The Houseboat by The Quay by Elise Darcy

Author:Elise Darcy [Darcy, Elise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penny Lane Press
Published: 2022-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Lexi woke up with a start. She could hear raised voices. She sat up and accidentally kicked over her suitcase that was on the floor by the sofa.

‘Oh, no. I can’t believe I fell asleep!’ She looked at the time. ‘It can’t be!’ She’d been out like a light for several hours. It was now almost seven o’clock in the evening. And it was still raining. Lexi rushed to the window. She guessed why she’d fallen asleep in the middle of the afternoon. Even though she’d had two nights in the hotel in London, she’d missed a night’s sleep on the flight, and her body clock still hadn’t adjusted to the time difference.

It wasn’t just that, though. Lexi rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she stumbled to one of the cabin windows. She’d had that dream again – but it wasn’t just a dream, it was a nightmare; someone was drowning, and she just couldn’t reach her. She held out her hand, but the other child’s fingers slipped through hers and she disappeared under the water.

Lexi didn’t have time to think about that, though. Her thoughts were consumed with who was on the towpath outside. She could hear footsteps. Had Margot been out for an evening meal and returned? Lexi threw on her coat and was about to switch on the light in the cabin and step outside, making her presence known, when she heard a child’s voice saying, ‘I don’t want to stay here!’

Lexi paused with her finger on the light switch. She left the cabin in darkness and hurried to the window. She moved a net curtain to one side to see a young man and a child, a girl no more than nine or ten, arguing on the footpath. He put two suitcases down and roughly grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘We’re staying here, young lady, and that’s the last I’ll hear of it!’

‘But Daddy, I don’t want to!’ she shouted back.

Lexi was about to rush out and intervene – she didn’t like the way he was treating the child – when she saw him kneel down and speak to her, but this time so softly that no words carried. Lexi saw the little girl nod her head. Then they hugged before he stood up and picked up their cases, one in each hand. He had a backpack on his back and a laptop case flung over his shoulder.

Lexi’s eyes went wide when they approached the gate to the houseboat she was on. It hadn’t occurred to her that despite the letter addressed to Margot Dorey in the post box, she might not actually live there. It hadn’t occurred to her that it could be a holiday rental.

‘Oh, crap.’ She backed away from the window and knocked into the wall. Her elbow struck a light switch. The ceiling light switched on immediately, bathing the cabin in a soft white light. Lexi held her breath.

‘See? I told you it’s not that one,’ she heard a child’s voice, the girl, shout out.

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