Here With Me (Adair Family 1)

She was unhinged.

Completely.

“You’re a damn fine actor, Lucy,” I said, the words breaking with emotion.

She caressed my throat. “If things were different, we would have been best friends. I see what he sees in you, I do. I don’t respect or admire many people as they’re never quite good enough, are they? But you’re an equal. I always wanted a friend like you. I hope you know that.”

Tears slipped down my cheeks.

Not just from fear for Lachlan, for myself … but with utter sadness.

Because I’d cared about her.

And all along, I’d missed that she didn’t think like other people thought. She didn’t feel like other people felt.

All those shadows I’d seen and dismissed in her eyes.

“Don’t cry, Robyn. I’ll make it quick—”

The door to the shack blasted open, and the gun muzzle skidded off my temple when Lucy startled.

I didn’t hesitate.

I grabbed her wrist and twisted it with my right hand and at the same time, I slammed my left elbow back into her nose, feeling it crunch beneath the power of the blow. She shrieked as I broke her wrist, the gun clattering to the ground. Then I spun around and threw my entire weight behind a short, brutal jab to her face.

Her head snapped back on her neck, and her eyes flickered shut before she tumbled to the ground. Assured she was out, I whipped around and scrambled for the gun, bringing it up only to find McCulloch standing in the doorway with his shotgun at his side.

He looked down at Lucy and then Fergus before his gaze met mine. “Looks like my services aren’t needed after all.”

I didn’t lower my gun.

I’d been taken by surprise too many times today already.

McCulloch’s expression hardened, and he threw his shotgun to the ground with a pointed look. He knelt before Lachlan and when he pulled out a penknife, I lurched toward them but was drawn short as McCulloch cut at the bindings around Lachlan’s shins.

“Do you have keys for these handcuffs?” he threw over his shoulder.

Swaying a little with relief, I dropped to my haunches and checked Fergus’s pockets, finding the set of small keys we needed.

I rounded Lachlan’s chair, shaking violently with adrenaline, so much so that McCulloch gently moved me out of the way, took the keys from my hand, and released Lachlan.

The chair scraped back as he soared out of it and turned to me, ripping off the gag. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Lachlan uttered hoarsely, crossing the distance between us to yank me into his arms.

I sank into his embrace, my fingers bunching the back of his shirt into my fists.

We didn’t say anything.

We just held each other as we struggled to breathe.

Men led by my dad streamed into the shack, and Lachlan reluctantly passed me to Mac. Over my dad’s shoulder, I watched Lachlan tentatively move toward an unconscious Lucy. He lowered before her. When he looked back at me, grief and rage mingled in his expression, and I couldn’t stand his pain.

“One second, Dad.” I pulled out of Mac’s relieved embrace and crossed the shack to Lachlan. I crouched beside him and slid a palm across his hunched shoulders. “None of us could have known.”

“I failed her,” he whispered.

“No. Lachlan—”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” a deep voice intruded. I glanced up in the dim light to see one of the DIs who’d interviewed me several times before standing over us. His expression was grim. “We need to know what happened here.”

What happened here?

Something neither of us saw coming.

I glanced over at Lucy who still hadn’t stirred.

“You might want to put her”—I pointed to Lucy—“in handcuffs before she comes around.”

36

Robyn

The paramedics examined Lachlan where he sat on the open end of the ambulance. He answered their questions with irritated impatience, and my gut churned with the events of the day.

Forensics were all over the shack on McCulloch’s land. The coroner had just taken off with Fergus’s body.

Lucy was loaded onto an ambulance—with a police escort.

Mac stood near the shack porch talking solemnly with the DIs. Jock, Gillies, and Smithy watched me from their spot near two Range Rovers.

“You all right, lass?”

I jumped and cursed myself for it.

Hard not to be jumpy after the day I’d had.

I glanced up at the big man beside me. “I don’t know what I am.”

McCulloch nodded grimly. “It was quite the betrayal. From both of them.”

“How did you know we were here?”

“Jared saw you riding up the trail. Came back to the farm to alert me you were on my land. This used to be where the old farmhouse was. My father demolished it after he built the new one but left the shack, which used to be an old woodshed for my mother. It was once furnished with her things. She liked to escape out here to read and craft. I kept it for sentimental reasons. Now I’ll have to demolish the thing, tainted as it now is.”