And Lila’s, “Is something –?”
As well as Rachel’s, “Where’s Belle?”
He stopped at the door and saw Jensen close. The man didn’t ask a single question. He was a man. He was also a father. He felt Jack’s mood and he wasn’t wasting time.
“None of you leave this room,” Jack ordered.
“Jack, darling, what –?” Joy began.
“Do not… leave… this room,” he clipped, jerked his chin up to Jensen and prowled out.
He was stalking down the hall, Jensen on heels when Jensen asked, “Dude, you gonna fill me in?”
Jack didn’t tell him that he knew. That he simply, for no reason that was sane, knew that Belle was in danger.
Instead, he shared, “The lights are out. The phones are out. Both Belle and my mobiles have disappeared. The dogs have disappeared. Angus has not joined us. Cassandra and Yasmin have not yet arrived. And Belle went to the bathroom too f**king long ago. None of this is a coincidence. Something’s wrong.”
“The storm –” Jensen started.
“The storm does not explain two missing mobiles, Angus’s unusual delay in taking the opportunity to drink whisky and my dogs disappearing.”
“Cassandra’s protection –”
“Is magical,” Jack finished for him. “If the threat to Belle is real, human, in this f**king realm, it doesn’t…”
He turned into the kitchen, trailed off and stopped dead.
This was because he found the kitchen dark and deserted. No Elaine. No staff.
This was also because his mind’s eye brought up a picture of Belle.
Always but always she wore Cassandra’s protection amulet around her neck. Even to bed.
Tonight, she was wearing his diamonds around her neck.
No amulet.
“Fuck!” he hissed then strode to the drawer with the torches.
“Jack,” Jensen whispered, his concern heavy in his tone.
He handed Jensen a torch and tagged one for himself.
Then he issued orders, “Find Angus. As you try to find him, find your mobile or any mobile. Get it to Lila. She calls 999. She calls Cassandra. She calls and checks on Yasmin if Yasmin is not with Cassandra. Then she calls Lachlan and Lorna and she tells them to get to The Point as soon as they can. In that order. You don’t wait for her to make these calls. You keep searching for Angus and my f**king dogs.”
“Right,” Jensen whispered, didn’t hesitate and Jack saw the torchlight bobbing as the older man raced from the kitchen.
Taking a deep breath even as he moved swiftly, Jack turned on his own torch and strode to the door he’d exited months ago with Belle the night they met when he was guiding her out to show her the stables.
He moved into the dense fog and pouring rain as lightning lit the night, bouncing against the looming fog, making it eerie, threatening. And he moved through it as the flash disappeared and the thunder rolled.
But he wasn’t headed to the stables.
He was headed in a sprint to Belle’s cliff.
The site of Brenna Addison’s murder.
* * * * *
Mickey
“We have to land, mate. This storm, this fog –” his pilot friend said into Mickey’s earphones.
“We’re over Devon,” Mickey cut him off.
“We won’t make it to Cornwall in this weather,” his friend retorted as the plane bounced alarmingly in the storm.
“Try,” Mickey bit out.
“Mick –”
“Try,” Mickey growled.
The pilot growled back but it was merely an angry, worried sound, not an intelligible word and he flew on thinking if they got out of this alive, Mickey Dempsey was going to owe him big.
Huge.
* * * * *
Lorna
Lorna, driving too fast on the rain-slicked roads through the fog so thick she could barely see past the headlamps on her car, took her life in her hands (further) when she snatched up the ringing mobile sitting on the seat beside her.
She didn’t look at the display. She just took the call and put it to her ear.
“Talk to me,” she ordered.
“You close?” Lach asked in her ear.
“The good news is, no one but me is stupid enough to be on the roads tonight, even the police so I’ve got a straight shot. The bad news is, I’ve called Cass three times since I connected with her and got no answer. I’ve called The Point, no answer. Belle, Jack, Lila –”
“Me too,” he interrupted her. “And I’ve called Uncle Angus six times. Nothing.”
“I don’t have a good feeling about this, Lach,” she warned, her voice low.
“Me either, love,” he whispered. “Can you think of anyone close we can send there?”
“Nope,” she answered.
“Fuck,” he muttered then, louder, he ordered, “Drive but be safe. I’ll see you there.”
“See you there.”
She disconnected, tossed the phone on the seat beside her, concentrated as best she could and drove.
Fast.
* * * * *
Jack
She wasn’t there.
Belle wasn’t on her cliff.
Brenna’s cliff.
Breathing heavily, soaked to the skin, terrified out of his mind, he looked up at the dim shadow of The Point looming over him in the fog.
Lightning rent the air followed by thunder and he saw them.
He saw them.
Two children in the window at the landing on the stairwell in the eastern turret. Two children who looked to be shouting and banging their fists against an invisible barrier.
Myrtle and Lewis.
Jack Bennett blinked.
And when his eyes opened, he was no longer Jack.
He was Joshua.
And his children were up there.
So without hesitation, his long legs moved, racing toward The Point.
Racing to his children.
* * * * *
Caleb
Caleb Caldwell’s body swayed violently and he blinked.
Then he felt it.
Rain pummelling his skin.
Earth beneath his feet.
He looked down.
Earth beneath his feet, solid, real, right there.
He was not in Bennett’s brother.
He was real.
He was himself.
He was back.
His head shot up and his eyes focused on the drifting fog, seeing James Bennett racing through it toward The Point.
Caleb smiled.
Then he raced after him.
* * * * *
Angus
“Dude, you okay? Dude? Angus? Angus?”
Jensen was shaking him. Angus, head foggy and killing him, blinked, feeling thick moisture on his face as he pushed up.