Page 14 of Savage Reckoning

I let out a hollow laugh. “That’s true.”

“In a good way?

“Hardly.”

“So, tell me. Like I told the nice policeman, I’m going nowhere.”

“It was a long time ago…”

“Not long enough, from what I’m seeing. Go on.”

I sigh. Ethan knows what happened back on the base in Michigan. My aunt told him when she was trying to convince him to let me come to Caraksay after the army threw me out. We’ve never spoken of it, but I assume he’s sympathetic. That, or he just couldn’t say ‘no’ to Aunt Jackie.

“He was calling himself Ed back then. Ed Baker. Not sure if that’s his real name. Anyway, he was a colonel, I was a captain. I was in the medical corps, obviously. He was in Strategic Ops, specialising in bomb disposal.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Magda observes quietly.

“I suppose. Anyway, we got together. It only lasted a few weeks, but I was smitten. I’d thought he was, too, but it turns out I was just a stopgap while he was away from his wife.”

“Ah. Ouch.” Magda offers me a sympathetic grimace. “So you kicked him to the kerb?”

“Not exactly. I shot him.”

She gapes at me. “Better still.”

“I think I gave him that limp.”

“Sounds as though you were merciful. You could have aimed for something more vital.”

“I was court-martialled. Locked up for a year, then booted out of the army. I had nowhere else to go, and my aunt convinced Ethan to let me come to Caraksay to stay with her for a while. It was meant to be temporary, but I sort of stayed.”

“You arrived not long before I did.”

“Yup. And now he’s here.”

“He won’t be staying,” Magda asserts confidently.

“I hope not, because if he stays, I go.”

“Hmmm.” Her brow creases. “That would be a pity. I saw the way he looked at you.”

“What? Like a naive little fool he could lie to and manipulate?”

“Not exactly. More like he still has the hots for you.”

“No, he doesn’t. He’s a shit-brained ratbag. A married shit-brained ratbag, though I feel sorry for his wife. But that’s not my problem. Him and me, we’re history.”

She mutters something which sounds uncannily like, ‘If you say it often enough you might even believe it…’ Out loud, “I don’t suppose you could convince someone to give me more painkillers, could you?”

I check her chart. “Probably. I’ll just—”

The door opens. The nurse comes back accompanied by a porter wheeling a trolley. “Time to prep you for theatre,” she announces gaily.

I stay long enough to wave Magda off as they wheel her away. “I’ll be here when you come round,” I promise. When she disappears into the lift, I set off in the other direction, heading back to Intensive Care. I find Arina and Natalija in the family room.

“Any news?”

Arina shakes her head. “Cristina is with Ethan. There’s no change.”

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