Demons

by Beth Abbott

  “Wait until you hear what it is and see if you still think so.” Jay shrugged.

  Reggie watched him carefully, ready for him to spill the beans, but Jay made him wait until he was damn near squirming in his seat.

  “Well, go on then, fuckwit!” Reggie growled. “What’s the big fucking plan? Robbery? Ooh no, it’s murder innit? Who we gotta kill?”

  Jay grinned.

  “Not murder, no.” He shrugged. “I met this girl at the bar the other night. I’ve seen her a few times. Blonde, mid-twenties, pretty hot. She called herself Heather, but I doubt that’s her real name. Anyway, that night she was real pissed about something, drinking more than I’ve seen her do before, spouting some bullshit about not getting what she deserves, blah-blah…”

  “Get to the point.” Reggie rolled his eyes. “I haven’t got all day.”

  “Yeah, well, we drank a lot, made out a little, drank some more.” Jay grinned. “Next thing I know, she’s telling me how she’s got this plan to make a ton of money and asks me if I know anyone who would do a ‘crime’ for the right price.”

  “I hope you told her you don’t know any criminals.” Reggie laughed.

  “Not exactly. I asked her what she had in mind.” Jay grinned. “And it turns out the little lady is looking for someone to do a spot of kidnapping for her. She wouldn’t say who the target was, but she reckoned she could make a million in ransom money, with virtually no fuss whatsoever.”

  “Seriously? This Heather chick wants us to snatch someone?” Reggie chuckled. “And do what with them?”

  “We don’t do shit with them.” Jay frowned. “We just keep them somewhere they can’t be traced until the ransom is paid, and then we let them go. Under no circumstances are they to be harmed. That’s what Heather said.”

  “This sounds like complete bullshit to me.” Reggie shook his head. “I’ll bet the chick woke up the morning after wondering what the hell she’d done. She’s probably hoping that you were as shit-faced as she was the night before, and that you have zero memory of the whole night.”

  “That’s what I expected, too, y’know?” Jay laughed. “Right up until she phoned me again last night and asked if we could meet up to discuss her proposal. She’s really up for it, Reggie. No joke.”

  “And you have no idea who the target is?” Reggie frowned.

  “Not a clue.” Jay shrugged. “Heather wouldn’t say.”

  “When does she want it done?” Reggie sat forward.

  “Possibly as soon as late next week.” Jay nodded. “She’ll let me know on the weekend.”

  “Next week? As in next fucking week?” Reggie scoffed. “That doesn’t give us much time for planning.”

  “What’s to plan? A vehicle and somewhere safe to keep the hostage.” Jay shrugged. “She’ll tell us where the target will be, and when they’ll be alone. We just have to show up on time.”

  Reggie sat and stared at his little brother for a few minutes.

  “It sounds too good to be true.” He shrugged.

  “Nah, it just sounds good.” Jay grinned. “Come on, you gotta admit it. I did good this time.”

  “Of all the hair-brained plans you’ve ever come up with, this one doesn’t completely suck ass.” Reggie nodded. “But that doesn’t mean I’m gonna skip giving you that beating for last night. It just means I might not give you two black eyes. One will be enough.”

  Jay glanced at the door and considered making a break for it, but then he remembered he was only wearing his boxer briefs.

  Better to take a beating off Reggie than get arrested and locked up for public indecency, and miss being part of next week’s show.

  “Do I get to pick which eye?”

  Chapter 23 – Matt

  “Suzy, how many times do I have to tell you, they won’t let you on the players’ bus.” Matt groaned. “It’s simply not allowed.”

  Suzy rolled over and sat up.

  “Almost as many times as I have to tell you, that if you want to get off again this morning, you’re gonna have to do it with your hand.” Suzy growled. “If you want to support such blatant sexism by having separate male and female modes of transport, then I’m sorry, perhaps you should ask one of your male buddies to help you out. Think yourself lucky! If you’d told me about the bus before you just screwed my brains out, you wouldn’t have even gotten laid once!”

  Matt rolled onto his front, forgetting the straining erection he was already sporting, and winced in discomfort.

  “Suzy! C’mon sweetheart… please?” Was that him whining? “It’s not really a sexist thing, keeping the men separate from the women. It’s just to help the players focus on the upcoming match, without the distraction of beautiful women sitting on the bus with them.”

  “So, tell me again why it is you’ve got to go and watch a stupid football match on a Sunday?” Suzy frowned. “It’s ages since we spent a proper family Sunday together. I was hoping that when mum got back with the kids, we could all go out for Sunday lunch.”

  “I would’ve loved that, I really would.” He pulled his sulking wife back into him. “But the club is playing away this afternoon, and part of the increased security for Robbie Jones includes me travelling with Evan on the bus.”

  “What time do you have to leave?” She was actually pouting now.

  “I’ve got precisely forty-eight minutes before I need to be on the road.” He batted his eyelashes, hoping to win her over.

  Suzy leaned down and touched her lips to his.

  “Then you’ll have plenty of time to give yourself a hand-job in the shower, won’t you?” She slipped out of his grasp, padding onto the landing in her little black lace nightie, dragging the matching negligee on the floor behind her.

  Sexy little minx!

  He rolled onto his back, his erection finally getting the ‘not a chance’ message.

  “What about a cooked breakfast?” He yelled after her.

  He heard Suzy mutter something as she descended the stairs, and though he didn’t quite hear what it was, he was pretty sure she wasn’t asking him how many eggs he wanted.

  He sat up and rolled off the bed.

  Maybe he’d make Suzy a cooked breakfast instead? It never hurt to stock up on Brownie points.

  He glanced down at his naked torso, and wondered whether she’d like him to make her breakfast with clothes, or without?

  As tempting as it was to go without, he didn’t relish the idea of bacon sizzling and spitting on his lower portions, so he picked up his sweat pants and T-shirt and pulled them on.

  Putting aside his disappointment that he wasn’t gonna get laid again this morning, Matt jogged down the stairs in search of his wife.

  Bumping into her coming out of the laundry, he slapped her backside, just because…!

  “Fancy a full English breakfast with all the calories?” He grinned as she examined something in her hand.

  “What?” Suzy stared up at him. “Oh, no, not for me, thanks. But I’ll have a poached egg on some toast, if you’re offering.”

  “Your wish is my command.” Matt nodded, heading for the refrigerator to get all the breakfast ingredients out. “What time is your mum bringing the kids back?”

  “What?” Suzy was examining whatever she’d found in the laundry. “Oh, probably in the next half hour. Rory will have had her up at the crack of dawn, so it’ll already feel like midday.”

  “Good job we didn’t go for round two then.” Matt chuckled. “I don’t know which would be worse… your mum walking in on us, or Taylor!”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Why did he get the impression Suzy wasn’t paying him the slightest bit of attention?

  “Of course, Taylor’s only ten so she’s a bit young to explain nipple clamps and bondage to. Maybe when she turns eleven you can show her your furry handcuffs.” He grinned.

  “If you like.” Suzy agreed easily.

  Matt couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What the fuck has gotten into you? You obviousl
y haven’t heard a word I’ve said” He leaned over her shoulder to see what she was holding. “That’s the skirt I bought you for Christmas, isn’t it?”

  Suzy frowned down at the suede skirt.

  “Yeah, it is.” She nodded, turning away from him and walking back into the laundry.

  “Didn’t you wear it on Friday when you came into the office for a few hours?” He asked. “I remember thinking that you looked way too sexy to be anybody else’s PA but mine.”

  Suzy half smiled as she walked back out empty-handed.

  “Where’s the skirt gone?” He frowned. “You know you can’t put suede in the washing machine, don’t you?”

  He watched her bite her lip, obviously undecided as to whether she should respond.

  “What’s going on, Suze?” He stepped a little closer. “Didn’t the skirt fit or something? I mean, I thought it looked hot as fuck, but what do I know?”

  Suzy glanced up at Matt and he could see she was unhappy about something.

  He waited patiently while she went back into the laundry and brought the fawn colour suede skirt back out to him. She held it out.

  “It’s not going to fit me, sweetheart.” He grinned. “I don’t think I’ll get one leg in that.”

  Suzy frowned.

  “Turn it over.” She whispered.

  Matt turned the skirt over and laid it flat on the kitchen counter to see it better.

  “Holy shit! What happened to it?” He immediately saw the bright red stain all across the back.

  “I’m not entirely sure.” Suzy shrugged. “I wore it into the office, like you said, and it was fine. Then after the meeting with you, Lacey and Claire, I went back to my new cubicle to write up the notes. When I’d been sitting for a while, I remember thinking that my backside felt a bit damp. Lacey suggested it might have been because the chair had been in the storeroom for months, and the room wasn’t as well aired as the rest of the office. She even went and changed it for another one.”

  “You think the damp chair did this?” Matt turned the skirt around and pointed to the mark. “Honey, we don’t have any red chairs. And even if we did, the material they’re covered with isn’t the sort that dye would come out of. It’s just not possible.”

  “I sat on four seats on Friday, Matt.” Suzy shrugged. “The black leather seat in your Range Rover, the black leather seat in your office, the one I thought was damp, and the one Lacey replaced it with, which had a mustard coloured cover.”

  “Maybe you leaned against something red?” He suggested, scratching the skirt to see if the stain would come off.

  “Matt, it was the chair Lacey gave me, I’m sure of it.” Suzy frowned. “When I showed it to Lizzy, the girl who sits behind me, she went bright red, and just mumbled something sympathetic. It was like she knew something but was afraid to tell me. I’ve known Lizzy since she first started at Alpha, and until this happened, she’d always been really nice and chatty with me.”

  “So, you think Lacey did this deliberately, do you?” Matt frowned at her. “You think she sabotaged the chair to ruin your skirt.”

  “As unlikely as you might think it sounds, I can’t think of how else it might have happened.” Suzy shrugged. “Not that it matters how it happened. The skirt’s ruined whichever way you spin it.”

  “I’ll get you a new one.” Matt offered, still struggling to imagine Lacey doing something so petty and mean-spirited.

  “I can get my own replacement, Matt.” Suzy scowled at him. “I wasn’t showing you so that you can rush out and buy me a new one. I was telling you what I thought had happened, so you didn’t think I’d been so careless with something you’d given me only a few days before. I loved the skirt, and I’m seriously pissed that it’s ruined.”

  “You know you can’t go into the office tomorrow and start throwing around accusations without any actual evidence, don’t you?” Matt warned. “It wouldn’t look good for the boss’s wife to start throwing her weight around on her first full day back. Lacey could accuse you of bullying her, and that would only stir up bad feeling in the office.”

  Suzy stepped back and stared at him.

  “Wow! Thanks for the vote of confidence.” She snatched the skirt back off him and threw it in the bin. “How many skirts should I wait for her to ruin before you think it’s appropriate to mention it to her? Six? Twelve, maybe? Or should I wait until she trashes some of my trousers as well?”

  Matt shook his head and turned away.

  “Now you’re being ridiculous.” He sighed. “I know you don’t like her, but I’ve never known Lacey to be vindictive. She’s always been so thoughtful and helpful. Anyway, who’s to say she’s to blame for the chair being damp? Maybe someone else spilled something on it, and the person who did it, hid it away in the conference room, waiting for it to dry so nobody would find out. Lacey might have unwittingly pulled it out for you, not knowing it was soiled.”

  Judging from the way Suzy was staring at him, she obviously wasn’t buying his explanation.

  “And maybe I just made it all up, to make her look bad.” Suzy hissed. “I ruined my own brand-new suede skirt, just to make you think poorly of Lacey. Nasty, vindictive Suzy! Isn’t that what you’re thinking?”

  No, it wasn’t what he was thinking, but Matt at least recognised that you needed to have hard evidence before you threw around accusations.

  Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong.

  Great! They always knew when Carol had arrived back with the kids, thanks to Taylor’s quite distinctive doorbell ringing skills.

  “Saved by the bell!” Suzy smirked at him, flouncing out of the kitchen towards the front of the house.

  Matt threw the breakfast ingredients back into the refrigerator and headed for the stairs.

  This afternoon’s football match was going to give them some space while Suzy calmed down, but from tomorrow she would be back in the office nearly full-time.

  How long before the two women were pulling each other’s hair out in the middle of the office?

  Chapter 24 – Megan

  The ringing in her left ear was getting more persistent, and Megan cursed her stupidity for applying a ringtone that got louder the longer the call went unanswered.

  It’d seemed quite a good idea at the time, because she’d always banked on being able to answer it before it got so loud as to interrupt anyone else.

  To most people, eleven o’clock on a Sunday night wouldn’t have been considered a horrendously unsociable hour, but when you’d just finished the last of four gruelling twelve-hour shifts, back-to-back, surely to God you were entitled to a little peace!

  She turned over to grab the phone and realised she’d left it in her bag on the chair, and the chair was about six-feet away.

  “Whoever you are, you’d better either look like Chris Hemsworth, or sound like Vin Diesel!” She growled, climbing out from under the warm covers.

  Megan grabbed her phone and darted back to bed, pulling up the bedclothes before checking to see who was calling.

  Robbie! Of course, it would be Robbie. Who else would call her at this time of night?

  “Hullo?” She grunted into the phone, unable even to pretend she was happy to hear from him.

  “Hey sis.” Robbie sounded extra chirpy. “Did you see the match?”

  Shit, she’d forgotten he’d been playing, and hadn’t even checked the final score.

  “Sorry, Robbie.” She really was. “I didn’t get off shift until nine o’clock, and we were slammed right through. How did it go?”

  “Some guy hit a hat-trick to win the match for his side, three-nil.” Robbie chuckled. “Not sure of his name, but I think they call him the new Welsh Wizard, or something cool like that.”

  Megan couldn’t help but smile.

  “Well, aren’t you the kiddie!” She snorted. “Gareth Bale had better watch his back. You’ll be after his Welsh shirt next.”

  “Nah, he’s safe in his number eleven shirt.” Robbie laughed. “I’m happy wearing m
y number nine.”

  “Maybe your number will go up when you’ve had a bit more experience.” She teased.

  Robbie sighed.

  “I never can tell when you’re winding me up or not.” He complained. “Haven’t you learned anything about football since I’ve been playing?”

  “What? Like Gareth Bale plays number eleven for Real Madrid and Wales because he likes it over on the left wing, whereas you’re a number nine because, like most strikers, you like to hang around in front of goals most of the time?” Megan smiled to herself. “No, I can’t say I’ve picked up much at all.”

  “Well, anyway…” Robbie obviously gathered she was teasing him.

  “Anyway, nothing! Congratulations on your hat-trick!” She tried to sound excited for him. “I’ve got it recorded, so I’ll watch it tomorrow on my day off.”

  “Actually, I was rather hoping you could do something else for me tomorrow.” Robbie sounded cagey. “Not too early, so you could still have a lie in.”

  “Oh? What did you have in mind?”

  There was a short silence and she guessed Robbie was choosing his words carefully.

  “Ok, hear me out before you bite my head off, will you?” He pleaded.

  “Ok.” Megan agreed easily. “But if it’s got anything to do with Cerys, you can forget it. Life is too short to invite misery spending time with that… that…”

  “Heinous bitch?” Robbie chuckled. “No, I promise you, it’s got nothing to do with Cerys.”

  “Then you have my full attention.” She promised, solemnly.

  “Ok, well, I want you to meet up with Evan tomorrow, and hear what he has to say.” Robbie said quietly. “Just give him thirty minutes, and then I promise you, if you never want to see him again, I’ll make it happen. I’ll get Alpha Company, the security firm, to swap him out with someone else.”

  Megan felt the breath catch in her chest, as though she’d suddenly forgotten how to exhale.

  “Why would you want me to speak to Evan?” She asked.

  Had the selfish, arrogant asshole gone running to her brother, complaining that she wouldn’t talk to him?

  “I know who he is, Meg.” Robbie said quietly. “I recognised him from an old photo of yours, and it didn’t take me long to figure out who he was.”