking for. Midway, she paused and slid a knife from a wooden block. It was small. No bigger than a potato peeler. Great, if I wanted a toothpick. She lowered the knife to the counter and grabbed a large carving knife. Perfect.
She turned back to the door.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The doorbell rang again, this time followed by an abundance of hammering.
Eliza’s stomach tightened. She reached for the door chain and slid it into the latch. “Who’s there?”
“I have your bag.”
A long sigh escaped Eliza’s lips, and the familiar tingle returned to the pit of her stomach. She opened the door and immediately rain blew through the five-inch gap the chain allowed and hit her in the face.
There he was, the man from last night. Hat held tight to his head, his totally inadequate jacket wet through. He held out her bag. His head tilted away from her, the rim of his cap still shadowing the majority of his face.
She wanted to say thank you, to invite him in out of the rain, to find out who the hell he was and if he could shed some light on what had happened the night before. Instead, she stood there and, under the low light from the flame, watched the raindrops trail his jawline and drip from his chin.
The man shifted feet and looked up. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?” He held out his hand.
Eliza didn’t shake it. “You’re from last night. Robert?…Raymond?…”
“Roman. Roman Holbrook.” What little light the nearby lamppost put out curled beneath the rim of his hat and lit his face. Wet eyelashes shaped his blue eyes, and when he spoke again she saw a faint scar curved one side of his mouth. “I also wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Do you know what happened last night?”
Roman lowered his hand. “I assumed you were being mugged.”
“That was no mugging.”
“Well, I don’t know what else to tell you other than I’m getting soaked out here.” He smiled and his blue eyes almost sparkled.
Eliza eyed him. Was he telling the truth? Was last night simply a mugging? “Why did you leave me?”
“I chased after the mugger. Got your bag.” He held out her black tote again. “By the time I got back, you were gone.”
“You ran off across the train tracks. I saw you.”
“Because that’s the way the attacker went.”
Eliza looked at the bag. It was far too big to fit through the narrow opening.
An awkward silence ensued. The man flicked up his collar, seemed to check his coat pocket, and glanced over his shoulder at the narrow lane behind him. For a split second he seemed tense or nervous, Eliza wasn’t sure which.
“Why didn’t you take my bag to the police?”
His brashness returned. “Would you prefer that? Because I can take it there right now.”
When Eliza didn’t respond, Roman turned from the door. He was halfway down the pathway when he stopped. “You know what, screw this. I thought I was doing you a favour bringing it here.”
He walked back to the door and dropped the bag on the doorstep. “Everything’s in there.” One last lingering stare, then he turned and walked away.
Eliza glanced down at her bag sitting on the doorstep, the rain trickling down the leather. Against her better judgement, she closed the door and slid the chain from the latch. When she reopened it Roman had made it as far as her front gate.
“Thank you.” Eliza picked up the bag.
Roman turned. “Does that thank you come with the offer of coffee?”
Eliza felt the knot in her stomach tighten further. A strange man in her house. What would her grandmother say? “Sure.”
Roman checked his watch and smiled. His swagger was evident even when he jogged the few feet back to her house. He entered the hallway and Eliza closed th
e door.
“Why is it so dark in here?”
“I’m on some kind of power-saving mission. Doing my bit for global warming?” The comment had sounded humorous inside her head.
Roman didn’t appear to appreciate her joke. He reached for her bag, his hand brushing against hers. An unexpected excitement fluttered inside Eliza’s stomach. Roman froze, as though he felt it too. He stared at her, his blue eyes looking just as surprised under the glow of candlelight. Then, he abruptly turned away and dropped the bag into the corner behind the front door.
Eliza waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, she said, “So, no coffee, but I have tea?”
“Tea’s good.”
She was aware he’d followed her through to the kitchen. He remained quiet while she felt her way to the sink and filled the kettle with water. “I have strange memories of last night.”
“Probably just shock.”
“Did you get a good look at the attacker? Because if you did, I’d appreciate you speaking to the police.” She refused to let his silence discourage her. “Maybe give them a description.”
“It was dark. I saw nothing that would help.”
“Anything would help, no matter how little.”
“I saw nothing.”
“Not even when you got my bag back?”
“The guy dropped it.” Legs scraped the floor as Roman pulled a chair out from under the table. He sat down. “Was long gone by the time I reached it.”
“But you saw it was a guy?”
“Figure of speech. Could just as well have been a woman.”
Eliza sat the kettle on its heating element. “What do you think I am?”
“Is that a trick question?”
“No. You asked if I was one of them.”
“One of what?”
Eliza eyed him. “You always answer a question with a question?”
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