“We could try to get a member of staff across.”
“I thought that before I saw the bridge was down. The water’s too wild to swim. Too risky to send anyone.”
A beat. Steed looks troubled. “And you’re sure that you’re okay?”
“I’m fine.” But as she speaks, the pain from her ribs flares again, takes the breath from her.
“Elin . . .”
She bats away his concern with a question. “Did you see which way he went?”
Still watching her, Steed gestures toward the doors behind. “He took Delaney through those.”
“How long ago?”
“Five minutes, maybe ten.”
Elin follows his gaze, calculating. Those doors are on the same side of the building as Farrah’s office. Not many places for Caleb to go from there. “I need to change and then I’ll head out.”
Steed’s gaze locks on hers. “Elin, no, Caleb’s armed. We need to wait for the team.”
Elin hesitates and, in that brief moment, fear slides into the silence between them as she remembers the violence of Caleb’s attack on the islet. In her mind’s eye, she feels it all over again, blow after angry blow, the oily lurch in her gut as he’d dragged her to the water.
But as the memory subsides, the echoes of his violence only steel her resolve. “With the phone lines down, we’ve got no idea when the team’s coming or if they can even get here, given the storm. That might be too late for Ronan. I think now we know why Caleb’s doing this, I can talk him down.”
Steed’s silent as Elin tugs off her wet jacket. Every jerky movement sends little ripples of pain through her rib cage. Grabbing her bag, she steps behind the barrier to change, but despite her words to Steed, she feels panic rising in her throat.
She fights it back, stooping to pull on a pair of shorts. A new pain: a dull throbbing not just around her ribs but from them, as if the very bone itself is protesting.
Doubt strikes again: is she really capable of stopping him in this state?
As she steps out from behind the barrier, Steed catches her eye. “Elin, I’ve been thinking about it. You can’t go alone. At least let me—”
But she’s already heading for the doors.
96
Stepping through the doors, Elin’s under siege, the world moving frenetically around her.
Trees. Furniture. Parasols. A merry-go-round of sand and dirt.
Adrenaline squeezes at her chest. Every sound, every movement is like a warning: telling her to go back to the main lodge. Protect them. Protect herself.
But she can’t. Ronan and Caleb are out here somewhere.
Looking around, she assesses where they could have gone. Her gaze lurches left, then right, locking on the sloping patch of grass leading down to the cliff. No access to the beach below apart from the steps she glimpsed when she and Steed were looking for Farrah. Too steep, surely, for Ronan, if he’s restrained?
Elin shuffles forward, listening for any sounds, but it’s impossible: the storm is the only voice to be heard. There’s no chance of hearing anything beyond the howling wind and ugly spatter of the rain.
She moves toward the front of the lodge: no sign of Caleb or Ronan.
When she reaches the restaurant terrace and bar a few moments later, she’s stopped in her tracks.
It’s been decimated. The neat piles of chairs she’d glimpsed on her way in have been toppled, flung around, several jammed up against the balustrade.
Lifting her leg over the broken remains of a table to get closer to the bar, she notices that the tarpaulin is no longer flapping; it’s completely gone.
Without any shelter, the wind’s wreaked havoc: bottles rolling across the floor. Glass smashed beneath her feet, crunching as she moves. Amber liquid from a broken bottle is pooling between the pieces of glass. The acrid smell of alcohol hits her nose.
A movement makes Elin glance up: one of the strings of festoon lights has been ripped from its fastening on one side, careering wildly backward and forward. Another has come fully down, now snaking along the floor between the broken glass and puddles of alcohol.
She’s about to turn, head for the balustrade to look at the level below, when something shifts in her vision.
A dark mass swinging toward her.
In a split second she realizes: the tarpaulin. It hasn’t gone. It’s still attached at the top, a gust hauling it out of sight for a moment before pulling it back down.
Elin steps away but too late: the tarp slaps her in the face, chest. The sudden movement nearly knocks her off her feet. Quickly steadying herself, a wave of dizziness washes over her, blood rushing to her head.