Page 3 of One Last Touch

I wanted to question him further, even for just the smallest details—like, what had she been wearing? Had it been gloomy, like it was now? Or had she sailed over there with a smile on her face in the sunshine? Though, I supposed what I really wanted to know was: what killed her? A question to which Sage undoubtedly didn’t have the answer. The police would have questioned him, and Weathers, so everything he knew, they knew and the police had seemed… stumped, for lack of better word. She’d been alone, the sole victim with no other similar incidents in the last year,

I didn’t ask to see the cemetery, I wasn’t ready for that yet, and Sage didn’t mention it further. He stood close to the wooden rail in front of us, not quite touching it and not quite looking at me either when he spoke. “You shouldn’t stay here, you know.”

“Shouldn’t I?” I asked mildly, watching the movement of the trees as I fought my irritation. I’d known him for five seconds and yet he thought it was his place to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do, like it was objective fact?

“Yes,” he said firmly. “It’s not safe here.”

“You’re here,” I pointed out and he looked away from me again, the sunlight catching on the gold of his glasses and making me squint. “Ms Weathers too.”

“It’s different.”

“How?” I tried, but he didn’t answer. Normally a man of few words might have intrigued me, in this case it just pissed me off. “Well, I have no intention of leaving, even if I did have somewhere else to go.”

“You have the inheritance right? You could go anywhere you wanted.” His mouth turned down at the corners as he looked at me and I studied him back with equal intensity.

“True,” I said slowly, nodding as I looked back in the direction of the cemetery. “But I need to be here and, frankly, I don’t think it’s any of your business what I do or where I stay.”

“She wouldn’t want you here,” he insisted, following my gaze to the cemetery and correctly guessing where my thoughts had gone.

“How would you know what she would want? You’re just the gardener, Sage. It’s my decision to make.” My nostrils flared as I stepped closer and the professional veneer I had been trying to project crumbled in the face of my grief, the anger that still filled me since I’d learned of my mother’s death sharpening my tongue. “So why don’t you mind your own business?”

He watched me, dark eyes burning as he clenched his jaw, and I pulled back, trying to recapture some air of unaffectedness.

“Besides, it doesn’t matter what she wants, she’s dead. I’m here. I’m alive—and there are things she never told me, things I need to know.” My voice broke and I looked away, out at the bank opposite and the headstones peeking through the waving branches of the willows.

“Have you ever heard the saying ‘curiosity killed the cat’?”

“I don’t have a cat,” I said, deadpan and felt a surge of triumph when his lip twitched. “Come on then, there must be more to see than just this.”

Sage sighed and strode back down the small pier and I followed him bemusedly. He headed away from both the house and the lake, instead following a small woodland trail in between the trees. I hesitated for a moment and then followed. I didn’t think Sage had killed my mother, but he’d taken an instant dislike of me and had been strangely shifty ever since I’d arrived. Sage might not be a murderer, but he was definitely hiding something. I took a small amount of comfort that Ms Weathers had seen me come out here with him, so if I mysteriously went missing I was pretty sure it would be a case even the police could solve.

The trees seemed to swallow us whole, wrapping us in a darkness that felt comfortable, like sticking your head under your bed sheets on a warm summer’s day and looking at the sun shining through the threads. A few clouds peeked through the canopy and birds chirped, rustling in the branches above our heads. Sage stopped up ahead, watching me with a small quirk to his lips that raised my eyebrows, he almost looked… pleased.

He met my look with a shrug. “It’s not often that people find the woods here as comfortable as I do.”

“It’s peaceful.”

His lips parted and he seemed to swallow hard before he muttered. “It is.”

We walked quietly for a while, our passage swallowed up by the leaves that had begun to fall to the ground in the last week or so and the large tree trunks that had fallen to the ground, now covered in fresh moss.

“The lake runs into the Avon,” Sage said and his voice in the stillness of the forest made the birds quiet for a moment as I nodded. “It doesn’t have much of a current, but best not to be out there during the stormy weather.”

“I’m a good swimmer.”

“That may be,” he smirked and I choked, “but even the best swimmers can’t out-stroke lightning.”

I didn’t know what to say to that and settled for staring at him like an idiot until his brief smile faded. The trail rounded off to the right and a path of bushes seemed to follow it, covered in bright purple and white flowers and deep berries that had me salivating. I wasn’t sure how long it had been since I’d eaten, I could only hope there was something in the house, otherwise I’d have to see if anyone from the nearby town could deliver something. I reached absently for a berry and gasped when Sage’s hand gripped my wrist tightly.

I swallowed and looked up into furious brown eyes, softened only by the ridiculously long lashes that seemed like they would interfere with his lenses. I stepped back from the bush and he let go abruptly, but I could still feel his touch on my skin like a goosebump, marking the spot forever.

“Don’t,” he said slowly, “eat the berries. Unless you want to die a slow and painful death.”

My brows drew together in confusion as I looked between him and the colourful flowers. They did look sort of familiar, but from where?

Sage sighed and it sounded irritated—it was almost impressive how he managed to infuse his disdain for me into every ounce of his being. “Belladonna.”

I took a large step away from the bushes as if burned and he smirked, enjoying my alarm. Bastard.

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