500 Miles from You (Scottish Bookshop #3)(80)

THE CURVACEOUS WOMAN with the thick spectacles and the tightly pulled back hair barely gave the man in the flowery shirt who held the door open for her a second glance as she marched toward it, head down, anxious beyond belief about what was coming.

Cormac didn’t notice the woman either; he had meant to look around for someone who might be Lissa, but his phone had rung just as he was walking in. He recognized the number, grimaced, and picked up.

“Hi!” came the English-sounding voice. “Is that the lifesaver?”

Cormac frowned. “Larissa, hi.”

“Hi! Listen, darling, beautiful day, we’ve got lunch booked on the roof of Coq d’Argent. It’s beautiful and you’ll be able to save anyone that falls off it. See you there, yah?”

Cormac passed the door to the girl behind him, who took it with muted thanks and dived past the annoying man walking too slowly in a flowery shirt.

“I’m a bit busy today,” he said quite happily.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, darling, we’ll be there all afternoon. Ciao!”

But Cormac’s thoughts were still on a laughing girl with tumbling curls. Plus, he had realized to his slight annoyance that he was absolutely miles too early—bursting, truly, from turning up, too excited and over the top—and was contemplating going back out again to find another coffee, but then he’d have had far too much caffeine and that really wasn’t an ideal situation for meeting someone either, so he decided to go fill up his water bottle from somewhere and sit and stare out at the passing boats and, hopefully, calm the crap down before he ruined everything.





Chapter 62


“Are you ready?” Roisin asked. “You do know this is a murder trial?”

“Why isn’t it manslaughter?” said Lissa.

“Because we have evidence the defendant thought Kai was a gang member from a rival group, even though he wasn’t. It was mistaken identity, but we’re fairly clear it was deliberate. Kai was the youngest of his friends; he was only fifteen. They thought he was a runner. He wasn’t. The driver never meant to get caught, but he did mean to do it.”

Lissa thought again of the car speeding up. Speeding up. This was worse—not a hideous accident, but a deliberate attempt to extinguish a young life. The wrong life. It was almost unbearable.

Lissa took a deep breath and bent her head to the paper. The words swam in front of her eyes.

“. . . I saw the car swing round the corner and mount the curb . . .”

She saw the boy again, his phone glinting as it was thrown up and fell, thrown up and fell, spinning in the sunlight

“. . . and when I got to him . . .”

She remembered the trickle of blood dripping down from the side of his mouth; the shouts and yells of the rest of them chasing the car down; the cries and the shrieking of brakes and the drip drip drip of the blood.

Blindly panicking, unable to breathe, her heart trying to burst out of her chest, she stood up, leaving everything behind her, and ran out of the room.





Chapter 63


Cormac wandered back into the courthouse, figuring he needed to use the bathroom and surely the case would be starting soon. He was still annoyed at how restless he felt. When someone pushed past him . . .

It was a flash, nothing more; he didn’t catch sight of the person . . .

He dismissed it as the fact that he had curly hair on his mind, but then it struck him, as the figure dashed past in a blur, ringlets bouncing out of their tight band, that she might well be here by now, and by the time his heart had suddenly dialed up to a hundred miles an hour and he’d turned around, there was a loud bang, and he realized that the figure had disappeared into the disabled toilet and locked the door behind her.

AH. NOW HERE was a thing. Lurking around the loo was . . . Cormac tried to think of a worse possible way to meet Lissa for the first time—if it even was her; it might just have been his mind playing tricks. How would he even know?

The corridor was empty and he backed away carefully, concerned at the loudness of the bang she had made and the speed she’d been running. Whoever it was, she was clearly upset.

He took out his phone and was about to text her, then he put it away again. If it wasn’t her, it would be very weird. If it was, saying “have you locked yourself in the toilet right now?” was hardly going to come over well.

He was about to go over to the courtroom, check if he could see her there, when he heard a noise coming from the door. Just a sob. The tiniest little sob.

Cormac stopped in his tracks. Whether it was her or whether it wasn’t . . . someone was really upset. And it just wasn’t in him not to pay attention to that.

He went over to the door and knocked gently.

LISSA FROZE. SHE had tried to keep quiet, but it was almost impossible; the lump in her throat was overwhelming. Oh God. She couldn’t believe it. Someone needed in. She was gasping for breath, didn’t know what to do. She tried to calm herself down.

“Um . . .” Cormac listened. He could hear heavy breaths. If she was genuinely having a panic attack, adding an extra stressor by identifying himself was probably the worst thing he could do. If it even was her.

Lissa put her hands on her knees, tried to suck in some air. “Just a minute,” she managed weakly.

She straightened up slowly, trying to breathe properly. She didn’t recognize her face in the mirror. She was being ridiculous. This was nuts. She had to go and do this. She had to . . . she had to . . .