by Aria Ford
I heard the front doorbell. Happy for the fast response of the team, I ran to answer it. I found myself confronted with Klaas himself, the thickest South African with a blunt, open face.
“Hell,” he said. “What the fuck happened, man?” He ran a hand over his shaved head, face a picture of concern.
“No idea, Klaas. I appreciate you coming here.”
“Not at all,” he nodded. “Take us to the tracks.”
I nodded, leading him out to the place beside the hole in the fence. Sure enough, there were tracks there in the road. It must have accelerated at a hell of a rate because there was dark rubber left on the tarred surface.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Klaas agreed, studying them for a moment. “SUV. Smallish one. Colt treads. We’ll look up possibilities. In the meantime, I’m sending one of the cars that way.”
“Thanks,” I said, feeling suddenly weak with relief. Klaas looked at me astutely.
“No worries, man.”
I swallowed hard. It was probably sound advice, but impossible to follow. I had to get Emma back. I had to.
“Where will you go?” I asked, indicating the other team and Klaas himself.
Klaas started giving instructions. “You,” he said to the first man. “Go and question the security guard. You can do the house staff. You, look at the security camera data for…when, Mr. Carring?”
“Around six thirty,” I said, thinking quickly.
“Okay. Any time between six and seven,” Klaas nodded to his man, who disappeared. That left him with one other, and himself.
“Okay, Juan,” he said to the last man. “You keep in radio contact with the guys. Let me know if they find anything. And I,” he said to me, “will go and find what we’re looking for.”
“Thanks,” I said again.
“No worries, man.”
I followed Klaas inside and showed him to my office. He could use whatever he needed to in there to try and find whoever these would-be killers were. Because I have not one doubt in my mind that they were.
My mind went back to that time I had tried so hard, so fruitlessly, to forget. Then the call came through that they had Ada. Unless I closed my company, they would kill her.
I had hesitated maybe a moment too long. Not because I valued the company more than Ada, but because I had no idea how to start dismantling it. And perhaps, at least a little, because the company was our livelihood. What would Ada say if we suddenly lost everything?
It was a ridiculous thought, but it was a thought I had. And those two things had cost Ada her life.
They shot her. I was grateful at least for that. Cleanly through the head. It was shocking that I was grateful for that. It should never have happened at all. Images of her—of what she had suffered—played out through my mind for months, robbing me of sleep so that I thought I might lose my mind.
And now it was happening again, this time with Emma.
“I hate these people,” I hissed. The hate was a living thing, like an animal inside me. I clenched my fists, wanting to hold it in. I glanced at my desk, where Klaas calmly sat at the Mac, looking for things about cars. Seeing him was reassuring and I saw that much of my hate was to cover up my fear.
“Well, the fuckers are driving a Colt Ralliart.”
“Oh,” I said. They weren’t exactly cheap cars. Whoever this was seemed to have money at their disposal. But then that should have been obvious: breaching the security around Park House was a serious achievement in itself. I closed my eyes, wondering if I could make any guess at all about who these people might be. Who could possibly hate me enough to hurt the deepest part of my heart? Who was simultaneously well heeled enough and angry enough to do this?
I had no idea. But I knew that the need to get to where they were as quickly as possible. I would not let them take Emma. I had failed Ada and I lived haunted by her spirit all my life. I would not fail Emma. She was my light.
A sound made Klaas look up in surprise.
“Radio,” he said quickly. “Team two. They have something for me.”
“Answer,” I snapped, before I had thought about the fact that Klaas didn’t appreciate that. He raised a brow at me but did it immediately.
“Ace. What you found?” A pause. “Yes.”
I looked at him.
“They found the car.”
That was all I needed.
“I’m coming with you.”
Chapter 13
Emma
The room had a funny smell. That was the first thing I noticed. A sort of dusty scent, like sweeping was a thing it had recently forgotten. I breathed in. Then I noticed I was stiff.
Ropes. On wrists and ankles. I was tied up. Why?
I tried to scream. My throat was very dry and my chest was sore. I managed to wheeze. Instantly, I heard voices.
“She’s awake.”
“Do something.”
“Wait. We don’t know what he’s going to do yet.”
A short sound. It was someone laughing. “Doesn’t matter, does it?”
The other three voices were silent. So was I. I had to know what was meant by that. He was, I guessed, Alexander. What he would or would not do was of personal interest to me and I was terrified. Too frightened to move or think or really do anything except to wait there, still and silent, for whatever they would do.
I wasn’t there very long. Someone pulled me to my feet.
“What we going to do with her?” a rough voice asked.
A laugh that was distinctly horrid. “Plenty o’things we could do,” the voice said. I swallowed hard. I knew exactly what he was talking about and so did everyone else. I wanted to disappear. I felt horrible. Threatened and shamed at once.
“Boss…”
“Phone him.”
“But…”
“Do it.”
Someone must have been phoning, because I heard the fourth man saying: “Tell him we’ll kill her.”
Reality withdrew a step. I was asleep. I had to be. This was a horrid dream and I would wake up. I had to.
“We’re gonna kill her.”
I don’t know what Alex said, or if it even was him, but the person hung up in frustration.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
Nothing. I felt my eyes cloud over. I was crying. Alexander said nothing? Was it even Alexander?
“How do we know this is the right girl?”
“Dunno, boss. Right place, right?”
“So?” he chuckled. “Lots of people could be there. You checked carefully?”
“Careful as I could be. You think she looks like the shot?”
I lay very still, pretending not to breathe, while someone came close to me and held a flashlight close by. I closed my eyes tight to avoid the brightness and so I had no idea what the person looked like. All I knew was that someone was holding my hair off my face with a rough hand. I wanted to move away, to wrest my hair from their fingers, but I knew that any attempt to fight would make things harder for me. Not for them. I lay still and pretended to be sleeping.
“Yes, boss,” the other man, one of the first who had spoken, replied.
“Okay,” he sighed. “So now things get fun.”
“Boss…” the man sounded miserable.
“What?”
“I don’t think we should. I mean, last time…”
The first man sounded sad. The boss sounded furious when he answered.
“Last time?”
“Boss, none of us like killing.”
He laughed. “I don’t like being boss. Not for you lot. But I do it. So do it.”
I could hear his gang weren’t happy. Which made me feel a whole lot better. Not that I really thought they’d rebel and refuse to do it, but because they were not willing to kill me. That gave me faith in people. It didn’t stop me being absolutely terrified.
“What if he does what you told him to?”
“You think I really want that?” a laugh. “Yes, I want to take what h
e has. But I want to hurt him. And this will do that.”
I knew then that I was going to be killed. Whoever this was had hated Alexander with devotion for years.
The only thing that puzzled me was who was last time? Who was it these people had killed. Was it someone of Alexander’s, or some other case altogether.
“Alex…” I murmured. The moment I did it, I realized how that would not help anything. Now they knew who I was.
“See?” the first man said. “We have the right girl.”
I felt the atmosphere in the room change. It was as if the light dimmed. They all knew now that they would kill me. I felt a strange sense fill me. It was a sense of regret. Of goodbye. I was absolutely not ready to die. Not now. Now when my life was happy in a way it had never been before now. I thought of the kids, of little Cammi and Jack who had been so important to me. I saw their angelic faces and I wept. I would never see them again. I saw another face, severe with its hollow cheeks and perfect nose, its level brown eyes and its severe hair. I would never see him again. Never.
“Alex,” I said again. This time I was sobbing. I couldn’t help it. They were secondary to the drama that was mine, the trauma that was mine. I was going to stop living. To stop waking up to sunshine and going to bed with the stillness of night and the presence of my lover beside me. I would never see the kids grow up.
“Shut her up,” one of the men said, disgusted.
But I would not shut up. They could kill me, it was true. But they were going to do that anyway. This was my life. These were my last few glorious minutes, and they could not stop me. I sobbed. The more I remembered, the more I sobbed. His hands in my hair. His kisses.
“Alex…” I sobbed. I heard someone move in the room, felt a blow on the side of my head. It did not affect me. I convulsed, my tears running down my cheeks. “Alex,” I whispered. “Alex. Alex.”
I was hysterical and knew it. But it was the saddest I could remember being. I started screaming, his name on my lips every time I did.
“Shut her up! Hit her, put a gag on. Anything!”
The man was joined by another and they did both. The one hit me on the head and the other one lifted my head. They would not shut me up, not unless they shot me.
“Alex!” I screamed.
A sudden shot rang out.
At least, I thought it was a shot. A fine dust sprayed across me and the room filled with shouting and confusion. I coughed. There was dust filling the room. And sunlight.
The men were rushing about and shouting, and I had no idea what was going on. I felt some stones fall onto the skin of my face and I jerked back, wanting to shake them off: cement dust makes me itchy.
Cement. The wall.
I dimly saw that someone must have infiltrated. The running feet were probably my captors. I heard a shot, and then another. I stopped trying to slide toward the patch of sunlight and lay very still, praying no one would hit me.
I heard voices shouting, swearing. None of them were voices I knew, besides the voices I knew from my recent captors’ conversation. Then, the sounds became less frequent. I lay exactly where I was and listened as two more shots rang out and then there was silence except for a crunch where two men walked on stones near me.
“There!”
I knew that voice.
“Alex!”
I was crying. A pair of feet ran across the crunching dust and stopped at my head. Someone bent down and a hand reached out. The touch I knew so well stroked my hair and someone was whispering my name, over and over.
“Emma. Emma?”
“Alex…” I was suddenly so tired. Everything seemed an effort, even opening my eyes. My head dropped forward and I heaved in a breath, and then lay still. At the moment, Everything hurt and everything was too hard. All I could do was sleep.
“Emma!” Alex shouted and then called out to someone. “Jan! Ric. For pity’s sake! Scissors. A knife?”
One of them must have had something, for I felt him stretch across me to where my hands were bound by my sides. I felt a sudden chill on my arm as a blade passed below string and then the sound of rope, fraying as he cut. The knife bumped me and I grunted in shock.
“Emma! Oh, no. Did I cut you?”
He sounded so concerned that the small part of my mind that remained conscious outside the haze of exhaustion that overran me wanted to laugh. I was going to be shot, I wanted to say. And you’re scared of getting me on the top layer of the skin with a bread knife?
Then my hands were unbound. I felt the sudden warmth of blood flowing to them and then the agony struck. I had no idea how long I had been like that, but my fingers sure did hurt. I knew it would be even more painful when he did my toes.
“Are you okay, eh?”
I gritted my teeth and nodded. “Think…so.”
“Good! Thank Heavens!”
I wanted to laugh again. He sounded so correct, so British, as she should be spoken, but my body was simply too exhausted. I made a sighing noise, then collapsed.
I woke up later. I was in the back of a car. The motion hurt my head, which was, now that I thought about it, in agony. I groaned.
“Emma!” I heard his voice. “You’re awake now!”
I blinked. Where was I? It was Alex in the front seat, but who was driving? And where had I just gone to?
Memory filtered into my agonizing head slowly. The room. The men. My rescue.
“Safe,” I murmured.
I heard a funny sound from the front seat. It could have been laughter, but in truth I think someone sobbed.
“Yes,” he said, and his voice was shaky, so it was Alex himself who sobbed. “Yes, you’re safe. We’re going to go home, now. It’s okay. You’re safe.”
I sighed. I closed my eyes. I felt myself drifting off to sleep, then, because I knew it was okay.
Alex was here and we were going home and it would be safe.
Chapter 14
Alex
I was beside Klaas as we drove back. I could feel my heart pounding with every inch of that trip back. We had Emma, that was true. But we had no idea if Team Two was fighting the kidnappers. And Emma was in serious conditions.
I shouted at Klaas. He had to go faster. Faster. We had to see a doctor, and as soon as we possibly could.
“Mr. Carring,” he said quietly. “This is my job. I don’t tell you how to do your one, do I?”
I wanted to hit him. I think I actually almost did, but thought against it at the last minute. He must have seen me unclench my hand, as he gave a short chuckle.
“I know that’s outta line, sir. But had to be said. You know.”
“I know,” I said, feeling my body suddenly weaker with the stress and the needless arguing.
Whoever it was didn’t say anything, and we were alone together, all three of us. I felt my eyelids heavier now and I closed my eyes, drifting into sleep.
Sleep was short lived, however. Someone—Alex, because I smelled his aftershave—carried me up some steps. Then he bellowed at someone.
“Paula! Get Dr. Harris down here.”
Chapter 15
Emma
I felt bad that he was shouting so unnecessarily and I tried to say it but the words refused to come out. I closed my eyes and let him carry me into another room and put me down on a bed. That made me even sleepier and I felt my eyelids become heavy and I stifled a yawn. Everything still hurt from having been tied so tightly with ropes and so I grunted in pain.
“Dr. Harris?”
I heard good-quality male shoes in the corridor, sticking a little to the tiles in a way that proves they are brand-new shoes. Then I felt a hand touch my head.
“Seems okay to me, sir.”
“For pity’s sake, man! I don’t pay you to stand here. Go have a look!”
I felt the touch probe more gently and then my head was consumed with burning pain.
“She has a fractured skull.”
I heard that sentence, and then I passed out.
I don’t
know how long I slept. I only know that I woke much later with no idea where I was. I moved my feet down and they slid on cool fabric. I moved my shoulder back and it slid beneath a coverlet of what was obviously the same kind of cloth, or at least the same kind of cloth. I didn’t say anything but I guessed I was in a bed somewhere in the house. I was proved right.
“Emma? Emma! I’m here. It’s okay. Wake up. Do try to wake up? Doctor said you shouldn’t sleep too much.”
“Thanks.” I was being ironic. I really badly wished to sleep. He heard the irony and chuckled.
“Emma,” he said, his voice sounded raw. “I’m so glad you’re back now. You were kidnapped.”
“I know.” I was tired. Why was he telling me things that I knew? I wanted to shout at him for that alone, but I was too tired.
“You’re here, now,” Alex was saying. His hand stroked my hair and I bit my lower lip and wished he would avoid the tender place. He did so, if closely. “I had to promise the kids I’d bring you in. They’re beside themselves. They keep thinking you’re going to die like…”
“Like.”
I made it a statement, not a question. He sighed. “I thought I told you?”
“No.” I was angry, actually. I simply didn’t have the energy or I would have shouted it at him. But I didn’t, so I didn’t.
“Well,” he said, “I had a wife. You knew that…Jack and Cammi’s mom. Remember?”
I tried to make an affirmative noise, but my whole head hurt, and so I nodded. Yes.
“Well, she was my first wife. I married her. They shot her. Years later, after the company really went big.”
“What?” Even in my complete exhaustion, I had enough energy for that statement. I had no idea his first wife had died. That she had been shot by the same people who took me seemed uncanny. What did they get from doing such horrible things to the wives or friends of Alexander Carring?
“They shot her like they planned to do to you,” he said quietly. “I couldn’t let that happen and I wouldn’t. I came here straight away.”