Chapter Four
Ciara
A shout wakes me so abruptly that I jerk upright, momentarily forgetting where I am. My heart races. My brain screams danger. But all I’ve got is a sore neck and a dry mouth from napping.
At least it’s still daylight, the sun blazing high in the sky as I stumble out and scan my surroundings. It might have been just a dream, but it sounded too real for that, and as I stand there, listening, I hear it again.
From the direction of the noise, I have only one guess as to what’s happened, mostly because a very drunk Maddie did the same thing a few years ago. And sure enough, when I head into the trees and peek over the large hole in the clearing, my suspicions are confirmed.
There is a man in my pit.
He hasn’t heard me approach, he’s too busy trying to climb out the other side, so I get a good look at the back of his head and then the rest of him without him noticing.
If he were dressed all in black with a balaclava I might back away, but instead he’s in stained jeans and a filthy white T-shirt that probably weren’t stained or filthy five minutes ago.
I watch as he makes another admirable attempt to climb out before giving up. “Hello?” he calls, clasping his hands around his mouth.
“Hi.”
He spins around to face me, his expression almost comical in its surprise. “How long have you been there?”
His tone is pretty demanding for someone who’s stuck in a hole, but that might just be because he’s American, so I let it go.
“About ten seconds,” I say. “Need some help?”
“Please.” He lifts a hand to wipe his brow, and I hesitate as he does, catching a glimpse of his underarm.
Now, I’m not so single that the mere sight of toned triceps renders me speechless.
But the simple black tattoo inked there does.
The small but unmistakable swirling mark that Finn, the hero of the Ravian series, has.
“Do you have a rope?” the stranger asks, but my concern has morphed into suspicion.
“What are you doing down there?”
He looks confused. “I fell?”
“No, I mean—” Christ. “Why are you here? This is private property.” Not that it’s ever stopped anyone before.
They may not all fall into the pit, but it wouldn’t be the first time one of Dad’s fans has gone creeping around the house.
It got so bad after he died that they had to send a local Garda down for a few days to patrol.
The guy wasn’t even on the job for a few hours when he caught someone peering in through the window.
But the man gazing up at me doesn’t act guilty. He just frowns. As though I’m the one in the wrong here.
I clear my throat, trying to sound authoritative. “You’re trespassing on this land and—”
“Are you Ciara?” he asks, and I break off, startled. “Ciara Sheridan?” he continues as I take out my phone.
“You’re trespassing on this land, and you’re an—”
“Editor,” he interrupts. “I’m your editor.”
Eh?
“Casey sent me,” he continues when I don’t say anything.
“You know Casey?”
“You didn’t get the emails?”
“I get a lot of emails.” But, even as I speak, something tugs at the back of my mind.
Me telling Casey I can’t go to New York.
Casey saying we could work here instead.
But then the builders came back with a quote for the insulation and the gardeners said they’d be delayed until August and a donkey sanctuary in England rang because Dad apparently donated a ridiculous amount of money before he died and they wanted to name a new donkey after him and would that be okay and would I like to come and see the donkey, so no, I don’t remember an email telling me about whatever the hell is happening now.
“My name’s Sam Avery,” he continues, speaking slowly as though he wants to make sure I understand. “I’m an editor with Richardson Books. Casey put me in charge of The Last Mountain. I’m here to help you with the story.”
As he speaks, I pull up the publisher’s website. It takes me two clicks to find him. A few lines of biography accompanied by a photo of a much neater and cleaner version of him smiling in front of some bookshelves.
He is not smiling now.
Shit.
Sam’s brows rise and I realize I’ve spoken out loud.
“Sorry,” I say. “Sorry. I— Don’t move!”
“Not a problem,” he mutters, but I don’t have time to worry about sarcasm as I race over to the shed at the bottom of the garden and pull out the old ladder.
It’s too heavy to carry, so I end up dragging it through the grass and then whacking it against every tree in my path, but I manage to get it to where the guy is, predictably, still in the hole.
“Okay, back up,” I call. “I’m going to lower it down.”
This turns out to be the easy part. The ground is dry, so there’s no slipping as Sam helps me lead the ladder into the pit. He climbs up so quickly that I have to scramble back so we don’t knock foreheads, and, when I do, he rises to his full height, all six feet something of him.
He doesn’t look like an editor. At least not like the ones I’ve met before.
Old-school, Casey-esque figures who reminded me of my dad and maybe wore some sort of a smoking jacket.
This guy looks to be in his early thirties.
Short dark hair. Hooded brown eyes. His nose is straight; his face is tired.
There’s a faint blush of razor burn along his jaw and a smartwatch on his wrist.
“You booby-trapped your house?”
“What?”
He gestures at the pit.
“Oh. No.” Though that’s not a bad idea. “It’s old,” I add, growing defensive. “I forgot it was there. I dug it when I was a teenager.”
His lips part as if he’s about to speak, but no sound comes out.
“It sounds worse than it is,” I continue, starting to get embarrassed. “I wanted to see how deep I had to go to hide a body.”
Jesus, Ciara.
“I used to write crime,” I hurry on before he can say anything. “I was writing a book about this accidental hit man, and I wanted to be as accurate as possible, so I dug a hole to see how long it would take. It was research.”
“How do you become an accidental hit man?”
“Bad luck.”
Sam stares at me for a long moment before he glances back at the hole. The one I wish I could now jump into. But, when he turns back to me, he seems curious.
“How long?”
“What?”
“How long did it take?”
I hesitate, but he looks serious enough. “Two days. Or at least I dug it over two days. I probably should have stopped, but my cousin said I couldn’t do it, and then it became like an I’ll show you thing, so…” I’m babbling. “Sorry. Are you hurt?”
“Not mortally.”
“There’s a first aid kit in the house,” I offer, and his eyes dart to mine with such obvious interest that it’s almost laughable.
Almost.
Because I know that look. I’ve spent most of my adult life dealing with that look, learning to recognize it so I could keep far, far away.
Casey sent a fanboy.
My guilt about the pit dissipates.
I’ve dealt with men like him my whole life.
People who got close to me just because they wanted to get close to my father.
It took me two crappy boyfriends before I spotted the trend, too flattered by their interest to see through them.
And it wasn’t just romantic interest, it was friends too.
Classmates, colleagues—I’ve lost count of the people in my life who saw me only as an extension of him and never just me.
I was halfway through college when I made the rule I still live by.
Don’t make friends with people who read.
And certainly not with people who have Ravian tattoos on their arms.
“Is that okay?” he asks when I don’t move.
No. “Sure.” I force a smile onto my face. Professional. Be professional. “Let’s get you patched up.” I make a weird follow me motion that I instantly regret, and we leave the ladder where it is as we start the short journey to the house.
“Sorry again,” I say when he limps a little. “I should put a sign up or something. Did you walk here?”
“I…no. I drove.”
“But the woods—”
“Yeah.” The base of his throat goes pink. “I parked on the road. I just thought I’d— What?”
My arm shoots out to stop him from taking a step further, and I put a finger to my lips as I see a familiar car parked next to mine. One with no one inside.
I drop instantly to the ground.
“Get down,” I hiss.
Sam looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. “Excuse me?”
“Get. Down.” I tug on his jeans to emphasize my point, and he slowly lowers himself to the dirt beside me until he’s hidden in the long grass.
As soon as he does, a figure emerges from around the side of the house, and Mary Macken calls my name.
“Dare I ask?” Sam murmurs as she places two bottles of milk on my porch.
“She’s my sworn enemy.”
“Your sworn enemy is the milk lady?”
“She’s not the milk lady. She just brings me milk sometimes.”
He falls silent as she starts knocking on the door.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he begins, “but this is the weirdest twenty minutes of my life.”
I glance over to find his eyes on me and forget what we’re even doing.
“Why does she bring you gifts?” he asks.
“Mary? She feels beholden to me.”
“Beholden.”
“Her husband lost his job during the recession, and Dad used to fake-employ her to give them some extra cash. Errands, light housework, that kind of thing. It was just an excuse to give her some money, but she’s fine now.
Civil servant for forty years—she’s got a killer pension.
But she’s kept bringing me stuff like this ever since he died. ”
“That sounds nice to me.”
“It’s not.”
“Why?”
“Because what am I going to do with two pints of milk?” I whisper.
“Or a box of chocolates that went off five Christmases ago? She doesn’t do it to be nice.
She does it to get inside. And if I invite her inside, she’ll never leave.
And you’re still looking at me like I’m an awful person because I didn’t explain this well.
I’ve made her seem like a kind, generous figure down on her luck, but she’s not; she’s the village gossip, and no one likes her.
She’ll just walk around pointing out all the things I’m doing wrong and telling me all the rumors she’s heard.
All the while she’s gathering rumors about me, so trust me when I say we need to stay here until she—”
I jerk, breaking off as Sam flicks my arm.
“Spider,” he explains, and my heart gives this weird thump. “So she brings you gifts, but only so you have to talk to her.”
“It’s a known tactic.”
“How long does she usually hang around?”
“A couple of minutes.”
Sam doesn’t respond, hopefully absorbing the importance of what I’ve just told him as he eases himself into a more natural position. The grass shifts around him as he does, but thankfully Mary isn’t looking our way.
“So how’s it going?” he asks.
“With what?”
“The book. How’s it going?”
“You want to talk about the book?”
“Is it a bad time?”
I bat a dandelion out of my face before it makes me sneeze. We’re both still whispering, which only makes this even more ridiculous. “We’re crouching in a field.”
“And from what you’ve told me, we’ll be doing it for a while.” He looks completely earnest, so earnest that I wouldn’t be surprised if he whipped out a pen and paper from his pocket. “I read the chapters you sent to Casey. We both think they’re great.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, distracted as Mary scans the tree line.
“And I can tell you know your stuff. The suspense in the first few pages is incredible.”
“But?” This isn’t my first rodeo. He’s doing that editor thing of easing me in before ripping me apart. Amazing job! Just a suggestion, but what about rewriting the entire plot? Let’s discuss!
“But,” he continues, “we’ve got a long way to go and I’m only here for a few weeks. I was hoping you could send me some more pages tonight so I can see where you’re at. Just whatever you’ve been working on.”
“I can’t do that.”
“It doesn’t matter if they’re rough. Believe me, I’ve seen it all.”
“It’s not that the pages are rough. It’s that they’re not written. And I— Finally.” I blow out a breath as Mary gives up and heads to her car. My leg started cramping thirty seconds ago. “One more minute, I promise,” I say as she gets inside. “Just until the coast is clear.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes she hangs around in her car until she—”
“About the book,” Sam interrupts, and I drag my gaze back to him.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?”
“You haven’t written anything more?”
“I told Casey that,” I say, growing defensive.
“You told him you were struggling, not that you’d stopped writing.”
“That’s what struggling means.”
“No, it means—it means,” he says, lowering his voice when I shoot him a look, “that you’re struggling. You’re saying you haven’t written anything else? It’s been months since you sent him something.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Doing what? Digging more holes?”
“I’m—”
I duck my head as Mary’s car starts. To my surprise, Sam joins me. “This is ridiculous,” he says, but he doesn’t get up. If anything, he sinks down further. “And it’s worrying me that you’re not more worried.”
“Why would I be worried?”
“Because a two-hundred-fifty-thousand-word novel is due by the end of the year, and you don’t seem concerned. In fact, you’re—” He scowls as I motion for him to hush again.
It’s the wrong move. His lips thin until they’re practically nonexistent and he gives his head a firm shake. “I think I should come back tomorrow.”
“But the first aid kit is—”
“I’m fine. I just need a shower.”
I hesitate, suddenly aware that his mood is no longer a good one. “Look—” I start, but he doesn’t want to hear it.
“You signed a contract. And I know it’s hard, but there are a lot of people waiting for this book. A lot of things riding on it, and you need to take it seriously.”
“I am!”
“You ignore Casey’s calls. You didn’t even know I was coming. And now you’re telling me you haven’t written a single word in two months?”
“I’ve written something.”
“Prove it,” he says, pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll come back in the morning.” He starts forward, only to turn around at the last second as Mary’s car drives off. “It was nice meeting you,” he says stiffly, and I can only gape after him as he strides across the field.