Read Online Intrusion: A Novel by Mary McCluskey - Free Book Online Page B

the hills. The GPS on the dash showed that they were on the right street, but no signs or numbers were visible and the homes they passed were set way back from the road, surrounded by walls and electronic gates. Sarah’s house was right at the top of the hill; James had said it had a distant view of the ocean.
    Kat stretched in the car, flexing her shoulders. She wore tailored pants and felt corseted and tethered.
    “What exactly did she do to Maggie?” Scott asked unexpectedly. “Sarah Harrison?”
    Kat thought for a moment.
    “To Maggie,” she said. “And to me.”
    “You?”
    He glanced at her quickly.
    “A boy I was involved with. Sven. They had an affair.”
    “Involved? How involved were you?” Scott asked.
    “We dated for one semester,” said Kat. “I thought I was in love with him. I thought he felt the same about me. I was thinking about doing an exchange-student year in Denmark.”
    “It was serious, then?”
    “It was serious at the time,” Kat said, trying to be honest. “I think I might have got bored with him eventually. He was very attractive. But a bit—solemn. Sven was Paul’s best friend. They’d been pen pals for years and used to spend summers together, and it was Paul who persuaded him to do the course in the UK. He was going to be the best man at Maggie and Paul’s wedding. The day before the wedding, I went back to the flat. I’d forgotten my satin shoes. My bridesmaid shoes. And Sven was there, with Sarah.”
    “He was with her? You mean screwing her?” Scott asked.
    “Pretty much. Sven didn’t turn up for the rehearsal dinner that night. Paul couldn’t track him down and he was so worried and upset. They had to ask another friend to be best man at the last minute.”
    She did not want to discuss with Scott the scene in the early hours of the morning of Maggie’s wedding day, when Sarah came to their house, sobbing out apologies. Maggie had confronted her, their raised voices echoing between the houses, while Kat stayed crying in the bedroom.
    “In the middle of the wedding reception, Paul got a call from the hospital that Sven had been badly hurt,” she said. “Maggie and Paul canceled their honeymoon because of it.”
    Scott gave her a swift look.
    “He recover?”
    “I don’t know. He was taken back to Denmark. We all lost touch after that.”
    “And Maggie blames Sarah?”
    “Yes. She thought Sven was just a pawn in one of Sarah’s little games. She’s never forgiven her.”
    “You never talked about this,” Scott said quietly.
    Kat bit her lip, rested back in the seat.
    “No. It was a long time ago.”
    How to explain to Scott the odd mix of guilt and pain she had felt? The sympathy heaped on her by friends made her uncomfortable, as did their anger at Sarah. They behaved as if her loss was huge, as if her soul mate had been snatched from her. It had not felt like that, she admitted to herself. Not at all. If she had loved Sven, it had been a pale, diluted love compared to what she would feel later, when she met Scott.
    “What was he like, this Sven guy?” Scott asked casually, after a minute or two.
    “Good-looking. But not as good-looking as you. Not as sexy as you. Not as intelligent, as charming, or as altogether masculine—”
    “Fine, fine,” he said, smiling. “I only asked.”
    They drove another half mile along a wooded lane that came to a dead end at a walled estate hidden behind wrought-iron gates. Scott studied the GPS.
    “This is it.”
    He moved forward to the gates, looking for an entry phone or keypad.
    “It’s like a movie set,” he said to Kat.
    She stared at the high gates, looking for a bell or button to push.
    “Fortress,” she whispered. Immediately, the iron gates opened.
    “You whisper ‘Open Sesame’?” Scott asked.
    “Must have an electronic eye.”
    “With our picture programmed in?”
    Kat was not listening. She gazed at the gardens, clouded with a late-afternoon mist, and saw manicured lawns and, beyond them,