Chapter 10
The morning air still held the cool of night when Brianna stepped out and onto the front verandah of her cottage, a mug of tea warming her palms and her breath curling faintly in front of her.
Having followed her, Sherlock now lay stretched beside the door, chin on his paws, ears flicking lazily at a fly that wouldn’t quit.
She smiled softly. She needed normal this morning.
Something soft and grounding. Sherlock gave her that, but so could her mum, so she grabbed her mobile and called her.
The phone rang twice before Nina answered, her familiar voice bright despite the hour. ‘Morning, love. I was just about to water the garden.’
Brianna exhaled slowly, the sound catching the edge of something tight in her chest. ‘Hey, Mum.’
‘Love, are you okay?’ Nina asked instantly, her mother-radar kicking in. ‘You sound … I don’t know. Quiet.’
‘I’m just tired,’ Brianna lied gently, curling her legs up onto the seat and tucking the phone between shoulder and ear. ‘It’s been a big week. Emergency callouts and the like. You know how it is.’
‘You’ve never been great at pretending you’re okay when you’re not,’ Nina replied, her voice softening. ‘You can tell me anything, Bri. You know that.’
And she wanted to. God, she wanted to tell her beautiful mum all of it.
About the break-in. About Molly’s fears.
About the blackmail, and the money that had vanished into shadowy accounts.
About Jack. But her dad was a cop. And not just any cop.
Logan Steele was the most principled, by-the-book officer Huntingvale had ever known.
If he found out someone in Sweetwater, the very town his precious daughter was calling home, was being blackmailed, he’d have no choice but to act.
Both professionally and personally. And that wasn’t fair to Molly.
Not yet. Not without more answers. Not while she was still so scared.
Not when she’d asked her to keep this quiet, for the time being.
‘Brianna, are you still there, love?’ Nina’s voice echoed.
‘Oh sorry, yes, I’m here.’
‘What’s going on, Brianna? Please talk to me.’
‘I know I can tell you anything, Mum,’ Brianna said softly. ‘And I will. Just not today. Okay?’
There was a pause on the line, and then the faintest smile in Nina’s voice. ‘All right. But don’t leave it too long. Secrets fester, and they’re heavier when you carry them alone.’
Brianna nodded, even though her mum couldn’t see her. ‘How’s Dad?’
‘Grumpy this morning,’ Nina laughed. ‘He dropped his thermos getting out of the cruiser and now he smells like pumpkin soup. He says crime rates might have dropped around town, but soup accidents are on the rise.’
A real smile tugged at Brianna’s mouth. ‘That sounds about right; always the larrikin, Dad is.’
‘Isn’t he ever,’ Nina chuckled.
They chatted a little longer – about the tomatoes finally fruiting, the neighbour’s overgrown bougainvillea hedge, a parcel of books that had arrived from Nina’s second cousin.
Normal things. Safe things. But when the call ended and Brianna set her phone on the table, the feeling of normalcy thinned.
The day felt too quiet. The world too still.
She pushed off the chair, her tea now forgotten, and opened the screen door with one hand on the handle, just as her phone buzzed again, loud and sharp in the stillness.
It rang once as she stepped inside. Twice before the screen door slapped shut behind her and Sherlock.
She glanced at the screen, at the void where a number or name would usually appear.
She quickly swiped to answer then lifted the phone to her ear. ‘Hello, Sweetwater Vets, Brianna speaking.’
She was met with silence.
And then, breathing.
Quiet. Controlled. Measured. Deliberate.
‘Who is this?’ Hearing no reply, her voice sharpened, but she reined in her urge to shout at the caller, just in case it was, in fact, a client in a bad-reception area. ‘If this is someone needing help, you need to speak up, or move to higher ground, so I can hear you properly.’
Still nothing.
‘Can you hang up and call back; maybe it’s a bad line?’ Something deep inside of her screamed that it wasn’t, and neither was it someone needing help.
She tried to remain calm, cool and collected as she stayed by the phone a moment longer, listening to the empty line’s echo in her ear, before it clicked to silence.
The quiet in the cottage suddenly felt thicker now, heavier.
The kind of quiet that didn’t belong to morning peace, but to something …
watchful. From the corner of her eye, she caught movement – Sherlock, rising from where he’d just curled by the door.
Not lazily, not with his usual morning stretch, but with a sudden, rigid focus.
He gave a low growl as his tail went stiff, his shoulders squared, and his ears pricked towards the backyard.
Swallowing a scream, she felt her pulse skip hard.
The air had changed – too still, too heavy.
Dashing forwards, she flicked the lock on the screen door with a sharp click, then stepped back just enough to covertly see through the gap between the curtains framing the lounge-room windows.
With her eyes darting left, then right, she scanned past the verandah railings to where the early light slanted through the thicket of trees.
It was the kind of golden light that should have felt safe, comforting.
Alluring, even. But it didn’t. Instead, it felt like something, or someone, was standing just beyond it.
Waiting.
Watching.
Sherlock growled again, a little louder this time, warningly, his hackles bristling into a rigid line down his spine as he crept forwards.
With his muzzle pressing against the mesh of the flyscreen, the snarl in his throat deepened like a storm rolling in.
Brianna’s stomach tightened. She followed his gaze while taking three slow steps back until her left shoulder brushed the doorframe of the kitchen.
All the while, Sherlock’s eyes were locked towards the side gate, where a small patch of lawn met with the gravel path leading down to Molly’s cottage.
She honed her hearing. Squinted into the light.
There was no movement. No sound. But Sherlock very clearly saw something.
Or someone. His body coiled as his growl dropped to a cold, vibrating rumble that seemed to thrum in the air between them.
She didn’t realise she’d been holding her breath until her doggy protector snapped out a sharp, explosive bark.
There was no sound in response. Just the rustle of leaves, the lazy clatter of a wind chime down the block, a dog barking far away. And yet the prickling at her nape held fast, along with the unmistakable sense of being watched.
‘Sherlock,’ she whispered. ‘What can you see that I can’t, my boy?’
But there was no flicker of response to her words.
No quick glance back like he usually gave her.
Instead, his eyes stayed locked outside, his growls stopping but his body still quivering with tension.
And that was when she knew that whoever, or whatever, had been there was now gone.
But they had been there. And they’d wanted her to know it. Of that, she was convinced.
‘Sherlock, buddy.’ Her voice cracked, caught between disbelief and adrenaline.
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stood guard, as though daring the unseen to step forwards.
Then, soft and deliberate, the shuffle of footsteps behind her split the silence.
‘Bri?’
She turned sharply, her heart lurching.
Molly stood barefoot in the hallway, her hair a tangle of auburn curls, sleep still clinging to her.
She wore one of Brianna’s old jumpers over flannel pyjama pants, and her eyes squinted into the golden sunlight cascading through the gap in the curtains that had just harboured some kind of darkness.
‘You’re up early,’ Molly said, voice rough, blinking slowly.
‘I thought I smelled toast, but then I must have been dreaming, and …’ Her words faltered as she took a few more steps forwards, then abruptly paused to acknowledge the tension in Brianna’s stance, the stiff line of her shoulders, the way Sherlock was still bristling at the screen door.
Something passed between them – silent, instant, understood.
Wide-eyed now, Molly stepped closer. ‘Oh my goodness, Bri, what’s happened?’
Brianna didn’t speak right away. She glanced back outside, her heart still thudding.
‘Brianna? Please, tell me what’s happening.’ Molly’s trembling hands came to her arms.
‘Someone called me,’ Brianna said quietly. ‘No number. No voice. Just breathing. And Sherlock …’ She motioned towards him, to where he’d finally backed up a step but still hadn’t relaxed. ‘He saw something. Someone, maybe. I don’t know.’
The blood drained from Molly’s face. There was a pause. A long, heavy one. Then Molly said the one thing Brianna had been thinking but trying hard not to believe. ‘You think it’s the same person that’s been calling me?’
Brianna met her gaze. ‘I don’t think it’s a coincidence.’
Molly ran her hands over her face, and her voice became a strained rasp. ‘I didn’t tell anyone where I was staying.’
‘Then someone’s watching us,’ Brianna said, her voice shaking now.
Molly’s hands quivered as she reached for the back of the couch to steady herself. ‘Oh god, Bri. I didn’t mean to drag you into this.’
‘You didn’t,’ Brianna said firmly. ‘You’ve done nothing wrong. But Moll, this is going a step further now, and we need help from someone who’ll take this seriously.’
Molly nodded, her beseeching gaze telling Brianna all she needed.
Beside them, Sherlock finally settled down.
He sat on his rump and let out a soft huff.
But the unease in the air remained. Without another word, Brianna grabbed her mobile phone.
Her fingers hovered for a second before she pressed the call button.