“Yeah, fine, we get the message,” Sophie panted, bracing herself and heading across the open-plan office, grateful for the blinds that hid her from the police marksmen she had no doubt would be in place, fingers on triggers, nerves strung tight as a fishing line with a shark on the other end. She prayed nobody would be too eager tonight.

After what felt like half a lifetime, Sophie was across the office and into the reception area. The muscles in her thighs were trembling, but she wasn’t going to open the door until she knew the ambulance was there. Legs apart, free arm straight against the wall, she stood sweating for a full minute that stretched her patience near breaking point. Then she heard the swoop of an ambulance siren, growing closer, then abruptly silenced, like someone clamping a hand over a child’s mouth.

Dry-mouthed with apprehension, Sophie cracked the door open a couple of inches. “Don’t shoot!” she yelled, reaching behind her to pull the gun free. She tossed it out underarm, giving it a flick of the wrist to carry it well away from her. The gun clattered on the road, then there was silence.

“I’m coming out,” she yelled. “We’re the victims here, understand? I’ve got a wounded woman here. We’re the victims!”

“Come out slowly, with your hands raised,” the megaphone voice quacked.

Sophie curled her free arm under Lindsay’s legs and let her slide down from her shoulder until she carried her in both arms across the front of her body. Then she slowly staggered out into the street, blinking the tears from her eyes. “Get the paramedics,” she shouted. “Somebody get the paramedics.”

Epilogue

Epilogue

The light in the seat-belt sign died with an electronic bong. Lindsay waggled her fingers at the window and said, “Goodbye and good riddance.”

“You didn’t enjoy your holiday?” Sophie asked.

“Two trips to hospital? Scarred for life in two separate places? Temperatures higher than California and not a room that has air conditioning from London to Loch Fyne? All the guns in America and I have to come to London to get shot?” Lindsay demanded, her voice rising to a squeak.

“We had a nice time in Scotland,” Sophie reminded her.

“You had a nice time in Scotland,” Lindsay said darkly, shifting in her seat to make her bandaged shoulder more comfortable. “I had my mother acting like I’d been brought home to die and my father taking the piss out of me every night. And then when we did get up to Torridon, you wouldn’t let me up any decent hills in case I wasn’t recovered enough.”

Sophie shook her head, grinning. “I don’t think I was unreasonable to put my foot down about a Munro that involved an eight-mile hike just to get to the bottom of the mountain, followed by a 3000-foot climb and another eight-mile hike back to the car.”