Watching Her

by Harlem Dae

  But why hadn’t he come on to me? Maybe I should be grateful he hadn’t. After all, he’d been employed to do a job, so he’d said—looking out for me—and fucking me at the same time might put him off his game. Might even be against the rules. Fuck my daughter and you’re sacked. Still, a quick fumble wouldn’t have hurt, and because he hadn’t come on to me, I was even more determined to make sure he did.

  Yes, I was just a little messed up.

  I stared past Linus and his pumping muscles, into the distance at a bunch of short bushes that reminded me of broccoli. Behind them stood majestic palms, all wavering leaves, and beyond them, a grand house, the roof the colour of over-brewed tea. It seemed that was the style here. Another three rooftops were dotted around, neighbours all sharing the river front.

  I suddenly needed tea. The British kind, with milk and sugar. Hot. The drink that could make everything better, or so they said. Inside that house—if we were even headed inside—I could lick my wounds and try to make more sense of my situation. Perhaps we were to be holed up there, hiding for a while, until Father or Sutton decided it was time for me to return to England. Despite the terror I’d been through on this ghastly trip, I didn’t want to return yet. I was stubborn—overly so at times—but, damn it, this was my life. It should be my decision where I went and when, and right now I’d made no plan to be here in Clearwater on day ten, hour seven of my trip.

  A clatter from below deck had me turning to look down the stairs. Sutton appeared, just his hair visible, a shaft of sunlight sneaking down into the depths and landing on one side of his head.

  “What are you doing up here?” He climbed the steps without holding on to the rails then came to stand beside me. “I thought you were in your room.”

  “No, and duh, I’m up here waiting for you.” What else did he think I was doing?

  He glanced at Linus. Ah. Did Sutton really think I’d be molesting the mute, grabbing another quick fumble or two before we departed? Was that how I came across, as totally sex-mad? Of course I did. And did I care? At one time I wouldn’t have, but lately… Hmm, lately, strange feelings had crept in, making me question myself and what I was about. I knew why I craved sex—no one else needed to.

  To make myself someone she would despise when she got older. A woman no one would want to claim they were related to. Or was that a lie?

  Perhaps.

  “You should have waited in your room until I came for you,” he said.

  Now there was an innuendo and a half. I held back a smirk.

  “Came for me?”

  “Don’t,” he said.

  “I wouldn’t dream of it.” I smiled at him.

  He didn’t return it. Instead, he scowled. “That house. Our home for the next week. It isn’t safe to hit the road again yet.”

  “But I thought that was the plan, to hit the road.”

  “Plans change.”

  I tutted. “The thing is, it isn’t safe anywhere. The Albino will find us, I’m certain of it.” I leaned across to whisper. “Are you sure you can trust Marion? I mean, Linus, yes, because he can’t tell anyone anything, but is she trustworthy?” I thought about her for a second, then, “She comes across as burly and brash, but most people will cave under pressure. If there’s more than the Albino after me, we could have been spotted boarding the boat. They might get hold of her when she returns.”

  “They might. But she won’t be returning to St Lucia.”

  His face… His expression darkened, and he swallowed, staring at Linus as though wondering if he had the strength to take the big man down.

  Suddenly he didn’t look like Sutton anymore. My Sutton, who sat awkwardly at the pool bar stirring his blue drink and squirming at my shenanigans and teasing.

  “Um…?” I raised my eyebrows. My mind was churning with possibilities, all of them dark, and I couldn’t quite believe the one that shouted the loudest. It wasn’t possible. Was it?

  “You’re right, we have to be very careful who we trust, if anyone,” he said quietly.

  Dear God…

  “What have you done to her?” I rubbed my fingertips over the pads of my thumbs.

  “Who?” He frowned.

  “Marion, of course.

  “Nothing, Claudine.” He clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. “She is perfectly fine.”

  I didn’t believe him. I felt sick to my stomach. There had to be another avenue. Pay them off. Tell them to go far away. What the hell was going on here? This was more than someone coming after me for kidnapping and ransom. It had to be. Why else would my so-called bodyguard be prepared to murder? And more to the point, what the fuck was my father into? “I need more of an explanation, a reason—a reason why this is happening. All of it.”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Convenient,” I whispered, the word a rasp on my throat. “And for the record, I won’t be a party to this.”

  “Party to what?”

  “Don’t treat me like a kid. I’ve got a brain, you know.” I tapped the side of my head. “And eyes.”

  He looked at me as though I were an alien entity, an unhinged woman, a truly hysterical child.

  I turned, not wanting his study, his pity or to be in his company.

  But I would be an accessory in this. Just knowing he’d ‘removed’ Marion and Linus from the equation made me culpable. Just being here. I’d be guilty by association and have to accept accountability for doing nothing to prevent two people being killed in cold blood.

  Murdered.

  Could I live with that? Add it to the rest of the baggage I carried around every day that created a hollow in my chest that would never be filled?

  How is he going to kill Linus?

  That thought blustered into my mind, and the nausea that was swarming over me increased.

  I stared at Linus. Wanted to warn him. Tell him to get off the boat and run as fast as he could. Run for his life. Don’t look back.

  I turned to Sutton. The movement happened in slow motion, as though the world had ceased to exist at its usual pace. His attention was on Linus.

  I clasped my hands over my mouth, swallowed down the acrid taste of bile that flooded the back of my tongue.

  “Get off the boat, Claudine,” he said.

  “I don’t want to. I don’t want you to hurt him.” I spoke through my fingers, and those words sounded wispy, no substance to them. Something very wrong was happening here. Something that had nothing to do with me, yet I was embroiled in it, cocooned by swathes of deceit—deceit not of my creation. What was happening was big, bigger than me being a wayward daughter and my father being over-protective. I only knew a fraction of the story; fuck, I was still on the first damn page.

  “I wish you would do as you were damn well told,” Sutton said. “Just once.”

  He left me then, to walk to the stern and stand beside Linus. Said something, no doubt a ruse about payment to trick him into thinking all was okay. He gestured for him to follow, and I watched them, mute myself, walk past me to the top of the stairs. I knew what was coming. I could stop it if I wanted to. I could shout, scream, pound on Sutton’s shoulders and tell Linus everything. Once the words were out into the air there’d be no taking them back. But I didn’t make any move to do so. I stood stagnant, my fingers pressed to my lips, holding in words that could save a man’s life. A man I’d allowed to enter me, pleasure me, only hours ago. Why was I doing nothing?

  Sutton pointed at the stairs.

  Linus went down, and at the bottom, he turned and stared at me. His expression was one of sadness—I presumed it was because Sutton and I were leaving, that he’d never see me again, that this job was over.

  It’s more than the job being over…

  I broke eye contact, feeling selfish and wicked for letting this…this continue. I cared more about myself and my right to live than his. I’d always been self-centered, but to this degree? Clearly, I would do anything to survive, and right now that’s all I could think of.

&nbs
p; I walked away, hearing Sutton also go down the stairs. I leaned against the railing, glaring out at the water, cringing at the idea of hearing a gunshot or a cry of pain. I clamped my teeth, closed my stinging eyes, and waited.

  A thump, that was all. Just a thumping sound that resembled a cupboard door banging. I swallowed. Swallowed again. And vowed to never, never forgive my father for this if it had indeed been done on his instruction. Linus had committed no crime. Neither had Marion. Yet them helping us had led to their untimely end. And all because they had to be silenced in order to keep me safe. I wanted to be safe, of course I did, and, I admitted, at the expense of someone else, but death? That was a heady cocktail to deal with. I didn’t fancy sipping from that particular crystal glass in the future, but what if I had to?

  Footsteps, steady thuds, eight of them in all. Then more, coming across the deck. I felt him behind me, the murderer, sensed his presence, and my skin prickled. I should hate him. I should fear for my life. But despite him not jumping into the sea after me, he had finally shown me who I must trust. To a degree. He had killed to protect me. Twice. And I had let him. What did that say about me? What did that say about him and who I’d thought he was? I wasn’t going to analyse it, not right then, maybe not ever. Some things were too painful to contemplate. But he’d been prepared to follow extreme orders. The only question remaining was: Had he followed them for my father or someone else?

  Either way, I was alive and they weren’t.

  “We need to get you up to the house,” he said, voice showing no emotion whatsoever. “Then I’ll have to come back to the boat.”

  “To do what?” I spun round to face him. “Mutilate them? Chop them up into tiny pieces? Do you get a kick out of this shit?”

  “Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “Seriously?”

  “Do you like it that murder is a part of your job?”

  “I have killed.” He frowned and gripped my shoulders. “And I’m not proud of that fact. But sometimes it’s a case of kill or be killed in this game.”

  “Game. Life is not a game. Once you’re dead you can’t start playing again, from the beginning. Death is death, it’s over.” Funny how my thoughts had changed. I’d convinced myself once that life was a game, but now? I stared at him, into the depths of his eyes. I’d thought I was getting to know him, now he seemed like a stranger.

  “Sometimes it’s better to view my career as a game. It’s easier to live with.”

  “But if you don’t like it, why have this job?”

  He shrugged. Shifted his gaze to the water. “I’m not the type of bloke to sit behind a desk pushing paper.”

  “I agree, but…”

  “Just drop it.” He glanced back up at me. “You don’t know me, or anything about me or what I’m capable of.”

  “Do you care about anyone on this planet, Sutton? Anyone at all?” I flicked my head towards the entrance to the lower deck. “And what about a moral compass, eh? Do you even have one?”

  “My moral compass points dead north.” He narrowed his eyes and set his jaw. “Now come on, we’ve been out in the open too long already.” He stepped away and swung his attention around the vicinity.

  “So take me to the house,” I said. Jesus, did he really think he was justified in his actions?

  I picked up my belongings, which had been shoved into a couple of bin liners, then followed him onto the jetty. It creaked as we walked over the slats, and I inspected the other boat, a little one that was probably used for days out. The top was covered in a snug, fitted tarpaulin. Green. Whoever owned it cared about keeping it pristine.

  “Your father’s,” he said.

  I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was. “And the house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?” I stared up at it.

  “Why would I make that up?”

  Darkness slithered through my mind. What else didn’t I know about my father? What other properties did he own in different, far-flung places across the globe that I had no knowledge of? Why had we not holidayed here, spent time enjoying the Florida sunshine as I’d grown up? Or had it been a recent purchase?

  So many bloody questions.

  Sutton led the way across a large expanse of grass—thick, needle-straight blades watered by a discreet irrigation system, I imagined. Someone must live here, or at least come every so often to tend to the house and grounds. Were they up there now, spying out of a window, watching our approach? A shiver ripped through me, and the heat of the morning may as well not have been surrounding us. I was cold everywhere, the sheen of sweat on my body drying up in an instant. My hair stood on end as we neared the property, and I couldn’t shake the feeling we were being monitored.

  “We’re alone,” Sutton said. “So don’t panic.”

  “I’m not.” I was relieved no one else was here, but at the same time apprehensive. ‘We’re alone.’ Which meant Sutton could do whatever the hell he liked to me. And now I knew what he was…what he was capable of…

  Am I next on his hit list?

  “I shall be speaking to my father as soon as possible,” I said. If I’d have called him before my phone battery had gone flat, got confirmation that Sutton was his man, I wouldn’t have had to torment myself with whether to trust him.

  “That won’t be possible,” he said, his voice stronger than before, almost unrecognisable from the man he’d been at the hotel. Now he sounded like a person who was used to being obeyed, to being listened to, giving orders maybe.

  “Why not?” I stumbled on nothing, my ankle twisting a little. It was sore, but I continued, not willing to show him any weakness. “It’s not up to you. I’ll use my mobile.”

  “I’ve taken your mobile.” He straightened his shoulders and walked faster.

  All I had was the sight of his back to stare daggers at. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me.”

  “So not only have you wrecked one designer bag, got rid of my Louis Vuitton luggage, probably forever, you’ve now taken something that belongs to me? Why, you…” Fucking bastard was what I’d been about to say, but I bit those words off. “Give it back.”

  “No.” He upped his speed.

  The heat returned to suffocate me, the relentless sun plus a spume of blood-boiling anger that roiled like the waves had during the night. Who the hell did he think he was?

  “And why not?” I demanded.

  “I can’t.”

  “At the risk of repeating myself—again, why not?”

  “It’s in the ocean.”

  “I don’t bloody believe this.” I wanted to punch him so hard. “You fed my phone to the fish. That’s got everything on it, all my contacts. I’ve given that damn number out to suppliers, for heaven’s sake. What is the point of doing my sourcing trip if I don’t get home with suppliers’ numbers?” I had all my numbers written in my notebook, but I wanted him to feel guilty. The only one I wouldn’t have was the flower lady in the market, but that was okay. I’d hire someone to speak with her—maybe Alberto would do it for me—and get her to call me again. Plus, my service provider would sort out my number so I could use it on a new phone.

  “If I thought you’d believe me I’d say I was sorry.”

  “So you’re not?”

  “No, it was for your own good.”

  “How can sinking my phone be for my own good?”

  “Because phones are easily trackable. You may as well have a Belisha beacon over your head telling the world your whereabouts.”

  “What? How?”

  “It’s not rocket science. Anyone criminal with a bit of know-how can hack a phone.

  Fuck, this man was maddening. I could have just turned the damn thing off, couldn’t I? Or could the damn things be tracked even then?

  The grass ahead was split in the middle by a gravel-covered path. Sutton stepped onto it, crunching his way closer to the house, which sat perhaps thirty metres away. Broad, two-storeys, and worth a fortune by the look of it. Cream-coloured with b
lack closed shutters. So no one had been staring at us through the windows, then.

  “Why do I feel we’re being watched?” I asked, crunching over the gravel myself.

  “Because we are.”

  “Oh, and will whoever is watching be bumped off?” Sarcasm was my friend. It had moved right in with anger and confusion, put on a pair of slippers, rested back, and lit a damn cigarette.

  “Not unless you plan on killing a surveillance system.”

  “Well it wouldn’t be me doing the killing.” I huffed out a breath, not wanting to put into words that he’d murdered Marion and Linus. My cheeks were raging hot, and I was dying for a shower, not least to get rid of the smell of a dead man that was lurking on me like an apparition. Sweat at the base of my neck meant my hair was sticking to my skin, and, for God’s sake, I wanted out of this nightmare. I wanted to go back to flower selecting, not gallivanting off course, sequestered in a sprawling Florida mansion, for want of a better word.

  “So why can’t I contact my father—on another phone?” I prodded. It wasn’t often I wanted to hear my father’s plummy voice and listen to the permanently disappointed tone that ran through his words, but right now I did.

  “Because he doesn’t want to speak to you at the moment.”

  That should have hurt, but it didn’t.

  A lifetime of a father not wanting to speak to you would do that.

  Chapter Eleven

  The house was as to be expected. Opulent. It had nuances of Juniper Hall, touches of England that would give an outsider a big clue that someone powerful and rich, possibly titled, owned the place. The sight of a replica painting from the house I’d grown up in sickened me. It hung on the wall in the foyer, a bird in midflight, a soaring eagle that had talons and a mean glint in its eye.

  It resembled Father to me now.

  Why the hell didn’t he want to talk to me? He must know what I’m going through. That I’d be scared.

  The cream-tiled floor was a far cry from Juniper Hall, though. Axminister was the order of the day there, somewhat gaudy carpet designs that hadn’t been updated for years. Father said it gave the air of old money, superiority. At one time I’d thought he was right. Today, I thought he was a jumped-up snoot who had dragged me into something dodgy, without my consent, and was avoiding me.