by Daisy March
“You’re sure?”
“Nope. She’s got a woolly hat pulled down halfway over her face and she’s hiding in the corner but she’s coughing away so loudly I could hear her from the kitchen.”
“Keep her there. I’ll be done here in ten minutes.”
“I’ll do my best but I’m no security guard. Not anymore.”
I rushed through the last appointment of the evening, leaving the receptionists to lock up while I drove to the soup kitchen.
I should have been going home to pack ready for my trip to the cabin. I’d been planning it for long enough. Instead, I was going looking for a girl who probably wasn’t Todd’s daughter. What would be the chances it was her? The girl I’d promised to look after.
My mind went back in time before I could stop it. I was in the desert, kneeling next to Todd in the sand, doing my best to stem the bleeding from his shredded limbs. “Look after this for me,” he said, holding the watch in my face. “Give it to Susie.”
“You’ll give it to her yourself,” I replied. “Just keep still.”
I worked hard to stem the bleeding but it kept gushing out. Todd was gripping my collar, pulling me down toward him. “Promise me you’ll take care of her,” he said. “Please.”
“You’re going to get through this,” I replied. “Just stay with me.”
I couldn’t get the artery clamped in time. The bomb had destroyed it. Behind us the rest of the team were holding off the insurgents, bullets flying around, ricocheting off the humvee and thudding into the sand. “Promise me!” Todd yelled above the noise, clawing at my face.
“All right,” I said, batting his hand away. “I promise, now stop moving!”
His face was white. The blood flowing out of him was slowing but was I in time?
I’ve lived that moment a thousand times since then. I was sure I’d managed it. He was going to make it. The bleeding had stopped.
Then a stray bullet bounced off the humvee and went through his chin, heading upwards to bang on the underside of his helmet. He was dead before the blood finished splattering across my face.
They told me it wasn’t my fault. They told me I could leave without a stain on my conscience. I’d done my best and the mission was completed despite everything.
I knew better. I should have got him out of there faster. I should have spotted the bomb under the humvee. I should have clamped the artery and got him moved before the bullet hit him. I could have done so much and I let him down. I left Susie without a father.
All my fault.
Then I let him down again. I got back and tried to give his watch to Angela for Susie but she shut the door in my face, wouldn’t even let me see their baby, the baby Todd never got to see.
I went into civilian life. I became an ordinary doctor and I waited too long to go back and try again. When Susie turned sixteen I went to give Susie the watch and timed it as well as ever.
Angela was dead and Susie was missing. She’d been missing ever since. What were the chances that the daughter of my missing sergeant would turn up at my clinic?
It wasn’t going to be her, even if she did look a bit like him. She might know something though. They were the same age. I had promised him I’d take care of her. I had to keep trying to find her.
I got to the soup kitchen in time to find Sally doling out the last of the portions. The place was packed with people. At first, I couldn’t see her.
I headed through the crowd and then there she was. There was no way of mistaking her for anyone else. I slipped into the seat opposite her.
“Good evening,” I said as she glanced up at me. She jumped up, ready to run but I was faster, blocking her way.
She looked up at me like a cornered cat. Was she about to lash out and hit me? Try and run past? She did neither. Her shoulders slumped and then she sat back down.
“How did you find me?”
“Luck,” I replied. “Have you heard of Todd Sparrow?”
She frowned. “Nope. Why?”
“I just wondered. What about Susie Sparrow? That name mean anything to you?”
She narrowed her eyes as she sat up. “Nope?”
“You need help.”
“I’m fine.” She coughed loudly as she spoke.
“I can see that. You’re clearly doing great.”
“Look, whatever you’re into, I’m not your girl. I’m not going to fuck you for a cellphone. You didn’t need to waste your money anyway. There’s plenty of girls out there that will fuck a doctor for free.”
“You will not use language like that in front of me again,” I said, pointing a finger at her. “Is that understood?”
She opened her mouth as if to say something else but then she closed it again.
“Good,” I continued. “I don’t want anything from you. I just want to help. Take this cellphone, it’s got my number programmed into it. If that fever gets any worse, you call me.”
She didn’t move to take it.
I leaned across the table and took hold of her hand, pressing the cellphone into it, wrapping her fingers around the device.
“It’s fully charged and switched off,” I said as she got to her feet, cramming the cellphone into her jacket pocket. “I want to help, Catherine, if you’ll let me. Will you let me?”
She looked at me and again she seemed on the verge of saying something. Then she turned and walked away.
I leaned back in my seat for a moment. At least she took the cellphone with her. I looked at her ass as she walked away. It looked deliciously curvy and tight as anything in those jeans, peeking out from beneath her jacket.
What the hell was wrong with me? She was ill, she was half my age, and she had literally just told me she would never fuck me.
So why was I staring at her ass as she walked away, wishing she was draped over my knee wearing nothing but her smile?
I got up and headed over to the kitchen. While I was here, I might as well help Sally and the crew clean the pots before I went on vacation.
A week in the cabin.
First chance to get there in months. Time to turn it into a proper home, maybe even move there for good. The surgery was running itself. When my two new doctors started I could dedicate myself to whatever I liked.
Shame that the one thing I really liked, I’d never get to do. Be a Daddy.
Chapter Three
Susie
I’d only gone to the soup kitchen because it was still raining. I was soaking wet, freezing cold, and starving hungry. I could handle one at a time, maybe two, but not all three at once.
I sat in the quietest corner, keeping my head down. I didn’t want Oswald to see me while I was there. He regularly scoped the place, looking for new marks to work for him.
He’d already tried to rope me into the latest housebreaking once this week. I didn’t want him to offer me the chance again. I was worried I might say yes.
There was no sign of him or his hulking great apprentice Charlie when I turned up. There would be no missing him if he appeared at the soup kitchen. I’d never met anyone taller, until I saw the doctor that morning.
David Reece.
The man who’d killed my dad. I knew that name all too well.
Mom had told me the story dozens of times. Dad had been on one of his secret missions abroad, some special forces thing that I wouldn’t understand.
The medic left him to die in the desert, hadn’t even tried to save him. Stole his gold pocket watch too, the one I was meant to have. Kept it for himself.
David Reece. Was this the same man? He did have a military bearing to him, sitting bolt upright opposite me in the soup kitchen, speaking in the clipped words of a man accustomed to action, not words.
He scared me.
He also turned me on.
I stamped on that feeling like I’d stamped on it in the clinic. I didn’t want him to undress me, to examine my body with his huge hands, to spread my legs, to look closely at the spot that tingled whenever I thought of him.
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I wasn’t that kind of girl. My first time wasn’t going to be a doctor in return for a cellphone. Nor was it going to be with the man who killed my dad.
Was it him? Could it just be a coincidence that they had the same name?
I almost asked him before I left with the cellphone.
I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to know. I wanted to see him as a father figure, picture myself on his lap, being rocked to sleep, being cared for and loved.
I couldn’t do that if I knew the truth. Better to not find out. Same as with Oswald. If I’d asked how much he was going to pay for this particular housebreaking I might find myself doing it, slipping further down the slope into criminality. It was a slope I might not be able to come back from.
Better to not find out.
My life’s motto.
So I took the cellphone but I knew I was only going to sell it. I wasn’t going to use it. It looked new and it looked expensive. Someone would pay good money for it.
I knew it was the man who killed my father. At the back of my mind, I already knew. Why else would he ask about Todd Sparrow? Or Susie Sparrow.
Me.
I lied to him about it, pretended not to know that name. Better not to know.
That was how I survived on the streets. I didn’t ask questions. I just did whatever I had to do to survive.
Outside the soup kitchen, I spotted Charlie smoking a roll-up. I turned the other way and hoped he hadn’t spotted me.
His hand fell on my shoulder a second later. “I’ve been waiting for you to come out,” he said. “It’s on tonight. Oswald needs an answer from you, now.”
“I already told him no,” I replied, yanking my shoulder free from his grip. “I’m no burglar.”
“He said you’d say that. He also said to tell you the place we’re doing over has something in it you want.”
“Still not interested.” I started walking away.
A figure appeared in front of me. I winced, not looking up. I knew who it was.
“Susie,” Oswald said in that creepy voice of his. “We need you.”
“Oswald,” I replied, taking a step back, bumping into Charlie who put his hands on my shoulders, pinning me to the spot. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“We need that skinny little body of yours,” Oswald said, continuing as if I hadn’t spoken. “You can fit through the window and disable the alarm for us. We can’t do the job without you and it’s a good job.”
“Find someone else,” I said, trying to break free of Charlie’s grip. “I’m no house breaker.”
“Come on,” Oswald said, turning and walking away. “Bring her into the bar. We’ll talk out of the rain.”
Charlie didn’t let go of my shoulder, marching me over the road and into The Dog and Gun on the other side.
The bar was half empty and it emptied completely when the clientele saw Oswald walking in with me. “Sit,” Charlie said, shoving me down into a chair.
Oswald sat opposite me. Two glasses of whiskey appeared on the table between us. He slid one toward me. “It’ll warm you up.”
I took it and swallowed quickly, the burning sensation warming my throat. I began to cough a second later. Oswald continued smiling, waiting until I was done before he continued. “You need help,” he said. “You need somewhere warm to stay while you’re not well.”
“You’re a doctor now, are you?” I asked, thinking of David.
“Do this job and you’ll be able to afford your own apartment,” he continued. “The place is loaded. Rich pickings and in the middle of nowhere.”
He put a map on the table, tapping a large green section in the middle. “Cropton Forest. Old Forester’s Cabin. No one around for miles. Only one road in and out. Charlie cased it for two days. There’s no one there. No chance of getting caught. Say yes, Susie. Get off the streets. Get yourself a roof over your head. What do you say?”
“I need to pee,” I said, getting to my feet. “Or is that not allowed?”
“Go for it,” Oswald said. “Free country. Charlie, go with her.”
He nodded toward Charlie and I had a shadow beside me while I walked to the ladies' bathroom. I pushed open the door and headed inside, glad that Charlie stayed in the bar.
There were no windows in the ladies. I wasn’t escaping that way. There was a chemical smell coming from the nearest cubicle. I stepped inside and bolted the door, pulling out the cellphone and switching it on.
I knew I should call the police with it. But what would I tell them? A man in a bar wants me to break into a house.
They’d hang up laughing. I had no proof of anything. I had no one to turn to. Then the phone came to life and there was his name on the screen in front of me.
David Reece.
I hit call before I thought about it for too long.
Would he answer? Would he care what I had to say? He’d told me he wanted to help. Time to see if he’d been telling the truth.
“Catherine?” he said. “I’m glad you called.”
“I need your help,” I said quietly, hoping Charlie couldn’t hear me.
“Where are you?”
I was about to tell him when I stopped myself. If he walked into one of Oswald’s bars on his own he’d not walk out again.
Sure, he looked like he could handle himself but I had no doubt Oswald was armed, probably Charlie too. David wouldn’t make it ten yards toward me.
“I’m scared,” I said, biting my lip.
“Tell me where you are.”
“There are these people,” I leaned back against the wall of the cubicle. “They want me to help them break into a cabin somewhere.”
He didn’t say anything for a second. “What cabin?” he asked just as I thought the line had gone dead.
“Old Forester’s Cabin in Cropton forest. What does that matter?”
“When are you supposed to do it?”
“Tonight. Why?”
“Tell me the rest. What are you supposed to do?”
“They want me to get in through a small window and then turn the alarm off.”
“Then what?”
“They come in and clear the place out, I guess. Listen, David, I don’t know what to do. You said you’d help me. Help me.”
“Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”
“I can’t. They’d kill me. And you. What should I do?”
“Do it.”
“Do what?” I asked. “What did you say?”
“Go ahead with what they want.” His voice sounded warm and reassuring, the exact opposite of how I felt. “I’ll do the rest.”
I didn’t get the chance to say anything else.
The door to the ladies swung open and Charlie was peering over the top of the cubicle a second later. He reached in and grabbed the cellphone out of my hand, holding it up to his ear.
“Who’s this?” he asked. He frowned as he listened. “Dead.” He crushed the cellphone in his hand, dropping the pieces onto the floor. “Oswald wants an answer.”
I unlocked the cubicle door. Oswald was still sitting at the table, another glass of whiskey in his hand. “She was on the phone,” Charlie told him.
“And who was she calling?”
“I don’t know.”
“Pass me the cellphone.”
Charlie looked pale all of a sudden. “I broke it.”
Oswald’s expression turned cold. “Of course you did. Who were you calling, Susie?”
“No one.”
“Well, I hope for your sake, you’re telling the truth. I’ll find out otherwise. So, what’s your answer? Yes or no?”
“Yes,” I said, thinking of what David had just told me. “I’ll do it.”
Chapter Four
David
The line went dead. I tried to call her back but this time nothing happened at all. It didn’t even ring at the other end.
Fate.
It had to be.
Some scumbags were using her to rob a cabin in the forest and
they pick my cabin? It had to be destiny.
That gave me a good feeling. I was supposed to take care of her. She was being brought directly to me.
I looked at my watch. She said they were doing it tonight. It was already quarter to nine. It would take a couple of hours to drive there.
I had time to get there before her.
She’d only just left the soup kitchen. The call hadn’t sounded like it was coming from inside a vehicle. That meant they hadn’t set off yet. Wherever they were, I could get in front of them and prepare.
I didn’t know the numbers but that didn’t matter. I doubted any of them had the training I’d had.
I threw a couple of things into my suitcase before tossing it into the back of the car. A minute later I was heading out of the city without looking back.
I thought of her as I drove, my hands gripping the steering wheel ever tighter.
How could someone take advantage of a girl like that?
She was vulnerable, she was innocent. That meant the same reason I wanted to take care of her was the reason they would take advantage of her.
Not for much longer. Soon she’d be in my care and when that happened they’d better watch out. I protected what I claimed.
She wouldn’t be scared for much longer. I would make sure of that.
I raced out of the city, swerving through the last of the traffic until I was on the smaller country roads. The lights died away until I was left with just the glow of the headlights shining onto nothing.
They must have been casing the place for a while. It was my fault for leaving it empty so long.
That hadn’t been the plan. When I got back from my final mission I used the pay off to buy the place. All I wanted was to get out of the city, be on my own.
Somehow life got in the way and I ended up a doctor traveling in from the cabin every day until I got myself an apartment in the city for the busy days.
Fast forward a few years and I’m basically living in the apartment and the cabin is busy gathering dust.
All that was going to change with hiring new doctors. I could go do the cabin up properly, settle in there, say goodbye to people, be on my own.