by Elise Noble
Yes, that was a good plan.
CHAPTER 17 - SLOANE
“WANT ME TO check the house before I go?” Logan offered.
“I’ll be fine.” Because if I invited Logan in, I’d never ask him to leave. “Honestly. Edna spends Thursdays gardening, and she’s good at keeping an eye on the place.”
“Any problems, call me. You’re still wearing your necklace, right?”
I fingered the pendant nestled above my breastbone. “Sure am.”
He squeezed my hand before taking a step back, and a rush of warmth and regret flooded through me. Everything was messed up inside. Jumbled. But then he backed up another step, and resolve battled through the rest of my feelings and came out on top.
I needed space to think.
The rumble of Logan’s truck engine receded into the distance as I walked inside, leaving only silence. With Edna out, I didn’t even have the faint sound of her TV coming through the wall for company, and the loudest noise in my home was the hum coming from the refrigerator. Where was Nickel? I’d left the window cracked open, so he could be anywhere. Occasionally, he even got stuck at Edna’s if he snuck inside and she didn’t notice.
“Nickel?” I called out. Nothing.
He liked to go outside, but he never ventured farther than a couple of backyards away. What was it they said about pets being like their owners? I tipped Kitty Krunchies into a bowl and rattled them out of the back door.
“Nickel? Dinner time.”
Only silence.
Well, he’d come in when he was hungry. Unless he finally decided to eat one of those darn mice he kept catching. I relished the breeze drifting in as I turned on the tiny TV beside the microwave to give myself some company. News…infomercials…a reality show… Finally, I settled on a sitcom rerun and got out a package of pasta. Then I put it back. I was hopeless at judging quantities, which meant dinner for one always turned into dinner for two, and my jeans were quite tight enough already. A baked potato would be much healthier, and I could run the vacuum cleaner around while it cooked. Then I needed to put the laundry on.
Except before I could get the vacuum cleaner out of the hall closet, the doorbell rang. An involuntary buzz ran through me. Had Logan come back? I rushed to check through the peephole, only to find a stranger standing there. A man around my age, hair slicked back above a face whose tan looked to have come from a salon rather than the great outdoors. His red-and-black checked shirt was pristine. A city cowboy. Who was he? For a moment I thought of Desmond and his fake photo, but this guy’s hair was brown rather than blond.
My heart thumped, but ignoring him would have been rude and he’d probably seen my shadow through the little frosted glass panel at the top of the door. Besides, he didn’t look like a murderer, more of a car salesman.
Once the chain was securely in place, I opened the door a crack. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Jeff Peterson?”
“I think you’ve got the wrong address.”
“You don’t have a dining table for sale?”
“Sorry, but no.” Mine came with the house, and the chipped wood had seen better days. Nobody in their right mind would pay money for it.
“This isn’t 107 Walnut Road?”
Ah, a simple mix-up. “No, this is Walnut Avenue. People make that mistake all the time. Walnut Road is about two miles in that direction.” I realised he couldn’t see me and opened the door as wide as I could with the chain on, then pointed again. “That way. East.”
“Apologies for disturbing you, ma’am. Have a good evening.”
“You too.”
Okay, panic over. I was so jumpy nowadays. All the little problems this week had added up, leaving me drained and liable to overreact at the smallest thing. Relax, Sloane. I poured myself a glass of red and took a sip to calm my nerves before I started the chores. Mom always used to sing whenever she got stressed, and with Edna out, the noise didn’t matter, so I belted out Gloria Gaynor as I pushed the vacuum cleaner around the hallway. Yes, I’d survive. I’d been through worse and come out the other side.
Have you ever been swimming in the sea and trodden on something weird that’s not supposed to be there? Where first your heart seizes, and when your limbs start working again, you do that crazy mad dash out of the water in case it’s a shark or a prehistoric monster?
If you have, you can imagine how I felt when I backed into the man standing at the foot of my stairs. First came that moment of “no, this can’t be real,” followed by paralysis, and then I leapt for the kitchen door, heart pounding.
I didn’t make it.
He grabbed my wrist and yanked me back, and I caught a glimpse of red and black as he threw me face-first onto the floor. The cowboy. I opened my mouth to scream, but he smushed my face into the carpet.
“Don’t make a sound.”
Blood gushed in my ears as he put a knee on my back, holding me down. Why? What? Who was he? And more importantly, how the hell was I going to get out of this one?
I’d sent Logan away. The one man who could have helped me, and I’d sent him away. Then my fuzzy brain remembered the pendant. I tried to push the button, but when I bent my hand underneath myself, the cowboy pulled it back. The chain snapped, and the whole necklace flew across the hallway and landed by the side table where I kept the mail.
“Keep still, Marilyn. Or should I call you Sloane?”
Marilyn? This was the second man to call me Marilyn in a week. What was going on? I didn’t understand, and as he snapped one handcuff around my wrist and clicked the other around the bannister, the only thing I knew for sure was that I was in big trouble.
My shoulder burned as he shoved me backwards against the stairs, and I got my first good look at him as he rocked back on his heels.
Earlier, I’d thought he looked plain, nondescript, but now his eyes glittered with anger. Or madness. Perhaps both.
“W-w-what do you want?”
“First, I want my money back. Then I want all the things you promised me. You don’t lead a man on like that, then walk into the fucking sunset. Nobody does that shit to Jerry Olson and gets away with it. I always get my woman. Always.”
I went to scream again, and he punched me hard in the jaw. My ears rang, but the noise was eclipsed by Jerry’s howl of pain as Nickel flew down the stairs and launched himself at the man’s face, claws out. But my brave little cat’s efforts were short-lived. With a yell, Jerry tore him away and kicked him across the hallway, where he hit the wall with a sickening thump.
Please, Nickel, be okay.
He lay still for a few seconds, then staggered towards the kitchen, but on the way, he stepped on… Did he? Oh, say he stepped on the pendant. Would one little kitty paw be enough to activate it?
All I could do was hope as Jerry straightened up.
“Thought you were so clever, didn’t you? Hiding behind your fancy computer and preying on innocent men.”
I almost choked. “Innocent? You just broke into my house.”
“You left the window open and the key in the door lock. Couldn’t have been easier.”
Oh, heck. I thunked my head against the wall, wondering how hard I’d have to hit it to knock myself out. How could I have been so stupid?
“B-b-but you’ve handcuffed me.”
He shrugged. “You told me you enjoyed men being rough. Or did you lie about that too?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Stop lying!” he roared.
Okay, okay, don’t antagonise the psycho. I tried meek instead. “I’m sorry.”
He stepped forward and bent a little to cup my cheek. When I jerked my head away, he dug his nails in and glared at me.
“I liked you, Marilyn. I thought you were different from the others, but you’re not. Women only ever want one thing.”
“What thing?”
“Money. I sent you cash to repair your car and bought you a plane ticket. Three hours I waited at the airport, bu
t you never showed up.”
I still didn’t know what he was talking about. I mean, obviously he’d got me confused with somebody else, but I didn’t want to ask for more details in case it made him angry again.
He knelt now, and warm breath washed over my face. Yuck—he was a smoker.
“Where I’m from, nothing comes for free. If a man gives a woman money, it’s a down payment for services not yet rendered.” He caressed my cheek again, only this time his hand meandered lower and brushed against my breast. “And I intend to collect.”
Oh hell, oh hell, oh hell. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t. Freaking. Breathe.
His hand went lower, lower, and I writhed away, pulling at my cuffed wrist, but whoever built this house had done a solid job because the bannister didn’t even rattle. I tried kicking, then punching, but that only earned me another slap that made me see stars as he tore at my top. The flimsy fabric ripped, and his sick smile as he stared at me in my bra wasn’t something I’d ever forget. His body weight held me against the stairs, and I couldn’t move an inch.
“We’re gonna have fun, Marilyn. You and me, we’re gonna have fun.”
“Please no,” I whispered as he fondled me again, this time touching my bare flesh.
He didn’t stop, and I couldn’t watch. I screwed my eyes shut, bile rising in my throat, but suddenly Jerry’s hand disappeared, then his weight, and my eyelids flew open when I heard a splintering crash.
What the…?
Jerry lay crumpled on the remains of my side table, and as Logan rained blows down on him, he curled up in a foetal position, whimpering. Then Emmy was there, and Ana, the pair of them pulling Logan away from his prey. I thought he was going to take a swing for Emmy too, such was his fury, but then Ana kicked his legs out from underneath him and he landed on the floor with a thump. Before I could blink, Emmy had him in some sort of armlock.
Seconds. The whole thing had taken seconds, and now there was total silence. None of the Blackwood team was even breathing hard.
I’d worked with Emmy for years, but I rarely saw her or any of the other Special Projects people in action. Her eyes were cold and clinical as she assessed the scene, but Ana’s were worse. Her dead expression made my guts clench, even though she was on my side. I leaned to my left and vomited.
“Let me up,” Logan growled.
“Only if you keep your hands off our new friend here,” Emmy told him. “I don’t have the time or the inclination to deal with a murder charge tonight.”
Ana poked Jerry with her foot. “He’s unconscious.”
Emmy kept herself between the two men when she released Logan, and before I could properly process what had happened, my hand was free and I was curled into his lap. My arms wound around his neck of their own accord, hanging onto my lifeline.
“Are you okay?” he murmured.
I shook my head, and then the tears came. A whole river of them, gushing out and soaking Logan’s black T-shirt.
“I-I-I’m sorry.”
He hugged me tighter, kissing my hair. “Nothing to be sorry for, kitten.”
But there was. Even now, bruises were beginning to form on his knuckles, streaks of red and purple and a trickle of blood.
“You got hurt.”
He followed my gaze. “This? This is nothing. I’ve had worse in training.”
Someone settled a blanket around my shoulders, and I looked up to see Emmy.
“What do you want us to do with him?” she asked. “Do you want the police involved, or shall we deal with it?”
Good question. My first instinct was send that man to jail, but years of working at Blackwood had taught me to look at situations like this from another perspective. I swiped at my tears with my fingers and forced myself to think. I didn’t have any lasting damage, just a swollen jaw and bruises on my wrist from the handcuff. Jerry hadn’t broken in. Logan’s only damage was to his knuckles, and Jerry looked like tenderised meat. If the cops came, who were they most likely to arrest? That’s right: Logan. Even if we could persuade them of Jerry’s guilt, any court case would drag on for months, and he’d probably get off with a slap on the wrist.
“Can you deal with it?” I asked Emmy.
Beside her, Ana smiled, and that scared me more than anything.
“Sure, we’ll deal with it.”
Logan shifted underneath me. “Let’s get you out of here.” Another kiss, this time to my forehead. “Good thing you pressed the button when you did.”
Oh, hell. Nickel!
“I didn’t. The necklace came off and Nickel stepped on it. Jerry kicked him across the hallway, and I think he might be injured.”
“Did you see where he went?”
“To the kitchen.”
“The cuntnugget’s called Jerry?” Emmy asked.
“Jerry Olson, he told me. He could have been lying, though. He kept saying I’d stolen money from him, and something about a plane ticket, and—”
“We’ll sort it out. Go with Logan and look for the cat, yeah?”
Logan lifted me up and set me on my feet, one arm wrapped around my waist to steady me. I tugged the blanket tighter together, all too aware that I was half-naked.
“Here.” He peeled off his T-shirt and held it out towards me. “Put this on.”
My legs buckled a bit because not only had the evening’s events left me shaken, now I had the glorious sight of Logan’s torso to contend with. Emmy helped out by poking my hands through the armholes, and I inhaled Logan’s scent. A hint of aftershave, sandalwood maybe, but mostly the shirt just smelled of him. Funny how the small things could make a bad situation better, wasn’t it?
“Let’s go search for Nickel,” Logan said. “I’m sure he’ll be okay.”
I hung onto him as we headed for the kitchen. My legs wouldn’t have held me up otherwise.
CHAPTER 18 - LOGAN
FURY COURSED THROUGH Logan’s veins as he helped Sloane into the kitchen. Part of him wanted to go back into the hallway and finish what he’d started—bodies weren’t that hard to hide if you knew how—but the realist in him knew that wasn’t a good idea. Firstly, because murdering a man in Sloane’s hallway wouldn’t exactly endear Logan to her, and secondly, because no punishment he could inflict would be worse than what Emmy and Ana could dish out. Yes, he’d leave this one to the masters.
“Does Nickel have somewhere he goes to hide?” he asked.
Sloane took a few seconds to answer. Was she going into shock? Logan paused in the kitchen to check her colour under the lights. Pale as fuck. Shit. Sloane wasn’t used to dealing with this kind of stuff, and as long as Logan lived, he vowed she never would be. He’d take care of her, starting with ice for her face.
“He rarely goes farther than the yard.”
“Do you have a flashlight?”
“In the cupboard next to the back door.”
It was still light outside, but Sloane’s yard looked like a fucking jungle with all the overgrown trees and weeds. She clung to Logan with one arm and pressed a packet of frozen peas to her jaw with the other as he shone the light under bushes and behind the carcasses of plants whose chlorophyll had long since departed this earth. From the way her fingers trembled, he knew what she was thinking.
“He’ll be okay, kitten.”
“He was limping, and he couldn’t run very fast.”
“It might have been the shock of what happened.”
“I left the window open,” she whispered. “For Nickel, and that man just reached in and unlocked the door.”
Logan stroked her hair as anger flared inside him again. “Shh. Don’t blame yourself. Nobody but that fucker is responsible for what he did.”
“But—”
“Did you see movement?”
“Where?”
Logan crouched next to the shed. “Behind that tree stump.”
The whole thing was covered in cobwebs, but one side of the tangle was ragged, as if something cat-sized had recently crashed through.
/> “I can’t see him,” Sloane said.
“I’ll take a closer look. Talk to him, would you? He knows your voice.” And Logan would rather avoid getting clawed by an upset cat if at all possible. No matter what he’d said to Sloane, his hands really fucking hurt.
As he reached into the darkness, a spider the size of a dinner plate skittered across his arm and Sloane leapt back three feet. Her voice hitched as she chattered away to the cat, telling him she loved him and tomorrow they could do all his favourite things. Was it bad that Logan wanted to be a cat right now?
His fingers touched fur, and the cat wriggled farther away. Logan closed his hand around the scruff of Nickel’s neck, trying to avoid the legs Sloane thought might be injured.
“Easy, little guy. I won’t hurt you.”
Logan withdrew his arm, pulling the trembling cat and a couple more spiders with it. He batted them away as Sloane dropped to her knees beside him.
“Is he okay?”
Logan didn’t need to be a veterinarian to see that one of Nickel’s hind legs was sticking out at an unnatural angle, but he didn’t want to alarm Sloane any more than necessary.
“I think we should take him to the animal hospital.”
The poor little bastard squeaked in pain as Logan stood up and headed for the house, Sloane following at his heels. He couldn’t vault over the fence to the street the way he’d come in, not with a cat in his arms, which meant they’d have to go out through the house since Sloane’s side gate was overgrown with brambles. And they’d have to walk through the hallway. Logan really didn’t want to see what Emmy and Ana were doing to Jerry Olson, and he wanted Sloane to witness it even less. On the bright side, he hadn’t heard any screams.
He soon found out why.
“What the hell are you doing?” Logan asked from the kitchen doorway with Sloane tucked safely behind him.
They’d used a technique known as the Savaki Meat Hook, a form of torture invented by the old Iranian secret police, the SAVAK, and used in Tehran’s Evin Prison in the 1970s. It involved stretching a man’s arms straight out behind him, tying them at the wrists, and using a rope to raise them higher, higher, until the victim was standing on tiptoes, with a meat hook through the knot and a pulley attached to the ceiling. Men tended to talk real fast in that position.