Getting to my feet, I crossed the room to the door and paused again, listening for any sound. When none came, I opened the door a couple of inches and pressed my ear to the crack. The house was sleeping. At least, most people were. There were still men at the gates, making sure no one arrived without us knowing, or perhaps, more importantly, that no one left.
My father believed his office was locked; all his secrets safe behind the door. What if I got in there, only to find he had additional locks on his desk or filing cabinet? But I remembered during the week I’d taken over to train Catalina that I’d been able to access them without any problems. Of course, I’d been able to access the office with no problems then, too, but situations had changed.
I was hugely aware that I might only get one chance at this, and I didn’t want to blow it. My cover story was that I was getting something to eat—should anyone see me as I moved through the house. If they found me near the office, however, no story I came up with would cover what I was doing.
Everything was still quiet, so I slipped out into the hallway and carefully closed my bedroom door behind me. If anyone passed by, I wanted them to think I was still asleep behind the door, and not have to wonder why it was open.
Silas Cassidy’s office was on the other side of the house. I hoped he wouldn’t have fallen asleep in there, head down on his keyboard while he was working. I’d have liked to have checked his bedroom to make sure he was dead to the world, but I didn’t want to risk waking him.
My heart pounded hard in my chest, every muscle rigid with tension as I crept through the house. My foot hit a creaky floorboard, and I froze, the noise painfully loud in the otherwise quiet house. Mercifully, the rest of the house remained still, so I kept going.
I reached the wing of the house that contained my father’s office. The door was at the end of the corridor. So far, I hadn’t seen any sign of anyone else. Moving quickly, I did a strange, half-jog, half-tiptoe down to the closed door. I tried the handle, making sure it was locked, and that it wouldn’t open to reveal my father sitting at his desk and asking me what the hell I was up to.
It was.
Dropping to a crouch, I half pulled off my boot, removing the key. I glanced to either side of me, making sure no one was around, and then straightened again. The need to tap and count to calm myself tried to take hold of me, but I pushed it away. I didn’t have time for all of that. I slid the key into the lock, suddenly nervous my father might have had it changed in the last few years, which would explain why he hadn’t worried about the spare one that had been hidden, but almost miraculously, the key turned and the door opened.
I caught my breath, wired with adrenaline. Fuck. This was it.
Stepping inside, I carefully closed the door behind me again. I suddenly realized something. I hadn’t brought any kind of flashlight with me, and it was dark. I had no choice but to put on a light, or I wouldn’t be able to see what I was doing. Shit.
I hesitated. Should I risk leaving the office and going down to the kitchen and trying to find a flashlight? It would be dangerous, and I’d be more likely to be seen and questioned. Or should I just draw the blinds and put on the small desk light, and hope that if anyone saw the light coming from the window, they’d assume it was my father, unable to sleep and getting some late-night work done? It was a risk I was just going to have to take. I was more likely to draw attention to myself trying to find a flashlight than I was simply turning on the light here. Besides, it wasn’t as though the light from a flashlight wasn’t noticeable either.
Crossing the room, I closed the slatted blinds on the office window, the same window that looked down onto the yard where I’d watched Catalina hang out the sheets to dry. That felt like a lifetime ago now. So much had happened in the last few weeks. With that done, I went back to my father’s desk and turned on the small desk lamp. I blinked in the sudden light, but I didn’t have any time to waste. I had no idea where or if I might find information on Catalina’s whereabouts, and I highly doubted it would simply be a case of finding an address book.
I got to work, pulling open drawers and yanking out handfuls of paperwork. I flipped through them, my gaze scanning over each and every piece. When the first drawer didn’t produce anything useful, I moved to the next and did the same. My father, I discovered, might be good at a lot of things, but he was no good at filing. I couldn’t tell if he had some kind of organization about the papers, or if he’d just shoved everything in together. There were invoices and bank statements and utility bills. I was looking for anything that might have either Elliot Torres’s name on it, or Catalina’s name, or even the date when she was supposed to have been handed over.
Nothing.
Fuck.
Leaving the desk, I repeated the same process with the large metal filing cabinet in the corner of the office. Starting at the top, I pulled out the drawer and leafed through the dividers.
A gentle knock came at the door.
I froze, my heart lurching.
“Sir?” A male voice.
Fuck. Someone was here.
I sensed the hesitation from the other side, and then the door handle turned.
Shit.
Indecision paralyzed me. Should I hide? Or fake my reason for being here? I could say my father asked me to get something for him, but at three in the morning? I barely believed myself.
The door opened, and a figure stepped in. I could already see he was holding a gun, aiming it into the room, as though he already knew he’d find someone here who shouldn’t be.
I recognized Paul as he stepped into the room, his blond hair appearing darker in the dim light. He was the man who’d been there when Bruno had shot the new girl, Dani, and had stood outside this very same door and listened to Catalina climax with Torres. I remembered how callously he’d kicked leaves over Dani’s body, and how he’d smirked when he’d commented about how much Catalina was enjoying herself with Torres.
He stepped more fully into the room and then caught sight of me.
“Hey? What are you doing?”
Only that I was the master’s son stopped him from shooting me outright, but I had to use that hesitation to my advantage. Without pausing, I spun around, kicking out in a roundhouse. I’d been expecting to kick him, but he was already half-heartedly aiming a gun in my direction, and my boot connected with his hand, sending the gun flying. It hit the floor and clattered away, skidding beneath the desk.
“What the fuck?”
He seemed amazed at my actions, but quickly regained his composure and swung a punch. His fist caught me in the jaw, and I staggered backward but kept to my feet. I needed to end this. If I didn’t, he’d report back what he’d seen, and my one chance of finding Catalina would be over before I’d barely managed to get it started. I needed to shut him up, and shut him up for good.
Gritting my teeth, I barreled back into him, using my shoulder in his chest to send him stumbling backward. I took him off his feet, and we both landed on the floor. We rolled, and then he was on top of me. His hands were all over my face, fingers digging into my skull, thumbs pressing painfully into my eyeballs. He managed to lift my head and cracked the back of my skull on the floor. Pain shot through my head, my brain rattling in my skull. I threw a punch this time, and knocked him off. I couldn’t allow either of us to get to the gun. If either one of us fired a shot, it would be over. A gunshot would alert the whole house to there being a problem, and they’d come running.
My head was spinning from the thump, but I forced myself to my feet and lunged for him. My need to keep him quiet was far greater than his need to stop me from doing whatever it was he thought I was up to.
He started to get back up, and I threw my entire body weight on top of him and wrapped both hands around his throat. His nose was bleeding, his eyes wild. I used my knees to pin down his hands and squeezed my hands around his throat. His body bucked beneath mine, but we were equally matched in size, and right now, with me on top, I had the advantage. I just wan
ted to keep him quiet. Right now, he was the main thing standing between me and finding Catalina, and I couldn’t have that.
My fingers and wrists were aching, but I couldn’t stop now.
He jerked beneath me, his breath a strangled wheeze. The light was dimming from his bulging eyes, but I couldn’t let go.
I had no love for this man, but I didn’t like to take a life.
Catalina, Catalina, Catalina.
Paul’s struggling finally stopped, and his body slumped.
Fuck. I’m sorry.
I let go and fell off him, breathing hard, my hands shaking. I froze for a moment, straining my ears to try to figure out if anyone had heard the commotion and was coming running. But the house remained quiet.
I needed to hide the body. The moment someone found it, they’d know what had happened.
There was something else, too.
I staggered to my feet and went over to the desk. Getting back down on all fours, I fished beneath it. My fingers came into contact with cool metal, and I closed my grip around the butt.
Getting back to my feet, I pushed the gun into the waistband of my jeans. I was armed again—something my father wouldn’t be aware of unless he found Paul’s body and saw the gun was gone.
I exhaled a tremulous sigh and dragged my hand through my hair, trying to calm myself and think straight. I needed to hide the body, but where, and how? It would need to be somewhere no one would think to look and that I wouldn’t get caught in the middle of.
Time was ticking by. The longer I stood here and contemplated my next move, the more likely it was that I’d get caught.
Uncertain, I crossed the room to the door, traversing the body, and peered out into the hallway beyond. Nothing moved, but I was on borrowed time.
I was about to step back into the room when something caught my eye. A hatch in the ceiling which led to the attic. I’d rarely been up there, and as far as I was aware, it rarely got used for anything more than storage. A metal ladder slid down when the hatch was opened. Could I carry the body up there?
I rubbed my hand over my mouth. Was I strong enough, and would it make too much noise? Those were my two main concerns.
Shit. I didn’t have any other options. There was nowhere in the office I could hide it, and I could hardly drag his dead body through the house and bury it outside.
I was on the edge, teetering on a precipice and certain I was about to crash.
I still hadn’t discovered where Torres was keeping Catalina, and now I had a body to hide. I needed to act quickly. There was a chance I’d woken people with the sound of us fighting and others would come along, asking questions I couldn’t answer.
But I had one advantage now that I hadn’t had when I’d entered the office. The cool weight of the gun pressed against my hip. I’d already killed once in my quest to find Catalina, and I knew now that I’d do it again, if I had to.
Even so, I was still hoping to get through this at least reasonably peacefully. If I alerted the wrong people to my plans, they might contact Torres and tell him. Torres might then move or even kill Catalina to keep me away. They’d warned us when they first took her that any bad behavior would mean the other person being punished, and I was pretty sure killing Paul would go down as bad behavior. I didn’t want Catalina to suffer because of my actions.
Moving with the same stealth I’d used to get to the office from my room, I stood on tiptoes to snag the cord that hung from the attic hatch to pull it open. I winced as the hatch fell open, and the metal clank of a ladder unfolding jarred through me. It was horribly loud, and I was sure someone would have heard. I’d have no excuse as to why I was opening it, or why Paul’s body was in the office behind me. At least now the issue of me being in the office and having the key would become a moot point.
With the ladder fully down, I went back to get the body.
I was about to attempt to lift him when I suddenly thought of something. I bent and dug through his pockets, my fingers immediately meeting with the item I’d been looking for—his cell phone. I exhaled a shaky sigh. If I’d forgotten about that and hidden the body in the roof space only for someone to call his phone, they might have heard it ringing. They were bound to investigate if they heard it, and his body would have been discovered. In fact, as soon as people started to realize Paul was missing, one of the first things they’d do was call his phone. I yanked the back off the Android, and removed the SIM card and crushed it beneath my boot. Perhaps the phone would have come in useful, but I didn’t want its location to be traced to here either. At least if they couldn’t get hold of him, they might think he’d run for a different reason.
I bent back down and checked his other pockets, making sure I hadn’t missed anything. I found the keys to his vehicle, and pocketed them as well. It wasn’t as though he’d be needing the car any time soon, and I might need it.
Paul was heavy, but I was strong, and I crouched to haul his body over my shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Shakily, I got back to my feet, my legs—especially the one that had been caught in the trap—trembling under the weight. It was going to be challenging carrying him up the ladder, that was for sure, but I didn’t have any choice. I had to make this work, shut things up again, and continue what I’d been doing when he’d interrupted me.
I hooked one arm around his body to hold him in place, and tried not to think about just how close his dead ass was to my face, and used my other hand to haul myself up the ladder. I didn’t need to get all the way up—just high enough to be able to shove his body up into the roof space.
I grunted for breath, gritting my teeth with the exertion. I’d forgotten all about not being heard now, and was merely concentrating on trying to keep my balance while not dropping the body. Just moving my hand from rung to rung, that moment of releasing it, pressing myself to the metal steps of the ladder best I could with Paul’s legs dangling between, made me teeter and wobble.
Finally, I got high enough, and I released the ladder, twisting and wedging myself between the steps to prevent me from falling back down. Then I used both hands to shove Paul’s body up. My muscles bulged and strained. It felt like he had too many arms and legs, his limbs falling back over me, threatening to push me down from my position, as though even in death he was getting his revenge. I wanted to swear and yell out my frustration, but I couldn’t risk the noise.
Eventually, I managed to wedge his body up in the hole. I was done.
Sweating and breathing hard, I climbed back down the ladder then lifted the bottom back up to slide back together and into its spot above my head. It jammed for a moment, the far end caught on the body, but I gave it an extra determined shove and the arm or leg, or whatever had been blocking it, moved out of the way, and I was able to get the ladder back up and close the hatch behind him.
Shit. That was a sideline I had not been expecting to take. How much time had passed? An hour? When would the house start waking up?
It was still dark outside, so I hoped I had another hour or more. But time was running out, and I was still no closer to finding Catalina’s location.
I didn’t know if Bruno or Rufus was the other man on patrol, but there was the chance whoever it was would come looking for Paul. Or, if I was in luck, they’d fallen asleep somewhere and hadn’t even noticed he was missing.
I went back to the office and closed the door. Realizing I should have done it the first time, I used the key to lock it behind me. At least now there was no chance of someone coming in without me hearing them, unless it was my father using his own key. Thinking it might buy me some time, I left the key sticking out of the lock.
I turned back to look at the office and raked my hand through my hair. So far, nothing had turned up anything interesting. I needed to check the safe. The safe was located in a smaller room just off the office—a room I assumed would have been used as a walk-in-closet if this had been a bedroom.
Leaving the main part of the office, I went into the room with the large digital saf
e at the back.
To open it, I needed a code.
I tried my father’s birth date. Nothing. Then various combinations of his birth date. Still nothing. I tried my own birthday, and did the same again. Maybe it was just a random number, and I’d never figured it out.
I tried Catalina’s date of birth, and variations of that. Still nothing.
Then I tried the day she would have been due to leave us for Torres, had we not run away together.
The lock clicked open.
I could hardly believe it. I sat staring into the contents. There were sheaves of paper and a black briefcase that was also locked.
Outside the window, the sky was growing lighter. I was running out of time. If Silas caught me here, it would be game over, and I knew he was an early riser. I didn’t have time to go through everything before he arrived.
I couldn’t hang around and wait to be caught. Instead, I grabbed the folder of paper, shoving them up under my shirt, then I picked up the briefcase by the handle, too. I needed to get inside it, just in case.
Slamming the door to the safe shut, I went back out into the main part of the office. I checked to make sure things didn’t look out of place—though my father would know right away that someone had been in here when he opened the safe—and then I opened the door, took the key back out and stepped through into the hallway. I was conscious of Paul’s body in the roof space above my head. A life I had taken. But I forced myself to ignore it and locked the office door again and pocketed the key. There was no point in worrying about hiding the key right now. I had a briefcase in my hand and files hidden up under my shirt.
The key was the least of my worries.
Chapter Eleven
The tiny world in which I lived dragged down on my shoulders like a physical weight. Just as I’d felt in the water, pressure surrounded me, dragging me under and pushing me down, all at the same time. And though I tried to focus on the light above me, though I fought, and pushed, and attempted to shrug off all the pain and misery around me, it clung to me like seaweed, holding me there.
For Him: The Complete Series: A Dark Romance Page 40