Dark Duets Part 6

She lowered him back to the carpet, closed his eyes, and folded his hands neatly on his chest. What the coroner would make of this, Emma couldn't guess-death by heart attack or stroke, maybe. Or some kind of family death pact.

It no longer mattered to her.

Human bodies were as fragile as lightbulbs, and as p.r.o.ne to shattering. The power that Uriel had poured into her-the power that had opened a window to darkness and unmade a demon-was gone now, poured out like starlight into that void, and it had burned away everything else inside her She was a dying bulb, and she felt the last flickers of light course through her veins. It felt sweet now, life. Sweet and clean and restored to the clarity it had possessed when she was a girl, full of promise and possibility.

Emma walked out into the dark and stood there for a moment, soaking in the late September warmth. All around her, as if it was broad daylight, the night-soaked gra.s.s flared green, the flowers shouted colors, and the world spoke.

She raised her face to the sky and laughed in delight.

And then she was gone.

JENNA SEARLES WALKED down a gray street in Portland. In the late fall chill, she wore layers of protection against the relentless drizzle. Despite the cold and rain, she had to admit she liked it here. Tall evergreens, mountains, coffee shops on every corner. And Portland liked her; she had friends who had come to her as if she'd always been meant to be here.

From time to time, she thought about the woman in the van, that desperate, crazy woman. As she'd been packing in the early morning, the cops had come to her parents' house to tell Jenna that they'd found her. The news reports had given Jenna the full story-the murdered dad, the dead son, the woman collapsed from a ma.s.sive stroke on the front lawn. They'd never found the gun. But they'd found a fascinating file. The details were never in the papers.

For no good reason, Jenna had chosen to take the dead woman's advice. To her parents' consternation, she'd packed up and left for Oregon, which was as opposite to Texas as she could get. She liked the University of Portland and its funky students; she liked her new friends and her cool apartment. It felt like . . . destiny, somehow.

She stopped to get a cup of hot chocolate and sipped it as she hiked up the hill toward the university grounds. Cars whizzed by, stirring fallen leaves; there was a sharp smell of burning wood in the air. People were starting to put out Christmas lights.

She paused at the light to wait for the safe crossing, and a soft jingling of bells drew her attention a few yards down the side of the street, off her route. Normally, she wouldn't have glanced that way.

That was how she came to see the crosses. There were three of them cl.u.s.tered together-crude white-painted wood, black paint, faded silk flowers jammed in at the base. The jingling came from frayed ribbons with bells tied at the ends, tossed in the wind.

She could see the names from where she stood. EMMA. TYLER. The third cross was blank.

Jenna shivered, as if someone had just walked over her grave, and then the light changed, and she kept walking, and put it out of her mind.

REPLACING MAX.

Stuart MacBride and Allan Guthrie.

"G.o.d, Wesley, you're such a child." Angelina thumps back into the pa.s.senger seat, arms folded across her chest. Bottom lip sticking out. Eleven years old, going on forty.

Wesley tightens his grip on the steering wheel, skin tightening across his bruised knuckles as he peers through the windshield into the darkness. "I'm not the one sulking." Thick globs of snow swirl through the BMW's headlights. The road twists and turns, skeleton trees guarding either side, jagged branches a canopy of claws as the big four-by-four's tires bite through the snow. Would be good to know where the h.e.l.l he's going. b.l.o.o.d.y road isn't even on the sat nav. But then the thing's been sod-all use since two hours north of Oban. "And when did you get your hair cut? I liked it when it was long."

She runs a hand through the auburn pixie cut, then sticks on her headphones. "Supposed to be going out for pizza. Never think of anyone but yourself, do you?" She narrows her eyes: mean and green in the dashboard's glow. Just like her mother's. . . . "You know something? Hugh's right, you're-"

"Stop it!" Wesley pulls the nearest wire from her ear. "Will you please just . . . stop, Angelina? How many times do we have to do this?"

She leans forward, just enough to make slamming back into the seat look more dramatic. "It's not even your weekend."

He tries for a smile. Softens his voice. Tries to take out the gravel and knots. "Come on, you're too young to stay by yourself. You know that."

"Could have stayed at Susan's house. She's got a spare room."

"Well, Angel, you're with me."

A road sign pokes out of the snow on the pa.s.senger side: Cladh Ciorag 5. Where the h.e.l.l is Cladh Ciorag?

"Why didn't Mum want me with her?"

Jesus Christ . . . "I don't know. It was a last-minute thing. They didn't tell me."

"She could have told me." Angelina clenches her mobile, the display screen haloing her lime-green fingernails. When did she start wearing nail polish? "It's so unfair."

"I'm not the bad guy here, okay?"

Silence.

She just crosses her arms again, jerks her chin up. "I need a p.i.s.s."

"A p.i.s.s? Is that how we brought you up? A p.i.s.s?"

"Gosh, Wesley, you're right." Her eyes go wide, one hand pressed against her cheek. "Swearing is horrible. Much worse than kidnapping someone."

"Picking someone up from orchestra practice isn't kidnapping. For G.o.d's sake, Angel, you can be such a . . ." Wesley works his hands around the steering wheel. Flexing his fingers. Taking deep breaths. "Look, it's late. We're both tired. We just need-I don't know-to find somewhere to stay. Get something to eat. Then we'll have a fun couple of days together. You'll like that, won't you?"

"No. I hate you."

"Come on, a trip up north, like we used to when you were little. Remember? You and me, a nice fire going, marshmallows, hot chocolate, and ghost stories?"

"Yeah, Wesley. Way to be desperate." Her thumbs peck at the phone.

"Stop calling me Wesley."

"Your name, isn't it?" One more poke and the phone gives a two-tone chime. She holds the handset against her chest. "Anyway, Hugh lets me call him Hugh."

"I don't care what b.l.o.o.d.y Hugh lets you call him: I'm your father!" b.l.o.o.d.y Hugh. Good old b.a.s.t.a.r.ding, vicious, devious, little, s.h.i.tty b.l.o.o.d.y Hugh. b.l.o.o.d.y Hugh who destroyed everything.

More silence.

"Look, I'm sorry. I . . . I'm just tired. Been a long day."

A big wooden sign looms out of the gloom, fixed to the trunk of a crippled oak. The picture of an old-fashioned Scottish house, with a pond or something behind it, sits above the words LOINNREACH HOUSE B&B picked out in cheery letters. A rectangle of plastic hangs beneath it: VACANCIES Angelina turns in her seat to watch it go past. "What are you doing? I told you I need to pee!"

The brake pedal judders beneath his foot as the BMW slithers to a halt.

Angelina stares at him. "Jesus, Dad!"

Dad, not Wesley. So that's what it takes.

He sticks the car in reverse and backs toward the turn, brake lights painting the snow blood red between the shadows.

WESLEY REACHES BACK into the car and grabs Angelina's bag. "Do you want your clarinet, too?" The words come out in a cloud of fog. The freezing air sandpapers his ears and cheeks. Every inward breath makes his fillings ache.

"Yeah, because I'm totally going to trust some slack-jawed banjo-picking t.o.s.s.e.r who runs an ancient B&B in the middle of nowhere not to steal it. Leave it locked in the car." She hauls on a big woolly hat, tucks her hair in out of the way, sticks her hands in her pockets, and stomps toward the front door. "G.o.d, you're such a loser."

Bathed in the warm glow of half a dozen floodlights, Loinnreach House looks a lot grander than it did on the sign-a two-story slab of white with broad gable ends and a couple of dormer windows poking up from the white-covered roof: black eyes beneath startled eyebrows. The lights catch the falling snow, making it shine like flakes of gold. Over to one side, what looks like the edge of an agricultural building stretches away into the shadows, beyond the floodlights' reach. No sign of the pond.

The house door opens just as Angelina's reaching for the knocker, and a frumpy-looking elderly woman wearing a red-spotted white ap.r.o.n smiles at them. She wipes her hands on a tartan tea towel, leaving smears of white flour on the fabric. "You must be freezing."

Angelina shrugs one shoulder. A mannered, too-cool-for-school gesture. Well, that's what comes of private education. A very expensive private education, and who was paying for it? b.l.o.o.d.y Hugh? Fat chance.

"Yeah, we're thinking of staying. You got an inside toilet?"

"Angelina!" Wesley closes the car door and thumbs the remote. The locks clunk and the indicators flash, but he goes around and checks the handle on the boot anyway. Just in case. "I'm sorry, it's been a long day. She didn't mean to be rude." Wesley hurries toward the house.

"Beautiful place you've got."

Mrs. Ap.r.o.n's smile grows wider, punching a couple of dimples into her cheeks. She squats down a couple of inches, until she's eye to eye with Angelina. "We've got eight inside toilets, three bathrooms, a billiard room, six guest bedrooms, and broadband Wi-Fi. How does that sound, princess?"

Angelina shifts from foot to foot, knees together. "I really need a pee."

"Down the hall, second door on the left."

Angelina pushes past, into the house, disappearing from view.

Mrs. Ap.r.o.n turns, watching her go. "And don't mind b.u.t.tons: he's a big softy." She faces Wesley again. Wrinkles pucker her lips. Loose skin puffs her eyes. She smells warm, though. Comforting, like fresh-baked bread. "Lovely girl. Pretty, too. You must be proud."

"Yeah. I am . . . usually."

"Honestly, don't worry about it. Me and George have a teenager of our own. I know what they're like." She holds out a hand. "Jeanette Constable."

He takes his glove off and grips her hand in his. The skin's dry to the touch, dusty from the flour. "Wesley. Wesley . . . Smith."

"Welcome to Loinnreach House, Wesley. And please, call me Jeanette." She keeps hold of his hand, looking up at him. "I just know you're going to be very happy here."

THE FLOORBOARDS CREAK beneath the dusty purple carpet as Wesley and Angelina follow Jeanette's broad back along a corridor lined with heavy oak doors, each one with a bra.s.s plaque bearing a name like TABBY, TORTOISESh.e.l.l, or SMOKE. Baby portraits in gold frames cover the walls, black-and-white, color, and a couple of sepia prints too. Not a single adult to be seen.

Wesley stops outside one of the rooms and runs his fingers across the metal rectangle screwed to the wood. "Mackerel? Cats and fish? Kind of a random naming system . . ."

Stomping up ahead, Angelina puffs out an exaggerated sigh and shakes her head from side to side, making the bobble on her hat wobble. "Don't you know anything? They're all kinds of cat markings."

"Oh, you know your cats! I'm impressed." Jeanette pulls out a long wooden fob and slips the attached key into the door at the end of the corridor. The one marked CLa.s.sIC. She pushes the door open. "Angelina, you're in here." She steps back and ushers them into a small room with a single bed along one wall. A pine wardrobe in the corner. A small desk underneath a sash-and-case window. "We breed Maine c.o.o.ns."

"Like b.u.t.tons? He's huge."

"And that's why he's a grand champion." She reaches an arm around Angelina's shoulders and steers her to the window. "Look down there."

Angelina presses her nose against the gla.s.s. "Are those cages?"

"Cat runs."

Wesley dumps the bag on the bed and joins them. The room overlooks a courtyard lit by a row of spotlights. Snow covers the roof of a single-story building running perpendicular to the house. Clumps of ice cling in patches to the long floor-to-ceiling wire-meshed enclosure along the front of it. Inside, climbing frames and ramps cast shadows on the ground. Something that looks like a small lynx perches on a plank, looking up at the window. It stretches. Yawns.

"Wow. Can I go see them? Do you have any kittens?"

"Not just now. But . . ." Jeanette holds up a finger. "We've got two pregnant queens. One's due in a couple of weeks. It'll be her first litter. We're very excited."

Angelina's eyes go wide. Like she's six again and it's Christmas morning. "Is b.u.t.tons the daddy?"

"No, he's retired. Ah, but in his day . . ." A sigh. "We have three other boys now. I'll get Ellie to give you a tour later if you like? Show you our little family?"

"Wait till I tell Mum." Angelina bites her bottom lip, bouncing up and down on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet. "She'll be so jealous. We can't have a cat because Hugh's allergic."

WESLEY SITS ON the edge of his room's double bed. Dark-wood paneling on the walls, dark carpet on the floor, wine-red bedspread, curtains the color of dried blood. It'll be like sleeping inside a tumor. Two deep breaths, then he stands again.

A handwritten note lies on the old oak dressing table: "Honesty Bar-help yourself to a dram or two, and let us know how many you've had when you check out!" It sits next to a bottle of Dalwhinnie and two crystal tumblers. Wesley pours himself a large one, the bottle skittering against the rim of the gla.s.s. Shaking.

He downs half of it in one, then pulls the curtain open an inch. The BMW's outline is softening beneath a blanket of snow.

b.l.o.o.d.y Hugh who never put his hand in his pocket. b.l.o.o.d.y Hugh, stealing other people's wives. b.l.o.o.d.y Hugh, kicking and biting and swearing.

Wesley yanks the curtains shut again. Throws back the rest of his whisky.

Takes a deep breath. Checks his phone for messages.

Nothing. Good.

He rests his head against the curtain's dry, musty fabric. No one's looking for him. Yet.

The phone bleeps as he switches it off, then he slides it back into his pocket, checks his face in the mirror above the yawning fireplace, and heads downstairs. The stairwell's lined with yet more photos of babies and children. All happy and smiling.

The door at the bottom is off the latch, faint voices on the other side. Sounds like Angelina and Jeanette and a third voice he doesn't recognize. He opens the door and steps out into a blast of freezing air.

WHITE FLAKES DRIFT down, shining in the spotlights outside the row of cages. There's a whiff of something sour: rotting onions and rough vinegar, with the creosotey undertone of industrial disinfectant.

Two huge cats prowl the concrete floor behind the wire mesh. One's a silver-and-black-striped thing with tufty ears. The other's peaches and cream, with a ridiculously fluffy tail almost as big as its body, waddling as its swollen belly swings from side to side. A third cat, ma.s.sive and ginger, sits on one of the platforms, motionless, like an oversize owl, with a crinkly white ruff.

Wesley steps out into the snow.

A thin dusting sticks to Angelina's woolly hat, giving her head a festive look that dies when it hits her scowling face. "You don't even like cats, Wesley."

Great: back to calling him Wesley again.

Don't rise to it. Be an adult. No point kicking off a domestic in front of strangers.

Jeanette raises an eyebrow at a scruffy-looking teenage girl in a thick padded jacket and Wellington boots who's carrying a mop and bucket. "I'm sure he just hasn't met the right one yet, has he, Ellie?"

A pair of striking eyes-one blue, one green-stare out at him from underneath the hood of Ellie's coat. There's something . . . feline about the way they tilt up at the corners. She's a head taller than Angelina. A heart-shaped face framed by straggles of long blond hair, a straight nose that's a little too long. Not conventionally pretty, but she'll probably be a heartbreaker in a couple of years.

She beams a set of perfect teeth at him. "I like your hair." Her voice has that lilting west-coast Highlands-and-Islands warmth to it. "I wish I was a redhead, but Mum says I'm not allowed to dye it. Why don't you like cats?"

He leans back against the door frame. "It's not that I don't like them, it's just-"