Deep Water by Mark Ayre (best big ereader TXT) 📕

of TV soaps. Until Tony’s voice started rising towards hysteria, and the slap came naturally. He reeled at the contact and stared bug-eyed at Abbie.

“Tony,” she said, placing a hand on his shoulder, “let go of my arm right now, before I put you on the ground.”

Tony’s eyes flicked from Abbie’s face to her arm, encircled by his hand. His features warped with surprise, as though he had not realised he was still holding her. There was a beat, then he let go and stepped back.

“Thank you,” said Abbie, smoothing the sleeve of her jumper, which had crumpled and slid up where Tony had grabbed her. “And to answer your questions, if I heard them correctly through your whiney babbling: no, I wasn’t lying, and no Louis did not send me to taunt you. He didn’t send me at all. As previously discussed, I’ve never met him. Only Jacob.” She paused, looked around. “Where’s the nicest walk around here? Through these quaint little streets or along the beach? God, this place is like a postcard. Must be a real tourist trap in the summer.”

“A walk?” said Tony. “Why are you talking about walks?”

“You’re agitated. A walk will do you good; clear your head. Do me good, too; I’ve got plenty to think about. So how about you take me to your mother’s house, but take me the long route. We can talk more on the way.” She pointed down a long, winding street. “We can start here. Looks nice.”

As she took her first step, Tony again grabbed her arm. This time Abbie twisted, snatched his hand and yanked. With a yell, Tony retreated.

“Sorry,” said Abbie. “Don’t grab me.”

“Whatever,” said Tony threw gritted teeth. “How about this: I give you my mum’s address, and you take whatever route you want to get there. In return, you give me my gun, and I finish what I started before you interfered.”

“No.”

Tony’s face whitened with frustration. His eyes dropped to Abbie’s coat, and she smiled.

“You can try take it,” said Abbie. “Can’t promise I won’t break your arm.”

“Why are you doing this?” Tony said in a superb imitation of a petulant child. “You said you wanted to protect my mother? Well, the danger to her comes from Louis. You give me my gun, I’ll do your job for you.”

“No,” Abbie said again. Before Tony could meltdown, she continued. “If after meeting your mother, I deem her worthy of saving, save her is what I’ll do. If I must kill Louis to protect her, I will. You have my word. But I can’t shoot someone based on your word, even if I suspect you’re telling the truth. And I can’t let you go it alone because I need you to introduce me to your mother, and even if I didn’t, you couldn’t kill him, so I’d be wasting my time.”

“I’ll kill him.”

“No,” said Abbie. “I’m sorry, but you couldn’t.”

Having had enough of the conversation, Abbie started down the winding street. Stunned, Tony at first remained still. After regaining his senses, and his righteous fury, he gave chase.

“What makes you so sure I’d fail?” As he reached her, his hand came to grab her a third time. At the last second, realising what he was doing, he dragged away his fingers. Smart move. “You’ve only known me five minutes. How can you say I won’t kill him?”

Abbie was of a mind not to answer, but here he was, by her side, and growing more agitated by the second. Getting into a fight with the son of the victim her dream had sent her to protect was never bright, but Abbie saw no way to reduce his ire. She certainly wouldn’t lie.

Rather than ignoring the problem, she decided to give him exactly what he wanted. See how he liked that.

“You knew Louis was home last night, correct?”

“Of course. This wasn’t some half-baked spontaneous—”

“Right,’ said Abbie. “This was planned. Like you said, Louis has an active sex life but doesn’t bring women home, so you must have been waiting for a day where he was in, but his children were out. Correct?”

Tony wasn’t sure where she was going with this, but she had his attention. He nodded.

“Okay, so you find out when the kids are going to be away for the night. That evening, yesterday evening as it turned out, you hide in the garden and ascertain Louis is in, but with no sign of a woman.”

 Another nod from Tony.

“So you arrived at what, eight pm?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“Blimey,” said Abbie. “That’s commitment. Don’t fly off the handles. I’m not mocking you. My sister was murdered. I remember the obsession, the need to make things right. To avenge her death.”

Tony was watching Abbie closely. Too closely. As they made their way down the street, he almost walked into a lamp post and tripped off the curb in quick succession. He was trying to suss out if she was telling the truth.

“Your sister…” he started.

“Yeah,” said Abbie. “Years ago. I don’t want to talk about it.”

But she couldn’t stop thinking. Bobby’s town, where she had saved a man named Eddie, had cursed her. That place, its people, had made her human, infected her with emotion. Now she was entangled in a situation that involved a teenage boy who had almost been raped and a man who had lost his sister. Two events that had destroyed Abbie’s life many years ago.

If there was a higher power somewhere up there, she was laughing, or she hated Abbie. This could only be a punishment or a cruel joke.

The memories were choking. Pushing past them, Abbie forced words up her blocked throat and into the cold morning air.

“You waited until Louis went upstairs and the lights went out. What time was that?”

“Midnight,” said Tony.

“Midnight,” Abbie repeated. Looking at him, she shook her head. “You must see it. You must understand why I won’t return your gun.”

Tony looked at her. She thought he did understand, but there was no way he was going to say it. Needing to force