Fairytale Come Alive (Ghosts and Reincarnation #4)(149)

She was staring in front of her, no longer struggling because floating before them in the darkness was a see-through Fiona Cameron.

* * * * *

Prentice

“Prentice, I hardly think –” Hattie, standing in her front door, began but Prentice leaned into her, getting into her face and she clamped her mouth shut.

“Bring me your boy,” he growled.

“She wasn’t here,” Hattie snapped back. “She isn’t here.”

“Her Rover is at your curb, woman,” Prentice returned.

“So? Maybe she’s visiting Mrs. Kilbride. She lives just across the street,” Hattie shot back.

“You think I haven’t already knocked on her door?” Prentice retorted.

“Why on earth would she –?” Hattie started but Prentice interrupted her again.

“Your boy has been home since school,” he stated.

“Of course,” Hattie replied shortly.

“And you told me you just got home but if Elle was here, he’d know and I need to know. She’s disappeared, she’s no’ answering her mobile, no one has seen her, no one has heard from her except Fern who only knows she canceled their appointment at the last minute, no’ why. I need to retrace her steps and her Rover is at your curb, Hattie, so if you haven’t seen her and Nigel isn’t here then I need to speak to Davey to see if he has.”

“I have,” a young boy’s hesitant voice came from behind Hattie and Prentice’s gaze jerked around the woman to see her son standing behind her in their hall.

“Davey, upstairs to your room,” Hattie ordered on a turn and Prentice beat back the desire to wrap his fingers around the silly, bitter cow’s throat.

“You’ve seen her?” Prentice asked and his gut, already tied in a tight knot, clenched even further when he took in the boy’s pale face and frightened eyes.

When Davey didn’t answer, Prentice pushed by Hattie and strode swiftly to the boy who backed up at his advance but slammed to a halt against the banister of the stairs.

“Prentice Cameron! You are no’ welcome in my home!” Hattie shouted from close behind him but Prentice ignored her and bent his face to the boy’s.

“Why are you afraid, Davey?” he asked, his voice low, his meager reserves of control slipping, his focus on trying not to terrify him further because he needed to know, and now, what the boy knew that was making him look so f**king scared.

“Davey, up to your room!” Hattie snapped and only Prentice’s neck twisted so he could lock eyes with the bitch.

“Why won’t you let him speak to me?” he clipped.

Hattie tossed her hair and crossed her arms on her chest. “I already told you, I don’t know why you’re here or Bella’s Rover is in front of my house, Prentice. The never ending drama of your life doesn’t intrude in ours. We have no’ one thing to do with you and jet-set Isabella Evangelista.”

He straightened and turned to her. “You do. You know you do. You live and breathe Elle and me. It’s coiled in you like a rotting vine.”

“Hardly,” she hissed with another toss of her hair but Prentice was done, he didn’t have time for Hattie Fennick, he never did and he turned back to Davey.

“Talk to me, boy,” he demanded.

“Go to your room,” Hattie ordered.

“Talk to me, damn it!” Prentice shouted and Davy got tense but he spoke.

“She came, earlier, Dad let her in then I saw Dad carrying her out to his car.”

Prentice’s body shot straight as he heard Hattie breathe, “What?”

“She was bleedin’ from her head,” Davey whispered.

Fear cut through his body leaving nothing but raw in its wake because he suddenly knew, he knew what life was like at the Fennick household when someone as controlling, twisted, bitter and malicious as Hattie lived in it, obsessed with another man and his family.

“Where would he take her?” Prentice bit out quickly, Davey’s mouth opened and shut and then again before he swallowed. Prentice gave up on him, turned to his mother and repeated, “Where would he take her?”

“I don’t –” she started, her face pale, she was shocked, completely unable to comprehend what her warped obsession with another man wrought on her husband.

Prentice didn’t have time for her to think so he turned and advanced, fast, Hattie retreating and then she slammed against the wall by the door and stared up at him with deeper shock as his body pressed close and he got nose to nose with the bitch.

“Where would he f**king take her?” Prentice gritted through his teeth.

“I… I…” she stammered.

“Where?” Prentice roared.

“The cliffs,” she whispered. “The cliffs at Kenkames.”

Prentice said not a word nor spared a glance.

He sprinted out of the house to his Rover.

* * * * *

Elle

“Bloody hell,” Nigel Fennick breathed and even though Elle was staring at Fiona floating and shimmering in front of her, her beautiful dark hair drifting like it was caught in a stiff but delicate breeze, the ends of the attractive tunic she wore doing the same, Elle knew Nigel was stunned and this was her chance.

And it could be her only one.