I rose from the sofa, wearily grabbed my backpack, and climbed the stairs to a galleried landing. I could see Beau sitting on the sofa, and I watched him pull out a phone different to the one I normally saw him use. He glanced up before he dialed. I didn’t care to listen to his conversation; I was exhausted, both emotionally and physically. I picked the first door I came to, and then realized I was in the bathroom. I took the next one and opened it into a large bedroom. I kicked off my sneakers, pulled back a comforter and climbed, fully dressed, under the cover. I closed my eyes, begging sleep to take me quickly.
I woke with a start, and it took me a moment to get my bearings and for the previous evening’s conversation to filter through my mind. I sighed and closed my eyes, disappointed it hadn’t all been a dream.
I hadn’t taken too much notice of the room the night before. I admired the woodwork, noticing the same intricate carvings on the rich oak beams that crossed the ceiling. The walls were painted a warm cream and the drapes matched the deep purple quilt I was laying under. Two small light oak cabinets stood on either side of the wrought iron bed, and the two wall lights above the headboard were still lit. A chest of drawers sat against the wall opposite the bed. I climbed from the bed, picking up my backpack and placed it on top of the sideboard. I needed to shower and rifled around inside for my toiletries and some clean clothes.
Snippets of the conversation from the previous night floated around my mind. It was just too much to take in and get a real understanding of what I’d landed myself in. I felt dirty; like all those times I’d been fucked against my will. I had an overwhelming desire to scrub my body with bleach to rid myself of the tarnished skin. The compulsion to wash was so great that I didn’t even wait for the shower to warm. I stepped under the cold jets, welcoming the pain and then the warmth when it came. I scrubbed myself raw.
Beau was sitting at the kitchen table with a laptop in front of him. He looked up, alerted by my steps on the wooden stairs I imagined.
“Did you sleep?” he asked.
“I did, God knows how, though.”
I passed him and poured myself a coffee. I didn’t think to offer to refresh his cup. I sat at the table and silently sipped from my mug.
“How long will this storm be?” I asked, doubting it was a question he could answer.
He shrugged his shoulders. “Should ease up in a day or so, according to the forecast.”
The sky was dark, the sun not having the strength to break through the thick rain clouds.
“So, you follow the weather?”
“It affects my job. Good weather isn’t so great for surveillance or…”
“Murdering people. Yes, I guess a nice sunny day can put a stop to that.”
“What was the sun doing when you murdered Damien? The only difference between what you did and what I did is, I earned a shit-ton of money,” he said, staring me down.
I lowered my head and sipped on my coffee. He went back to his laptop.
I sat on a sofa, sipping on my second cup of coffee and ignoring my grumbling stomach. As hungry as I was, I wasn’t sure I could eat and keep it down. The caffeine was flooding my body, but the lack of food was making me feel jittery. Although Beau had made me a sandwich the previous evening, I hadn’t taken a bite from it.
“She’s okay, she’s processing at the moment,” I heard. I looked over to see Beau hold a cell to his ear. He wasn’t looking at me but his laptop. I hadn’t heard his cell ring.
“I will, but I’m not sure she wants to at the moment. I’ll let you know when she’s ready. Yes…Yes! I know what I’m doing.” Beau seemed to get agitated with whoever was on the end of the call. He sighed as he disconnected and laid it on the table.
“Kieran,” he said, without looking up.
I gave him the finger, wondering if, since I hadn’t asked who was calling and because Beau hadn’t looked over to me once, if he would see. He laughed, and finally he looked up and slowly turned his laptop around. Not that I could see clearly, but his screen was a grid of small squares, live camera images.
I looked around the room there were no obvious cameras anywhere.
I heard the scrape of a chair and Beau came into the living room. He sat on the same sofa as me.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Were you told to ask me that?”
“No. Kieran, me, I don’t think we’re particularly great at the emotional stuff. We’re ‘doers’, practical, I guess we don’t take feelings into account.”
“You don’t say!”
“What do you want to ask me, Charlotte? You must have a ton of questions.”
“What is Kieran to you?” It wasn’t one of the million questions I had floating around but the first that came to my mouth.
“He was my commander, when I was in the regular army. Then he was my commander when I joined the irregular army. He retired, and I took his role. He still thinks he can boss me around, though.”
“Isn’t he too old to be in the irregular army, and what is that, anyway?”
“That’s why it’s an irregular army. Most of the guys are ex-soldiers. He wasn’t front line, but he had certain skills that the regular, or irregular, army didn’t want to lose.”
I noticed that he’d dodged my question. That was okay, because it was one I’d be sure to ask as many times as it took to get the answer.
“Let me get this all straight. Richard is a member of a cult. He employs Paul, Damien, and other crooks to deal his drugs, find him girls, and whatnot. I killed Damian, in self-defence; you used that opportunity to connect Paul and Frank because Frank is working undercover, just not undercover enough. It was a bonus that Paul is a lawyer and knows the police in Whiteling. Oh, oh, so that’s why Frank said that Paul knew him, he could trust him. I suspect that was code of some kind because they didn’t look like they knew each other when they first met.
“Anyway, you, Rose, Cecelia, and Kieran, and whoever the fuck else, all knew that Paul and Richard were the baddies. You bumped off Philip because he was a baddie, and then I came along after being overlooked for four years. You all thought I was great until Richard put in an appearance, which was pretty obvious, considering he was Paul’s boss and I was thinking about working for Paul. But it wasn’t real, was it? I was being groomed for a life as a prostitute for Richard, and I was about to be blackmailed. So, in you come, all knight on a white charger, and here we are.”
I finally took in a long, deep breath.
Beau raised his eyebrows, cocked his head slightly, and nodded. There was a smirk to his lips as if he was impressed.
“That is about the best summing up I’ve heard.”
“Oh, hold on, we haven’t finished. I find a message, presumably from your ex-girlfriend, who also happens to be blonde with blue eyes, Paul’s daughter, and missing. You haven’t once mentioned that you think Paul might actually have something to do with his own daughter’s disappearance, instead she ran because you said you weren’t the father of her child, she was fucking another…” My sentence trailed off, my voice lowered to a whisper as realization dawned, and I saw the look of utter despair on his face.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean…”
Beau raised his hand to silence me. “Yes, she could have been sold by her own father, her sister most certainly was. Yes, her father, Richard even, could be the father of the child she was carrying, and she was too scared to tell me, so she left that message. She could be in the cult; she could have been in the basement at Philip’s. She could have already been forced to sleep with other men. There are a thousand ‘could haves’ and I explored every one of them. I failed her, I wasn’t about to fail you.”
He rose and walked to the fire. “You know the old saying, Charlotte, keep your enemies close and all that. That is why I keep some form of a fake relationship with Paul. They don’t know what I do; Rachel didn’t know what I did for work. I believe she was scared of something, she ran not because of our argument but because she had no c
hoice.”
“What do we do now, Beau?” I asked.
“We eliminate the threat, once and for all.”
“You can’t take on Richard on your own, surely.”
“I never said I’d take him on, not on my own.”
Before I could ask him any more, we both heard a scrape on the deck outside the cabin. Although the rain still pummelled, the scrape was loud enough, it seemed to me to be the sound a piece of furniture would make if it were dragged. When we’d arrived, I hadn’t noticed any furniture.
“Stay there,” Beau said, and he reached behind him, under his white t-shirt and pulled out a revolver.
He quietly walked to the front wall, away from the window and placed his back between that and the front door.
“Keep your head down,” he whispered. I curled on the sofa.
For a while there was silence, other the sound of my heart pumping blood at pace past my ears. Beau walked back to the sofa, he reached down, and grabbed my arm.
“Kitchen,” he whispered.
I followed him. Just as he reached his laptop, to check the cameras I presumed, a small window in the back door shattered. I screamed as Beau pushed me to the floor. He raised his gun and fired back. His aim was off and his bullets hit the woodwork around the door. It was then that I noticed he was holding the gun in his left hand. The right side of his t-shirt, up by his shoulder, was red.
“Beau,” I said.
“It’s fine,” he replied, but I heard the wince as he transferred the gun to his right hand and lowered to a crouch.
“Do you see that door under the stairs? We need to get there,” he whispered.
I hadn’t noticed the small door under the stairs, but getting there would mean exposing ourselves. “On my count, you run, okay?”
I nodded. Beau only got to number one before something was thrown through the window and smoke exploded into the room. It stung my eyes, causing them to immediately weep. I crawled toward the stairs, losing my bearings. I could hear Beau calling me, but in my panic I couldn’t determine where he was.
I felt a hand grip my arm and I scrambled to my feet. I came face to face with a woman with long blonde hair and a plastic mask over her face. I was about to open my mouth and scream when she leveled a gun at my face.
The smoke began to clear and she whipped the mask off her face. She turned me to face away from her, and she placed the gun at my temple. It was then that I saw Beau. He stood with his gun pointing; we were at a standoff. Beau, without looking, keyed something into his phone and I prayed he was calling for help.
“Beau, I’m sorry but I have to do this,” she said.
“You don’t, Rachel, you know that. You’re choosing to do this. Who is it? Richard?”
“It’s me or her. I don’t know what’s so special about her but this is my task.”
“I can help you, you know that. I could have helped you a year ago.”
“How, Beau?”
“He works for the fucking government,” I said, hoping to speed their conversation up a little. “He can help you. Think about your child, Rachel,”
The gun was pressed harder into my temple. “Keep your mouth shut,” she said.
“What about your baby?” I said.
“I don’t have a baby, not any more. We don’t have a need for boys. Oh, Beau, he looked so much like you.”
When she spoke to me, her voice was harsh, when she spoke to Beau it was soft and girlish. I laughed.
“She’s talking bullshit, Beau,” I said. I then winced as the pain escalated at my temple.
“I know she is, Charlotte. Rachel, if you shoot her you’re not walking out of here alive, you know that. Let her go.”
“She’s just a piece of trash, why are you concerning yourself with her? This thing, and I do feel she is contaminating me by being so close, is just a fuck toy, nothing more. I mean, I visited the apartment, Beau, she has nothing.”
I’d been called trash for years. I’d been a fuck toy as she called it, for years. And in that moment, I didn’t care about a gun to my head. I stared at Beau and mouthed, one, two, three.
On three I elbowed her in the stomach, I slammed my head back into her face, I dropped to my knees at the same time as Beau sprang forward. It wasn’t rehearsed but worked like a fucking dream. Before Rachel could figure out what was happening, Beau had her by her hair and forced to her knees.
“Now drop the fucking gun,” he said.
I scrambled to the side, but not before she let off a shot at me. I heard it whizz past my head. I watched as Beau tilted her head to the side and shot her through the side of it. I opened my mouth to scream, but her blood and brain splattered over the front of my face. I was stunned into silence. A split second after, I heard another shot but I was paralyzed at the sight in front of me. Beau slowly folded to his knees. He let go of Rachel and she slumped to the floor just in front of me. A puddle of blood spread from below Beau’s knees.
“The door,” he said, it sounded as if he was forcing the words past a scream of pain.
I wasn’t going without him. On all fours I crawled as fast as I could. I picked up the gun that he had let fall to the floor. I had held a gun once, though I’d never used one. Instinctively, I wrapped my finger around the trigger and faced it to the back door. I fired, surprised when the gun jolted in my hand knocking me back on my ass. I grabbed Beau by the arm.
“Please, I can’t do this without you,” I said.
“Go, now, for fuck’s sake,” he growled.
“Not without you.”
I saw a shadow pass the window and fired again. I discovered that if I kept my finger on the trigger, loads of bullets were ejected. The problem with that was I was thrown all over the place. I felt Beau wrap his hand around my wrist. I dropped the gun and we crawled toward the stairs. A trail of blood followed us.
Beau reached up and opened the door to a dark room. “There are five steps, get down them,” he said. I missed the first and fell down the rest.
I heard the clunk of bolts, metal against metal as a bar, it sounded as if, was slid closed.
“Find the light, Charlotte, it’s on the left, a cord.”
Since Beau couldn’t see which way I was facing, I swung both arms until the fingers on my right hand brushed against something that moved away. I grabbed it and pulled. An orange glow flooded the steel lined room. When I turned to look, he was slumped against a metal lined door.
“Beau…”
He raised his good arm. “Open that cabinet. The code is seven-one-eight-four.”
On the opposite wall was a large metal cabinet with a keypad. I keyed in the code and heard it unlock. When I pulled the door open an array of firearms greeted me.
“On the left,” he said, his voice sounded strained.
On the far left was what looked like a rifle. “The clip,” I heard.
I didn’t know exactly what a clip was, but I’d seen enough pictures to know there should have been something hanging from the bottom of the rifle, something that contained bullets. On a shelf above the rifle was a black metal object. I lifted it to show him, he nodded.
I ran back up the small flight of steps and laid the rifle on his lap. The blood from the wound to his shoulder had spread across his chest and running down to his stomach.
“Shit, Beau. You’re really hurt.”
“You don’t say,” he said, wincing again as he inserted the clip.
We fell silent when we heard a kicking to the door.
“Help me down,” Beau said.
I grabbed his thigh to straighten his leg and my hand touched hot liquid. “Just help me down,” he said.
I wasn’t strong enough to lift him but managed to slide him to the top step. He bumped down the steps on his ass, biting on his lower lip. The kicking of the door intensified.
“Is there a way out?” I whispered. Beau didn’t answer. The fact he’d positioned himself facing the door suggested there wasn’t.
I looked around the
room. There were no windows; we were obviously in some kind of a basement, although the room didn’t span the width or depth of the house. On one side was a desk with a computer sitting on it. Beside it, another screen and some electrical equipment I couldn’t identify.
“You dropped your cell,” I said, quietly.
“That’s okay, Kieran knows what to do.”
“How quickly can he get here?”
“Quick.”
I hoped so because there was a pool of blood extending from Beau’s leg. I ran back to the metal cabinet and grabbed a large hunting knife and a revolver. I used the knife to cut the jean from Beau’s thigh. There was a large hole where skin should be.
“Oh, God. Tell me what to do,” I said.
The kicking had stopped, but I didn’t think for one minute whoever was up there had left. The silence scared me more than the noise.
“Get my t-shirt off.”
I cut a section and then tore the front of his t-shirt. Like his leg, a fleshy wound seeped blood.
“Is the blood running fast, Charlotte?” he asked. I shook my head. “Good. Use the t-shirt, tie it around my thigh, above the wound.”
My hands shook, my fingers slipped on the sodden material, but I thought I tied a tight enough knot. It was hard to tell if the blood was still running or not, he was covered in it.
“Have they gone?” I asked as I slumped beside him.
“No.” Beau’s voice seemed distant. When I looked at him, he was deathly pale. The hand holding the rifle on his lap shook, his stomach quivered.
Before I could panic that he was dying, the smell of smoke filtered into the room. I made to stand; we needed to get out of the room.
“The minute you walk out there, you’re dead,” I heard Beau say.
“We’re dead if we stay here.”
He shook his head. A small amount of smoke swirled through the tiniest gap under the door. It wasn’t enough to make me cough but I felt my throat constrict in panic. I sidled closer to Beau, not caring that I was sitting in his blood. I held the revolver in my shaking hands, raised at the door. I heard Beau chuckle.
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