by Rebecca King
Justin, taken aback by Phillip’s vehemence, lifted his brows. His lips twitched as he shared knowing looks with his married colleagues. They all recognised the tenseness and concern of Phillip’s, the need to protect the women in their care no matter what the cost to themselves as men or investigators.
Shaking his head, Justin rose and crossed the room but only to clap Phillip on the shoulder. ‘She cannot stay with us, my friend. She must go to one of the other teams. You are the star witness who has seen this killer. He is the one we must go after now. The local team can look after her while we conclude the Smidgley investigation. They can also speak to this father of hers and make sure he knows the law.’ Justin threw a concerned look at Oliver when he felt the tension that positively thrummed through Phillip.
‘She will hate me,’ Phillip moaned. He knew it was wise to do what his friends suggested but everything within him screamed at him that it was the very last thing he should allow to happen.
‘You have only just met her, Phillip’ Justin warned. ‘Does it really matter what she thinks of you?’
‘She saved me,’ Phillip warned. ‘She didn’t throw me out of the house when she could have. If she had I would have run into that killer and would probably have been murdered myself. When I reached the Cliff House, I found her hiding but also living in fear. Despite all the problems she is facing she was there for me when I thought all of you had died. I knew that if I got back here and found your horses the chances were that you had all been killed. Carlotta was there for me. She made me put one foot in front of the other when I wanted to stop. She made me think logically when I was too stunned to think clearly. I can’t betray her by just handing her over to the last man she wants to see. I just can’t.’
‘Then you both have to stay here, out of sight,’ Aaron replied.
‘I am not going to hide away in here like some frightened rabbit,’ Phillip snapped.
‘She needs protecting. She trusts you,’ Oliver argued. ‘If you want her to stay then she is your responsibility to look after.’
Phillip saw the look Oliver shared with Callum. ‘I am not going to end up like you two.’
Callum grinned. ‘Are you sure about that? You already know that you cannot let her go and that is after just one day. Think what you are going to be like in a week from now.’
Oliver nodded. ‘Just keep her safe and we will deal with her father when or if he arrives. While she is here we need to decide what to do with her in the longer term, though. I mean, none of us can stay here. Our investigation is nearly over. We are all ready to spend a bit of time with our wives and families. We all need to move on, including Carlotta. What you need to focus on is where she should move on to when we leave,’ Oliver warned.
Phillip nodded.
Callum sighed. ‘I can’t wait for a few weeks at home. I don’t know about all of you, but I need to spend a bit of time with my wife before she refuses to allow me back into the house.’
Everyone grinned, except Phillip who gazed thoughtfully into the fire. He didn’t have anybody waiting for him in his rather cold and unwelcoming lodgings in London. As he sat amongst his friends, he had to wonder if it was time that he started to make a few changes in his life as well. After all, from the looks on their faces now, none of them regretted marrying.
‘This investigation has brought us all changes, some good and some bad. We are so close to resolving this investigation that I can almost smell it. But last night we all came too close to losing it all. I, for one, don’t intend to ever allow myself to get caught out like that again,’ Niall announced.
‘Are you planning on retiring, old man?’ Oliver growled with a small frown.
‘No. I just want to spend a bit more time at home. At the time I heard about them being set up I couldn’t see why any of the men would want to join the local teams, but after last night I want to spend more time with my wife. I stared death in the face and barely got out alive,’ Niall murmured. ‘One thing I do know is that I cannot keep chasing around the country after criminals. I have too much to lose at home.’
‘You are going to join a local team?’ Phillip asked. It wasn’t really a question. The certainty was written on Niall’s face.
‘I understand that Sir Hugo is contemplating setting up a new team in Kent. I think it would be nice to live around here. It is not a bad place to be. I know the children would love the beaches and sea.’
‘Children?’ Phillip’s brows shot up.
Niall grinned suddenly; a wide, open grin that made everyone smile and congratulate him.
‘It’s not a bad place to be,’ Phillip agreed. ‘I might join you.’
The men smiled. Some nodded.
‘Look, before we all get too carried away thinking about our wives and children, let’s look at getting this investigation done. Phillip, you are to watch your charge. The rest of us need to go after those thugs now that we have our horses.’
‘Yes, that reminds me. Why in the Hell did you leave them behind?’
Oliver sighed. ‘Because we re-grouped when the thugs retreated and then realised nobody had seen you for an age. We set out on foot to find you, but nobody could. Then we realised that the thugs were gathering on the outskirts of the village and so decided to disappear ourselves. If we had taken the horses, or moved them, we would have been visible. The last thing we could do was risk another gun battle in that village, it has been shot to bits already. We reluctantly made the decision to leave the horses where they were and disappear. We have been scouring the area for you, following trails and the kind to try to find which way you went. Then you turned up.’
‘Having found yourself a delightful young woman on the way,’ Callum mused.
Phillip shook his head. ‘I am not going to marry her.’
‘I never said you were going to,’ Callum grinned.
Phillip swore at him. ‘I am not going to marry her,’ he protested again, a little louder.
‘Nobody mentioned marriage,’ Jasper smirked.
Cursing them all, Phillip helped himself to some pie and bit into it. He knew when to just let his friends tease and get on with it. What he didn’t let them see was just how much he was contemplating it. Marriage to someone he had only known a day was a foolish thing to even consider. However, Phillip knew that he didn’t have forever to make his mind up if he was interested in her enough to even try to forge a relationship with her. The clock was ticking.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Carlotta listened to the conversation in the kitchen. While she wasn’t paying much attention to what was said, she was listening to make sure the voices didn’t get any louder as she tiptoed through the house. Her heart was pounding by the time she reached the hallway. She eyed the front door but knew that if she opened it the draft would alert the men to what she was doing. Quietly entering the parlour at the base of the stairs, she closed the door behind her before hurrying toward the windows. Sliding one window up, she dropped a leg out of the window and eased into the cold night air. She shivered when a gentle breeze snatched the warmth off her skin and replaced it with a bone deep weariness, but she knew she couldn’t stay.
Turning to look at the inky blackness of the night was daunting. Everything that had kept her safe thus far remained in the house behind her. Unfortunately, so did her personal possessions, or some of them. The rest were in Cliff House. They were the things she hadn’t deemed necessary when she had left, but they were now important to her because they were all she had. Phillip had the rest, tucked safety beside his chair next to the fire.
‘I need food, something to keep me warm, and anything I can carry with me and use while I sort out what I am going to do next.’ Squaring her shoulders, Carlotta forced herself to ignore the niggling doubts and worry that began to plague her and stepped into the night.
Once free of the garden, she started to run. Carlotta waited for that fateful shout that would stop her flight. She tried not to allow panic to nip at her heels and make her do something rash
, but it was difficult when all she wanted to do was get away only to find that she couldn’t run fast enough. Her mind raced in several different directions as she tried to see through the encroaching darkness to the ground beneath her feet, so she didn’t fall over. Everything was starting to become blurred in a dark haze of nightfall that was eerily quiet. It was so still that all she could hear was the hammering of her own heart and the thump, thump, thump, of her feet hitting the hard soil. She was exhausted but refused to slow down. Eventually, she reached the thicket at the far corner of the field beyond the house only to stare in dismay at the mile upon mile of open countryside lying beyond it.
‘Now what?’ Carlotta gasped as she tried to remember the route they had taken to reach the safe house. ‘We went around the house so many times I cannot remember. Maybe that was Phillip’s plan. It wasn’t to make sure the house was safe. It was to confuse me so I don’t know where I am and will struggle to escape.’
Because of that, she threw one last dark glare at the safe house before turning her back on it, and Phillip, for good. Carlotta began to march in the direction of the sea. At least, she hoped it was because if the sea wasn’t where she expected it to be it was going to be a very long night indeed.
Phillip took the heavily laden plate off Justin and turned to the door. ‘I won’t be long.’
Nobody spoke as he quietly left the room. He suspected he already knew what they were going to discuss once he had left; his connection to Carlotta and whether it might lead to something more. Phillip wanted to deny it might, but he was also aware that all his colleagues had recently found wives and were happily married. It was only natural that they would all now turn to Phillip with the expectation that it wouldn’t be long before he also fell into the parson’s trap. He knew he should deny it was possible, and object to being linked to Carlotta, but what struck him as most disturbing was his stringent rejection of any possibility of Carlotta being forced to return to her father. He found the prospect so offensive that he knew he was going to do whatever it took to make sure it didn’t happen.
‘There are far too many questions that remain unanswered for me to just turn around and walk away. I know that if I should try, I would just regret it and probably end up trying to find her just to get the matter resolved in my mind,’ Phillip grumbled as he stomped up the stairs.
Tapping quietly on the bed chamber door, he waited. Tipping his head, Phillip listened for movement inside. Pursing his lips, he tapped a little louder. When he still didn’t get any response, Phillip nudged the door open, poked his head into the room, and squinted through the gloom at the mound in the middle of the bed.
‘Carlotta?’ he murmured.
Stepping into the room, Phillip knew immediately that something was wrong.
‘Carlotta?’ he called a little louder.
Stepping closer, he eased the blanket away from the lump and cursed fluidly when he found himself staring at a pillow, which had been tucked beneath a blanket in a poor attempt at creating a makeshift body. Spinning around, Phillip bent down to check under the bed and every corner of the room but deep in his gut he knew that Carlotta had already gone.
Racing down the hallway, he slammed into every room and bellowed her name. His heart pounded as he thundered down the stairs only to be met at the bottom by his colleagues.
‘She must have left while we were talking,’ Phillip growled.
‘How? How did she get out?’ Justin demanded.
‘It is where she has gone that is the worry,’ Phillip spat. He raced into the kitchen, yanked his jacket and cloak on, and bolted out of the house.
His colleagues began to search the house and outbuildings. Phillip knew they weren’t going to find anything. He eyed her bed chamber window and tried to think of the various routes she could have taken to get out because it would point him toward the direction she had taken.
‘There are footprints beneath the parlour window,’ Jasper announced when the empty-handed men had converged in the yard.
‘Did you tell her how much danger she might be in if she tried to leave?’ Justin demanded.
Phillip tried to think but his worry for her refused to allow him to think properly. ‘We did discuss how much of a danger the killer posed to us. He shot at us while we were escaping the woods. She knows it isn’t safe to be wandering around out here by herself.’
Oliver placed his hands on his hips and sighed heavily. ‘Of course, you do realise that we have nothing to prove that she isn’t working for Smidgley’s lot, don’t you?’
He hated to say it because he knew that Phillip had a connection with the stunning young woman already, whether he realised it or not. Oliver recognised that vagueness in Phillip’s eyes whenever he had to think about the investigation. He knew Phillip struggled to concentrate because of his feelings for Carlotta. Oliver also recognised Phillip’s pressing need to protect the woman he cared about, no matter what the cost to his sanity because he had gone through the same with his wife, Emmeline.
‘We have to remember that we know so little about her,’ Oliver warned quietly.
‘Why would she lie about her father?’ Phillip snapped, instantly rejecting that possibility.
‘You told her who you were, didn’t you? Don’t you think it odd that she was alone in a house like that? Who let her stay there? Whose house is it? Why would she be there? Those woods are otherwise occupied by Smidgley’s men. Do you really think they would allow her, a single, young, and very beautiful woman, to stay there unchaperoned, alone, while they were nearby? They are killers. She is a vulnerable witness to their presence. She is lucky she wasn’t murdered earlier.’
‘Do you think they came after her when they had collected the horses not to get Phillip but to fetch her?’ Aaron asked.
Phillip shook his head. He went from frustrated, panicked, and horrified, to annoyed, frustrated, and then downright livid. He wanted to find her but only so he could rattle the truth out of her and refute all his colleague’s suggestions. It was difficult to decide what he was going to do when or if he found out she had betrayed him and did indeed work with Smidgley’s hired guns. The idea was so horrible to even contemplate that Phillip forced himself to focus on nothing more than finding her. He wanted to be angry with his friends for doubting her. He wanted to hate them for doubting her, but he couldn’t.
‘I never questioned your judgement when it came to your wives,’ he growled at them all.
Everyone paused.
‘I have spent the most time with her. I know you are wise to be wary, but I have spent time with that woman and know her better than you,’ Phillip growled. ‘She isn’t lying about her age, her father, the thugs, or why she is in that house, I am sure of it. You doubt her if you must. Don’t bother to try to find her if you think she is going to betray you. I shall go by myself and shall protect her by myself.’
With that, Phillip stormed off but only so he could fetch his horse. His friends stood in stunned silence behind him but Phillip didn’t stop to even glance in their direction. He was mad, at himself, at Carlotta, at them, at Smidgley and his thugs, at the murderer who had killed the Star Elite’s nemesis. Moreover, he was mad at Carlotta’s father for forcing Carlotta out of the house she should still be living in.
But if he hadn’t I wouldn’t have met her.
Now that he had, Phillip wasn’t at all sure what to do with her. What he did know was that he couldn’t just leave her to face the night alone while a killer was still wandering loose. The truth about her situation would come about eventually, and whatever unfolded, he would do the right thing to make sure she stayed alive, safe, and had a future. Whether that was with him or not was something that would only reveal itself in time.
‘There is only one set of footprints,’ Justin murmured when he caught up with Phillip while he was saddling his horse.
‘It’s madness to simply run from here when she knows there are hired thugs after her,’ Angus growled as he threw the saddle onto his horse and q
uickly cinched it.
Phillip’s tension eased with the appearance of each of his colleagues who, duly chastised, had decided to stop voicing their doubts and help him. For that he was grateful, for now at least.
‘I told you she was adamant she wouldn’t return to her father. She must have heard us talking and realised we were going to hand her over to her father anyway, or some other random strangers, so took her chances out there somewhere. We – I - have to find her,’ Phillip snarled as he swung into his saddle and wheeled his horse around.
‘We have got to find her,’ Niall bit out. ‘Before Smidgley’s lot do. We are calling them Smidgley’s lot, but they have been hired by this unnamed killer who Smidgley hired. Look at what they did to Smidgley. I know you don’t trust her, Oliver, but we have no reason to doubt her honesty right now. You didn’t doubt Emmeline. Angus didn’t doubt Charity. Don’t expect Phillip to doubt Carlotta just because of what happened to us last night. It isn’t fair on either of them.’
‘Damn it all to Hell. Can we just stop talking about it and get out there and find her?’ Callum snapped.
‘We stick together,’ Oliver warned. He turned to Angus. ‘Go and see if you can find those prints again. Follow them if you can. The ground is dry so they might be undisturbed. We just need the direction she has gone in, that’s all. We can catch her because she is on foot.’
While Angus hurried off, the rest of the men mounted their horses and joined Phillip in the yard.
‘What’s left?’ Oliver demanded with a nod to the safe house behind them.
‘Just food and a few bits,’ Niall replied.
‘Get them. We won’t be back,’ Oliver ordered. He hurried into the barn and fetched a few things they used for the horses. When they had been put into the saddle bags, the men fetched the few remaining personal belongings from the house. Within minutes the trail had been found and the men were packed and ready to go. ‘Right, gentlemen, let’s go and close this investigation down, shall we?’