'I never said… Did this girl tell you how it would end?'
'In the sea, but I didn't know whether that was my fate or someone else's. It's all right, you don't have to believe.' She gave a timid smile.
Maybe he did. Suddenly he was back on the old golf course at the Duver but this time as a child. A woman was ahead of him. She turned and called his name, then laughed.
'She's still alive.'
Horton started. 'Who is?' he asked sharply. He knew she wasn't talking about Laura Rosewood. She held his gaze and he saw this was no act.
'The woman you're searching for,' Thea said quietly.
Horton felt sick, then a flicker of hope, then bewilderment.
'You're very angry with her for hurting you.'
He made to withdraw his hands but she clung on to them.
'Listen.' She leant forward with a new urgency in her voice, as the sound of a car pulled up outside. 'You don't have to believe me, that's up to you, but I just want you to know that I felt her presence on that first day we met. When you touched me, she was there so powerfully that for a moment I forgot about Owen and that was incredible. I felt your anger, and her pain. I could hardly breathe.'
Car doors slammed. Footsteps on the gravel drive. His heart was pounding. The blood pulsating in his ears. He had about twenty seconds before Cantelli rang the doorbell. He so desperately wanted to believe her, but could he? Dare he? Ten seconds.
'Is she dead?'
'That's not the question.'
Voices outside. Was she telling him the truth? He took a breath. 'Thea, should I look for her?'
She held his gaze. 'That's for you to decide, Andy.'
'Does she want me to?'
The bell clanged through the house.
'What do you think?'
There was only one possible answer.