Deadly Code (Rhona MacLeod #3) by Lin Anderson

Author:Lin Anderson [Anderson, Lin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lin Anderson
Published: 2011-05-09T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

The moon had disappeared behind thick cloud. Rhona, following the boy's instructions, took a left onto a gravel road just wide enough for the car. Her headlights danced across a mixture of young birch trees and thick heather, the wheels following ruts trailed by some jeep through the mud left by the heavy rain. The boy said nothing, his face wooden with fear.

'What's your friend's name?'

He looked round at her suspiciously.

'Her name's Helen.'

Rhona's brain slowed down, stopped putting two and two together to get five. Spike. There were probably hundreds of guys called Spike. It went with the territory. Gelled hair, combat jacket, jeans. Choose a name that fitted the image. Anything but Donald. They were half-an-hour on the forestry track before he told her to stop. She got out of the car and set off on the sheep trail that the forestry track had become.

'Not that way!' he shouted at her. 'It takes you over the cliff.'

Rhona stopped, glad his eyes were keener than hers.

'You stay with the car,' he told her. 'I'll get Helen.'

'But what if you need help?'

‘I’ll manage.'

Rhona nodded. The boy looked a hundred per cent more at home out here than she felt. She got back in the car and turned off the headlights. If she flattened the battery, they wouldn't be going anywhere.

As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, Rhona could make out the line of the cliffs and the grey swell of water beyond. Mainland lights twinkled in the distance and here and there a single pinpoint suggested someone on another island. She rolled down the window and night air swept in, bringing the tangy softness of the sea and a fine whisper of coming rain.

She switched on the roof light to look at her watch. Spike had been gone an hour. He'd told her it would take that at least. She settled back in her seat and pulled up the hood on her jacket The fine smirr of rain was thickening, pattering the windscreen.

Rhona was already contemplating what she would do if Spike didn't reappear. She would have to sit here until it was light. Going back alone in this downpour was not an option.

A figure suddenly emerged like a ghost in front of her, hood pulled up, a large lump under his jacket. Rhona switched on the headlights to guide him and a wail like a child's cry rose into the air. Spike threw open the car door and slid inside, his face grey with worry.

'She's gone. She's fucking gone.'

He unzipped the jacket and a baby's face peeped out solemnly at her. 'No matter how ill she was, Esther wouldn't have left him alone.'

'Esther?' Rhona said in a small voice.

Spike stared at her in the realisation that the name meant something to Rhona, something important. 'Who the fuck are you?' he said.

They wedged the baby on the back seat behind one of Rhona's bags. Rhona didn't tell Spike how concerned she was about finding her way back in the rain.

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