Tally opened the online banking application for what felt like the tenth time. Her balance read £152,473.56. As promised, Pete had transferred the money. It was hers to do with as she pleased. With the money in her account, she could move forward and plan for her future.

Her mind was all over the place. The money had brought choices, which in turn had brought confusion. Should she stay in London and work on building her network and her freelance reporting business? Or should she get away as Pete had suggested?

As boredom set in, she browsed through Facebook. Her newsfeed was full of happy, happy, and more happy. Tally closed it down and opened her emails instead. She deleted most of them and was about to cast her phone aside when one email caught her eye. Or rather, the sender did. Joe Martinez— a snake and a curse against real journalists. What the hell was he doing contacting her? She thought about deleting without reading, but the subject—“You’re going to want to see this”—made her curious.

She sighed in defeat and clicked on the email. It contained an attachment and one line of text:

I see Gallagher is up to his old tricks again.

Her pulse jolted, and she clicked on the attachment. A picture appeared, clearly taken with a long lens but detailed enough to show Cash pressing his lips to a woman’s cheek. Several other pictures followed, showing him with his head bowed against the weather, coat collar up, sprinting down the street.

Sorrow surged through her. A little over a week had passed since she’d last seen him, and he was already moving on. The photo of him with the woman was Martinez stirring things up. She’d made that mistake once before and wasn’t about to fall for it for a second time. The kiss was chaste. There was nothing even remotely sexual in it. But the story the pictures told were not of a man sitting at home, pining for what might have been. No, he was out and about, visiting friends, living his life.

Unlike her.

Anguish clawed at her stomach. She had to face facts. Cash wasn’t going to come knocking, begging her to take him back, pleading for forgiveness. She needed to follow his lead and make a new start. She’d wasted enough time.

* * *

“Are you sure you’ve got everything?” Em was dashing about, opening drawers and cupboards, creating chaos in her wake.

Tally rolled her eyes. “Anything I’ve forgotten I can buy. I’m hardly travelling to the back of beyond. We’re going to be late if you don’t get a move on.”

Em cursed as Pete honked the horn for the fourth time. “Jeez, chill out.”

“He has a job to get to, and I have a flight to catch. Now, will you hurry up?”

“Okay, okay. Right. Keys, phone, bag. Ready.”

Em slammed the door, and the two of them made a dash for Pete’s car.

“Sorry, Dozer,” she said with a cheeky smile that belied her apology as she clambered inside.

“You’ll be late for your own funeral,” he grumbled as he pulled out from the kerb.

“Had to make sure my girl’s got everything. She’s not going to the corner shop, you know.”

“Nor the moon,” Pete said.

As Pete pulled into the drop-off area at Heathrow airport, Tally glanced at her watch. A little less than two hours until take-off. She had plenty of time.

Pete lifted her suitcase from the boot and pulled out the extending handle. “Come here,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “Call me when you land.”

“I will. Thanks for everything.”

Tally turned to Em, who had started to cry.

“I don’t want you to go,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve.

“I’ve got to, Em.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“It’s only for a few months. Once I get settled, you can come out for a holiday.”

“Try and stop me.” Her hug, when it came, was brief. “Take care, you.”

Tally watched the car disappear around the corner, trying to ignore a nagging sense of being totally alone in the world. She dragged her suitcase into Departures and checked in. Once she was through security, she grabbed a latte at the nearest coffee shop and finally allowed her mind to wander. Everything had moved so fast since she’d decided to get away, which was just as well. With more time to think about how crazy this was, she might have changed her mind. She’d always been risk-averse, and heading to a foreign country for a few months when she couldn’t speak one word of the language was probably the riskiest thing she’d ever done.

As she walked down the gangway to board her flight, fear clutched at her stomach. She was scared out of her mind. She almost turned back but then remembered something her father had said when he was teaching her to swim. He’d been in the water, trying to get her to jump in. She must have been about six. She could still vividly recall how terrified she’d been as she shivered on the side of the pool.

“I’m scared, Daddy. I’m so scared.”

“Be scared, my darling girl,” he’d replied. “Be scared, and then do it anyway.”

Tally got on the plane.

A few hours later, she arrived in Athens. As she stepped outside the terminal building, the weak sun warmed her skin. It was a lot warmer than London at this time of year, though it wasn’t hot. She stood in line for a taxi and managed to make the driver understand where she needed to go. One night at a hotel was all she’d booked. By the next day, she needed to decide on her final destination. She had a half-baked idea to write an article about the refugee crisis. After talking to the barman at her hotel, who was extremely knowledgeable about the plight of the migrants, she decided to focus on Safome, a small island that had received its fair share of refugees seeking a new, safer life in Europe. Recession had hit the locals hard, yet rather than turn them away, the residents of the little island had welcomed the newcomers with open arms.

She popped down to the business centre and booked a flight to Rhodes for the following morning. From there, she’d be able to get a ferry to Safome.

Her new life was about to begin.