“All right.” She pulled her jumper up over her head and threw it on the floor; there was mud on her hat, too. “I’ll have a shower and try again. No need to panic yet.”

Wincing from half a dozen new bruises, Heather went into the small en suite bathroom to have the hottest shower she could summon.

CHAPTER

42

HEATHER WOKE IN the night with a start, her heart thumping. She had been sure she wouldn’t be able to sleep, so she had laid down on the bed after her shower, thinking only to rest her aching limbs for a moment. Yet, now she had the sense of having been ripped from a very deep sleep, a sleep populated with vivid dreams of the woods at night, and …

She heard it again. The sound of something heavy moving outside, the crunch of footsteps on fallen leaves. Not, she noted, the loud and casual stomping of someone—Harry, for example—making their way home, but the careful tread of someone who didn’t want to be heard.

In an instant she was up, pulling on the last of the clean clothes from her suitcase. Once she put on her boots, she headed out into the hallway toward the kitchen. She had no clear idea what time it was, or how long she’d been asleep, but the living room was empty, and all the lights were off. Nikki’s bedroom door was slightly open and a quick peek inside confirmed her bed was unslept in. Heather’s stomach dropped.

“Christ, Nikki, where are you?”

She checked her phone to see if her messages had been received. They hadn’t. All at once the idea that Nikki had simply stayed out late without telling her seemed ludicrous. She had brought Nikki into danger, and now she was gone. Heather went to the kitchen drawers and pulled out the biggest, sharpest kitchen knife she could find, feeling the weight of it in her hand.

Well, fuck this.

Heather went to the front door and eased it open. For a handful of seconds, she stood very still. She could see nothing else from where she was, but somewhere to her right she could hear those slow, methodical steps. The wind gusted in her direction, and she even heard the soft noise of nylon brushing against nylon.

Holding the knife low by her hip, Heather stepped out into the dark, keeping close to the wall of the cottage. When she rounded the corner, she froze, sure that whoever it was would see her, but she saw almost immediately that she had been lucky; the figure had its back to her, and it appeared to be heading back into the woods. Wearing a thickly padded winter coat, this tall figure had its head covered in a hood, appearing little more than a dark shape. As she watched, the figure turned its head slightly, clearly glancing at the windows of the cottage.

Fear vanished. She didn’t even feel the cold. Instead, a hot, dry landscape of anger opened up inside Heather, just as it had the day she had slammed a pen through a man’s hand. Here, undoubtedly, was the person who had been terrorizing her these last few weeks. And they were still at it, creeping about in the dark, looking for a place to leave more of their notes and feathers.