by Jaye Ford
He didn’t. He kept talking, moving forward. ‘Liv, come on. Don’t be like this. It’s not what you think.’
She had two choices. Back further into the dark or change directions. She took a solid step with her left foot, lifted her right and slammed down forward and hard. Nothing disables faster than a heel smashed into a knee. He’d told her that. And he was right.
She felt the crunch of bone through her shoe, heard him bellow in pain. He twisted as he went down, a shoulder slamming the driver’s door before he landed with a thump on the concrete. Knock ’em down then run like hell. She should’ve taken that piece of advice too but she couldn’t, not without a follow-through.
She stood over him. ‘I’m not scared. I’m fucking sick of you. Stay away from me. And stay away from the people I love.’
A hand shot out for her ankle.
She ran then, away from him, heart in her mouth, breath coming in gasps.
‘Liv.’
It wasn’t Daniel. The voice came from the opposite direction. She swung her head as Ray stepped out from the shadow of the other dark car.
‘Ray. Thank God.’
‘Can I help?’
She pointed. ‘Daniel. It’s Daniel Beck. He . . . he’s . . .’ Her mouth was dry. She swallowed, tried again. ‘I’ve got to call the police. Have you got a phone?’ She wasn’t going back to the car for her own.
He patted his pockets. ‘Not on me. It’s on my cleaning trolley. I just stepped out for some fresh air. I’m working in the orthodontist’s office tonight. It’s my Wednesday job.’
She didn’t give a shit what office he was cleaning. Daniel was rolling onto his side. Her keys were in the car. The keys to her house. ‘Is the suite unlocked? I need to call the police.’
‘I left the security exit propped open. Does Daniel need help?’
‘No. I do. Stay here with him. Don’t let him go anywhere. There’s an umbrella in the boot of my car. Use it on him if he tries to leave. He’s the arsehole who’s been stalking me.’
She ran for the lane, hoping Ray was upset enough about the violence on his turf to do the job properly. He didn’t have to do it for long. Daniel was moving but he wasn’t going anywhere fast.
The security exit was chocked open with a stepladder. She threw the door wide and squinted in the sudden light as she started up the hall. All the offices were dark but she could see Ray’s cleaning trolley in the orthodontist’s reception area. She tried the handle. It was locked. Shit.
So was the next door and the next. She’d started back down the other side when the security exit swung open. It was Ray.
‘I haven’t got a key,’ she said at the door of her own office.
‘No.’
She hesitated. There was something wrong. ‘Where’s Daniel?’
He pressed his hands together like he was praying. ‘It’s all right, Liv. I made sure he was secure.’
She didn’t have the time or patience for his earnestness, just hoped he’d found a rope and tied the bastard up. ‘Have you got the key?’ she snapped.
He picked up the stepladder that was holding the exit open and set it down in the corridor. The movement was measured, deliberate. She wanted to shout at him, tell him to hurry the fuck up. What was the point? It was Ray. He did everything like that. He waited until the door was easing its way slowly to the jamb on its hydraulic hinge, then turned. She clenched her teeth with impatience, waited for his answer.
‘Are you scared now, Livia?’
42
Liv froze.
The lock on the security exit clicked into place. It sounded like a clap in the silent corridor.
Was it Ray?
Mild-mannered, socially inept Ray.
‘I can see for myself that you’re scared. At last.’ He stood by the door, hands resting on his tool belt, smiling like he expected her to say, ‘Oh, well done.’
‘Christ.’ Dread pooled in her chest. Was it Ray and Daniel? Or just Ray? She backed away from the door, kept a hand on the wall.
‘I knew you’d come when you understood the danger.’ He said it like it was an accomplishment.
Is that what he’d wanted? For her to come here? What the hell for? She was here every day. No, wait. He wanted her to be scared. Maybe if she gave him that, it would be enough. He would have succeeded and they could move on. It was Ray. He was always satisfied with a yes or no. ‘Yes, I am scared. Actually, scared doesn’t cover it. Can you let me into my office?’
‘No.’
‘I left my key in the car. I need to get in.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘But Daniel . . .’
‘Our Mr Beck won’t be a problem.’
Liv’s mouth went dry. Did he mean Daniel wouldn’t be a problem because he and Ray were in this together? Or . . . or . . . ? She’d smashed Daniel’s knee, left him in agony on the ground. Left him with Ray. ‘Where’s Daniel?’
Ray pushed the handle on the security exit, shoved the door with a shoulder. It didn’t budge, didn’t make a sound – locked tight. He smiled with satisfaction. ‘Where you left him. I just made sure he won’t cause any disruptions.’
Oh God. ‘What did you do?’
‘I didn’t have to do much. You did most of it yourself. I can see why you were in denial about the danger. You’re quite capable.’
She pressed her back to the wall. Was Daniel dead? Had Ray killed him? There was a huge spanner in his tool belt. You could crush a skull with a spanner like that. Come on, Liv. This was Ray. Genial, ingratiating Ray. Would he wander out from his cleaning job and beat a man’s head in?
Oh shit. Daniel was the only person who knew she was here.
She flicked her eyes towards the front entrance and saw headlights flash past. The door was glass. She could break it, make some noise. Make a run for it.
‘Oh, it’s okay, Livia. That’s high-security glass. The kind they use in prisons.’
He moved towards Anthony’s office across the hall, talking as he checked it was locked. ‘I convinced the landlord that we needed it in the street entry after the break-in last week. It wasn’t the purpose of all that work but the outcome was useful, I think.’
All that work? Her office had been trashed. She’d thought it was a violent, out-of-control act and he was talking as though it’d been given a fresh coat of paint. She couldn’t connect his words – the way he spoke them – with the deed. Maybe she had it wrong. Maybe none of this was what she thought. ‘Did you smash up my office?’
He paused at the orthodontist’s door, cocked his head like he’d caught her out. ‘You’re such a terrible actress, Livia. Although you were impressive with the police that morning. I thought they might’ve seen right through you like I do. That’s why I stayed around, just in case.’ She retreated further down the corridor, keeping her distance as he continued his zigzag path from door to door. ‘But they’re as stupid as they always are. They never figure it out.’
He’d done this before? She backed up past the last door, stood in the space between it and the front entrance. What had he done before? Written notes? Smashed property, injured people? Had he trapped someone inside a building, too? He was standing in the centre of the hallway now, watching her, hands on his tool belt. There was no way she could get past him – and the security exit was locked anyway. She glanced at the entry again. It was a dead end but it was the only place she had to go.
The cold glass was against her shoulderblades as he moved closer. She turned her face and peered into the street.
‘No one will see us through the darkened glass.’ His voice was suddenly close, intimate. She looked around, saw him in front of her. A step away. Not a big step.
Her nostrils filled with the smell of his bitter aftershave and sour breath. It felt like he was smothering her with
it but he hadn’t touched her. He just stood there, a genial smile on his face, hands on his hips, chest puffed up. The way he did when he offered to grab her a coffee.
She forced her lips wide, imitating his smile. It felt like a grimace. ‘So are you going to open it for me?’ She made it sound like a joke, like he was having her on and she thought it was a lark.
Something hard and sharp touched her abdomen. She glanced down. It was a screwdriver – as long as a ruler, thick as a finger. The handle was in Ray’s fist, the point lodged in the fabric of her shirt. He took half a step forward. That was all there was room for. Far enough to connect the tips of their shoes, to dust her face with his breath. To gently, firmly press the screwdriver into the soft flesh under her rib cage.
‘You’re safe here, Livia. No one will break in.’ The genial smile on his face didn’t change as he slowly wedged the screwdriver under her bottom rib.
It was more pressure than pain but it felt as though a deep breath might push it through her skin. Fear kept her frozen to the spot. But it wasn’t all she felt. For a moment, a brief, surprising moment, there was relief. It was him. Ray was the one. And they were face to face. Then it was gone and a lid was lifted and something hot and steaming, riled up and incensed, spilled into her arteries. Ray wanted to hurt her. He was another arsehole wanting to inflict damage.
‘I’d like you to move down the corridor, please, Livia.’ It was said politely. There was no menace in his voice, nothing to match the screwdriver in her chest.
Her jaw tightened as she fixed her eyes on him. ‘I want to leave now, Ray.’
‘I asked nicely, Livia.’
‘Please, Ray.’
The genial smile turned hard and mean and his eyes narrowed as something ugly gathered behind them. Instinct made her cringe. The stiffening of his arm made her brace for pain.
‘Move down the corridor!’ He yelled it, mouth wide, face contorted.
Her cheeks were covered in spittle. The tip of the screwdriver drove deeper into her chest. She gasped, waited for it to perforate the skin, to puncture a lung like a bicycle tyre. It didn’t. The rage lasted only a moment, three seconds at most. Then he pulled it back, like a monster on a leash.
‘Okay, okay,’ she whispered.
He dropped his shoulders, found the grin again. Keeping the screwdriver in place, he gave her just enough room to manoeuvre around the corner, her back pressed to the wall.
‘Please keep moving, Livia.’
She skimmed awkwardly, cautiously along the paintwork.
‘I hope you don’t mind me calling you Livia now.’ Ray was walking side on, right foot sliding out along the carpet, left foot joining it. ‘I know everyone else calls you Liv but Livia is more official. And I think it’s important that I remind you of my authority here.’
Like the screwdriver in her ribs wasn’t enough?
He was sweating now. Not beads of wetness or trickling droplets. A shiny sheen of perspiration covered his face like a smear of night cream. And small damp spots had appeared on his shirt – under his arms, above his breast pockets. He stopped her beside the door to Prescott and Weeks.
‘Hold out your hands, please.’
She lifted them, palms up, fingertips trembling.
‘Wrists together, thank you.’ He waited until she’d done it. ‘Now, I’m going to put the screwdriver in my belt while I tape your hands together. If you move or if you try to attack me, I’ll break your nose with my forehead.’ He raised his eyebrows at her like a teacher patronising a student.
She thought of his moment of fury and nodded.
A roll of silver tape appeared from behind his back. He teased up the end with a thumbnail, stretched it out with a screech of the sticky surface, laid it on her forearm and wound it around her wrists.
When he was finished, it formed a wide, silver bracelet that bound her from the heel of the palm to above the wrist, tight enough to make a pulse pound underneath it. The inward pressure on her elbows forced her breasts to swell from the top of her shirt and as Ray’s gaze found them, his smile turned to a loose-lipped sneer. She bent her arms, covered herself with them as she looked away, trying to block out the lust in his expression.
‘No, no, no,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to worry about that with me.’ He took her chin in his fingers, forced her to face him. ‘I’m not like that, Livia. Don’t get me wrong, I do find you attractive but it’s important that I don’t let that affect my decisions. Not when my concern is to make sure you’re safe.’
‘By shoving a screwdriver in my ribs?’
‘It’s for your own good, Livia. You’ve been defiant and it’s made my job harder. I can assure you, it won’t help you. Only I can do that. Now sit on the floor, please.’ He touched the tool at his belt as warning.
She lowered herself to a crouch. Defiant? When? And how the hell did that affect his job? He was a bloody maintenance man.
‘All the way down, please.’
As her butt touched the carpet, he kicked her legs out straight, held her ankles and started with the tape again.
43
‘I knew my delivery to your father would bring you here.’ His voice was amiable as he worked the adhesive tape around her ankles. ‘Fathers and daughters have a bond. Mine loved my three sisters. In all the wrong ways but they shared a bond.’ He stood up, looked down on her like a stern nanny. ‘Don’t run away now.’
He whistled tunelessly as he rattled and banged things about in the orthodontist’s office. He’d always been strange. Everyone saw it. Liv had defended him, said the poor guy was just dying to please. Wasn’t she the goddamn fool? Screwed up was probably only a little closer to the truth.
Liv pressed her hands between her knees, trying to squeeze out the shakes that were making her fingers tremble and her gut roll and pitch. She glanced up and down the corridor again. Straight hallway, locked doors at either end, eight more locked doors lining the walls. The office ones were ordinary glass, she was sure. She could break them, which would achieve nothing. Only the front two had a window on the street. They might not be as tough as the material in the main entry but they’d been replaced last year after vandals smashed them and they’d survived another attempt. Besides, her hands and feet were bound. She wasn’t going to make it across the hall while Ray was half-a-dozen steps away.
‘Coming now, Livia,’ he called.
His cheerfulness made a sweat break out in her hairline. The bulky tool hanging from his belt as he appeared in the doorway made her wish he’d shoved the screwdriver through her heart when he had a chance. It was a gun. Not like the one Rachel kept in a holster. This was a fat, chunky, fluoro orange nail gun. Liv had seen him using it around the office, firing long spikes of steel into solid timber at the touch of a trigger. She couldn’t take her eyes off it, bouncing on its D-ring at his hip as he carried a chair to the centre of the corridor.
‘Stand up for me, please.’ He waited as she struggled to her feet, gripped her elbow as she started to overbalance. ‘I’m sorry but you’ll have to jump across to the chair.’ As she hopped like a kangaroo, he steered her gently. ‘Sit, please.’
She was about to tell him to drop the frigging pleases, when she saw the retractable blade in his hand. She raised her bound hands like a shield. ‘Oh Christ, Ray. Don’t. Just tell me what you want.’
‘I want you to sit down and be still, Livia.’
So she sat, held her breath, wondered just how screwed up he was.
He pulled a plastic tie from his trouser pocket, the kind police use when they don’t have handcuffs, attached it high on her left calf and secured it to the leg of the chair. He sliced through the silver tape below, tightened another tie at her ankle then separated her knees and bound her right leg to the other side of the seat. More tape was splayed out and wound around her upper arms and torso, lashing her
to the back of the chair.
‘This must seem like a lot of fuss,’ he said. ‘But you’d be surprised what people will do when I try to make them secure. I find it’s best this way.’ He taped a rectangle of silver over her mouth, stepped back and surveyed his work. ‘I think that should do it.’
As he walked towards the security exit, panic rose in her throat like a gush of thick, acrid liquid. She wanted to cough it out, gasp for air, scream at him to let her go. But her lips wouldn’t move under the tape.
He opened the door with a key, looked at her over his shoulder as he stood on the threshold. ‘I won’t be long. Don’t be defiant.’
The silence of the corridor was as suffocating as the tape holding her rigid. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She was going to die. Her ears filled with the roar of surging adrenaline and the gasping, uncontrolled hiss of her breath. Her head started to spin, shadows crept in from the edges of her vision. Fuck, Liv, you’re passing out. Pull it together. Now. She forced herself to suck air through her nose, hold it, let it out. Did it over and over until all she could hear was the soft shush of traffic in the street behind her.
Then she tested the bindings. She could tap her shoes on the carpet, move her forearms up and down and turn her head. If she could push off with her toes with enough force, she might be able to tip the chair over. Then what? If he found her like that, he’d say she was defiant. And then what?
She squeezed her eyes to block out the thought. Half an hour ago, she’d thought it was Daniel. She’d thought he’d pull her from the car and leave her dead on the concrete. Now it was possible he was dead and she would die in here instead.
Maybe she’d always been heading to this. For a year, she’d believed she was in a long, black tunnel, that if she didn’t give up, if she kept walking or crawling or dragging herself forward any way she could, she’d eventually get to the end, squint in the sunlight and cry, ‘I made it!’ But maybe it wasn’t a tunnel. Maybe it was what Kelly said – a deep and shitty hole and she was about to hit rock bottom. That the downward slide of the last year wasn’t a test of her staying power but the warm-up for a horrible, bloody end. The preparation for defeat. And she’d exhausted herself trying to stay on her feet for nothing.