Margaret ignored the urge to roll her eyes at her surly partner. "I'm not a mind reader, Phil. Who?"
"The one at the school…" he said impatiently. "Oh, for Christ's sake! The gym teacher whom. according to John, got inside Dawn Rose's knickers as well!"
"Must you be so crude, Phil?" Margaret asked, disapproving at his judgment. "Besides…'according to John' doesn't make it so.” Her hands rose to make air quotations.
Ross protested. "Oh, come on Margaret! Judging by what we've heard already, they're probably all at it in that school. The damned place should be shut down," he muttered the last of his statement.
Knowing he'd been pushed into a corner by his burst of emotion, Margaret sought to distract Phil with facts. She checked the information sheets on her lap. "The teacher that John referred to is Miss Elisabeth Sørensen."
"I want to interview her," Ross declared, his finger stabbing against the desk. "Get her in here… first thing tomorrow."
_____________________________________
Elisabeth woke groggy, and sore. She reflected that it was no doubt due to her late night exertions with Claudia. A shiver ran over her naked body. as she sat up in the bed and checked the clock on the mantelpiece.
It was 8:39AM, which meant Claudia's shift at the hospital had started an hour and thirty-nine minutes before.
Reaching for her phone on the bedside table, she grimaced at seeing three missed calls and three voice messages. She yawned before taking the phone, and pushed a pillow behind her stiff back to make herself comfortable. The first of the missed calls was from a local number she didn't recognize, and the second and third were from a London-based number.
She pressed the button to retrieve her voicemail, and the automated voice called out the message details:
'First voice message, received today at seven fifty eight A. M.' "Hello Miss Sørensen, my name is Dr. Margaret Sheehan… of the Middlesbrough Cold Case Unit. I was wondering if you were free to come in for a chat some time this morning in relation to your former colleague, Miss Mallory Moore? It's nothing to worry about! Just a chat." The caller left a phone number Elisabeth could contact.
The second and third voicemails were from Mallory, and much harder to decipher. Though awake, Elisabeth's mind struggled to comprehend what she was hearing. Her friend's voice was even more frightened in the third voicemail, only reiterating what Elisabeth had learned in the message before it.
"Els'beth, we're in London," a small voice so different from Mallie's confessed. "I can't tell you where, but I need your help." There was a brief pause, the sound of a motorbike zooming by before she spoke again. "Elisabeth, I don't want to use my mobile in case he's tracking us…"
Elisabeth almost found herself asking 'who?' before remembering it was a voicemail. Mallory went on to request her to drive to London. Frowning as the message went on, Elisabeth listened as Mallory issued details of the throwaway mobile that Dawn had bought in a store the day before, and directed her to dial that number when she arrived. Then, and only then, Mallie would meet with her.
This wasn't the first time in their long friendship that Elisabeth began to feel resentful, and more than a little apprehensive. She dressed quickly and hopped into her pickup to do as she was bid.
Following a very embarrassing twenty-minute visit to the Middlesbrough Cold Case Unit, Elisabeth drove to a nearby petrol station. She filled up the tank for the four-hour plus drive ahead of her, and bought herself a latte to warm the icy feeling in the pit of her stomach before climbing back inside her SUV.
She tore down the M1 motorway,until reaching outer London. It was gridlock traffic now, and Elisabeth arrived closer to the five-hour mark. Parking outside a greasy spoon cafe, she tapped the number Mallie had given into her phone. It was answered on the second ring.
"Were you followed?" Mallory hissed.
"I doubt it," Elisabeth bit back, exasperated. "Not unless whoever you think is after you knew about my unexpected road trip."
Mallory was quiet on the other end, her friend's irritability clear. "I assure you, I'm telling the truth," she stated, her voice like a child's imploring to be believed. "Meet me at the Tea Room."
The line went dead.
When Elisabeth finally walked into the restaurant twenty minutes later, she felt only slightly guilty for being so hostile on the phone. At the farthest table in the back, Mallory sat, her eyes scanning the room rapidly before relaxing into relief upon seeing her.
"Hi…" Elisabeth greeted shortly, giving her friend a loose hug and trying not to flinch at the bony shoulders that poked at her own. She was too thin, and too pale.
She sat, motioning for Mallory to fill her in on recent events.
Mallory leaned forward to place a hand on Elisabeth's arm. "I know I've upset you, by bringing you into all of this," she began. "You're the only one left I can trust."
A couple of patrons nearby stared as Elisabeth drew backwards, leaving Mallory's hand to fall forward on the glass table. "And what about Dawn, hmm? Can't you trust her anymore?" she snapped.
At her friend's wounded stare, Elisabeth waved her hand. "Before I drove down here today, I had to visit the CCU!"
"Why?" Mallory asked, offended at the police overstepping their bounds. She poured more tea for herself, and a fresh cup for Elisabeth. "You have nothing to do with this!"
"They wanted to follow up on allegations that Dawn was involved with me, too," Elisabeth spat, as she snatched up the steaming demitasse. "Some people have nothing better to talk about."
Mallory listened as Elisabeth rambled on between sips of tea. "After correctly informing them it wasn't true, I felt it necessary to point out that I am already engaged. Then, I came here."
Her face cooler by the moment, Mallory nodded once. "I understand…"
"No, Mallie. You understand ingen!" Elisabeth leaned forward. "I'm not going to lie. Before Claudia, I would have done anything for you, but…"
"…You have your priorities now," Mallory finished for her.
Producing a black attaché, she suppressed a quick expression of grief, before handing the file over. "I need you to keep her… this safe for a few days. After that, I'll come for it. Will you do me this one last favor?"
Nodding curtly, Elisabeth took the bag, and got up. "I need to get back on the road.”
Rising from her own chair, Mallory pulled the only friend she'd ever known into a tight embrace. She withdrew first by gently pushing at Elisabeth's shoulders, and walked to disappear out the revolving door of the restaurant.
_____________________________________
She had run her fingers over the attaché, debating whether to open it or not, while sitting in the truck outside the Tea Room. Elisabeth Elisabeth reasoned that she had a right to know what she was so valuable that Mallory required her to be kept safe… whoever her was, and she had opened the file.
Her. Lilith Mallory LaFey. Elisabeth didn't visibly react to the photos and information she found inside at first, but her stomach roiled what little tea she had drank at their meeting. She needed to get out of her SUV at that point, vomiting all over the sidewalk, in plain view of all those who sauntered by.
Afterwards, she placed it back inside the bag and far away from her.
Her stomach still sick, she had driven as fast as legally possible back to Middlesbrough. Along the way, she decided that she was in way over her head. Betrayal was bitter on her tongue as she repeated the name on the file.
Nine years. Nine damned years of friendship, she cursed. This was her reward?
Elisabeth arrived back in West Lane just over four hours later. Opening the apartment door, she checked to make sure that Claudia wasn't home before dropping the black leather bag on the hall stand.
Now back in the relative safety of her home, she went into the kitchen and put the kettle on for coffee before ringing the CCU department back. After a brief phone call in which Dr. Sheehan assured Elisabeth that Detective Stewart would come around and collect the file, she wa
ndered into the living room.
She was tired, and so overwhelmed by it all. Reclining into a comfortable chair, she fell asleep.
A weight on the recliner jerked her awake an hour later. Claudia sitting opposite her, reading the file.
"Oh Gud, let me explain…"
Snapping the file shut, Claudia walked across the living room, and knelt before her. "Elisabeth, what in the hell is going on?"
Elisabeth got up to pace the floor, hoping that the constable would arrive soon. The sheer terror in Claudia's face at Mallie's secrets made for a heavy burden.
She'd always suspected some sort of duplicity on the part of her friend, but her name? To Elisabeth, your name was your honor, your word. Mallie was the name she'd cried out for support to whenever she was low, and in happiness when they'd had peace for all those years. Today's revelation stung like an open wound.
"This guy… He murdered her entire family," Claudia reiterated as she paced alongside her. "And Mallory has asked you to keep something which contains all the evidence of what he did in your possession? Does that woman have any fucking idea of the danger she put you in?"
"That's why I called the CCU," Elisabeth agreed. "She's asked too much of me. I won't put our safety at risk, not even for her. Not for anyone."
At her assertion, Claudia pulled up short to stare at Elisabeth in confusion. The expression on her fiancée's face was in total opposition to the words that had poured from her seconds ago, but Elisabeth didn't dare question it.
_____________________________________
Dawn munched on a piece of pizza, happy for the diversion, and the grease.
While Mallory was out, she had ordered the mozzarella pie and some beer from the café downstairs, still in awe that a loft could be hidden so well in a bustling office building with floor level storefronts.
It was just another one of Mallory Moore's surprises – she had taken them here to lay low for a few days once being out in the open seemed more harmful than the memories the loft held. Behind armed guards in the lobby and fourteen floors of keypad-entry only security, the Christopoulos Trading, LLC building seemed like a prime choice, except for it's unfortunate name.
At first, they behaved like there was a red sniper scope on their foreheads. Over the course of two days, even Mallory had relaxed, but only a little. She never went near the windows.
Of course, Mallory still went outside, even after the bodega store scandal of 2014 – she "accidentally" slapped a man who looked at Dawn the wrong way. It had turned out he was just a creep.
So much for laying low.
The loft's industrial door slid open behind Dawn. Stepping inside with a flourish, Mallory closed and latched the steel door while dropping her purse. The attaché case was missing.
"Umm, where's the file?" Dawn peeped, hoping that it hadn't been forgotten somewhere along Mallory's jaunt.
It had been a major source of tension between the two since Mallory admitted she had found it - declaring it vastly unsafe and refusing to acknowledge its presence in their company. Dawn could hardly blame her. She had anticipated a knock down, drag out argument when it had been discovered the morning after she was found. Pretending the offensive pictures and documents did not exist kept both of them from saying spiteful things they didn't mean.
Her head hanging, Mallory wilted before her eyes. "It's somewhere safe.”
Dawn frowned, and hopped off the bar stool that was part of a makeshift dining set in the loft's galley kitchen.
"Hey… What happened out there?" she asked softly, running a palm over the shiny mahogany tresses that fell around Mallory's shoulders when she shook her head.
Ignoring the question, Mallory pulled away from her touch, and tugged at a painting of her family on the wall. It swung away from the exposed brick to reveal a safe. "I spent the last of our cash. That's what happened."
"Oh god, I don't think I can look at another safe in my life. What's in there, a severed head?" Dawn gasped.
Her love stiffened to stand still as a statue, hand frozen on the safe's dial.
"Geez! I'm sorry!" Dawn squeaked, clapping a hand over her mouth.
Mallory's shoulders started to shake. But instead of crying, her laughter broke through the silence. Throwing a smirk over her shoulder, she continued to spin the safe's dial.
Joining in the chuckling, Dawn tried to copy the mirth, but she was confused.
"No, sweet one. That's the other safe. This safe is for severed hands…" Mallory joked, turning back towards the lock.
Dawn clammed up instantly.
The safe clanked open with one final turn of the dial, and Mallory turned back to soothe Dawn. Tucking her into a fierce hug, she kissed the top of Dawn's head.
"Perfer et obdura; dolor hic tibi proderit olim," Mallory sang in a whisper, almost like a lullaby. Be patient and tough; some day this pain will be useful to you.
“Says who?” Dawn mumbled, burying her face in the familiar scent of Mallory's perfumed skin.
"Me," came the somehow reassuring response. Pulling back to take Dawn's hands, Mallory tugged. "Come. I need your help."
As they stood by the safe, Dawn sniffed back her tears, inquisitive at the contents inside.
Once Mallory had removed most of the billfolds of money and placed them on the floor with disinterest, she reached her body into the cavernous metal safe and produced a rectangular velvet trifold box. She passed it to Dawn's waiting hands, and knelt down to transfer the money into a valise.
The box was heavy, and Dawn's curiosity burned at the possibility of what lay inside. She walked back to the kitchen, and laid the flocked fabric container down. The trifold had not been opened in a long time, and greeted her with a snap-snap-snap.
Her blue eyes gleamed with the refracting light that shone from the glittering prize. "You have got to be kidding me..." Dawn gulped at seeing what was inside.
Mallory peeked up. "I assure you, I am not kidding," she spoke clearly, but held her breath in anticipation.
Mouth gaping like a fish, Dawn shoved the royal blue box away in fright, at first. "That's the Chrysanthemum diamond! Set in a necklace… Everyone wondered who bought it back in the 90's!"
Standing up to brush her pants off, Mallory tried to appear unaffected by the bauble. She shook her head to clear it and shrugged. "You know it, then?"
"Do I know it?" Dawn scoffed, playing at being offended.
Reaching past her, Mallory lifted the necklace carefully from it's pillowed cocoon, and slid the cool precious gem set in gold across Dawn's decolletage, clasping it around her slim neck.
Mallory stepped back a foot, and looked critically at the sight. "Mmm, it looks far better on you than it ever did me."
Dawn wheezed, afraid to move. "I am wearing £16 million pound sterling diamond on my neck right now, and all you can talk about is who looks better in it?"
"It's insured for $25 million American dollars," Mallory drolled as if by rote, an eyebrow raising in pleasant surprise when Dawn looked even more horrified by the moment by the gem's perceived value.
She then unclasped the necklace from Dawn's neck to lay it back into the box, and snapped it shut without much ado. "My grandmother thought it was just a necklace, though pretty enough to grace her beloved granddaughter's neck as a gift for her fourteenth birthday. It's a dreadful heavy thing to wear for long, mind you. However beautiful people find it, my parents hated it – "
" – Because it was mined in South Africa?" Dawn interrupted, rubbing absentmindedly at her neck.
"Indeed," Mallory nodded, tilting her head at the box. "Pretty things, pretty things, all bathed in blood."
Though her body's reaction was completely irrational, Dawn did not stay her hand when it shot out to push at the blue velvet box like it contained a viper. "I hate it," she declared.
Poking at the velvet herself, Mallory agreed. "As do I."
Dawn's hands came up to pet at Mallory's neck, where the orange-brown diamond would have laid. "But,
I love you..." she said. "Just you. You were beautiful without the stupid thing, I'm sure. More beautiful, even."
Faster than she could comprehend, Mallory's lips were on hers, pressing hungrily.
Gasping her shock at the reaction, Dawn then returned the kiss. Once she gave that green light, it seemed to fan whatever flames had burned down to embers in the past weeks to a scorching hot inferno as Mallory clutched at her so hard that Dawn could feel the bite of fingernails through her shirt. A mild protest escaped her lips at that feeling, and Mallory was gone just as quickly as she'd came.
"I'm… I'm sorry," Mallory panted, her shut eyes screwed up tight. "I'm not gentle, Dawn. There's no sweetness and light in me any more. I'm not sure there ever was."
Peccatum in Carne: Sins of the Flesh (The Three Sins of Mallory Moore Book 1) Page 18