Page 94 of Final Betrayal

‘That’s the way it should be.’ She smiled softly.

‘What happened, Lottie?’

‘The crane collapsed. We were lucky. I don’t think Cyril Gill or his foreman Bob Cleary were as fortunate. The Portakabin was flattened. Their bodies haven’t been located yet as far as I know. If we’d been standing a few feet to our left, we wouldn’t be here.’

‘Mmm. We do seem to spend a lot of time in hospitals, don’t we?’

‘You know what I mean.’ She tried to be angry with his flippancy, but she only felt concern as she patted his hand.

He said, ‘First the daughter and now the father. Do you think he was a target?’

‘What? You mean the Gills? Are you saying it might not have been an accident?’ The thought hadn’t crossed her mind.

‘It’s possible, isn’t it?’

‘A bit extreme. All that collateral damage.’ But maybe Boyd had a point. ‘There’ll be a full-scale inquiry into the incident. The security cabin is gone too. I hope that young lad Ducky Reilly wasn’t in there, but …’

‘It’s likely he was.’

‘Yes.’

‘Lottie, I need to get out. We’re stretched for resources as it is. Talk to a doctor. Tell him I’ll come back for the tests tomorrow.’

‘So you do have to have more tests. You really are a liar.’

‘Please?’ Boyd’s fingers tightened around hers.

She knew she couldn’t put him at risk. If he could lie, so could she.

‘Sit tight. I’ll see what I can do.’ She leaned over, flinching with the pain in her neck, and let her lips rest softly on his good cheek. He moved his head and their lips touched.

‘Thanks.’ He smiled crookedly again. ‘All it took was a ton of mangled steel on my back to soften your heart.’

‘Who said it’s softened?’ She ran a finger along his forehead and picked grains of sand from his hair. ‘Boyd?’

‘What?’

‘Don’t ever die on me. I don’t think I could live without you. You know, without you having my back.’

‘Talk to a doctor. Get me out of here.’

‘I’ll see what they say. Get some rest.’

‘You too.’

She smiled and walked to the door.

‘Lottie?’

She turned to him.

‘I love you.’

She bit her lip. She wanted to say the words, wanted to reassure him that her heart was bursting, but she couldn’t. She opened the door and left.

When he reached the wall, Conor knew he had to crawl back in with the skeleton to get out the other side. He was leaving pieces of himself everywhere. Evidence that could be used against him. But he had a legitimate reason for being here. He’d been underground when something had happened up on the site, trapping him below. This was his only way out. He concocted answers in his head to possible questions that might be posed at a later date, but all that was dependent on him escaping and someone asking where he had been. Or maybe no one was left to ask the questions.

Keeping his eyes away from the body, he crept through the opening behind it and entered the darkness of a tunnel he prayed would lead up and out, otherwise he was doomed. Don’t go there, he warned his inner self. No use thinking about what ifs.

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