Chapter 1 #3
I screwed my eyes shut and dragged a wet hand down my face, forgetting about the whole residual manure situation.
“Fuck!” I lifted my shirt to wipe the worst of it off my face and figured I didn’t want to look in a mirror anytime soon.
If Judd had seen me, he’d have laughed his arse off.
I didn’t do dirt. Hell, I could barely empty the coffee grounds from my espresso machine without needing a shower.
Not that I gave a fuck about what Judd thought anymore.
It wasn’t like I’d loved him . . . or anything . . . right?
I swallowed hard and lifted my face to the rain, tasting salt on my lips. I wasn’t crying because that would be too fucking ridiculous. Judd Havers didn’t deserve my tears, and he sure as shit didn’t deserve my affection.
I gave an angry shake of my head and returned to weighing my options.
Following an unknown trail into an unknown forest, in the dark, on a stormy night, was a plotline straight out of a cheap horror movie.
No. The sensible thing would be to stay with the car and call a damn tow truck.
I could catch a lift back into town with them, or I could call a taxi and deal with everything tomorrow. Even better.
I glanced between my dead car and the path leading into the forest, considered that very sensible option for all of five seconds, then decided, fuck it. If there was ever a day to consign common sense to the trash, I was living through said day with fucking bells on.
I was also clearly losing my mind.
If I got captured by a serial killer and locked up as his personal sex toy in some underground bunker for ten years, so be it.
It seemed a much better option than going home and explaining to my mother that her perpetually disappointing son had lost his best friend, his boyfriend, his estranged father’s car, and his company, all in one day.
Somehow, in my mother’s eyes, it would inevitably turn out to be my fault. I could just imagine her response.
But why would Judd do something like that? He obviously loves you. Do you think he was maybe looking for something?
A heart? A conscience? A bigger dick? Any sense of a moral compass? All of those worked for me.
It’s just such a shame, she’d no doubt continue. You and Phillip work so well together. You’ve known each other since you were kids. Whatever will you do without him?
I’m the creative brain of the company, Mum. Phillip is simply the pretty face who sells what I design.
Maybe. But you’re not good with people, Thad. You never have been. You’re too . . . reserved. Phillip is such a social animal. I think you’re making a mistake. Maybe you should just forgive and move on.
It played out in my head, word for word. So yeah, all in all, the serial-killer option had a lot going for it.
I fished the car keys from my pocket and tried to lock the Rover without success.
The doors had been wrenched out of plumb, and the mechanism refused to cooperate.
The day wasn’t done with me yet. But if I was going to abandon the ungrateful machine, I was damn well taking my briefcase with me.
It held a potential future that I might well need since the old one wasn’t looking too hot anymore.
I returned to the car and grabbed the case from the passenger footwell.
I ditched the tie and rolled my muddy suit trousers up to my knees.
Then, with my briefcase tucked under my arm and the flashlight illuminating the path ahead, I headed into the forest, calling for the dog, pretty sure I looked as ludicrous as I felt.
Like I could give a rat’s arse.
Ten minutes later, with nothing to show for my efforts except a couple of uncertain glimpses of .
. . something, eyes maybe, or a flash of white in the distance, and I was done playing rescuer.
My trousers clung to my legs, my chest ached from the seatbelt and airbag combo, the leather of my expensive briefcase was sodden to its frame, and I suddenly found I could, actually, give a fair bit more than a rat’s arse to be sitting in front of a warm fire with a long gin and a rerun of Game of Thrones season three on the telly.
The red-wedding scene seemed particularly apt for my current emotional state.
Stepping off the muddy path, I set my briefcase on a rotten stump and sat on top.
I killed the flashlight to conserve its batteries and let my eyes adjust to the evening gloom, made even darker by the rain clouds hovering above.
The surrounding bush looked exactly the same as all the other bush I’d passed through up until this point—grey and empty and wet.
I couldn’t have said which direction the road lay anymore; the trail had looped and turned so many times that I’d lost my bearings. My stomach growled loudly into the dark, which was another thing. I was so fucking starving I could eat my hand, or maybe that dog if I ever bloody found it.
The persistent drizzle was getting a little sharper against my cheeks, and I glared up at the sky. Just what I needed. I’d be even more saturated by the time I made it back to the car, if that was even possible. But what choice did I have?
I was still there a few minutes later when I heard the distinctive hollow plinks of raindrops on metal. I squinted into the dark, ears pricked.
Plink. Plunk. Plinkety, plink, plunk.
I switched on the flashlight and aimed it toward the sound, seeing a side path veering off the main one toward what looked like a .
. . clearing? Or . . . shit, was that lawn?
My heart ticked up. The cottage. It had to be Heligan Cottage.
And serial-killer homeowner or not, I was done sitting in the damn rain.
I grabbed my briefcase and made my way toward the sound, dodging puddles and sucking mud as I went.
Lightning flashed overhead, and as I stepped onto the wet grass, a rumble of thunder rolled across the heavens.
I tugged my hood further over my head and looked around.
There was no sign of a house or any lights indicating one close by.
Two large greenhouses filled most of the space, each about forty metres long and ten metres wide.
They appeared to be made of glass and looked somewhat old-fashioned.
Plink. Plink. Plink. The sound echoed around the clearing and I refocused on a small wooden shed sitting under an old macrocarpa.
The tree’s canopy dripped water onto the shed’s tin roof.
Plink. Plink. Plunk. Plink. Plunk. The sound began to drum faster and faster as the heavy clouds opened and the rain began sheeting.
“Christ!” I was so damn tired of being wet. I ran to the shed and tried the door. When it opened easily enough, I jumped inside, relishing the immediate shelter.
The space was divided in two with a wall down the middle. The half I’d stumbled into stored a range of gardening equipment: wheelbarrows, bags of potting mix, chicken feed, and a few bales of what looked like straw, or maybe hay—I didn’t have a clue about the difference.
Beyond the dividing wall, I could hear chickens clucking and buk-buk-bukking, with the occasional squawk thrown in for good measure. They were no doubt protesting my sudden intrusion, and I didn’t blame them. But the sound was oddly soothing and I found myself smiling.
I checked my phone and blinked at the time. Seven pm. I’d been wandering the forest for almost forty minutes, not the fifteen it felt like, and my body ached from head to toe. Phillip had at least stopped texting me, so that was something, I supposed.
The rain reverberated on the shed roof like machine gun chatter, and the chickens started muttering again.
I studied the corrugated iron above me and sighed.
It was hardly restful, but nothing was going to drag me outside until the rain eased.
I was done with disappearing dogs and creepy forests.
They rated right up there with cheating arsehole boyfriends and ex-best friends.
May as well get comfortable.
I deposited my briefcase on the floor and arranged the straw bales into a passable excuse for a bed.
I’d stay until the rain let up and then head back to my car and call for that tow.
The shed was warm-ish and dry, which was a whole lot better than the alternative.
And for a guy who equated camping with a three-star hotel, that was really saying something.
I shrugged out of my coat and set my muddy shoes and socks aside.
Then I took my suit jacket and its matching filthy trousers and hung them over a roof truss in a vain hope they might dry a little.
Which left me in my briefs and business shirt.
A folded tarp sat on a far shelf by the door, and I blessed my good luck.
The flashlight died before I could grab it, but I patted around until I managed to locate the thing and haul it down.
Then, with the tarp wrapped around me like the world’s worst sleeping bag, I settled atop the bales of straw and contemplated the shitshow of my life.
Rain thundered on the iron roof, while through the wall, the chickens brazenly shared their opinions on their unexpected guest. Sleep, it seemed, would be out of the question.
Even a bit of rest was a long shot. At least I wasn’t getting rained on.
If anyone had asked me that morning what the day would bring, I would never in a million years have thought it would end with me sharing a shed with a bunch of chickens, a broken heart, and a crumbling life.
The serial-killer option was still looking good.