THIRTY
ONE STEP BEHIND
Oliver
It took a moment to register what Alex was saying. Fletcher was Henderson.
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck.
It was taking every ounce of self-control I possessed to stop myself from physically reacting. I wanted to shout out loud.
Fletcher was Henderson?
The man we had hired. The man we had cleared. The man who had been on my estate, in my team, near my son, for weeks.
Fletcher was Henderson.
I had to keep saying it because my brain kept rejecting it.
Fletcher was Henderson.
The man who Alex had saved. The man who had become obsessed with her. The man who had tried to… shit, I could barely even think it. And then another thought hit me. ‘I need to ask you something?’
She looked up at me, uncertainty in her eyes. ‘What?’
‘When you were up here and fell… were you on your own?’
She didn’t answer immediately, and I knew the answer before she even said a word.
‘He was here, wasn’t he?’ I have no idea how my voice came out so calmly.
I was fighting a raging ball of fire somewhere in my chest.
So intense I thought it was going to burst out of my rib cage.
‘Yes. He followed me. He wanted me to have an accident so he could save me.’ The cast her gaze down and then back up at me. I knew she was monitoring my response. ‘He thought if he saved me, then I would feel the same about him as he did about me.’
‘Fuck.’
Control. I needed control. If she could say it calmly. I could too.
Henderson had tried to rape Alex. Tried. I wanted to ask her more questions. But I had absolutely no right to. She’d tell me if and when she was ever ready. I knew this had taken a lot for her. And as if that wasn’t enough, he’d come back for her. Tracked her down. Hurt her.
The fireball of rage was white hot but I knew I had to somehow keep it under control. Redirect it away from Alex.
I looked at her. Really looked at her. I could see all the uncertainties in her eyes. She was gauging my reaction. How I responded to what she had told me was more important than anything else.
I stroked her cheek. Cupped her face in my hands and gently kissed her.
Then, careful not to squash her arm or her shoulder, I put my arms around her.
I waited for any resistance as I slowly pulled her towards me.
There was none. She huddled into me. Her head against my chest.
Her arm was almost in the foetal position.
She was vulnerable, and she had trusted me with her deepest secret.
‘I’ve got you,’ I whispered into her hair.
The rage was still coursing through me, but I could hold on to that. I’d deal with it later.
I thought about Alex. Not about my rage. About her. About how she’d kept her eyes on the loch the whole time she was talking. How she hadn’t looked at me until she absolutely had to.
I thought about the path we’d taken. It was wide enough that she could have turned and gone back down at any point. Open hillside on either side. No trees close enough to feel enclosed. Nothing between her and the way out.
She had needed an exit. Not from me. She hadn’t been afraid of me.
But her body hadn’t known that yet. After everything Henderson had taken from her, after the two years of running, her nervous system still needed to know the door was open before it would let her speak.
It was preparing her for disappointment.
Rejection. That I might let her down in the same way other significant men had let her down. Her father. Henderson. The army.
It hurt.
I wasn’t going to pretend it didn’t, but I understood. She needed to know that I was safe, and this was the ultimate test. I understood it completely, even if it hurt.
She pulled back and looked up at me. ‘I couldn’t tell you before.’
I put my finger to her lips. ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.’
‘Thank you.’ It was a whisper.
‘No. Thank you for trusting me,’ I said. ‘I’ll never let you down, Lexi. I may not always get things right, but I will always be here for you.’
‘I do actually know that.’ She rose on tiptoe and kissed me. ‘I just don’t know what happens now.’
I let out a long breath. ‘I’m working on it. Dom wanted to speak to me tonight. He’d been doing a deeper background check on Fletcher.’
‘He had? Why?’
‘Gut feeling.’
‘Maybe we should get back. Noah will be wondering where you are, and I’m guessing Dom wants to talk to you.’
‘I don’t want you staying in the lodge on your own tonight,’ I said. She stiffened. I tried again. ‘I want you with me. Not because of this. Or just because of this. But I want to feel you next to me. To hold you. To wake up and see you there. To love you like you deserve.’
She closed her eyes. Took my hand and kissed my knuckles. ‘I’d like that,’ she whispered as a tear tracked down her cheek. ‘I’d like that very much.’
We arrived back at the gatehouse, Dom and Noah weren’t back yet.
‘Do you need anything from your lodge?’ I asked.
‘I’ll go over there later and get what I need.’
‘We can go together later.’
I knew she wanted to go on her own, but right now I wasn’t letting her out of my sight. This had potential for our first argument, but I wasn’t budging on this one. Not while Fletcher, or rather, Henderson, was about. I wasn’t about to let Alex run into him.
She appeared to consider whether to insist or not and then decided against it.
‘Okay,’ she said simply. ‘Let’s go and get it now.’
I knew it wouldn’t have been easy for her to concede, but I also took it as a good sign that she didn’t feel challenged or controlled by me. That she knew it was because I cared. I wasn’t sure she knew quite how much I cared.
I took Alex’s hand as we walked over to her lodge to get her things, trying to make it feel less like I was security.
We were back at the gatehouse minutes later, where I made us both a hot drink and tried not to give oxygen to the intrusive thoughts I was having about Henderson and what I’d like to fucking do to him.
‘Try not to let it get to you,’ said Alex, putting a hand on my back. ‘I know it’s hard, but he’d be delighted if he knew he was messing with your head. That’s where he gets his kicks.’
‘Jesus, I don’t know where you get your strength from,’ I said, rubbing the back of my neck. ‘You offering me comfort. I should be––’
‘No, you shouldn’t,’ she said, cutting me off. ‘You don’t need to. I’ve had two years to come to terms with what happened. You’ve had about an hour. You’ve got a lot of processing to catch up with.’
I turned to look at her. I leaned in and kissed her. ‘You’re amazing.’
The door opened, and Noah ran in, coming to an abrupt halt. ‘Ugh.’ He rolled his eyes.
Dom followed him half a second later. ‘Think you’re going to have to get used to that,’ he said to his nephew.
I noticed Dom was holding a file in his hand. ‘Thirty minutes?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. In the study,’ I replied. ‘Right, Noah, bath time and get ready for bed. It’s been a long day.’
‘I don’t want to go to bed,’ complained Noah.
‘Once you’re all sorted, I’ll come up and read a book with you,’ said Alex.
I squeezed her hand. She was offering to get Noah settled so that I got a chance to speak to Dom. Despite the trauma of having to tell me about Henderson, she was still putting others first. She really was an amazing woman.
Once Noah had showered and got ready for bed, I left Alex sitting on the end of his bed with his latest book.
‘Thank you,’ I said, kissing the top of her head.
Downstairs, I followed Dom into the study. I was in two minds about whether to leave the door open. I didn’t like the idea of shutting Alex out in any shape or form. Dom made the decision for me.
He went over to the door and closed it himself. I appreciated the gesture. Then he sat down at his desk.
I sat opposite him. ‘What have you got?’
He opened the drawer, took out a manila file and slid it across the desk towards me. I looked at him. Dom sat back and said nothing. Waited while I opened it.
In front of me were two unredacted military records. One for Samuel Henderson and one for Ian Fletcher.
‘Unredacted,’ I said. ‘That was a big favour.’
‘You could say that,’ said Dom.
Fletcher’s notes were what we’d expected—clean record, no red flags, the kind of file that doesn’t warrant a second look.
His service rose from Private through to Corporal and eventually to Sergeant.
There was a photograph on the second page of his file.
The man in that photograph was not the Fletcher we had here at Risk. Not the one we had hired.
I picked up Samuel Henderson’s paperwork.
Army-trained medic. Two tours of Afghanistan.
Son of a Brigadier. And then… cautionary notes.
An incident eight years ago. A young female private had made a complaint against him.
Nothing proven. Three years later, a second report.
More serious this time. Harassment, sexual harassment, inappropriate behaviour.
And again, wiped clean. Or as clean as these things could get. His official record anyway.
Then the piece of information I’d been dreading.
The report of the attack on Alex. She had been meticulous.
Tenacious in her determination to report him and see some kind of justice.
The detail in her statement was precise and clinical.
Exactly what I’d expect from a medical officer.
It made it worse somehow, that precision.
That she’d had to be that composed about something like that.
There were copied emails from Henderson’s father.
The language was careful. But the underlying subtext was very clear.
Manage this, manage her, make it go away.
Nothing that could be held up in court as nepotism.
There were further reports detailing how to handle Alex.
Damage limitation. That was the phrase they used.
Damage limitation. As if she were the problem to be managed.
I looked up at Dom. ‘The fucking cunt,’ I said, as the anger hit me right in the chest.
‘Copy that,’ said Dom. He said it in his understated way, which somehow made it worse. ‘I can get Alex’s file if you want.’
‘I don’t.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
I pushed back my chair and got to my feet. I couldn’t sit still. I wanted to lash out. The effort to hold the physical effect of the fury was reaching a tipping point.
‘I’m going to find him, and I’m going to rip his fucking head off and spit in the hole.’