A station attendant winced and started to walk over to him. Tony waved him off, sweat pouring down his face as he fought the instinct to scream or collapse, or both. He fumbled in his rear pocket and removed his train ticket. He waved it to the attendant, then slid it into the slot in the turnstile. The card popped up out of the return, and he snatched it, crumpling it in his hand as the red barriers folded back to allow him passage.
He hobbled across to the escalator, and clung to the handrail as he rode down to the platform. A train was blessedly just pulling into the station. Thank God.
He entered the closest carriage and clambered down to the lower deck, sliding into the first available seat. He tilted his head against the window. His face and neck felt slick with sweat, and he wriggled his shoulders, trying to unstick the shirt that was plastered to the middle of his back.
Oh God, he hurt.
‘What the hell happened?’ Dom asked Alex hoarsely when he located him at the marshalling point at the corner of the street.
Alex grimaced as he stepped away from the small crowd of St James Constructions staff. ‘A letter bomb was delivered to your office. It hasn’t caused any structural damage, although you’ll need a new desk.’
‘What about Judy? Is she all right?’ Alex’s earlier phone call had been rushed, as he’d needed to help direct the first responders, but he’d informed Dom that his executive assistant of seventeen years had been injured.
‘Judy’s had a heart attack. They’ve taken her in to Royal North Shore Hospital. She wasn’t hurt by the actual bomb, but the whole incident startled her.’
Dom cursed, clenching his fists. ‘Is she going to be all right?’
‘She was responsive, she knew the date, the prime minister, et cetera. It’s still early, and the paramedics arrived really quickly, but I think you’ll probably want to head to the hospital for more information.’
Dom nodded. Judy was a fixture at the company, and had discreetly shown him the ropes when he’d first taken on the presidency. He was fond of the woman. He bit back a growl. Now this monster had attacked at the heart of his company – and he didn’t mean the head office. The staff were loyal and long-serving, and he considered them a working family. First his kids and ex-wife, now his staff. The prick was going to hurt when Dom finally caught up with him.
‘Damn it. How did this parcel get through? I thought we had checks in place.’
‘We do, but you’ve also got a new receptionist. From what I can understand, this one parcel slipped through the normal security process. For starters, the courier came directly through the front entrance, and didn’t go to the loading dock. Jim made him sign in, and Siobhan got a weird vibe about him, and had put the parcel off to the side, but Judy passed the desk when Siobhan was showing a client to the sales area, and must have picked it up. Siobhan thinks Judy was just trying to help her by saving her the trouble of delivering it later.’
Dom nodded. That sounded like Judy, always trying to lighten everyone else’s load. He noticed two familiar detectives climbing out of a car across the street. He faced them, waiting for them to cross the road. Now maybe they’d drop him as a suspect and finally get to work on finding the real perpetrator. If they didn’t, well, at this point he wasn’t averse to going over their heads for answers.
Alannah came to slowly, groaning as the pain crept over her in a dark, throbbing wave. Her eyes fluttered open, and she blinked a few times to try to sharpen her focus. She lay on something hard. In some places she was cool, like her legs. In other places it was warm, like her chest and… Wet? Her face, though, was burning, despite the cool surface she lay on. She hadn’t realised pain could be a colour, but she could see it now: lots of red, mingling with crimsons and dark browns, moving in dizzying waves until finally what she was seeing started to make sense.
She tried to scream, but it came out gargled and muffled. She tried to move her jaw, but her body wasn’t following her brain’s instructions. Oh God, he’d broken her jaw. She tried to open her mouth, but the tape across her lips prevented any further movement – possibly a blessing, considering her broken face.
She gazed at the person on the floor next to her. Steve was unconscious, his mouth also gagged with silver gaffer tape. She could already see the shadow of several bruises on his face, and his hair was dark and wet with blood from a head wound. She started to cry when she realised the warmth on her chest was his blood. He’d been gravely hurt. She tried to reach out to him, but her arms were restrained behind her back. Her sobs emerged as harsh gargling noises.
‘Ah, Sleeping Beauty awakes,’ the man said, and strong hands gripped her upper arms and raised her to a sitting position on the timber floorboards. She stared at him, and he gently tucked her blood-matted hair away from her face. He still wore his reflective sunglasses, although dusk was settling outside and the gloom was strengthening inside her home.
Steve groaned on the floor, and his eyelids fluttered.
‘Now, why don’t we sort this all out before lover boy wakes up, hmm?’ He sat back on his haunches, dangling the gun between his knees. Her gaze followed it, swinging gently in his hands, almost like a toy. A chill crept over her shoulders. What was he going to do to them?
He reached over and grasped a corner of the tape on her lower cheek and yanked swiftly. She cried out, tilting her head back as skin was ripped from her face. He was crazy, some homicidal maniac.
‘Please, please don’t hurt us.’
He sighed. ‘Tell me, and I won’t. Now, what is the code?’ His arched eyebrow rose above the frame of his glasses.
The code? She blinked. Oh. The St James security code. Her throat was dry, and she tried to swallow, receiving no relief from the torturous motion. The gate. The code for the gate. Her head felt woozy, her vision wavering every now and then.
She blinked again when he snapped his fingers in front of her face. ‘Alannah, stay with me, baby. The code?’
Steve moaned, and this time his eyelids fluttered open.
‘I’m not supposed to say,’ she croaked, although the words were barely recognisable, coming from her mangled jaw. She’d signed an agreement. If she told him, he would just go to the estate and do there what hell he was doing here. Darcy would be no match for him, nor would the old couple…and the kids, those sweet kids. She couldn’t do it.
Steve looked at her, half-confused, half-pleading, and she sobbed.
The man nodded for a moment, pursing his lips. ‘I get it, Alannah. You’re trying to protect St James. Or maybe you’re afraid of him, of what he’d do if you told. I’m sure he’s probably made you sign some sort of contract…’
He slowly drew out a cylinder and started to screw it onto the end of his gun, his movements methodical. Alannah’s blood chilled in her veins. She’d thought the gun had been the scariest thing she’d ever seen. She was wrong. Watching this man casually attach what she instinctively knew was a silencer to his weapon was terrifying. He moved suddenly, and pressed the silencer into Steve’s eye. Steve moaned, trying to turn away from the pressure but the man knelt on his shoulder, holding him in place. ‘But you might need to think, Alannah, on what I will do to you if you don’t tell me what I want to know.’
He cocked the hammer, the sound reverberating over her muffled sobs and the terrified throb of her heart.
Oh my God. He’s going to shoot Steve. ‘Please,’ she howled, sounding like some injured cow in labour. ‘Don’t, don’t shoot, please. I’ll tell you.’
Steve was sobbing, now, his chest heaving, an air pocket in the gaffer tape moving with each frantic inhalation.
The man inclined his head, waiting politely.
‘It’s three-two-two-five,’ she said, and guilt fell like lead on her shoulders. The man nodded.
‘Good girl.’ He pulled the trigger, and Alannah recoiled in shock at the small puft noise, the jerk of Steve’s body. She flinched, her knees rising reflexively as she watched a new wave of blood spread out across the floor.
Her mouth opened wide in a silent scream of horror. She tried to shift, tried to shuffle away down the length of the sofa, shaking her head in disbelief, in denial, as she stared at the corpse on the floor. She lifted her gaze to the man who now casually wiped the end of his gun across her dead partner’s shirt.
‘You said you wouldn’t hurt us,’ she accused, her voice high.
He turned to her, and his hand rose to lower the sunglasses from his face. For the first time she saw his eyes. Blue. A light, crystal blue. Quite beautiful, but for the snake-like coldness in their depths. She could see his eyes, and suddenly, she knew.
‘You won’t feel a thing,’ he promised, raising the gun to her head and pulling the trigger.
CHAPTER
22
Tony sagged inside the bathroom door. Adrian was out. That was one small bonus in this whole screwed-up experience.
He fished the nail polish remover out of his pocket, and eyed it dubiously. He hoped he had enough. It took him a few moments to figure out how to open the damn bottle. Why put a damn childproof cap on this crap?
Once he’d succeeded, he looked resolutely at himself in the mirror. The dark, spiky hair under the rim of the cap looked wild and unkempt from his many efforts to scratch his itching scalp. The wig and hat weren’t stuck on as well as the nose and chin – it should only take a small amount of the acetone to dislodge that mess. No, his real problem was the crap on his face. Maybe the more he used, the faster it would act? God, he hoped so. He wanted this stuff off his face now, damn it.
He tilted his head up, so that any runoff from his nose could also be used to slide around the putty on his chin. He lifted the bottle and held his breath against the strong-smelling liquid as he poured it over his face.
He bellowed at the bath of scalding fire that rained on his face, his eyes bulging at the pain. The liquid seeped and slid around the ridges of the putty, and he whimpered like a sick kitty. God! What the hell? He slammed the bottle down on the vanity and clutched at his burning face. Get it off, get it the hell off! He tugged at the putty, ignoring the threads of pain that stretched across his face. He didn’t care anymore, he just wanted it off. He whimpered, then growled, wanting to punch or kick at something. He panted, tasting the foul liquid on his lips, and he gagged. God, was this stuff poisonous?
He pounded his fists on the vanity, waiting for the first wave of pain to roll off him. Taking several deep breaths, he swept the bottle up again. He hesitated, the bottle raised over his face, afraid of burning his face again. He checked his reflection in the mirror. His skin was red raw, but the putty was beginning to peel away. The acetone was working.
He bit his lip, his knuckles whitening as he poured some more of the fluid over his face. This time he staggered and a low, keening wail emerged from his lips. Holy Mother of God.
No, he couldn’t do it again. He placed the bottle on the vanity, his cheeks bulging as he fought the urge to throw up. Goosebumps covered his arms and shoulders, and his face was stinging with a burning fire that consumed his thoughts. He wanted to put his hands to his forehead and use his fingernails to peel off the burning skin.
Instead, he raised his hands to the clay that was hanging from his nose and slowly pulled it free. Tears poured down his cheeks, and even those spread trails of fire.
The chin was more stubborn, and it took considerable effort and patience to slide and massage the stinging fluid around and under the prosthetic, but finally it dropped off his face.
Tony sagged against the vanity, staring into his reflection with bleary eyes, his breath a high-pitched wheeze. Bloody trails were dripping down his face and neck, and— Oh God, were they blisters? He stared in shock at the hideous reflection, and his gaze trailed up to the wig and hat.
Crap.
He threw the messy putty blobs into the bin underneath the sink, trying to steel himself for what was to come. When he’d cleaned the vanity as much as he thought was needed, he raised the bottle over his head. Lifting bits of the Manly Sea Eagles cap, he poured a splash here and a splash there. It wasn’t long before he could feel the remover seeping through the holes in the wig. He sucked in a breath, his mouth making a horrible shape as he tried to cry out, tried to yell, but the pain was too intense. His pulse thundered in his ears.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He lifted his hands to his cap and pulled, feeling hair leaving his scalp in small chunks. The veins stood out in his neck as he heaved, and he screamed as the wig and hat finally detached from his head. He stared at the hairy object in his hand, recognising some of those strands as his.
He lifted his gaze to the mirror and saw a number of small bald patches that were slowly filling in with red. Spittle flecked his mouth, and his jaw dropped in disbelief, despite the pain the movement caused to the raw skin over his chin.
His last thought before he passed out had him whimpering.
He’d friggin’ scalped himself.
Darcy peered out the window at the sound of tyres crunching on the gravel drive. Her shoulders sagged as she recognised Alannah’s car. She was hoping it was Dom returning. He’d hoped to be back today.
She should have known. Alannah was punctual to a fault. She left the living room where the kids were playing with Lego. The doorbell rang as she reached the foyer, and Gertrude appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘I’ll get it,’ Darcy called up to her. ‘It’s just Alannah.’
Gertrude smiled and retreated down the hall. Darcy swung open one of the large entry doors, her smile faltering at the unfamiliar figure standing in front of her. The man was of average height and build, with sandy-brown fuzz for hair. He wore mirrored sunglasses, and she could see her reflection, like in one of the funny mirrors at Luna Park’s Coney Island.
‘Oh. Hello?’
The man smiled easily, his glasses lifting as his cheeks moved. ‘Hi. You must be Darcy, yeah? Alannah’s had an emergency at the clinic and sent me out for you today.’
Darcy’s eyebrows rose. ‘Oh. Okay – uh, you must be Steve, right? Come in.’ She stood aside to let him in, and he lifted his kit bag off the verandah and walked past her into the foyer.
He gazed about for a moment, and she got the impression he was trying to catalogue everything he saw – probably to brag to his friends about his visit to the St James estate. She immediately admonished herself. This was Alannah’s special friend, and although the man seemed dense when it came to women, Alannah had always been full of praise for him.
She smiled and held out her hand as he removed his sunglasses. ‘I’m pleased to finally meet you, Alannah talks about you often.’
He glanced at her hand for a moment, flicking his gaze up to her eyes, and she noticed the near-crystal clear blue of his. He smiled, and shook her hand. His skin was warm and rough, his grip firm as he held on to it for a moment longer than necessary. He smiled and leaned towards her. ‘I’m so pleased to finally meet you, too, Darcy,’ he murmured softly.
She smiled uncomfortably as she withdrew her hand, sliding her skin against his calluses as he finally let go. ‘Uh, this way,’ she said, hiding her frown as she turned to lead him down the hall to the room. Weirdo. Maybe he was one of those guys whose social skills were slightly lacking. That could explain his intent stare and too-long hand clasp. Alannah thought he was a prince. Oh, well. She almost shrugged. Different strokes for different folks.
Yet there was something bothering her about him. He lifted the bag onto the side table, and she heard a faint creak from the furniture. Steve’s bag must be heavier than Alannah’s. He pulled a towel out and rolled it – not nearly half as neatly as Alannah did – and placed it at the head of the table. He looked over to her and smiled.
‘Shall we get into it, then?’ he asked, gesturing to the table. His face said happy and positive, but his eyes were calm. Yeah, definitely one of those socially awkward types.
She hoisted herself onto the table. ‘Um, Alannah usually starts with a heat pack,’ she informed him as she started to unbu
tton her blouse.
His smile faltered fractionally, almost too quickly for her to notice. ‘I usually do that after the massage,’ he told her, and his smile went to full wattage.
She nodded, looking down at her shirt. There was something about disrobing in front of a guy you’d only just met that was disconcerting. But he was a physiotherapist – practically a doctor, right? And they saw people naked all the time, just a professional quirk, right?
She looked up at him shyly. ‘Do you have a gown?’
His eyebrows rose. ‘A gown?’
She nodded. ‘Yeah, one of those terry-towelling, wraparound things?’
His smile turned decidedly brittle. ‘Let me check my bag.’ He turned his back to her and rummaged around in the bag for a few minutes. ‘Nope, sorry, all out of gowns. She probably forgot to restock.’
Darcy sighed, then nodded. ‘Okay.’
He reached for the tub of moisturiser he’d placed on the side table, and squirted a measure into his hands.
His hands.
Darcy froze. He had calluses and rough skin – like a man who did hard physical work with his hands. Not smooth, sexy hands like Alannah claimed he had. Her gaze rose to his, and he looked at her intently.
‘Ready?’
Goosebumps rose on her skin, and she flinched at the unexpected tap at the door.
‘Come in,’ Darcy called out immediately, not taking her eyes off the man in front of her.
The door opened and Gertrude poked her head around the edge of the door. Darcy returned her gaze to the man.
‘Darcy? Alann— Oh, hello,’ the older woman said when she noticed the stranger in the room. ‘I was expecting to see Alannah.’
Darcy swallowed. She didn’t want Gertrude hurt, and the man’s gaze switched enquiringly to the housekeeper.
Runaway Lies Page 20