Read Online Dark Horse by Honey Brown - Free Book Online Page A

what if he left? She should be pleased he wanted to bugger off. She was probably safer on her own; she was definitely safer on her own going by the way he was carrying on.
    But despite all this it twanged something inside Sarah to have been deserted.
    She thought about that moment on the bridge, the stag, and feeling a connection; surviving should be the only thing on Sarah’s mind.
    ‘Nice night for a walk,’ she said.
    Heath angled his face down and pulled off the headlamp. In the pocket of his shorts Sarah could see the top of a ziplock plastic bag. Whatever was in it was stretching the shorts pocket wide. She hadn’t seen any ziplock bags in her search of the caravan and all its drawers and cupboards, so she guessed he’d come with his personal items waterproofed.
    ‘Is your phone working, Heath?’
    He was silent.
    ‘Is that what you were doing? Making a call? Because the best spot is out the front of the hut, near the grave – as luck would have it.’ Her smile was strained. ‘You know, you can say you don’t want to waste your battery. I get it. You don’t have to help me.’
    ‘It’s out of battery.’ He took the bag from his pocket. His wallet and phone were together in the ziplock plastic. He took the phone out and limped towards her. The sore knee was back. Maybe it was an injury that came and went? Soft tissue injuries were sometimes like that.
    He tried to pass her his phone. She wouldn’t take it.
    ‘I want to show you that it’s out of battery.’ He displayed it to her. It was a touch-screen smartphone in a moulded all-weather, shockproof case, the sort of protective case tradies used. He pressed the bottom button a couple of times, with the screen turned to her, and then pressed the top power button. ‘Nothing.’
    ‘I don’t care. It’s your phone.’
    ‘When I got here it was as good as flat. And . . . I thought you might be a park ranger.’
    ‘I see.’
    ‘I panicked. But I should have told you my phone worked. You’re not a ranger are you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘That’s handy.’
    ‘You don’t have to tell me.’
    ‘It’s probably better if I don’t.’ He wiped away a droplet running down the bridge of his nose. ‘I haven’t been able to get reception. I’ve flattened it trying to send texts and make calls. Nothing’s gone through.’
    ‘You haven’t made an emergency call?’
    ‘I haven’t been able to.’
    He was saturated, beginning to shiver again, standing with his weight on his good leg. They were close to one another and speaking in clear, raised voices to get above the sound of the water. The noise wasn’t that of rain on the tin roof, it was the sound of splashing and gushing, a waterfall pouring from the guttering and onto the ground all around the shed. It curved around them like a mini Niagara Falls. Water was beginning to run beneath the shed walls and was pooling in the floor’s low spots.
    The guilty look Heath had when emerging from the rain hadn’t shifted from his eyes, so even though Sarah looked for evidence of him lying, it was concealed within his general culpability. Experience told her anyway that truth came in scraps, chunks of honesty, coughed up like fur balls.
    ‘I should have been more up front, I’m really sorry.’
    ‘At least we’re on the same page now. I wanted to tell you that I don’t mind what you were doing in the bush. I didn’t know how to say it though without sounding like I really did. I don’t.’
    ‘It’s nothing bad,’ he assured her. His gaze moved to the pallet, to beneath it, where Sarah had been shining the torch. A flicker of disturbance passed over his features. His eyes began to roam, only now seeing the insect life. ‘Holy shit . . .’
    ‘It gets even better around the other side of the van.’
    ‘This is like . . .’
    ‘I know. I’m waiting for Harry, Ron and Hermione to turn up any moment.’
    A touch of the playful shine returned to Heath’s eyes. He suppressed a smile.
    There was the