Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2)(75)

‘It’s a magazine rack.’

‘There are no magazines on it.’

‘No. I don’t really read magazines.’

‘So she took the armchair, but left her magazine rack.’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Unbelievable.’ Carmen shook her head in mock disbelief. ‘Well, if you ever needed a sign that you’re better off without her, it’s sitting right there in your corner, magazine-less. What was her name?’

‘Rachel.’

‘And what went wrong?’

Falk looked at his plate. It wasn’t something he let himself think about too often. When he thought about her at all, the thing he remembered most was the way she used to smile. Right at the start, when things were still new. He refilled their glasses. ‘The usual. We just grew apart. She moved out. It was my fault.’

‘Yeah, I can believe that. Cheers.’ She raised her glass.

‘Excuse me?’ He almost laughed. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to say that.’

Carmen looked at him. ‘Sorry. But you’re a grown-up, you can take it. I just mean that you’re a decent bloke, Aaron. You listen, you seem to care, and you try to do the right thing by people. If you drove her to the point where she had to move out, it was on purpose.’

He was about to protest, then stopped. Could that be true?

‘She didn’t do anything wrong,’ he said finally. ‘She wanted things I felt I couldn’t really deliver.’

‘Like what?’

‘She wanted me to work a bit less, talk a bit more. Take some time off. Get married perhaps, I don’t know. She wanted me to try to work things out with my dad.’

‘Do you miss her?’

He shook his head. ‘Not anymore,’ he said truthfully. ‘But I sometimes think I should have listened to her.’

‘Maybe it’s not too late.’

‘It’s too late with her. She’s married now.’

‘It sounds like she might have done you some good if you’d stayed together,’ Carmen said. She reached a hand out and lightly touched his across the table. Looked him in the eyes. ‘But I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much. She wasn’t right for you.’

‘No?’

‘No. Aaron Falk, you are not the kind of man whose soul mate owns a magazine rack.’

‘To be fair, she did leave it behind.’

Carmen laughed. ‘And there’s been no-one since?’

Falk didn’t answer straight away. Six months ago, back in his hometown. A girl, woman now, from long ago. ‘I had a near miss recently.’

‘It didn’t work out?’

‘She was –’ He hesitated. Gretchen. What could he say about her? Her blue eyes and her blonde hair. Her secrets. ‘Very complicated.’

His head was so far in the past he nearly missed the sound of his mobile buzzing from the bench top. He was slow to reach for it and by the time he picked it up, it had fallen silent.

Immediately, Carmen’s mobile started ringing from her bag, shrill and urgent. She rummaged around, pulling it out as Falk checked his own phone for the name of the missed caller. Their eyes met as they both looked up from their screens.

‘Sergeant King?’ he said.

She nodded as she pressed a button and lifted the phone to her ear. The ringtone fell silent, but Falk could almost still hear it resonating, like a remote but insistent warning bell.

Carmen listened and her eyes flicked up to meet his. She mouthed silently, ‘They’ve found the cabin’.

Falk felt adrenaline rush through his chest. ‘And Alice?’

She listened. A single sharp movement of her head.

No.





Day 3: Saturday Night


When the rain came, it set in quickly, blocking out the stars and reducing the fire to a smoking heap of ash. They retreated into the cabin, finding their bags and belongings, each marking out their own small territory. The hammering on the roof made the space feel tight and it seemed to Jill like any camaraderie around the campfire had evaporated with the smoke.

She shivered. She wasn’t sure which was worse: the dark or the cold. Something snapped loudly outside and she jumped. The dark was worse, she decided immediately. She apparently wasn’t alone in the thought as someone moved and a torch clicked on. It lay on the cabin floor, illuminating the disturbed dust. It flickered.

‘We should save the batteries,’ Alice said.

No-one moved. With a noise of frustration, Alice reached forward.

‘We need to save the batteries.’

A click. Darkness.

‘Is there anything at all on the phone?’ Jill said.

The sound of rummaging, and a small square of light. Jill held her breath.

‘No.’

‘What’s that battery on?’

‘Fifteen per cent.’

‘Turn it off.’

The light disappeared. ‘Maybe there’ll be something when the rain stops.’

Jill had no idea what impact the weather would have on the signal, but she clung to the idea. Maybe when the rain stopped. Yes, she would choose to believe that.

Across the cabin, another light went on. It was stronger this time, and Jill recognised Beth’s industrial torch.