‘Are we agreed then, gentlemen?’ The blonde waited with a cool smile.
‘You can assure us the route is secure?’ This from the dark-skinned bloke who’d stayed mostly silent.
‘The Feds are too busy plucking boat people out of the water,’ Slab told him. ‘Besides, no one expects ancient artefacts from Africa and the like to be smuggled into Australia. I’ve been moving stuff through this network without a whiff of trouble. You get your stuff to Manipur, I handle the rest.’
The German—tanned like a walnut and just as tough to crack—frowned at him. ‘It is not very safe. What route do you take from there?’
‘That’s a trade secret, mate.’
Slab smiled, but he wanted to punch the stupid git in his smug-ugly face. It had taken years and a lot of backhanders to set up the corridor between India and Australia and he wasn’t about to spill his guts to this stooge. He wasn’t an amateur.
Hans and Frenchy conversed in some language he didn’t understand. The swarthy guy stayed silent, his gaze watchful. He’d hardly taken his eyes off the blonde, but he wasn’t interested in her the way the other two were. Candii had sent three girls to keep him company, and the bloke hadn’t touched one of them. Slab didn’t get it. What kind of bloke didn’t take advantage of a bit of free tail? The bloke had the look of a self-made man, someone who’d pulled himself out of the filth of his birth, and Slab swore he got a whiff of Cairo’s back alleys where hawkers yelled for you and others whispered from shadowed doorways with promises that excited him in ways he hadn’t understood.
Ah, what did he care? These guys were just a way of expanding his business, one less dependent on junkies and ponced-up antique dealers who thought they could skim off his hard work.
The three men stood and shook the blonde’s hand. Frenchy slipped in a couple of cheek kisses, which froze the girl’s smile. Slab shook hands and offered them a Cuban from his humidor.
‘We’ll iron out the other details tomorrow,’ Slab said.
‘Will the lovely Mina be joining us?’
Frenchy winked at her and got a cool smile in response. The bloke seemed to love that. Maybe this chick was onto something with all that prissy, librarian shit.
‘Not this time, mate.’ Slab slipped his arm around her shoulders. ‘You got to earn this classy piece of arse.’
Tiny let the elevator doors close on the men’s laughter.
‘I gotta hand it to you, Everton.’ Slab tightened his grip. ‘For a dumb blonde, you drive a hard bargain.’
‘I learned from the best,’ she spat, ‘and you slaughtered him.’
‘Been holding that hatred in all day, I bet.’
It must have almost choked her to keep her big mouth shut. When she tried to step away, he grabbed her arm, gripped her jaw with his other hand and squeezed until she whimpered in pain. Her jaw felt small and delicate. Could he break it? He’d never tried that. He let go before he was tempted, but he kept his hold on her arm. She was so skinny he felt the bone and muscle beneath his fingers. The fragility of the human body amazed him.
‘Get your stinking hands off me.’
‘Pretty high and mighty, ain’t you? Let’s see if you can still talk when I’m done.’
He grabbed her hair and yanked her head back until her mouth opened in pain. He bit her lower lip then plunged in his tongue. She tried to bite him—they all tried that at some point—but the angle meant she couldn’t bite hard and the pressure of her teeth made his blood race. He’d show her who was boss. She might have a sharp tongue, but he had more weapons than his knife blade to make a chick comply. She shifted, grunted, and agony gripped his balls. He doubled over, feeling like he was going to spew his guts. She’d pay for that.
Her heels clacked against the tiles as he pushed himself from the cool floor. She was headed for the elevator.
‘Tiny ain’t gonna let you out.’
She turned for the fire exit, wobbly on those stalk-me-screw-me heels he’d forced her to wear. Any minute now she’d go arse-over. He hobbled after her, his balls on fire. Oh yeah, this was what he’d been looking for. This chick was made for him. She was ripe and he was ready. Candii’s days had been numbered for a while.
He caught her as she reached for the release bar of the exit door. She screamed in fury and lashed out. He had his arms around her waist and had lifted her feet free of the floor, squeezing until she struggled to breathe. She was hot and flushed and breathing hard. He threw her down on the couch, pinning her with his knee. Still she fought, punching, kicking, trying to tear at his face with her nails. Fan-fucking-tastic! When she thrust her palm at his nose, he heard the crunch before he felt it. It was like getting whacked with a shovel. He wiped at his wet lips. His fingers came away bloody.
Fucking bitch was gonna get hers. Breathing through his mouth and tasting blood, he caught both her hands and thrust them above her head. This was gonna be sweet. His knee forced her legs apart, one hand pinned her wrists to the leather, and with the other he tugged at the neckline of the dress. The slim edge of something silver shone at the edge of her bra. He pulled the item free. A small iPod.
The girl froze, but her fear-filled eyes told him everything. The face of the iPod showed the image of a microphone and a clock counting upwards, nearly three hours. The battery was almost dead, but it was still recording. She had recorded the meeting, and probably everything he’d told her.
He tossed it across the room. ‘You’re dead, bitch.’
Chapter 49
LINC LOITERED IN THE lobby of the austere building that housed Carlson’s apartment. He still reeled from the combination of relief that it hadn’t been Mina’s body fished out of the river and the shock of realising the young victim was the waitress from the brasserie.
Mina had to be here. It was the only thing that made sense. Her car had been found in the impound lot, having been abandoned in an exclusive street in Unley Park. A quick follow-up call to the complainant yielded an explanation of Mina’s missing hours and a description detailed enough for him to recognise Riker as the arresting officer. With Riker AWOL and no record of Mina’s arrest, it was almost a mirror of what had occurred at Gibson’s.
Candii had claimed Carlson had police on his payroll. He would never have guessed one of them was Riker.
He checked his watch. It had been more than two hours since three mismatched men in tailored suits had been ushered into the lift by Carlson’s giant henchman. A reconnaissance had shown no way up to the penthouse without alerting Carlson. Whatever was going on up there, he was damn sure he needed to take them by surprise.
The waitress had been a warning. Though Linc had been careful to catch her alone and out of sight of Carlson, he hadn’t been careful enough, and now she was dead, the flesh of her lower back excised with skill. He didn’t need proof to know it was Carlson’s handiwork. Yet without solid proof, he had no hope of backup. All he had were a theory and gut instinct, and no sway among the local cops. Even Forbes would not take his call. The councillor had rushed from the morgue, furious he’d been led to believe Mina was dead and all too willing to blame Linc for the cock-up. Strzelecki and Dubois might have had his back. But they had put themselves on a thin enough ledge for him already.
The elevator hummed. The arrow light indicated its descent.
Linc flattened himself against the wall, shielded by a granite-clad pillar. The bell dinged. Tiny’s deep voice murmured farewell and three sharp-suited men exited the lift. They laughed about ‘Slab’s girl’.
His grip tightened on the handle of his holstered gun. It didn’t matter that he knew she’d be there, that the bogus arrest suggested she wasn’t there willingly, he still wasn’t certain. He’d told Dubois he waited for evidence, but with Carlson, he’d been going on instinct since the day of the community meeting. At least it was a cop’s instinct. He couldn’t say the same for his treatment of Mina. That was a whole other type of instinct.
Tiny stood in the door of the elevator—Linc could see the t
oes of his dress shoes and his folded hands. As the men sauntered through the lobby, two conversed in heavily accented English. The other remained silent. The front door whooshed open then shut slowly behind them. Tiny’s hands and feet disappeared as he stepped back into the elevator. Just before the doors hissed shut, Linc slipped inside and had his gun on Tiny before the big guy reached for his holster.
‘I want a word with your boss.’
The Maori stared at him, emotionless, though with the indigo tattoos on his cheeks, chin and forehead, it was hard to tell. Then he leaned forward and pressed the express button in the brass plate.
‘Boss wants to see you, anyhow.’
As the elevator whirred toward the penthouse, Tiny relaxed, rested his massive hands on the brass handrail and crossed one large foot over the other. His jacket fell open. Linc snatched the 9mm from the man’s holster and shoved it in the belt of his trousers.
‘That don’t matter.’ Tiny shook his head and hummed a laugh. ‘Once we’re up there, ain’t nowhere to go. The boss’ll take care of you.’ He smirked. ‘Just as soon as he’s done sticking it to your girlfriend.’
Powered by every pent-up emotion since the shooting, Linc’s fist hit the Maori’s solid jaw and snapped the guy’s head back hard enough that it bounced off the brushed stainless backboard. Tiny righted himself. Growled. Took a step. Then his eyes lost focus and he dropped to the floor, out cold. Linc pushed his cuffs behind the handrail and slapped them on Tiny’s big wrists just as the elevator slowed to a gentle stop and a mechanical female voice purred, ‘Penthouse’.
When the doors slid open, Linc had his gun ready and was pressed into the shallow corner beside the control panel.
The place was quiet. Seemingly empty.
A quick scope gave him the lay of the place: curved walls, floor-to-ceiling windows, open plan. In front of him were a pristine kitchen and a living room dominated by a pair of white leather sofas. To his left, a long hallway disappeared into the depths of the apartment. On his right, a shorter one ended at a bland, white wall.
From a console table just inside the apartment, he grabbed a small brass sculpture of two entwined lovers and wedged it head down in the elevator door track. He didn’t want any surprise arrivals or escapees. It would also keep Tiny occupied. The guy was still comatose, but for how long? This way, if he did come round soon, he wouldn’t be able to remove the statue without a lot of noisy effort.
With a firm grip on his weapon, Linc checked the short hallway. It led to a fire escape. There was nothing he could do to block the exit. The long hallway led to two sprawling bedrooms, one with an en suite that could house a small family. Clothes were heaped beside the shower. A pair of running shoes lay nearby—Nikes with a pink stripe. A few nights ago, they’d been discarded on the floor of his hotel room. He lifted the light running top he’d seen her wear.
It was sliced right down the front.
Jesus! His pulse raced. It didn’t matter what she’d done or hadn’t done. He had to find her. Wherever she was, he had to save her from Carlson. Alert to every sound, he moved silently into the lounge and stepped past the first enormous couch.
He found the body stretched out on the carpet.
Chapter 50
WITH THE ARRIVAL OF FORENSICS came Detective Inspector Engles. He shot Drummond a look of surprise then narrowed his eyes.
‘First the morgue, now here,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t be stepping on my murder inquiry, would you, Drummond?’
‘I’m here on another matter.’
Engles looked at the groaning, swearing man strapped to the gurney. Carlson’s broken nose dominated his face and an Ostrich-egg lump protruded from behind his left ear. ‘You better pray this bloke can still talk.’
‘Found these.’ A young crime scene trainee clad in gloves and disposable white overalls held up two large plastic bags that contained Mina’s shoes and ruined clothes.
CSO Peterson, similarly dressed, nodded. ‘Good work, DeSoto. We’ll soon figure out who’s been here.’
These two were thorough. Nothing like Wainright. A few days ago he would have rejoiced. Now that diligence threatened Mina’s freedom.
Engles stood over the technician who had a computer hooked to the electronic keypad on the door in the curved wall, tapping his foot as the computer beeped through the decoding process. The action seemed to liven up Carlson, who pulled against his constraints, yelling about his rights. The bruises blossoming beneath his eyes would soon be as colourful as the curses he spat at everyone, even Tiny, who perched on one of the snowy leather lounges. Strzelecki did his best to get a statement, but the guy’s hollow eyes stared into the distance, his face a tattooed mask and his cuffed hands quiet in his lap. Dubois bagged and tagged the remains of the table lamp scattered on the shag pile.
A series of high-pitched beeps broke into the chaos. The tech announced, ‘I’m in.’
Carlson upped his abuse.
Engles lifted his head. ‘For Christ’s sake, someone shut that bugger up.’
The paramedics wheeled Carlson into the elevator, and when the doors closed there was a collective sigh of relief among the team.
All Linc could think about was Mina. Where the hell was she?
He fixed his gaze on the main living area, at the cool whites and solid blacks, at the sweeping views of the hills and city. A Realtor’s dream. It was the kind of place that should have appealed to his sense of order. He loathed it. He couldn’t stop thinking how it contrasted with the dump Carlson had torched when he slaughtered his mother, and he couldn’t forget Mina’s horror when he’d hit her with that truth. He’d tried to scare her. Instead, she’d run to Gibson and been sucked deeper into Carlson’s seedy world. He thought of the laughing suits in the lobby. Any one of them could have decked Carlson. If they had, what had they done to Mina? Had that been what Carlson wanted with her all along—to give her as a plaything for his Europeans?
Peterson brushed past the tech who had begun packing up his gear. Linc moved to follow, but Engles narrowed his eyes and blocked the doorway. Now was no time to challenge the pecking order, besides he was hardly thinking straight, certainly wasn’t thinking like a cop. He couldn’t stop seeing the isolation of the woolshed. How close it was to the river. The excised skin of the young waitress. Mina’s slashed running top. And through the horror conjured by those images cycled Candii’s words: “I won’t be one of his trophies.” He thought she’d meant it figuratively—like a trophy girlfriend, though that had made no sense—but now he’d seen what had happened to the waitress and that other anonymous girl fished out of the mangroves, he knew she’d meant a darker kind of trophy.
Christ. If he didn’t clamp down these thoughts he’d lose it. Then he’d be no help to anyone.
Peterson reappeared.
‘What did you find?’ Linc could barely speak.
‘A big screen TV and more porn than you and me could watch in a lifetime of bachelor parties.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Afraid so. Checked everything.’
Linc sagged against the wall, only now realising how much he’d been hoping they’d find her there. Safe.
Peterson frowned. ‘You all right, mate?’
He nodded.
‘You want one of the medics to look you over?’
‘No, thanks anyway.’
What could the paramedics do? They couldn’t produce Mina or vanish the last few days and all the mistakes he’d made. When Peterson turned away, Linc headed for the fire stairs. He had to believe she was still alive. That it had been she who belted Carlson with the lamp and escaped. She wasn’t anywhere in the apartment and she hadn’t left with the suits. So unless she’d climbed down the side of the building, the only way she could have left the penthouse was down the fire escape.
He had to find her. Somehow, he’d find a way to get her out of this.
Chapter 51
SHE’D KILLED HIM. The lamp had shattered against Carlson’s head and he’d gone
down with barely more than a grunt. And without Carlson to say the word, she’d probably killed Linc too.
Mina hugged her knees and pressed herself as far back behind the dumpster as she could. She kept picturing Linc in that video, blood on his face, his white shirt streaked with it, the way it had seeped into the crevices of his cufflink. If only she hadn’t been so angry about everything, so unwilling to confide in him because he wore a badge. He’d accused her of lumping him in with a bunch of Keystone Cops from twelve years ago. He was right. She had let the past rule her. But she’d also been afraid. Afraid of the power he had over her, of what they might have had. And now she would never know. Because she had killed him, just as surely as she’d killed Carlson.
Oh God. She’d killed someone. A scumbag. Worse than a scumbag—a drug dealer, a murderer, a man who tortured women.
She hadn’t meant to kill him. She’d kicked and screamed and cursed, knowing he was too strong, that her struggles excited him, remembered the excitement in his cold eyes when he’d threatened to peel her like a banana. I won’t be a party to torture. Riker’s final words had been on a continuous loop in her head. Fury had taken over. Her hand had found the lamp, and she’d discovered the strength to bash it against his head. She hadn’t meant for him to die. She just wanted to be free. Safe. She wasn’t a killer. That wasn’t who she was. Was it? Had the tainted Everton blood finally asserted itself, as those in Failie had always claimed? She recalled Riker’s face when Tiny grabbed his head, the way his features slackened with the sharp twist of his neck. It could have been her. She’d had to do what she did. She’d had to.
Her chest ached from holding in the pain and the grief she just couldn’t let free. She sucked back a breath. It was close in here and dark, but her refuge reeked of urine and rotting food. If she was any kind of decent person, she would have stayed, called the police and owned up to what she did. Instead, she’d run. And any chance Linc might have had was lost. That was the kind of person she really was. Self-interested. An Everton.
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