He pushed her away and lifted his leg. With one hard kick, he smashed the door in.

‘Lance!’ she screamed. ‘What are you doing? Christ, I’m calling the police!’

He stopped and turned towards her. ‘Good. Why don’t you fucking do that!’

Without wasting time arguing with her, he ducked his head and made his way into the cabin, while she stomped off back to the house. If she called the police, so what? he thought. By police, she would of course mean her incompetent brother, and he would have fun coming face-to-face with Conrad. There was certainly no love lost between them, and if he did turn up, then there would be no holding back: this time he would definitely be telling the Police Commissioner a few home truths.

It was still daylight, so he pulled back the curtains. The cabin was warm, and as he touched the keyboard to the computer, the screen instantly lit up. But like Poppy before him, he couldn’t access any files. A coffee cup, which lay beside the computer, didn’t have the dark ring that the dregs would have left after a long period of time. His eyes shifted to the filing cabinets, and he pulled the drawers open, one at a time. Apart from a few old pens and some bills, there was nothing here. Right away, he sussed that the place had been emptied. The question, though, was why. Brooke had mentioned she’d seen a trunk, and when he turned around, he saw a well-worn Army one. The lid was open, revealing it was empty. He shook his head.

He marched back up to the house with suspicion on his mind. ‘Rebecca!’ he yelled.

She appeared in the kitchen, looking very different from the demonic, screaming bitch who had left the cabin and stormed back to the house. Her face was relaxed and sorrowful.

‘Where is he?’

‘I honestly don’t know. What were you looking for, Lance? Please tell me?’ Her calm manner was the real deal; there was no more pretence, no more histrionics.

‘Your husband is up to something, and I intend to find out what it is, but it’s apparent that he’s hiding something and probably from you too. Those filing cabinets are empty. He’s removed whatever he had in them.’

‘How do you know he had stuff in the cabin in the first place? Not even I know what’s down there. I thought it was just used as a shed.’

‘Brooke told me.’

A gasp left Rebecca’s mouth. ‘So you do know where Brooke is? How . . . when . . . I mean, why would she tell you that? Where is she now?’

Lance waved his hands dismissively, brushed past her, and hurried through the hallway to the front door.

‘Wait! Lance, where are Brooke and Poppy?’