‘How did she find us?’
Ryan turned back to me. ‘We don’t know that she has found us.’ He leant around the corner again. ‘What’s she up to? Why is she talking to the skipper of a boat?’
‘Maybe she wants to take us to one of the uninhabited islands and kill us there. Maybe she already knows where we’re staying and she’s just sorting out where to finish us off.’ I struggled to keep the panic out of my voice.
‘There has to be another reason,’ said Ryan. ‘We’ve been careful.’
Suddenly my mind flashed back to Travis’s flat. ‘It’s something to do with that ticket,’ I said. ‘It’s what made me think of coming here.’
‘Slow down,’ said Ryan. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘When we went to Travis’s flat, she found a return ticket to the Isles of Scilly on the Scillonion. She asked Miranda about it.’
‘Travis had a ticket to the Isles of Scilly? Why would he have that?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He hadn’t used the return portion. I guess he saved it in case he wanted to go back.’
‘Maybe that’s it,’ said Ryan. ‘She’s following one of Travis’s trails. Cleaning up any trace of him. This has nothing to do with us. It’s just a coincidence because you thought of coming here from seeing the ticket, right?’
I thought about it. What an idiot. I’d led us into danger again. ‘I guess I did.’
‘Perhaps his time-ship is here somewhere. He could have ended his journey from the future on one of the uninhabited islands and hidden his ship there. He isn’t able to come back and retrieve it, so his cleaner has.’
That made sense. My heartbeat began the journey back to normal.
Ryan looked around the corner again. ‘She must be hiring a boat to take her to the islands tomorrow. She’ll destroy the ship and then go back.’
‘So we’re safe.’
‘We’re safe. But I think we should follow her. See where she’s staying.’
My stomach rolled over. ‘Do we have to?’
‘I’d sooner know where she is.’
‘What if she sees us following her?’
‘She won’t.’
‘Ryan –’
‘Look, you head back to the guest house. I’ll follow the cleaner. As soon as I know where she’s staying, I’ll come back. I won’t sleep if I don’t know where she is.’
The only thing worse than following Lauren was the thought of sitting alone in my room, worrying whether Ryan was OK.
‘I don’t want to be apart from you.’
‘It will be easier to follow her if I’m alone. She knows you, but she doesn’t know me from Adam.’ He pushed the room key into my hand. ‘I promise I’ll come straight to the room as soon as I know where she is.’ He took another look. ‘She’s coming this way. Go.’
I slipped the room key into my pocket and walked briskly up the road towards the guest house without looking back. This was not how I’d imagined our evening ending.
Back in our room, the smell of paint had faded and been replaced by the fresh laundry scent of the bedsheets. I closed the windows and the curtains and sat on the edge of the bed. Ryan seemed confident that Lauren being here was just a horrible coincidence. I needed to put her out of my mind.
I brushed my teeth and checked my breath and then dug through my overnight case for my pyjamas. They were a vest top and cropped bottoms with pink and white love hearts all over them. They were cute, girly, the opposite of sexy. If I’d had more notice about our little trip away, I would have bought myself something more sophisticated. Did Ryan expect to find me draped across the bed in a silk negligee? Or did he expect me to be tucked under the duvet in my girly pyjamas? And what if I undressed and went to bed and then Ryan came running to tell me that Lauren was after us and we needed to leave right now? I sighed. There was no way I was getting into bed until Ryan was back and I knew what was going on.
Silence. There was no television in the room to distract me. Not even a coffee-maker to hiss and bubble and make friendly noises. The double glazing kept out the sound of the sea, although it was just metres away. No one was walking along the thickly carpeted hallway outside my door. There was nothing but the rush of blood through my ears and the unnerving quiet.
I kept reminding myself this woman was a cleaner, and cleaners clean. And kill. Methodically. Efficiently. Probably quietly too. I swung around and looked at the door. Nothing. Just the sound of silence freaking me out.
I searched for something I could use as a weapon. Just in case. There were few furnishings in the room. I considered the wastepaper bin by the dresser, but when I picked it up it turned out to be made of thin metal. If I bashed someone over the head with it, all it would do was leave a dent in the bin. There was a New Testament in the bedside table, but it was a flimsy paperback.