“I don’t drink tea with murderers,” Lizzie spat.
“He didn’t murder anyone!” Amy shouted.
For the thousandth time, Jason was grateful that they didn’t have any immediate neighbours. “For the record, that’s the truth.”
“Why did you run then? Why haven’t you turned yourself in?” Lizzie said accusingly.
“Because someone’s trying to kill me,” Jason said, then added, “Someone other than you.”
“So who broke you out of the van? The Tooth Fairy?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out,” Amy said. “We’re wasting time, Lizzie. Time Jason doesn’t have. Give me back my sword and fuck off.”
“No way,” Lizzie said firmly. “If he’s staying, I’m staying. You’re not going to be victim number four.”
Jason hadn’t expected that condition. “Staying?”
“Then you put the sword down,” Amy said, steel in her voice. “And hand over your phone.”
They stared each other down, while Jason tried his best to look both nonthreatening and able to protect Amy if it came down to it.
Slowly, Lizzie lowered the sword before dumping it on the table.
“And the phone?”
“Amy—”
“Now.”
Jason had never heard Amy sound like this, so determined and definite. And it was all for him.
Lizzie reluctantly drew her phone out of her pocket and threw it on the table beside the sword.
Amy immediately snatched it up and fiddled with the settings, no doubt making it invisible to the NSA and all other law enforcement. She pocketed it before turning her back on her sister.
“Jason, put the kettle on. I need to tap my sources for information on this Zook character. Maybe that will scare up some leads.”
Jason glanced at Lizzie awkwardly, before moving into the kitchen to fill the kettle. If Amy wanted to pretend everything was fine, he wasn’t going to provoke her. He needed Amy functional if they were ever going to get through this.
He emerged with three mugs of tea and set one on the coffee table beside Lizzie, next to the katana. “Sugar’s in the kitchen.”
“She doesn’t take sugar,” Amy said absently, fiddling with the iPad. Jason guessed she’d prefer to work remotely rather than let Lizzie know exactly how far he’d intruded into their family secrets.
Lizzie slid into his armchair, leaving Jason to sit beside Amy on the sofa, between the two sisters. The silence was tense, uneasy, but Amy didn’t seem to notice, tapping away on the iPad.
While she worked, Jason tidied up the kitchen, ignoring Lizzie’s poisonous looks. He was dying for a shower and a fresh change of clothes, but he was reluctant to let the woman out of his sight. He didn’t think she’d hurt Amy but she might make a grab for the phone, alert the cops to protect her baby sister from his murderous hands. Jason couldn’t risk that, didn’t think he had the strength for another night on the run—and knew Amy could never survive a night in a jail cell.
“No local chatter,” Amy muttered after a few hours, mostly to herself. “If Zook is a person or organisation, they’re not making digital waves in Cardiff.”
“Maybe he’s a new player?” Lizzie said.
Jason was instinctively annoyed at her question, intruding into that mystery-solving zone usually reserved for Amy and him. “It takes time to become a name in Cardiff,” he said. “He’d need roots here, connections.”
“Could it be an alias for Stuart? Or Madhouse Mickey?” Amy wondered aloud.
“This isn’t Shakespeare,” Jason said. “You call a rose a rose around here—the name brings the reputation. What’s the point of using another?”
They lapsed into silence, Amy still tapping away.
Amy’s pocket buzzed. She glanced at Lizzie and pulled out her phone—and set it aside. She pulled out her own and checked it. “Huh.”
Jason learned over to look. Amy cover me with badge pls. Going into lions den.
[[[“Who’s that?” he asked, as Amy hurriedly called up an app on her iPad.
“Where is she going? Idiot.” Amy impatiently tapped the arm of the sofa as she waited for a connection, a blank loading screen on the tablet.
“Who?” Jason asked, but already his mind was reaching a terrifying conclusion. He only knew one idiotic woman of their acquaintance. “Not Cerys...”
The feed staticked to life, a grainy video of the outside of a ramshackle pub that Jason knew by reputation alone and the distorted sound of his sister’s voice spluttering from the tablet. “Going in now, so hope you’re reading this. Only call the police if it’s really desperate. Sure you’ve got Jason out of worse scrapes.”
Jason felt the bottom fall out of his stomach as Cerys walked into the pub and looked around. She pushed past a group of stoned, tattooed blokes and then stopped.
Stuart Williams was propping up the bar.
“I’m going after her.” Jason stood up before he’d thought it through, marching into the kitchen to grab his keys.
“You are not!” Amy shouted after him, her voice taut and desperate, but Jason was unstoppable.
“That’s my sister talking to a fucking drug dealer who tried to kill me.”
“You’re a wanted man!”
“It’s Cerys!”
“It’s not safe!”
“She’s not safe!”
“I’ll go with him.”
Jason and Amy both turned to stare at Lizzie. “You what?”
“I’ll back you up. And stop you screwing over my sister by legging it.”
Amy looked like her world was falling apart, but Jason had no time to reassure. “You rode pillion before?” he asked Lizzie.
“Once or twice.”
“You can’t...” Amy said weakly, but it wasn’t up for discussion.
Lizzie held out her hand. Amy removed Lizzie’s phone from her pocket and handed it back, the sisters sharing a tense moment of staring and silence.
“We’re wasting time,” he said, moving towards the back door.
Amy seized his arm. “Be careful,” she begged, pressing the plastic smiley face badge into his hand.
“Keep watch,” he said, stuffing it into his pocket as he left with Lizzie on his heels.
Chapter Thirty-Nine: On a Steel Horse
Jason hopped over the balcony, Amy’s suspicious sister right behind him, and made a beeline for the Harley.
The bike was distinctive but it wasn’t sitting out front like the Micra, in full sight of the unmarked police car he’d glimpsed out of the attic window. The deep-throated roar of the vintage Harley-Davidson filled the air, the bike beloved of the American military in the 1940s and lovingly restored by his hand.
The rush of adrenaline dulled the pain of his injuries and he donated his sole helmet to Lizzie. He’d never carried a passenger before, but he’d modified the pillion in case Keira wanted a spin. Lizzie seemed at home on the bike, climbing on with ease and pointedly not holding his waist.
The back gates opened of their own accord—Amy already watching with her metal eyes—and they were away, speeding towards the heart of the city and his moronic sister. Maybe the death wish was genetic, but Jason had no desire to find out tonight.
The Harley’s top speed was around sixty, but he daren’t attract the attention of the cops. Full throttle was for Valleys back roads, not city streets. But his nerves were on edge, blood roaring in his ears, and he pushed it—weaving around the few cars, fewer buses, pushing, always pushing.
He’d skirted Llandaff during his late-night walk back to Amy, and the neat, moneyed streets were as deserted then as now. The rolling dark clouds spread from horizon to horizon, turning the gentle dusk into an early foreboding night. No one wanted to brave the storm to come.
Jason wished he had some way to communicate with Amy, to find out what she could see of Cerys, if she was... No, it was better this way. Better to hope than to know. The beautiful million-pound houses of Llandaff abruptly gave way to the cheap crowded terraces of Canton. A bare ten minutes later, Jason swung the Harley into the side street across from the dodgy pub and killed the engine. He and Dylan had accidentally wandered into that pub once and then hurried the fuck back out. From the outside, it looked like an old man pub, but inside it was full of hollow-eyed men and boys with scars and weapons poorly concealed beneath their coats.
Lizzie yelped as he dismounted, catching her with his boot.
“Stay with the bike,” he told her and half marched, half ran towards the pub’s front door.
Before an arm seized him and yanked him into an alley.
“What the fuck are you thinking?”
Jason blinked. “Cerys?!”
His sister let him go, fear and anger in her eyes—yet also relief. “Are you completely fucking insane? What are you doing showing your face anywhere, let alone here? Do you have a death wish or something?”
“Me?” Jason spluttered, sure his expression was a perfect mirror of hers. “You’re trying to score off Stuart bloody Williams after he tried to kill me!”
Cerys scowled. “I gave up that shit. Though it turns out that was a stupid mistake too.”
Jason had no idea what she was talking about. “Giving up coke was a mistake?”
Cerys hugged herself over her thin T-shirt and Jason shrugged off his leather jacket and handed it over. She resisted for half a second before hauling it on and nodding her thanks.
“I...I gave it to a friend. To dispose of it safely.” She bit her lip, nervous, looking younger than her nineteen years. “Except it sort of backfired on him.”
Jason gaped at her. “You gave that coke to Owain.”
Cerys turned away. “I know! I don’t know what I was thinking. I can’t believe they arrested him for it! He should’ve dobbed me in.”
“Why would you give it to him in the first place?”
“Because I panicked. I thought they would find it on me.”
“‘They’? What are you mixed up in, Cerys?” It was bad enough one of them getting into trouble without Cerys giving their poor mother grief as well.
But Cerys stood her ground, hands on hips, and stared him down. “It was meant to be a surprise. If they ever offered me the job.”
“What job?” Now Jason was really confused.
But Cerys looked hopeful, almost joyful. “The police recruitment board. I applied for training.”
“As a cop?” Jason felt like his world had been turned upside down. “Cerys, are you serious?”
“Serious as a seizure. Seeing what you do with Amy, it made me want to be part of it too. Except I’ve got a chance to be official—never been arrested, me. Owain’s been helping me out with my application, interview training and the like.”
Jason’s face broke into the biggest smile and he enfolded his baby sister in a massive hug. “You’re a fucking nutter but I’m well proud of you.”
Cerys returned the hug fiercely before shoving playfully at his shoulder. “Well, I haven’t got nothing yet. And if I can’t get Stuart to alibi Owain out for the prison van breakout, he’ll be fucked.”
Jason was incredulous. “Stuart Williams is Owain’s alibi?”
“Stuart saw me with Owain, started on him. I told the bastard to fuck off and he scarpered, but it means he saw him when they broke you out of the van.”
Jason’s brain struggled to process that information, his body threatening to crash as the adrenaline wore off. “Which means that Stuart also has you and Owain as an alibi. But why do you need Stuart?”
“Bryn texted me. He knew Owain had been helping me, even gave me a reference. We agreed that my word would count for nothing.”
“Because of me?” Jason hated how many people he’d tainted by association. First Amy, now Cerys—it was a miracle anyone still wanted him around. Cerys said nothing but he could see the truth of it in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Cerys.”
“Nah, don’t be.” She shrugged it off. It was amazing to him how much she had grown into a woman in the past six months. “You didn’t come out here to look after me, did you?
Jason glared at her. “Of course I bloody did!”
Cerys shoved him again. “Well, go back to whatever bolthole you crawled out of. I can take care of myself, all right?”
Another brief hug and he was alone in the alley. He watched her go, hurrying off in his jacket, as if she’d just been having a quick fag.
Jason resolved to fight for his sister’s future, and that was one more life on his conscience if he failed tonight.
“What are we waiting for?”
He started as Lizzie entered the alley, gesturing impatiently.
“I thought I told you to stay with the bike,” he said, ready to push past her and head back to Amy’s.
But three blokes were blocking the exit, their faces vaguely familiar. Stuart’s boys? Their faces were shadowed, the street light behind them shrouding them in darkness
Jason turned, herding Lizzie against the wall as he hid his face and hoped they hadn’t caught a glimpse. He wouldn’t see a blow coming but at least he could offer Lizzie the meagre protection of his body.
Which she didn’t seem to appreciate. “What are yo—”
Acting on instinct, Jason pressed forward and covered her mouth with his. He prayed to God she wasn’t going to kick anywhere too sensitive.
One of the blokes whistled, another laughed, and they squeezed past them, moving farther into the alley. Jason pulled back an inch from Lizzie’s shocked face and glanced sidelong at the men, who were carefully rolling something recreational in a cheap cigarette paper. Jason was painfully reminded that he hadn’t had a cigarette since he’d left prison, his whole body aching with the urge to taste.
One bloke looked up. Jason turned away so fast he thought he got whiplash—and then Lizzie kissed him.
She threw her body into it, arms flung around his neck and pressing herself against him. He pushed back, leaning her up against the wall and ghosting his hands over her hips. She was slender, but not scrawny like Amy, and he could taste the tobacco he’d been craving on her tongue.
The stringent smell of crack cocaine mixed with marijuana invaded his nostrils and Jason tried not to gag. Lizzie recoiled, screwing up her nose, before meeting his eyes questioningly. Jason realised they were the same startling green as Amy’s.
“Why are we smoking this shit? Where’s the white gone?”
“Online, would you believe it. Here, look.”
Jason tried to get a glimpse, but Lizzie threw her head back against the wall and he kissed her neck, trusting her to be his spy. Amy could never know about this.
“So the coppers can trace your address and your money? No ta, mate.”
“Totally anonymous,” the man insisted. “It uses some sort of online money and it showed up on my statement as a florist or some shit. Fucking brilliant.”
“Where’d you get that card anyway?”
“Men’s toilets at Koalas. There was a whole stack of them.”
“What are you doing in that Aussie shithole, mate?”
The blokes laughed together, the sound of clattering rubbish bins heralding their horseplay.
“Pipe down, you fuckers. You wanna bring the landlord down on us? Get back inside.”
Jason froze, his whole body taut. He knew that voice.
Lizzie, oblivious, murmured against his ear. “Little black business card, too much glare to get a good look.”
“We have to go,” Jason replied, finding her arm to haul her out of the alley as someone shoved past
him. They could make the bike before—
Stuart seized his shirt and slammed him into the wall. Lizzie screamed.
“Thought I wouldn’t recognise you, scum?”
Caught between the wall and Stuart’s muscle, Jason only had one choice. He surged forward and head-butted him, stunning him enough to throw him off. Jason turned and tried to leg it but Stuart caught his T-shirt and hauled him back.
“Don’t you fucking dare! You murdering bastard!”
Stuart swung him round and punched him. Jason felt his broken nose move with a sickening crack and got his hands up just in time to deflect the next punch.
“It wasn’t me!” Jason yelled, before spitting blood on the ground.
They circled each other, trying not to slip on the uneven trash-strewn ground. Jason was relieved that Lizzie had vanished.
Stuart sneered. “Save it for your lawyer. We know what you did.”
“Do you? Fuck, Stuart, I thought you did for him.”
Stuart howled and charged him. Jason dodged, letting the man crash into the bins. He realised then that Stuart had a few in him and was a little unsteady on his feet. Yet he was sure Stuart had taken down more men pissed out of his wits than Jason had sober.
“You were fucking there!” Jason continued, trying to get through. “You saw them shoot me up!”
“Don’t mean nothing! When that stuff’s in you, who knows what you’d do?”
“Sleep, you stupid fuck! It’s heroin, not fucking ‘roids.”
Stuart didn’t hear Jason’s protests and threw himself at him again. Jason wasn’t fast enough this time and Stuart caught him on the jaw, rattling his brain.
But Jason ducked up and under and smashed a blow into his ribs, another in his stomach. Stuart doubled over in pain and Jason dived round him, wrapping his elbow around the boy’s neck.
“You listen to me,” he said, pressing hard enough that the air started getting thin for Stuart. “Listen hard. I didn’t do for your boy. You should take a long, hard look at who you hang about with and ask why Mickey’s boys had his phone. Think on it.”
Code Runner (Amy Lane Mysteries Book 2) Page 22