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The house is silent, no sounds of conversation or TV. Then Teri notices the blood.
It’s smeared along the far wall connecting the east and west wings. Beneath it she sees a trail of bloody footprints.
Adrenalin stitches threads of sensation up and down her spine. She thinks about getting out of here, running back to her car, but that’s how old Teri would have reacted. Those prints were made by small feet. Someone inside the house might need help. Besides, if she’s serious about her plan to retain Thornecroft, she needs to understand what happened here.
Silent, Teri crosses the hall to the junction of the two wings. To her left, the blood is heaviest outside Angus’s office, where she thinks the trail must have originated. Teri turns right, following it to the orangery, careful not to disturb the prints.
Inside, the glass exterior doors have been thrown open to the night. There’s blood on a wicker sofa back, red handprints on the doorframe. At the top of the garden, near the oak tree, she sees a human-shaped black mound.
Teri’s skin contracts on her flesh. Again, she thinks about getting as far away from Thornecroft as she can, but the prone figure near the tree exerts a pull impossible to resist.
Outside, she feels like she’s gliding above the grass rather than walking upon it. Moments later, she’s standing over Gabriel Roth, trying to make sense of what she’s seeing.
He looks more like a butchered carcass than a man. In the moonlight, the blood that’s soaked his shirt shines like black paint. Two glistening arrowheads have burst through his chest. A third arrow, shot from a different angle, has penetrated up to its fletching. A fourth shaft is lodged in his neck.
Gabriel’s eyes are glossy pools. She thinks he must be dead – until the reflections in those pools ripple, and his gaze slides over her.
Teri stiffens. She glances away from Gabriel, checks the rest of the lawn. A few metres away lies the weapon that must have done the damage: a squat but powerful-looking crossbow.
Gathering her courage, she lowers herself to a crouch. The person who did this might still be here, but fear hasn’t crippled her. She thinks again of the small feet that made those prints.
The arrow lodged in Gabriel’s neck must have nicked an artery rather than severing one; otherwise he’d already be dead. Still, there’s no coming back from his other injuries. Even if she calls an ambulance, he likely won’t survive until it arrives.
‘I want you to know something,’ Teri whispers, holding his gaze. ‘You and Angus don’t have any power over me.’
A blood bubble forms on Gabriel’s lips, slowly inflates.
‘You only had what I gave away freely, and now I’m taking it back. I’ve been frightened too long. I won’t let anyone frighten me again.’
His eyes roll away from her. The bubble on his lips bursts.
Teri grimaces, but she doesn’t recoil. And then she follows his gaze – and sees that they’re not as alone as she’d thought.
The teenager standing a few metres away is a broken thing; a pulverized ruin. Her face looks like a fruit that ripened until it burst and spilled its pulp. In one hand she’s holding a jerry can. In the other she grips a knife. Behind her, across the lawn, the door to the outhouse where Angus keeps his petrol mower is hanging open.
The newcomer isn’t Barbie Girl – that’s obvious despite her injuries – but she’s very similar in age.
For a while, the pair don’t speak, the silence between them finely balanced. Finally, Teri says, ‘You need a hospital. I can drive you.’
The teenager shakes her head. Her fingers tighten around the knife.
Raising her hands, hoping to communicate that she’s not a threat, Teri asks, ‘Did he do that?’
The girl nods. With the knife, she gestures at Teri’s swollen eye, split lip and grazed cheeks. Her voice, when she speaks, is a wet rasp. ‘That?’
Teri nods in return, then indicates Gabriel. ‘You did this?’
Another nod. A glimmer of broken teeth that’s almost a smirk.
‘He’s still alive.’
The girl rocks on her feet, limps closer. Carefully she lowers herself to the grass on the other side of Gabriel; and Teri sees, in his eyes, something she’d never expected: more than just fear; a blossoming terror. It doesn’t make her feel good, but it doesn’t make her feel awful, either.
The girl watches him for a while, impassive. Then she lifts her gaze to Teri, waiting as if for a signal.
Air rushes into Teri’s lungs. Because suddenly the question she’s being asked is very clear. She closes her eyes, opens them, sees the girl still watching her. She thinks of the past year with Angus; the past week with Gabriel; the life she wants to lead. And then she nods.
The girl leans forward. Wrapping her fingers around the arrow shaft, she twists it like a screw. Blood wells, a sudden flood. Gabriel sighs, his chest sinking. And then it’s done.