Page 16 of One Last Touch

I could hear the grin on his face when he spoke as he walked away. “I’m pretty sure they just walked mud from the flower beds into the house.”

I swore under my breath and Sage chuckled as he walked off towards the lake. “Where are you going?”

He shrugged. “To feed the ducks.”

To feed the—I shook my head. He was a terrible groundskeeper. He’d mostly watched me plant the seeds for the flowers, occasionally offering snarky commentary, but I didn’t think I’d seen him touch so much as a shovel so far. I think he knew as well as I did that what I really needed right now wasn’t someone to mow the grass, though it did look nice now, I mostly just needed the company.

After a couple of hours the officers filed out of the manor and I stood up from where I’d been kneeling in the grass and brushed my gloves together to get rid of the dirt.

“Find anything?”

“It all looks fine in there, Miss. But if you have any other incidents please do get in touch.” He looked up at the house for a moment, his face looking paler than it had when he went in. “It’s likely that all you heard the other night was some kids screwing about. These old houses… Well, they dare each other to go in. Think they’re abandoned and haunted. But don’t worry, I’ll make it clear to the locals that you’re not to be disturbed like that any further, okay?”

I nodded, even as I felt wholly dissatisfied. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t right but I didn’t want to become a nuisance as they’d done a thorough sweep and found nothing.

“Thanks for your time,” I said gratefully. “I appreciate it.”

“Of course.” The officer in charge smiled down at me kindly. He was old enough to be my father and clearly modelled himself in that sort of role as he said, “Listen, you should invite some friends down or something. Bit of company will liven this place right up. Don’t stay here alone.”

I tilted my head at his words. “Of course. I mean, the house and grounds keepers live on site.”

“Good,” he said, clapping his hands together as the other officers climbed into the vehicle. “That’s good. It’s nice to see a bit of life breathed back into this place. Keep it up.”

Before he could leave, I found myself blurting out a question I hadn’t meant to ask but suddenly needed the answer to. “Officer, have there been any updates in my mother’s case?”

“I’m afraid not, dove. We’re considering it to be cold. If anything changes we’ll let you know.”

I nodded slowly, disappointment sinking through me. If they didn’t find something soon I was worried they never would. All they knew so far was that my mum had been found in the cemetery with blunt force trauma to the head. I’d gone in to identify her, which had been as horrifying as it sounded, and after that I had her buried per the wishes in the will I didn’t even know she’d had. She had asked to be buried in the same cemetery she’d been killed in, next to Edward. I hadn’t been to see the headstone yet and hadn’t organised a funeral—there was only me there to mourn anyway and I wasn’t ready to let go yet. Not until I knew why she was here at Alswell and why she’d been killed minutes away from where I now stood.

The police car drove away and I jumped when I realised Sage had appeared next to me. I had been so caught up in my own thoughts that I hadn’t noticed him approaching.

“Do you want to see her?”

I knew exactly what he meant and figured he had to have been standing close enough to hear my question for the officer before he’d left.

“No.”

“I’d come with you, if you wanted.”

“Why?”

He didn’t reply and when I looked back, he was gone. I let out a long sigh as I turned back to the house, feeling mentally drained. Every time I seemed to make any progress with Sage, he disappeared and we were back to square one.

I stripped off my clothes, streaked with dirt from gardening, and dreaded having to work out how to use an unfamiliar washing machine. But I couldn’t just keep buying new clothes… could I? No, no, that would be wasteful, and ridiculous. My mum must have needed to do washing while she was here, so chances were good that the machine did at least work, unless she and Ms Weathers had hand washed everything.

I hopped in the shower and yelped when the water came out cold again, at least this time there were no spiders there to complete the humiliation but I’d had enough.

“Can. You. Fucking. Not,” I shrieked at the head and, to my surprise, the water instantly grew warmer. I huffed at it for a second before vigorously washing my hair. “Knew anger fucking solved problems…” I muttered away the whole time I scrubbed but felt like I’d half-washed off my bad mood by the time I stepped out and into the cool air.

I’d bought new towels recently and needed to wash them before I could use them. The ones I’d been given were scratchy as hell and barely covered my arse and I made a mental note to bump them up on my laundry list too. Feeling calmer now that I was clean, I walked out of the bathroom and immediately swore.

“Why don’t you knock,” I growled at Sage and he opened his mouth to reply when I held up a finger. “No. No you didn’t. Liar.”

He laughed, surprising me. The sound was rich and warm and had heat pooling in my stomach as I watched him. I think it was maybe the first time I’d heard him laugh properly, from his belly and I was surprised at how much I liked it. He stopped pretty quickly with a little cough, like I’d shocked him and he hadn’t meant to laugh at all, which only baffled me more. Sage liked me, I knew he did, otherwise why help me or rescue me or offer to see my mum’s—

I pulled my thoughts away from there and re-focused on the infuriating man in front of me. I frowned at him disapprovingly and the shadow of a smirk flitted across his mouth again before he held up a mug of tea that was still steaming in his hands.

“I thought you might want this.”

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