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in bits if this happened to me , thought Jeanette, not realising that Annie’s rigid control was all that stood between her and madness.
    Satisfied that the finca was clear and secured, Annie filled a large jug with water and grabbed two glass tumblers and a bucket and then ushered Jeanette into the main bedroom, the room she had always shared with Max.
    Max.
    Heart-wrenching grief gripped her, stifling her as she thought of him. Once more she shook thoughts of him aside, and with Jeanette’s help she levered the heavy wooden dresser over the bedroom door.
    ‘What we’re going to do is this,’ she told the girl, pulling down a suitcase from the top of the wardrobe. ‘We’re going to take turns sleeping. Two hours on, two hours off. One stands guard, one sleeps.’
    Jeanette nodded shakily. ‘Okay.’
    The windows were barred, the shutters closed, the only door into the room blocked off. Annie assessed the situation. For the moment, they were safe.
    Safe , thought Annie. Sure they were safe, unless someone was really determined to finally kill them. These people had blown up the pool house, why not blow up the bloody finca too? Her ears felt suddenly oversensitized, as if every tiny sound were a threat. She took first watch while Jeanette lay down on the bed, protesting that she would never be able to sleep. Within minutes, she was snoring gently.
    Annie sat up in a chair with the gun held ready across her lap. The old building creaked and groaned as it always did, the rafters shrinking and popping after the gentle warmth of the day. Was it that? Or was it someone coming to finish them off?
    She didn’t know.
    She had to hold herself in readiness, just in case. Their plane tickets were booked; Annie had packed a few bits into a suitcase. In the morning they would take Rufio’s battered old car and Jeanette would drive them to the airport.
    Until then all Annie had to do was wait and think. She knew she wouldn’t sleep, although she knew she had to try and rest, to keep strong so that she could cope with all this. So she would try not to think about what could be happening to Layla right now.
    She thought instead about Max. Annie Carter, who never weakened, never cried, sat there amid the wreckage of her life and let the grief take hold of her. She let the tears stream unchecked from her eyes, and silently swore that the death of the man she loved would be avenged.

5
    The little girl was very afraid as she sat in the damp darkness. She felt very tired, very drowsy. She wondered what had happened to Daddy. They took him away somewhere, she knew that; those bad people took him away. He would never have left her on her own.
    She expected Mummy to come and fetch her soon; she had been expecting this for what felt like hours now. Mummy was always watching her carefully, always. She whimpered in the dark, wanting her Mummy so badly.
    The men hadn’t talked to her. One of them had held something over her nose and that was when she’d started to get really, really sleepy. One of them was small, like a lady, but Layla wasn’t sure about that. They wore hoods over their heads and that was scary, like they weren’t really people at all.
    Layla so wanted someone to talk to. She would have talked to the lady, if she could, even though she had done this nasty thing to Layla. All her dolls and teddies were at home. Now she had no Mummy. No Daddy. Nothing except this horrible place.
    When they had dropped her in here and slammed the trap door shut on her, she had been half-awake and had groped her way around her small prison. She found all the walls were dirt: slimy with moisture in places, bone-dry in others. There had been a little daylight left then.
    But now it was night and she was cold.
    She was able to stand up, although the top of her head touched metal. Metal like waves, like an old tin roof on a hen house. There was a sort of bed in the dirt, so that she could lie down on a rough blanket they had put there for her.