Love's Last Cup of Coffee: A Romantic Suspense Book (Cafe' de Maison 1)

by Jane Keene

  She took herself off the ladies room to splash water on her face and gain composure.

  When she came out of the bathroom, the Café was teaming with customers, Breda shot her a look of pure fire. Oh great! Just what I need, an afternoon with Breda on my case.

  ***

  Victoria, tried to move her arms, her eyes were sore and her vision blurry. Where the hell was she? And what was going on? She tried to move again, but her head was pounding. She reached to brush her hair away from her face, but she found half the strands sticking to the side of her face. Why was her hair so dry and crusty? She shook her head to try clear her vision, which was now slowly returning.

  Everything had a fuzzy edge, even the cloud she was looking through; she could see she wasn’t exactly in the Merrion. The room was dark, the blinds were drawn, it was empty except for the formally beige ratty old sofa she had been sitting on, and it had certainly seen better days.

  Her body felt heavy, if she could just make it over to the door, maybe she could see where she was. She slowly got to her feet, her head spinning making her promptly sit down. After a few deep breaths she tried again, she managed to stand upright and shuffle one foot at a time to towards the door, she noticed that she was barefoot. What a bloody cheek! She didn’t know if she was angrier over losing her expensive black Valentino T-bar pumps, or the fact that she had been kidnapped and somebody had put her in a state of undress while she was unconscious.

  Her heart started pumping as the realisation of her situation crept over her like a wave of nausea. Still shuffling towards the door, she noticed the door handle had been removed; she was well and truly stuck. Maybe the windows? She shuffled over to the window, but they wouldn’t budge. She became frantic and started pulling on the blinds, nothing she did helped, the blinds were made out of strong wood, all she got for her efforts was a splinter in her finger.

  Sucking on the forefinger that now had a piece of wood stuck in it, she wondered who would want to hurt her? It must be the people Ryan was talking about, but why her? She wasn’t involved with Ryan. It’s not like she was his girlfriend or anything? For fecks sake! If this what happens because she shared one steamy session with Ryan, what would have happened if they actually had sex?

  All her noise must have caused a disturbance, because she heard footsteps, coming towards the door; she felt scared and moved as quickly as she could to get back over to the dilapidated sofa in the corner. The door opened slowly, expecting to see some overgrown face basher with half a brain, she almost fell off the sofa when she saw who it was and shouted in surprise, “You bastard!”

  Chapter 19

  Victoria felt sick to her stomach; she couldn’t believe Dermott was standing in front of her. “Hello Vicky, are you comfortable?”

  Victoria scrambled up off the sofa to get some distance between herself and Dermott.

  “I can’t believe you would do this to me! I knew you were a creep, but I didn’t know you were a kidnapper too, have you been fired yet? The Gardaí should be here soon to arrest you; Bruce McCarthy cleared everything this morning”.

  Dermott let out a rumbling laugh, he walked over and sat on the arm of the sofa.

  “Victoria you are so trusting, are you really that stupid not to know that Bruce McCarthy has been part of this from the beginning?”

  “You are lying!” Victoria retorted, she would not let Dermott get into her head.

  She moved towards him, quicker now, her drowsiness had worn off, “then tell me one thing, why is that if he was part of the deal, would he warn me about you?” Dermott’s sickly smirk disappeared off his face, but only for a moment before the fake smile returned.

  “That was part of the whole act, how do you think we could get him to get you to his office?” Victoria swore under breath, turned her back to him, she refused to believe him. She knew Bruce McCarthy was a good man.

  There was a knock at the door, and the door opened slightly, Victoria could not see who it was but Dermott turned to her.

  “Please excuse me for a second I am just going to take care of something.” He closed the door behind him, Victoria heard two sets of voices, one obviously Dermott’s and the other she did not recognise, and she crept over to the door and put her ear against it. She could barely make out the words, but one word was clear, she heard the unknown man say something about “it’s going to be fun and games when Ryan arrives”, and then afterwards she heard the men break into guffaws and snickers.

  Victoria heard Dermott at the door she backed away and went and sat on the sofa, Dermott stuck his head in.

  “I need to be somewhere, if I was you Vicky, I would use this time to think about things, and once you have calmed down, we could come to some “amicable” agreement.” Victoria jumped up.

  “Dermott you cannot leave me here! How long are you going to keep me here? There will be people looking for me! this is ridiculous! Who do you think you are, a member of the mob?” Victoria said mockingly. Dermott, scowled he was just about to say something, but thought twice about it, he closed and locked the door.

  Victoria felt deflated, she had never felt so lost and alone before, why would Dermott be doing this to her, she had never done anything to purposely hurt him?

  She went over to a little table at the end of the room; there was bottled water and a few packets of crisps. She wanted to refuse to eat anything, they offered but she thought she might need her strength later. She drank a whole bottle of water in three long gulps and finished two packets of crisps, sour cream and onion flavour, the last thing she needed to worry about was how fresh her breath smelt. The most important thing was to keep calm, and try think of some way out of this mess.

  Chapter 20

  “You have to go the Garda with this one Ryan; you cannot take on Jack by yourself. Has he contacted you?”

  Mick and Ryan were in the Café’ office, Ryan got up to pour their evening whisky, with a wave of his hand Mickey declined. Taken a little back Ryan put the glass back down on the drinks tray, it was still a little early; maybe he would change his mind later.

  “Mickey, I cannot go the Garda, the instructions were that if the authorities were notified they would know, and Victoria would become a distant memory.”

  “Ryan, they make threats all the time, but this is serious, Jack needs to be put out of commission permanently.”

  “He is out of commission. As far as I know, he is still locked up. No, someone is acting as his proxy, and they have decided to settle old scores.”

  Mickey coughed, “Did Shane tell you anything? After all you did save his hide all those years back.”

  Ryan shook his head, “According to Shane, the fact that he didn’t kill me on the spot was pay back enough; he is so far up Jack’s arse he can’t see the sun.”

  Ryan jumped up from the desk, “I am going out of my mind, I cannot wait, I need to do something, and I feel like such an eejit for putting her in this position”.

  Mickey got up out of the chair, but was suddenly overcome by a dizzy spell; he wavered and promptly sat back down again. Ryan rushed over to his side, “Mickey are you okay?” Mickey caught his breath and answered slowly, “I’m grand, Ryan, just got up a little too quickly, that’s all.”

  Ryan looked at Mickey; he looked fine, a bit pale maybe? He had lost a lost a bit of weight recently, but that could be due to the new diet he was on. He was digressing, Mickey was fine. Ryan felt nervous, he had yet to hear back from Shane, and surely they were going to make an arrangement point, him in exchange for Victoria. His thoughts were disturbed by the sound of his mobile buzzing in his pocket. He drew in a deep breath and answered it. “Shane, any news yet?” He nodded his head. “Not sure if the Café is the best place, it must be after closing time” He waited for a reply on the other end. “See you tonight at 10pm”. He ended the call and felt his heart beat accelerate, tonight was the night where he finally stopped running and sorted out this mess once and for all.

  ***

  “Breda, Corma
c, I just need to tell you that Maisey will be in charge for the next week, I have some business in Cork; and Breda before you ask, yes. I have some extra help coming in so you won’t be taking on all the tables yourself.” Maisey could see the looks Breda was giving her, but she didn’t care, Mickey had trusted her enough to run everything while he was away. Breda was never one to give up on an opportunity to say something, “So, where’s lover boy Ryan going to be?” “Not that it’s any of your business Breda; he needs some time off to sort out some personal issues.” Mickey retorted. “Which means Cormac you are on fulltime coffee duty.”

  Mickey nodded, indicating the impromptu meeting had reached its end. He shuffled back slowly to towards his office.

  When he was out of earshot Breda spoke up, “If you ask me, I think Mickey is hitting the bottle again. He probably is going to some drying out clinic. He hasn’t been right for a few months now.” Maisey could not believe the absolute drivel coming from Breda’s mouth, she shot back, “Breda, we did not ask you anyway and would you kindly keep your half-baked notions to yourself!” Maisey felt so angry with her, she honestly could have clobbered her with a tray.

  “Say what you want, Maisey, but there is definitely something off with him.” With that, Breda flounced off to deliver her food orders from the kitchen. Breda really was a nasty piece of work, after all the shite Mickey had to put up with from her. She was an ungrateful brat, who in actual fact did not need to work at all. You would never say it if you had to lay eyes on her ,but she was a private school princess.

  “Come on Maisey, old girl, you better get back to work, unlike Breda you do need to work for a living” she said to herself.

  Chapter 21

  Victoria tried to judge what the time was, she had no clue how long she had been in the room for. She could not go by the light outside, it was summer and the sun still seemed high up in the sky, it could be five o’clock or eight o’clock. Surely someone would be looking for her. She realised that not many people would even notice if she was missing. She did the obligatory phone call home once a week, where she would discuss the same topics in the same sequence.

  Her mother would first ask about her job, she never went into too many details, then her mother would discuss the latest gossip in the village, and they would say goodbye until the next conversation. Even though she did not have a close relationship with her parents, she looked after them financially. Her parents had moved off the small farm and moved to the neighbouring village where Victoria had bought them a comfortable three bedroomed cottage. Her dad had been sober for many years, he managed to keep down the same job for the past ten years and both parents seemed happy.

  Victoria also made sure any money she sent home went straight into an account controlled by her mother, even though her dad was on the straight and narrow she didn’t want put temptation in his way.

  Being holed up in a small room all day gave Victoria time to think, all she could do was think, it had been a long time when she was forced to sit and reflect. Liz would be worried, surely? Not many other people she could think of who would care that she was missing. Which brought Victoria to the one person who she was trying not to think about, the one person who no matter what she did, she couldn’t get out of her mind? She had thought about the night when Ryan had kissed her, over and over. What would have happened had they not been interrupted? She shuddered, she couldn’t believe she was even thinking these thoughts at time like this, but it seemed the only thing keeping her together.

  She felt someone tugging at her, “wake up sleepy head, it’s time to go” the voice was sinister and belonged to some hairy armed brute with one missing tooth.

  She pushed his arm away and managed to drag herself into a standing position. Her limbs felt heavy and her brain was foggy, clearly they had put something in the water. She attempted to look down at her clothes, she resembled something from the bottom of her laundry basket all rumpled. She tried to pull at the creases.

  Mr Toothy laughed “No need to make an effort on my account,” and he laughed and nudged his equally brawny, brainless accomplice.

  They hauled Victoria down the stairs. She was drained of energy and almost welcomed being semi-carried to the luxury dark sedan waiting with the door wide open.

  It took a while before Victoria’s eyes to adjust, the sun had dropped in the sky and a dusky haze was settling over the city, which brought with it a chilly wind.

  Victoria got in the car and rubbed her arms. Her body sank down into the soft leather of the car seats, whoever owned the car had expensive taste. Anxiety began to build. Where were they taking her? Dermott was such a sleazy character, who knew who he was mixed up with. And, by the looks of things, these were the kind of people that could make other people disappear, permanently. Not for the first time that day did Victoria feel a chill of dread run down her spine. She wrapped her arms tighter around her body, and continued to stare out of the heavily tinted car window.

  Chapter 22

  The afternoon trade had dwindled and only one table was still occupied. Ryan found it very difficult to concentrate. He had spent most of the afternoon with the Gardaí. He was so worried about being followed so he met with Inspector O’Connor in an unmarked office just outside the city centre. Eammon O’Connor had been part of Ryan’s original case against Jack Mulligan.

  “Oh, you are still here?” Maisey asked as she came into the room. She had handed the last table their bill and walked over to Ryan. He tried to smile at her, but he couldn’t force one out.

  “Are you okay? You have been cagey since this morning?” Maisey leaned in across the counter. Ryan sighed and made as though he was wiping down the machines.

  “I’m fine, Maise. Just some personal issues to deal with, but by tomorrow it should be all sorted out.” This only made Maisey more suspicious about Ryan’s behaviour. But by the look on his face, she decided not to press further.

  “Why don’t you go on home, I will lock up tonight .I am sure Billy would love that.” Ryan wanted to get Maisey away from the Café’, he did not need any more innocent people getting hurt.

  “If you are sure, it would be lovely to get back early for a change.” Ryan nodded and went back to pretend cleaning of the machines. Maisey let the last customers out of the shop and changed the door sign to “Closed”.

  Something very strange was going here, she felt it in her bones. Ryan was all jittery, and Mickey had evaded any kind of direct answer to her earlier questions about the situation. She grabbed her coat and purse and left.

  Chapter 23

  The early summer light was finally beginning to dip; it was 9:45 pm. Ryan had been pacing around the Café for the past hour. He had successfully ejected all persons out of the building. He felt his back pocket for his gun; he had forgotten he had hidden it away as they were bound to check him for weapons. He shuddered to think what condition Victoria would be in when he saw her, but knew that they wouldn’t risk harming her if they had a perfect opportunity to finally get at him. Maisey was safely at home with her son, and he had sent Mickey and Aaron off to have dinner at the pub down the road.

  He heard a faint knocking sound on the window. He walked slowly to the window and peaked out. It was Shane. He could make out that a black luxury sedan had parked outside the Café’.

  Ryan went to unlock the door. Three heavy duty thug-like men pushed their way through the door, one roughly bumped passed Ryan with his shoulder. The same one patted Ryan down, checking for weapons and listening devices. It was not a pleasant experience been frisked by a 6.5 foot tall, hairy, tattooed thug, who frankly could have used a breath mint. Ryan’s first instinct was to react with his fists, but he kept thinking about Victoria, he wasn’t prepared to let his pride get in the way of her safety. He straightened out his shirt.

  “Are you alone? barked Shane.

  “Yes”, Ryan answered through his teeth.

  “Jamey, go check round back, we were told not to trust this feller”. Another gangster oaf, who w
as equally as grotesque as the others, moved around the café in attempt to look for potential witnesses.

  “Where is Victoria? She is supposed to be here, I have done everything you asked of me”. Ryan asked Shane, he was clearly the one who seemed to be in charge.

  “Keep yer hair on, she will be here in time”, he sneered.

  He gestured for the two other men; they huddled together and seemed to be holding some in depth discussion. Suddenly Shane’s phone rang, he answered and listened intently, and he then gravelled out some sort of affirmation and gestured for the other two to go outside. Shane then stood and watched Ryan. To show Ryan he meant business, every now and then he would lift his jacket back to reveal a shiny gun. Ryan had planned ahead and had hidden his gun in the overflow section of the coffee machine. He managed to stash it there before he opened the door. He was back there now waiting for them to make the next move.

  The other two gangsters knocked on the door, Shane let them in, and to Ryan’s relief they had Victoria between them. He could see how exhausted she looked, but seemed unharmed. His heart swelled with relief at the sight of her.

  Victoria looked up; her eyes had to adjust to the dark lighting in the Café. Her eyes focused on Ryan and a flicker of hope sparked inside. The whole day had felt surreal to her, like it was not happening to her. Now, she felt the full impact of the situation she had found herself in.

  “Victoria, are you okay?” Ryan shouted across the room to her.

  “Shut yer gobs, no talking to each other. Do you hear me?” said Shane in a threatening tone.

  They moved Victoria to a table close to the kitchen; Ryan was still behind the counter next to the coffee machines. He longed to smash all these assholes, pick up Victoria and carry her out of here.