A head taller than many and slim as a match, Phaedra had piercing pale gray eyes and the roughly hewn complexion of someone who spent the majority of their time outdoors. She’d alwaysseemed unbreakable to Katerina, as if the core of her neighbor had been whittled from iron.
“You do not need to worry about me,” she said. “Where is Elpida?”
“Ah.” The tight line of Phaedra’s lips softened. “She is sleeping. My daughter will be two before December, but she does not have the strength her brother had at that age. How could she,” she added mutinously, “when there is barely a thing to feed her?”
“The allies will move the blockade soon,” Katerina said dully.
They all said it. None of them believed it.
“Why don’t you come to the house?” Phaedra said. “I have made a pot of nettle tea. It is no match for coffee, but it is better than nothing at all.”
“I need to speak to my sister.” Katerina nodded toward the door.
“Leni? She is at the bakery.”
There was something about the way she said it, almost too quickly, her voice high, different.
“It is a Monday,” Katerina told her. “The bakery does not open today.”
Phaedra put a hand on her arm.
“Come,” she urged. “Won’t you have tea with me? I was going to give you some baby clothes that I found.” As she spoke, she took a series of small steps to the side, only stopping when she had blocked the door. Esther glanced up for the first time. Her dark eyes crinkled as they caught Katerina’s. It was as if she was trying to communicate something.
Then movement, shadows behind the shutters. A male voice, low and urgent. Another sound, this time a cry.
Phaedra flinched, and Katerina saw it—the fear, raw and sudden—before she shouldered past her without a word.
“Leni!” she cried, advancing into the room at speed.
No. It made no sense.
That could not be her sister splayed out across the table, her arms thrown wide, her eyes devoid of light. Not her sister with her skirts pulled high, a man between her thighs, his hand roving across her chest. Lio did not cease his grotesque pawing. He thrust harder, grunting like a ram, trousers pooled at his ankles, a vile smirk slashed like a wound across his face.
Katerina opened her mouth. No sound came. The scream stayed locked inside, a shrill vibration in her skull. When Lio had beaten her, when his boots had found bone and she had tasted blood, it had not hurt like this.
A sob escaped.
She turned.
And ran.
Behind her, the door slammed, sharp and final. Across the hillside, it cracked like a gunshot.
Forty-nine
Skye awoke suddenly, her heart hitting her throat as if flung from a slingshot.
The floor was hard beneath her. Disorientation muddied her thoughts. Skye rubbed her eyes and looked around. She was downstairs, on the deflated air bed, a sheet tangled by her feet.
Martyn. His threat. The argument.
Each memory landed heavily, a booted foot on her chest.
Her phone was within reach, its long white cable snaking up into a socket. Skye pulled it toward her. The time was 7:59 a.m. As she stared at the screen, the clock slipped forward to 8:00, and her alarm began to tinkle.
Nine hours until Martyn’s ferry left the island.
Nine hours to either return the Rolex to him or watch him leave, knowing the fight that would follow, the trouble she could be in if he reported her, the determination with which he would dismantle and destroy her life.
