Chapter 12
TWELVE
Vengeance is Coming, the English type read.
“What is it?” Xanthe asked.
Maddy didn’t answer. Seeing the Arabic triggered the ghosts of all the dark things she had fought so hard to overcome. And the English was creepy on its own.
She turned the paper around to show it, thinking of the notes someone had left Xanthe before running her car off the road and setting her cabin on fire. But this couldn’t be related. Everyone involved in the plot against Xanthe and Blaine was either dead or in prison.
“Weird. What language is that on the bottom?” Xanthe asked.
“Arabic. I don’t know if it says the same thing as the English.”
“Blaine will know.”
Yes. She folded it back up, glanced around. There was no one else out here.
Nobody was watching them, and a few other cars parked along the road also had papers under their wipers too.
The initial alarm faded. She slid into the passenger seat, took out her phone, tried to get it to translate the script as Xanthe drove. It didn’t work.
Blaine was eating a sandwich in the kitchen when they got home.
“Hey, bossman,” she said.
He lifted a dark blond eyebrow at them as he swallowed his mouthful. “You’re both drenched. How was yoga?”
“Better than expected. But then we found this on the windshield when we came out,” Maddy said.
He took the paper, frowned when he saw the script.
“It’s weird, right?”
“A little, yeah. Did you see who put it there?”
“No. Other cars on that side of the sidewalk had a note there too. I tried to decipher the Arabic online and got nowhere. Can you translate it?”
He nodded. “God willing, we will all get what we deserve.”
Maddy frowned. What was that supposed to mean?
“Is it some kind of advertisement? A political slogan for a protest or something?” There couldn’t be many people on the island who spoke Arabic.
“We’ve definitely got some passionate activists on the island, but…” He handed it back, eyed her. “Are you worried?”
“No.” She paused. “Are you?”
“Not unless something happened that you haven’t told me about.”
“No.” The niggling feeling that she wasn’t safe on her previous job in Edinburgh that had driven her here as soon as she finished came to mind, but that wasn’t evidence.
She’d been on edge since Syria, looking over her shoulder and jumping at shadows until Blaine had taken her in.
“Then there’s nothing to worry about.”
Xanthe set her bag on the counter to slide her arms around his waist. “I ever tell you how hot it is that you can read Arabic?”
He grinned back, pulling her flush to him. “Yeah? I speak some too.”
“Stop,” she teased, gazing into his eyes.
Maddy took a step back, clutching the damp note in her hand. “I’m just gonna head down and get some work done,” she murmured, not expecting either of them to answer given the way they were devouring each other with their eyes. “Night.”
Blaine didn’t so much as glance at her, all his attention on Xanthe. “Night, Mads.”
Down in her room, she sat at her computer and got back to work as Irish ballads drifted through her headphones. The mournful songs in minor keys suited her mood and the steady rain falling outside her window.
But as she methodically moved through her task list, she remained acutely conscious of her current living situation.
She’d become the dreaded third wheel. Blaine would never say so, and Xanthe never made her feel unwelcome or out of place here.
They were a couple now. They deserved their own space and the privacy that came with it.
It was time for Maddy to reclaim her independence and restart her life. She needed her own place.
Mind made up, she paused the ballad in the middle of the chorus and called Willow.