‘Move slowly and quietly and speak in a calm voice.’
My legs tremble. I don’t know if I want to venture any further but I have to know what’s behind those voiles. I turn my torch off and place my phone into the big front pocket of my dungarees. I still have the knife and feel sick at the thought of having to use it. After my eyes have adjusted to the dark, I part the voiles to see a dog standing close to the ledge. Ethan is kneeling on the floor holding a hand out towards it, trying to encourage it to come to him. The golden retriever steps back, shaking.
‘Come here, boy,’ Ethan says in a gentle voice. The dog’s nails scrape on the floor as it moves right onto the edge of the broken balcony. Its lead seems to be tangled around one of the almost fallen rails. ‘I won’t hurt you.’ He holds his hand out again.
My heart feels like it’s in my mouth. One slip and the dog will be hanging by its lead over the edge. If Ethan goes to untie the lead, I’m scared he’ll go over too. A small bit of loose concrete from the balcony crashes to the ground.
‘Here, boy. Please come here.’ Ethan withdraws slightly, and the dog steps towards him. With a swift movement, Ethan pulls the dog close into his arms, where he pats and hugs it. ‘It’s all okay.’ While spreading his weight across the floor, he leans across and untangles the lead.
‘Did you come across anyone else? I ask, wondering if the person who brought the dog ran away.
‘No, only the dog.’ He glances at my hand as he stands. ‘Is that a knife?’
‘I didn’t know what was happening.’ I place the knife on a rickety wooden chair. I won’t need that now.
He leads the dog back into the house and reads the tag. ‘It’s your friend Quinn’s dog. Her address is on the tag.’
‘What’s it doing in our house?’
‘That’s what I intend to find out.’
‘Ethan, whatever was walking above me when I was downstairs was on two legs, not four. It wasn’t the dog. There was someone in the house.’
Twenty-Two
Gemma
Ethan marches across the lane and I almost slip on some ice as I try to catch him up. The dog drags him while whimpering, eager to get back home after its ordeal. I glance up and, once again, Ray is looking out of his bedroom window right at me. I guess he heard the barking and wondered what the hell was going on. Zoe walks up the path with her hound and she stops at the lamppost, where the dog relieves itself. This is turning into a nightmare. We’re a spectacle once again. I slip and slide on the ice all the way to Quinn’s drive. Ethan has barely said anything to me since I told him I heard a person, not a dog, in our house. ‘Ethan, slow down.’
‘Quinn or Harry were at our house. It’s their dog. They heard me coming, hurried out and forgot their dog somehow.’
The security light comes on as we near Quinn’s front door.
Does he know how absurd that sounds? I do, but then again, I can’t explain why their dog was in our house. Why would anyone break into someone’s house and bring a dog?
He hammers on their door constantly. The lights are on but no one answers. Footsteps get louder behind me. I turn. ‘Quinn, Harry,’ I say.
Ethan turns. ‘Okay, so which one of you broke into our house? Actually, don’t bother. You forgot your dog.’
Quinn’s brows furrow, and Harry bends down and ruffles the dog’s fur before taking the lead from Ethan. Quinn takes a step back from my angry husband. ‘Ethan, let’s talk about this calmly,’ she says.
‘Calmly. Okay, let’s start.’ His voice quietens. ‘Letters, worms, and now a dog in our house. Quinn, what’s going on?’
I didn’t tell him about the article secreted in the hamper. There’s no way I could. Why did I allow us to come here only to be confronted by the past I wanted to forget? I guess in my mind, I thought everyone from the past would have moved on, but no, Ray recognises me and Quinn is still here. And there were maybe others I don’t remember.
‘I don’t know.’ Quinn shrugs.
Harry stands and blinks a couple of times. ‘Diggerty was in the garden and he dug another hole. Mum and I have been looking for him for half an hour now. We don’t know how he got into your house.’
‘Right, I’m sure you don’t.’ Ethan rolls his eyes.
It sounds reasonable to me. I can’t imagine Quinn sneaking around our house in the heeled boots she’s wearing. She’d have been clip-clopping all over the place, and I didn’t hear that sound above me.
Ethan continues. ‘Are you trying to get rid of us? I know you were close to Dorette. She mentored you.’
Wait, how does Ethan know about the mentoring? I haven’t told him what Quinn and I talked about. He must have spoken to her when he was working on the apartment.
He’s waving his arms as he speaks. ‘You wanted the house, didn’t you? Dorette had no more living relatives except Gemma; you were probably like a daughter to her so you thought it should be yours and now you’re angry that she didn’t leave it to you. You’re so angry, you’re sidling up to Gemma, sending horrible letters to everyone and making them think we sent them and now this. You’re trying to scare us away, all because you’re livid that the house isn’t yours. Is this not enough for you?’ He points at her huge house.
