I exhaled frustration. I’d come here on instinct rather than fact. If I was honest, it was because I wanted her. So badly my jaw ached and something burned in my chest.
I didn’t actually need her.
She was better off staying in Deadwater and following any new clues to Dixie. I’d be able to track her movements and could catch up when I returned. If she found her, Lovelyn would tell people. Unlike me, she liked to share her thoughts.
Which meant I needed to leave.
Not come up with ways to coax or persuade her. Not plan to tie her up and toss her into my back seat.
I stared at the ignition. If I got on the road now, I’d be in Manchester in a little over four hours and could wait it out until the estate agent’s doors opened. There, I’d sign their paperwork, hand over the keys, and the flat would be in their hands. All that was left was to empty the scant possessions I had and I could turn my back on the place.
For the sake of the sale money, that was my priority.
For one last moment, I regarded Lovelyn’s darkened home. Time to go.
A light flashed down one side. I stiffened. What the fuck was that?
It flared again. A brief flash of blue. A phone screen being used as a torch? She was being fucking burgled. Or worse.
I snatched up my phone and pressed an earbud into my ear then called Mila. Without Lovelyn’s number, I had no way of alerting her without hammering on her door, and that meant the fucker would get away.
“Kane? Is everything?—”
“Text Lovelyn and tell her someone’s trying to break into her home.”
“What? How?—?”
“Just do it.”
She swore, then tapping followed as she sent the message.
In the front bedroom, a faint glow lit the corner of the curtains. It brightened. Good. She’d seen the message.
“Tell her I’m outside and hunting the intruder. She should stay in her room with the lights off.”
My sister spoke while sending the instruction. “I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why you’re outside my friend’s place in the middle of the night?”
I was already out of my car and silently padding across the road.
Lovelyn’s house was on a quiet street, brick-built and detached so a narrow path ran from the front garden to the back on the left-hand side. Beyond that were other gardens, and here and there in the neighbourhood were lanes. Great place to be a burglar.
Chest-height hedges lined the front of her garden, and I skulked behind one, watching the house with my ears pricked for any sound. A low rattle came. The arsehole was trying the back door.
It told me exactly where he was. Breaking my cover, I bolted down the path, passing the house. Though I ran as lightly as I could, a twig cracked underfoot, the sound like a gunshot in the still night.
A scuffle came from the back of the house, and I rounded the corner to spot a figure leaping the fence.
Shite. I’d lost the element of surprise. But only just.
In hot pursuit, I threw myself over the fence, landing in the next-door garden. The intruder was already scaling another, giving me a fleeting look at him. Definitely a man from the height and shape, but all in black with his head covered so I couldn’t see his features. If he was in a gang, he wasn’t wearingtheir colours. Then again, neither was I. Arran had given me skeleton crew bandannas to conceal my face, but unlike the arsehole I was chasing, I had no will to hide.
Across the next garden, I hunted him. A light sprang on in the fourth, and a dog barked. It didn’t stop me. I vaulted a fence, nearly landing in a pond on my descent.
The garden beyond was silent and dark. I prowled across the wet grass. A brick wall blocked the way to the neighbouring property, but no escaping house invader sat on top of it. I’d been right behind him. Where did he go?
To my left, thick fir trees marked the end of the garden. I stalked down to them. He was in there, I knew it.
The branches shivered ahead of me, and I charged, keeping my senses alert for anyone poised to throw a fist, or a log, at my head. A flicker of black darted through the gap, and for a heartbeat I was on him, close enough to snatch the back of his hoodie. My fingers grazed fabric, but the fucker surged forward, slamming both hands onto the fence.
