“What about the money?” Roxy asked.
“There you go, the real reason he's helping us!” John added.
“What money?” Charlie said.
“You said Pinky had offered you thirty grand for her, how are you going to get it?”
“I'm not.”
Roxy started to laugh. “You're bullshitting me.”
“Leave it,” John growled.
“Leave it? You two need to raise a quarter of a million and you're turning away from an easy thirty grand. What the hell is wrong with you? Jesus, there was a time when you boys would take the girl, the money, and the kitchen sink.”
“Yeah well times change,” Charlie looked down at his leg in case Roxy still didn't get it.
“Did they have to remove your spine when you were in surgery?”
“That's it!” John was ready to strike.
Charlie pulled him aside. “Leave it.”
“He doesn't get to say shit like that,” John growled.
“But he's right. You know he's right.” Charlie stared his brother in the eye. He was too scared to take the job. Too scared to realise that he was past it. Too scared to make the gamble with another life in his hands. He stared at John, feeling like a coward and a fraud. His brother had stuck by him through everything for nothing.
John shook his head. “He's not.”
“I am right. You guys may be suffering some kind of brother amnesia but I remember how you guys worked, how we all worked together. You never backed down from a difficult job, you never took the easy way out, and there is no way Charlie would save the life of a girl he barely knows over his own daughter,” Roxy said.
Rachel couldn't believe it. The thought of Charlie sacrificing his own daughter made her heart sink. She glared at Charlie, feeling like it was her own flesh and blood he was putting on the line. Charlie wanted to explain himself, but it was too late.
“Get the fuck out!” John yelled at Roxy before he could stir up more trouble.
“This is my fucking garage, you get out!”
“Shut up!” Rachel screamed. Her voice hit them in waves, slapping each one into silence. “You're all acting like goddamn children!”
Each man stared at her as though they had never seen her before. The plain girl who had shifted so easily into the background was now in charge.
“I am not going to a convent,” she told them. “So factor that into your plan.”
“The convent is safe…” Charlie started
“I spent half my life in a convent, Charlie. I know exactly what it is.”
“Not all orgies and ritual sacrifice then?” Roxy chirped.
“Do you think I'd be so set against going if it was?” Rachel sighed.
Charlie rubbed his face desperately. “Then I can't keep you safe.”
“You don't have to,” John suddenly said. “She saved me tonight, she can look after herself.”
“So what, you want to go after the money. Put Rachel's life on the line?” Charlie dared John to say he did.
“I want to go after the money,” Rachel told him sternly. “I'm prepared to put my own life on the line.”
“Yeah, well, I'm not,” Charlie said.
“Charlie…” Rachel started.
“No. I'm not having your blood on my hands as well.”
“Come on Charlie, she's not going to get hurt,” Roxy shouted.
“You don't know that! We didn't think Sarah would get hurt, but she did.”
“Sarah got hurt because you…”
John moved. He was so quick. Before Charlie knew what was happening his brother was between them both, staring Roxy down. This time Roxy backed off. He shook his head at them both.
“You know what, John, I'm not going to say anything. You know it already. You know exactly why Sarah died. And if Charlie is out of the game then what the hell are you still doing here? You don't need him,” he said.
For months Charlie had been waiting to hear those words from someone. Roxy was right. John didn't need him, none of them did.
He was by the door before he realised he was leaving.
“Charlie, wait,” Rachel called.
“I need to clear my head,” he replied. And he left.
* * *
She had a suspicion Roxy had caused it all. Even if he hadn't, he was loving every minute of the drama. Charlie had been gone a while and it didn't look like he was coming back. Rachel guessed where he would be. The outburst and the lack of control had nothing to do with what was said and everything to do with the withdrawal he was starting to feel. She felt guilty for not going after him and foolish for thinking she could make any difference.
Beside her John's eyes were fixed on the garage door. His confidence had taken a beating. He may have been a deadly killing machine, but Roxy was wrong, he did need his brother. She put her hand on his, trying to ignore the urge to delve into his thoughts.
“If it makes it easier I can just go to the convent and bail after a couple of days.”
He shook his head. “What you did tonight, could you do it again?”
“Yup, if you let me get my hands on Roxy I might even be able to just put him to sleep,” she whispered.
John nearly laughed at that. “Charlie will be back when he's sorted his head out.”
Roxy rifled around the boxes. He opened one, shook his head and pushed it towards Rachel. Then he reached for another. Rachel glanced inside. It was filled with blank identity passes. A pass like that would get her into London. She had no identification, nothing to prove she was even British. Neither of them was looking at her. She sat down idly beside the box and lifted one of the passes. She wasn't a natural thief, but she needed a backup plan.
“Ah, here we go,” Roxy removed a bottle from one of the boxes. He twisted the bottle cap off and smelled it before he drank it. “You know it's not as bad as everyone says it is.” He handed it to John and if looks could kill Roxy would have been flayed across the garage. “Rachel, drink?”
She took the bottle out of politeness and after stealing from the man she felt she owed him the courtesy. It tasted like fire. She gasped as it burned through her throat.
“God, that's awful,” she gasped, but she took another mouthful, savouring the warmth in her chest. The liquid settled in her empty stomach and she started to swoon.
“Easy there, sweetheart, I know it has been a rough night, but there's no need to go crazy.”
“This isn't a rough night,” Rachel replied. “Eventful, tiring, maybe even fun, but not rough.” She felt her eyelids starting to flag, it was always like this with her–she could push herself so far and then she'd just drop. “Definitely tiring.”
“At least that is something I can do for you.”
Roxy flung open the passenger seat door and ushered her inside. He made a pillow for her from a rolled up tapestry and used another to cover her tiny body. They smelt of smoke, which actually counteracted the general stench of the industrial estate. She settled into them as her body started to surrender.
“Get some rest, pet. Everything will be better in the morning.”
He closed the door, cocooning her in a dull silence. She shifted on the back seat until her body relented. It was better than sleeping in a doorway somewhere. It was better than being at home. Her eyes buckled. She thought about Charlie and about saving a little girl. There was a future somewhere on that road, one she could live with.
16
Who was he to tell Rachel what she could and couldn't do? He wasn't her father. If she wanted to put her life at risk that was her business. Only it wasn't that straightforward. If anything happened to her, if she died at the hands of Pinky Morris, it would be too much. He had to protect her; it was built into his genes and probably built into hers. And if he thought he could do it, if he was certain he wouldn't end up putting her in danger, his head wouldn't be pounding quite so hard.
Charlie's legs started to buckle as he reached the edge of S'aven. He managed to haul himself to a benc
h overlooking a set of ramshackle sheds and collapsed. The pain in his head was so strong he couldn't even feel his back ache. He tried to get up and failed. What was the point in getting up, he had nowhere to go.
“Hey there,” the voice was rich with insinuation.
Charlie turned his head. He could just about make out a girl with pink hair. She couldn't have been more than sixteen. She was wrapped in a thick coat, mittens, and a heavy scarf. When he looked again he realised she didn't have pink hair at all, she was just wearing a woollen hat. She sat down beside him without a hint of nervousness.
“Want something to take the edge off?”
It took him a minute to know what she was talking about. Then she withdrew a packet with two blue tablets inside and dangled it for him to paw at. He still had his medication. He didn't need to play a game of chance from some teenager who had the smarts to sell a product instead of her body. But he wanted to. Roulette meant it was out of his hands. Let God decide.
“What are they?”
“Something to make it all better. You got any money?”
He did have money. Not all of it, but enough. She took everything he had and he took everything she gave him.
Charlie opened his front door. He tried to remember how he'd managed to walk so far. There was music coming from the kitchen, a faint beat he recognised but couldn't put his finger on. He stepped into the hall, leaving his keys on the sideboard. Lilly had been scrawling at the walls again. She always drew dogs, four legs, a head and tail in as many colours as she could get her hands on. Charlie inspected the addition to the wallpaper with a smirk. The walls flickered red. Tiny, bloody handprints. He blinked and stared back at the dogs. He was getting a headache.
Sarah was chopping vegetables in the kitchen. She hummed along with the music, tone deaf and shameless of the fact. Charlie waited in the doorway, admiring the curve of her back and roundness of her buttocks. After Lilly was born she'd gained a bit of weight in the hips. It suited her.
“You're late,” she said.
“I know, I'm sorry.” Although that's not what he had originally said. The last time they'd had the conversation he'd been defensive and they'd argued.
Charlie stepped closer, willing his wife to turn around. “Smells good.”
She sliced a carrot so fiercely it stopped him in his tracks. “Where were you?”
“Working, but I'm finished now. For good. No more jobs.”
Slowly she placed the knife down. “No, you're not. And I would never make you, do you know why, Charlie? Because you would be miserable. You have to work. It's all you have.”
“I have you and Lilly. Where is she?”
“Upstairs.”
Charlie made to move.
“She's asleep.”
“I'll just poke my head around the door.”
“I've just gotten her down.”
Charlie sighed. He just wanted to see his little girl again. It felt like he hadn't seen in her in so long.
“Okay,” he said, relenting. “Do you want a hand?”
“You, cooking?”
“I never said I'd cook. I was thinking more like I could hold your hair while you chopped,” Charlie said. He reached out, caressing her neck. She was hesitant against the first touch. Things were not good between them and they were only going to get worse, but he could snatch tender moments when they both just put their differences aside and remembered that they still loved each other. His lips found his way against her shoulder and she fell back into him.
“I've missed this,” he whispered.
“Then why did you keep going back to her?” There was no anger in her voice. If anything, she pitied him.
“I don't know.”
“I bet you didn't even suspect what she would do while you were fucking her!”
Charlie swallowed. Of course he never suspected. There's no way he'd have touched her if he had known she was going to murder his wife. He shouldn't have touched her at all.
“I'm sorry.”
“You're always sorry,” she snapped and pulled away from him.
Charlie looked down at his fingers. They were red with blood.
“Do you know how long they cut on me? Slice, slice, slice. They cut me for so long I didn't think there was anything left of me.” She snatched up the knife again. “And they knew just how to do it, where it would hurt the most. Then they were going to do it to Lilly. 'Answer the question or we'll make her look like you.' And if I'd known the answer I would have sung it at the top of my voice.”
“But they didn't kill Lilly,” Charlie stated.
“No. They took her away to be experimented on like some goddamn animal. They just killed me. She killed me.”
He knew it all already. He was there for most of it.
“I'm so sorry, Sarah. It should have been me.”
“You're damn right it should.”
Charlie turned away. It wasn't his wife. It wasn't her voice, or her words. He so wanted it to be, but he could never recreate her the way she was. His mind would never be that generous.
“And look at you now, moping about like you're the victim. Poor little Charlie Smith, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. No good to anyone. Not even his own daughter!”
“I'll get her back, Sarah. I promise you I will find her.”
He could feel her behind him, pushing into his side as though she were really sitting with him. But she wasn't, and when he gathered up the courage to face her he remembered why. Her cheeks were slashed open, still dripping thick clots of blood onto the white shirt she had been wearing. The rest of her face was swollen purple, disguising the gap in her left socket where her eye should have been. Big brown eyes, he used to adore staring into them. Her untouched left hand scratched at the tacky blood on her right stump. The hand had been removed at the wrist. It went with one smooth slice. God, he had loved her and she had been so much more than this.
Sarah snorted. “You can't even take the first steps, Charlie. The Reacher girl was your best shot. But look at you, running away because you're too scared of her dying. Shame you didn't afford me that luxury.”
“Rachel's so young,” Charlie defended.
“No younger than I was when you dragged me into your life.”
Charlie sighed. “You were different. I was different.”
“It's no different. You saw me and you used me, Charlie.”
“That's not true.”
“Oh, really. So why did you leave me when I wanted out?”
He swallowed the rising bile in the back of his throat.
“Is it because she's a Reacher? Is that why she's too good to die for you?” Her voice was venomous. She reached out for him but Charlie moved away, backing towards the wall.
“You were too good to die like this. Because of me,” he murmured, but those words would never matter to dead Sarah.
“You've finally found someone who might be able to help but you won't ask her, will you? You coward! You can screw your own family over, but not another Reacher!”
“It's not like that! I can't have another death on my conscience.”
“Except your daughter's.” Sarah folded her arms, the stump sticking out awkwardly towards him. “You're pathetic, Charlie. You always have been. I'd have stopped at nothing to get Lilly back home safe. And what are you going to do if you ever get her back? Let her join the family business?”
He slumped to the floor with his head in his hands.
“Look at you, someone stands up against you and you can't handle it. You have to run off and pop pills like some backstreet junkie.”
“I'm not a junkie!”
“Baby, you are having a drug induced hallucination and this isn't even the first time it's happened. You know John knows about all this, he's just pretending everything's fine because he thinks you'll try and kill yourself, again.”
“I didn't try and kill myself!” Charlie shouted.
“But John doesn't think that, does he? He saw you with th
at bottle of pills and he thought you were doing yourself in, doing what you should have done a year ago. What would he think, knowing that his big brother is a piece of shit addict?”
She leapt at him. The nails of her left hand scratched into his face. He pushed her back and she rolled across the floor, her broken legs clattering in the air. Her laugh was unholy.
“Why are you like this?”
“Because you made me this way.” She sat up with unnatural ease. Her solitary brown eye glared at him with intensity.
“I don't know if I can save Lilly; she might be dead already.”
“Oh boo hoo.” Sarah poked out her bottom lip, “ 'She might be dead already.' What kind of father would rest until he knew there was no hope?”
Charlie rubbed the scratches on his face. “Do you really think Rachel can help?”
Sarah rolled her eye and yawned. “How many times do I have to tell you; I am a figment of your imagination. I don't think anything.”
“You're right,” Charlie paused. “Or I'm right. She's what we need, someone with a clear head. And she wants to do it, from the minute she learned about Lilly, she wanted to help.”
“If only you weren't about to overdose.”
“What?”
“At least we'll be together again,” she smiled, running her left hand over his face. Her image flickered again. If only he could remember what she was really like. If he could just hold onto what she had been.
He didn't want to die, not like this.
17
John didn't relax. Sitting on the boxes in the garage he seemed more wired than usual. Since he was a kid he'd relied on Charlie. Roxy had never understood it. John was stronger, smarter, faster. He didn't need Charlie, not like Charlie needed him, but without his big brother he was at a total loss. Roxy sometimes wondered what would have happened if Charlie hadn't made it through surgery a year ago. He tried to imagine what John would do, where he would go. It always seemed that one didn't exist without the other, but that wasn't the case. Charlie had his family and John had whatever it was he did when Charlie was being dad.
But now John was lost. There was a girl asleep in the back of the car who needed his help, but he wouldn't move without his brother. Roxy had seen this before, the night Charlie lay dying in an operating theatre and John couldn't even begin to formulate a plan of action to get his brother out of danger. With all his skill, as deadly as he was, he couldn't function without his brother telling him what to do. It made no sense, but nothing about John did.
The Running Game (Reachers Book 1) Page 10