CHAPTER FOUR

      DARCIE HALF WOKE to the sound of knocking on her bedroom door. For a few seconds she struggled to open her eyes, calling groggily, ‘Who is it?’

      ‘It’s Jack. Can you come to the door, please? We have an emergency.’

      Jack? Jack...? Darcie closed her eyes again.

      Hell, what was she doing? Jack glanced at his watch. He rapped on the door again. ‘Wake up, Darcie! I need to speak to you!’

      Jack! Oh, good grief! Darcie sat bolt upright as reality struck. Throwing herself out of bed, she padded over to the door. ‘What time is it?’ She blinked up at him.

      ‘Five o’clock—’ He stopped abruptly. She was pulling on a gown over a short ruby-red nightie, her breasts moving gently beneath the silk. Hell. His breath jagged in his throat. He stepped back and blinked. ‘Uh—we have an emergency out where some kind of film is being shot. Do you know about it?’

      ‘Not really. Lauren mentioned it. What’s happened?’

      ‘Apparently two of the actors have fallen into a disused well. The message the ambulance got was pretty garbled. But they’ve asked for medical backup. I’m sorry to disrupt your sleep-in but I think this needs both of us.’

      ‘OK...’ Darcie pushed the heavy fall of hair back from her cheek. ‘Give me a few minutes.’

      ‘I’ll meet you out front. Don’t mess about.’

      Darcie made a face at the closing door. She pulled on jeans and T-shirt and pushing her feet into sturdy trainers she sprinted to the bathroom.

      * * *

      Armed with a couple of trauma kits from the hospital, they travelled in Jack’s Land Rover. ‘I’ve spoken to Mal Duffy, the police sergeant,’ Jack said. ‘He’s given me directions to the site. It’s about forty Ks.’

      ‘So, apart from the ambulance, who’s in on this jaunt?’

      ‘The state emergency service.’

      Darcie nodded. She was well acquainted with the SES and their dedicated volunteers. ‘Mal heads up the local SES. Their vehicle with the rescue gear is kept at the police station but he’ll have to try to get a team together. At this early hour on a Sunday, it could be difficult.’

      Jack raised an eyebrow, seeming impressed with her local knowledge. ‘In that case, we’ll just have to wing it until they get there.’

      ‘Why on earth would they be filming so early?’ she wondered aloud.

      ‘Maybe they wanted to catch a special effect with the light.’

      She glanced at him sharply. ‘You know something about making films, then?’

      ‘Oh, yeah.’ He gave a hard, discordant laugh. ‘My ex is an actress.’

      For a moment his words formed an uncomfortable silence between them. Darcie glanced at his profile but it told her nothing. Was he sad or mad or both? ‘Ex-wife?’

      ‘No.’ He paused infinitesimally. ‘We didn’t get that far. We’d been together for three years. But our jobs took us in different directions. In the end, the relationship proved unworkable.’

      Of course, it hadn’t helped that when he’d got to England, where Zoe had been filming, she’d found someone else. He swallowed the residue of bitterness. His ego had taken a hard kick, but life moved on. And thank heaven for that.

      ‘I guess relationships are tricky at the best of times,’ Darcie responded quietly. ‘Do you have any idea what size this well might be?’ She changed conversation lines tactfully.

      ‘Going by my acquaintance with wells, I’d guess six by six in the old measurements.’

      ‘So—the size of a small room,’ she said consideringly.

      Jack took his eyes off the road for a second to look at her. ‘Any problems with confined spaces?’

      ‘I’ve done a little caving...’ Darcie recognised the flutter of uncertainty in her stomach. ‘I don’t know how that equates with going down into a well.’

      ‘Only one way to find out,’ Jack said. ‘It’ll be dark inside and there’ll probably be rubble at the bottom. And I mean anything from rocks to old furniture. Usually, when a well is closed, some effort is extended to part fill the hole to make it less of a hazard. We’ll need to look out for rats as well.’

      ‘Rats?’ Darcie suppressed a shudder. ‘I hope they’re dead ones and long gone.’ A frown touched her forehead. ‘It’s daylight pretty early these days—how come they wouldn’t have known the well was there?’