Run

by Mandasue Heller

  ‘Not here,’ he muttered.

  ‘Okay, we’ll go home,’ she suggested, desperate to get him away from her friends. ‘Jake, please,’ she urged when he didn’t move. ‘We’ve got to go now!’

  He turned his gaze to her and pursed his lips, giving it some thought. Then he asked, ‘Will you hear me out; give me a chance to explain?’

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed, nodding to emphasize the word. ‘I promise.’

  Jake released a heavy sigh, as if a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Then, turning to Ben, he smashed the side of the gun into his face.

  Crying out in pain when his nose exploded, Ben collapsed into a heap and held his hands over his face as blood poured through his fingers and soaked the carpet beneath him. Squatting down, Jake grabbed him by the hair and yanked his head back.

  ‘Say one fucking word about this to the police, and I’ll come in the middle of the night and kill the whole fucking lot of you,’ he snarled. ‘And don’t test me on that, ’cos you know I’ll do it.’

  With that, he got up and, taking Leanne by the arm, steered her out through the door.

  38

  Leanne was terrified when Jake bundled her into his car and drove her away from Chrissie’s house. She’d never seen him so angry, and she certainly hadn’t known that he possessed a gun. But, then, it appeared that there were a lot of things she hadn’t known about him, so she couldn’t work out why she was so surprised. She only hoped that he’d have calmed down enough to be reasonable by the time they got home and sat down to talk.

  He still wasn’t going to get the result he wanted, though. As she’d told him, she would hear him out. But as she’d also said, nothing he said was going to change her mind.

  Even if she’d been able to forgive him for attacking Chrissie and lying about sleeping with Sally, there was no way back for them now Leanne knew about the baby. It had been hard enough losing her own, without knowing that he had another child with someone else. That was just too heartbreaking.

  ‘Where are we going?’ she asked, speaking for the first time since they’d set off when she realized they were heading in the wrong direction.

  ‘Somewhere safe where we can talk,’ Jake muttered.

  ‘But I thought we were going home?’

  ‘I’m not that stupid.’

  Jake turned and glanced at her, and Leanne shivered when she saw the expression in his eyes. He was one of the most handsome men she had ever met, and his soft brown eyes usually made her stomach flip because they reflected nothing but love and gentleness. But there was an alien light in them right now that she could only describe as evil.

  ‘Put this on,’ he said suddenly, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the engagement ring she’d left at the apartment.

  ‘No!’ She shied away from it and folded her arms as if to hide her hands. ‘I told you, we’re over.’

  ‘No, you said you’d hear me out,’ Jake reminded her angrily. ‘So put the fucking ring on!’

  Afraid that he might crash the car and kill them both if he flipped out again, Leanne reached out shakily and took the ring from him. It felt like a dead weight when she slid it on to her finger, and she couldn’t believe that, only a few short hours ago, she hadn’t been able to stop admiring it and everything it symbolized. The happy life she’d thought they were embarking on after the trials of the previous few weeks; the perfect future in their perfect apartment, with her perfect husband-to-be.

  There had been times, when she’d been alone in bed waiting for him to come home from work, when she’d thought it was all too good to be true. And now she knew why.

  *

  When Jake pulled into a narrow alleyway some time later, Leanne gazed out through the window and frowned when she saw the barbed wire coiled along the tops of the walls on either side. She shivered when the moon disappeared behind a thick bank of clouds, plunging them into inky darkness. Rain began to spatter the windscreen as the car tyres bounced slowly over the cobbles, and the sudden swish of the automatic wipers made her jump.

  Hugging herself, she gazed up at the rear windows of the derelict row of shops to her left and the uninhabited terraced houses to the right. Most were concealed behind metal sheeting or smashed, and they were all as dark as the alleyway, which told her that there was no one around to help her.

  Jake eased to a stop alongside a padlocked gate halfway along the alley and cut the engine before jumping out and walking quickly around to her side. An icy blast of wind whipped her cheeks when he opened her door, and her legs felt like jelly as she unhooked her seat belt and climbed out.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he warned, gripping her tightly by the arm when he caught her casting a glance back down the alley in search of an escape route. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.’

  ‘You already are,’ she replied shakily, wincing at the pain of his fingertips digging into her flesh.

  He let go after a moment, and she rubbed at the sore spot as he turned and slotted a key into the padlock. The gate opened on to a rubble-filled yard at the rear of an empty shop unit, and he waved for her to go in ahead of him.

  ‘I can’t,’ she croaked, taking a stumbling step back. ‘It’s too dark. There could be rats.’

  A squeal of fear escaped her lips when Jake seized her by the wrist and hauled her into the yard, and tears flooded her eyes when her ankle twisted painfully as he marched her across the debris. He stopped at the steel back door and unlocked it with a mortice key before shoving her into a tiny, pitch-dark hallway. A steep flight of stairs faced them, at the top of which was another door.

  The hallway reeked of mildew and rotten food, but when they reached the top of the stairs and he opened the door, an even fouler smell hit her in the face. Covering her nose with her hand, she stumbled over the threshold into the flat above the empty shop unit.

  The front room was dark, but the moon had emerged from behind the clouds and tiny pinpricks of light were leaking in through the holes in the metal covering the window. As her eyes began to adjust, she was able to make out the outlines of a sofa, a single bed, a cluttered coffee table, and what appeared to be an upturned cardboard box holding a portable TV.

  Behind her, he locked the door and then slid his hand along the wall in search of the light switch. Squinting in the unexpected brightness, she inhaled sharply when her gaze landed on the origin of the putrid smell.

  ‘Oh, my God!’ she cried, staring in disbelief at Tina’s battered body sprawled on the floor between the sofa and the window. ‘What the hell did you do to her, Jake? Is she . . .’

  ‘Dead?’ he finished for her. ‘I’d say so, judging by the stench she’s giving off. Not that she was too bothered about hygiene when she was alive,’ he went on, a glint of disgust flaring in his eyes as he gazed down at the body. ‘And to think she actually thought I’d be interested in a skank like her. What a joke!’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ Leanne stared at him as if she’d never seen him before. ‘What did she do to deserve this?’

  ‘She couldn’t keep her big mouth shut,’ Jake said, gazing coolly back at her. ‘And the other one’s lucky she was out when I called round before coming for you, or she’d have got the same.’

  ‘Sally? Why?’

  ‘The pair of them have been blackmailing me for months,’ Jake explained, giving her a little shove now, sending her heavily down on to the sofa. ‘And I went along with it because I didn’t want you to find out. See, that’s how much you mean to me,’ he went on, his gaze intense as he sat beside her and peered into her eyes. ‘I’d do anything to keep you happy. And you were, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but it wasn’t real,’ Leanne murmured sickly. ‘It’s all based on lies, and you must have known I’d find out about the baby eventually. You couldn’t keep it secret for ever.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked. ‘Sally would never have told anyone if she’d kept her big mouth shut.’ He aimed a kick at Tina’s lifeless body. ‘Filthy crac
khead whore! I should have known she couldn’t be trusted.’

  Leanne’s heart was beating so hard it felt like it was going to explode as she stared at Jake. He actually believed that everything would have been all right if only she hadn’t heard about Sally and the baby. But sooner or later, something bad would have happened. It already had, when she’d been used as bait to lure him to Liverpool. He’d insisted that her kidnappers had targeted him out of bitterness because he’d cut ties with them and made a success of his life. But maybe that woman had been telling the truth when she’d said that Jake had ripped her brother off. And what had he really done when he’d gone back to them after sending her home that day? He’d already proved that he was capable of killing somebody in cold blood – the evidence of that was lying right there. So had he killed those people, too, and set fire to the warehouse in order to get rid of their bodies?

  When Jake entwined his fingers through hers, she gripped the cushion she was sitting on with her free hand and, drawing on every ounce of willpower she possessed, forced herself to gaze into his eyes as if she was sad that it had come to this.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jake replied quietly. ‘Go away somewhere? It’d have to be abroad, though.’

  Astonished that he actually believed she’d be willing to move abroad with him, knowing what she now knew, Leanne forced herself to give him a tiny smile.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Or maybe we could stay and try to sort this mess out?’

  ‘How?’ Jake narrowed his eyes.

  Unsure if she’d roused his suspicions, or if he genuinely thought she was trying to find a way out of this, Leanne shrugged. ‘I don’t know. We need to think this through carefully before we make any decisions. Chrissie’s my best mate, and Ben’s yours, so I’m sure they’ll forgive you once they realize I’m okay. Nobody knows about . . .’ Unable to say Tina’s name, she nodded in the direction of the body. ‘Do they?’

  ‘No.’ Jake shook his head. ‘Only you.’

  ‘Well, that’s one good thing,’ Leanne muttered, feeling sick all over again. ‘Chrissie knows what she’s like, so she won’t think anything of it if she never goes home. And that’s the only bad thing you’ve actually done, so if we can get rid of the body, everything will go back to normal.’

  ‘It won’t, though, will it?’ Jake said flatly. ‘’Cos you’ll never be able to forgive me for what happened with Sally.’

  ‘I’m not saying it’ll be easy,’ Leanne replied carefully, knowing that he would never fall for it if she suddenly declared that she could forget the pain he’d caused her. ‘It might take a long time before I really get over it, and you’ll just have to accept that I might never forgive you completely. But that little boy is innocent, and I’d have to be some kind of monster to hold any of this against him. Or his mother.’

  Jake stared into her eyes, as if weighing up whether or not he believed her. After several moments, he opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of a brick knocking against another in the yard below made him snap his head around.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Leanne squeaked, shrinking away from him when he yanked the gun out of his pocket.

  Jumping up, Jake rushed over to the window and, straddling Tina’s body, peered out through a hole in the metal sheeting.

  ‘It’s the police,’ he hissed when he saw several shadowy figures moving through the pitch-dark yard below. ‘How the fuck did they find out about this place?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s over now,’ Leanne said, her legs shaking wildly as she stood up and backed towards the door.

  A bright light suddenly flared, causing Jake to wince as it hit him in the eyes.

  ‘Armed police . . .’ a voice boomed from below. ‘Come out with your hands in the air.’

  ‘It isn’t over until I say it is!’ Jake snarled, lunging at Leanne and dragging her back into the room. ‘I’ll shoot the first cunt who comes through that door.’

  ‘Please, Jake, do as they say,’ Leanne pleaded when he threw her down on to the sofa. ‘If you love me half as much as you say you do, stop this now and let me go. I promise I won’t tell them anything. We’ll – we’ll say we stopped off here to pick up your rent on our way home and found Tina like this. She was a prostitute, so one of her punters could have done it. There’s nothing to prove it was you.’

  ‘Shut up,’ Jake hissed, pacing in a tight circle.

  ‘We haven’t got time for this,’ Leanne sobbed. ‘If you don’t give up, they’re going to force their way in and shoot us both. Hide the gun and tell them you don’t know what they’re talking about if they ask where it is. I’ll back you up, I swear!’

  Jake stopped pacing and ran his hands through his hair. Then, exhaling loudly, he walked over to Tina’s body and dragged it away from the wall before pulling the edge of the carpet away from the rotten skirting board. Yanking at the floorboard beneath until a piece came away in his hands, he dropped the gun down into the hole and shoved the wood into the gap before replacing the carpet. Then, after rolling Tina over to cover it, he went back to Leanne and pulled her to her feet.

  ‘You’re the only girl I’ve ever loved,’ he said, his eyes boring into hers as the vibration of a battering ram being smashed into the steel door shook the floor beneath their feet. ‘Everything I’ve done I did for you, because I wanted to make you happy. But if you betray me now, I swear to God I’ll kill you.’

  ‘I won’t,’ Leanne whimpered, afraid that she might wet herself as the thunderous hammering continued down below.

  ‘Swear on our baby’s soul,’ Jake demanded.

  Fresh tears spilled down Leanne’s cheeks, but she forced herself to hold his gaze. ‘I swear on our baby’s soul.’

  Satisfied that she would never have said it if she didn’t mean it, Jake pulled the mortice key out of his pocket and unlocked the door just as the battering ram broke through and footsteps began to pound up the stairs.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ he shouted, raising his hands into the air. ‘We’re coming out.’

  39

  Leanne was completely drained by the time a police officer dropped her off at Chrissie’s house later that night. Acutely aware that Jake was in the same building, maybe on the other side of the wall listening to every word she was saying, it had taken three long hours to give her statement. The police officers had assured her that he couldn’t hear her, but she’d been terrified all the same, and it had been a struggle to speak up when they had asked her to.

  That part was over now, and they had told her that they would be holding Jake for twenty-four hours at the very least, so she didn’t have to worry about him coming after her tonight.

  But what about tomorrow?

  If they didn’t have enough evidence to charge him, they would have to let him go, and what would happen then? He would know she’d betrayed him, and he’d already warned her that he would kill her if she did that. Even if they did charge him, she still wouldn’t be safe, because they had told her that she’d be called to testify against him at the trial.

  She couldn’t believe that she had been so completely and utterly taken in by Jake. How had she lived with him these last few months and not seen any hint of the dangerous criminal that lurked behind his Mr Nice Guy facade? She wasn’t stupid by any means, and nor was she a silly little girl who was so blinded by love that she refused to see the signs that were staring her in the face. But she genuinely hadn’t noticed anything amiss about him. And that was scary.

  Chrissie opened the door before Leanne had a chance to ring the bell. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked, pulling her into a hug. ‘I was so worried about you.’

  Chrissie’s eyes were red and swollen. Guessing that the police must have told her about Tina, Leanne said, ‘I’m okay. What about you?’

  Chrissie shook her head and pulled a tissue out of her cardigan pocket to wipe her nose. ‘I might not have liked our Tina very much, but I
wouldn’t have wished something like this on her. They couldn’t tell me much; just that it looks like she was murdered, and not an overdose, or something. They said they’re going to try and trace her punters, but I told them not to bother, ’cos I know it was Jake. It was, wasn’t it?’

  Leanne nodded. ‘I’m so sorry, babe. She was already dead when we got there.’

  Chrissie released an anguished breath. Then sadly, she said, ‘She looked terrible when I saw her the other day; the worst I’ve ever seen her. If Jake hadn’t killed her, she’d probably have killed herself before long. At least she’s got my mum to take her in hand now, eh?’

  Leanne gave her a sympathetic smile. She’d never been particularly religious herself, but it obviously gave Chrissie comfort to believe that her mum and Tina had been reunited in God’s care.

  ‘Anyway, there’s no point standing here all night,’ Chrissie said wearily. ‘I left Ben pouring us all a stiff drink, so let’s go and sit down, then you can tell us what happened at the station.’

  Leanne nodded and followed her friend into the living room. Thanking Ben when he handed her a glass of brandy, she sagged down on to the sofa and swallowed the drink in one.

  ‘God, I needed that.’

  Chrissie sat down beside her and flapped a hand at Ben to refill her glass.

  Leanne gazed at Chrissie’s face, and then over at Ben’s, and felt sick with guilt when she saw the livid bruises on their cheeks and around their eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry for getting you both involved in this,’ she murmured. ‘It would never have happened if I hadn’t reacted so badly to finding out about Sally and the baby.’

  ‘You can pack that in right now,’ Chrissie scolded. ‘This is his doing, not yours.’

  ‘You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong,’ Ben agreed, his swollen nose making his words sound muffled. ‘Anyway, if anyone should be apologizing, it’s me. I’ve known about the baby from the start, but I was too much of a wuss to tell you.’