“Now, now dear woman," he said, as if he had heard her thoughts, "Calm yourself and think of the alternative. This is your last chance as you are well aware. Without me, you are less than a week away from crawling back to your beloved Mr. Woodard."
“What did you just say?” asked Sara, in shock.
He can’t know this...that’s not possible.
“Oh, I’ve taken the precaution of investigating you, Sara Renardine. What I know is that you are on the run from the man who has beaten you senseless on any number of occasions. What I know is that Jackson Woodard is deputy sheriff of Cavanaugh County and that your pleas for help to his colleagues have gone unanswered.
“What I know is that you are being actively searched for, Sara. A simple phone call and...how do they say it? The jig is up."
This time he laughed out loud, all pretext of being quiet for the sleeping woman’s sake gone.
“You are the ideal candidate, Sara, because you reek of desperation. You know it. I know it. In fact, I can taste it from here...it's so sweet...like candy to me," he said, his voice trailing off before resuming.
“Now pay attention. Under the woman’s hands is a contract. Take it, read it if you must, then sign it. That is not a suggestion, Sara...that is a command.
"In summary, it states that you will go to the address listed on the last page of the document and present yourself to the department manager. She will assign you whatever work it is that you do.
"That is your first job.
"The second is of far greater importance. Each work day, during your lunch break, you will go to the restaurant mentioned on that last page. You will take your lunch in the immediate proximity of the restaurant’s bar. You will do so each and every day without fail.
"Sooner or later, there will be someone who will approach you. You will allow him. Further, as the situation develops, you will do whatever he asks of you, Sara. You will acquiesce to his every desire, without question.
"Do this and your financial security and continued freedom from the likes of Deputy Woodard are assured. Renege in the slightest of ways, and you and I shall come face to face.
"I promise you, you wouldn’t like that, Sara. Oh no...not one bit.
Her hand shaking, Sara reached for the paper under the woman’s hands. She tugged on one corner, but it would not slide away. With no choice, she gently took the woman’s wrist...
She’s freezing....
...and lifted it up so that she could slide the paper out.
The words were written jaggedly, in longhand, obviously hurried.
No...it was written by someone in a panic.
Sara looked down again at the woman, trying to see if she still breathed.
"Sign it, Sara. Right now."
She scanned the ragged lines seeing essentially what he had already described. Then, with a sensation of quicksand around her feet, Sara scribbled her name on the dotted line.
Better this, than going back to that son of a bitch. Anything would be better than that.
"That's the spirit, my girl." The voice seemed positively cheerful.
"Now tear off the page with the addresses. You are going to need that. Then, in the woman's purse, you will find a wallet with some cash.
"Open it and tell me how much you find there."
Sara did it, her trembling fingers fumbling for a moment.
"There's, uh...there's almost three hundred dollars."
"Oh, what luck, Sara," he said, and suddenly she could not help but think that although they had been holding a conversation, a very strange conversation, that the most unusual thing of all was that the silhouette behind the dressing screen never moved.
It was as though the voice was as disembodied as that of a ghost.
She held the wallet in her hands and realized that her entire body was trembling.
"Take the money. I will be sure to square up with my associate in short order."
Sara hesitated, her knees quite literally knocking together.
"Take it, I say. You will be in need of professional attire for the coming Monday. Consider it an advance payment for the work you will carry out for me."
Shadows fluttered in the corner of Sara's vision. She turned and there, upon the iron balustrade outside, large birds had gathered in silence, watching her through the glass.
The balcony was blotted out by shapes as dark as the night. They were lined up, shoulder to shoulder, and followed her every movement in horrible silence.
Crows. Maybe a hundred pairs of black eyes that tracked Sara as she turned to speak.
"I don't think I should. In fact, maybe this is all just a big mistake," Sara started to put the cash back into the poor woman's wallet.
“So disappointing, this sudden concern for a stranger, Sara. That’s not like you. Not when you have so much to gain and so much to lose.”
Then, just when she was sure that there really was no one behind the dressing screen, she heard a chair slide, squealing like a mouse trodden underfoot.
“I hadn’t planned on it, but it seems you need further convincing. And for that, I am sorry, Sara. Really, I am.”
The silhouette got jerkily to its feet. Like an enormous string puppet, the shadow shambled forward.
Sara backed away and without wanting to, she saw the crows shifting excitedly upon their perch, as if the spectacle they had come to see was about to begin.
A hand wrapped fingers around the edge of the dressing screen. A white hand with fingers far too long to be real.
There was a croaking sound as a crow coughed in joy, then another and another joined in to squawk as a second hand, just as deathly pale as the first, appeared.
Sara took another step back, then shrieked as the back of her leg came up against a chair.
“This will only hurt a little,” the whispering voice said, only so much closer then. “At least, I think so.”
What stepped around from the dressing screen was dressed in pinstriped pants that hung loosely upon its gangly frame. Suspenders held the pants in place, stretching up and over bony shoulders.
Another shambling step and the dim light of the banker’s light ran up the thing’s body as the crows outside screamed in raucous anticipation.
Sara screamed, too, her voice lost among that of the crows as the creature holding a battered derby hat in one hand swept toward her.
And where it’s face should have been, there was a hole. Dark...empty...there was nothing at all.
The sibilant voice of a serpent spoke in Sara’s ears as it said, “I am the Journeyman, Sara, and you will do as the Journeyman says.”
She screamed and screamed with the crows in the night as the thing took her into its arms.
Sara jumped up, sweat running down her face, the sounds of crows still screaming in her ears.
She lay upon her own bed, the threadbare sheets twisted around her as she realized that what she was hearing was not the sound of crows, but rather the sound of an ambulance siren just outside the hotel.
She got to her feet as she heard heavy steps practically running down the stairs just outside the door of her room.
Without taking time to brush her hair into any semblance of order, Sara poked her head outside her door to see Simon-something-or-other from the third floor stomping hurriedly by. She tried to slip back inside before it was too late, but he had already seen her.
“Holy cow...someone took out Mr. Jenkins,” he said, flashing his famous neon yellow grin. Sara tried to look away, but his stained teeth would not let her go.
She sighed. “What are you talking about Simon?”
“Whatta ya mean, whattum I talkin’ about?” The young, awkward man was so excited that even his acne seemed to shine like red neon.
“Someone murdalized him. Last night, I guess. Mrs. Baker only just found him a couple minutes ago.”
Then, he lowered his voice and came so close that Sara could smell the cheese puffs on his breath and he said, as if sharing the most secret of secre
ts, “She says he’s laying there, under his desk...” he paused for dramatic effect, then continued, “...but he’s all in pieces.”
The excitement too much for him, Simon abruptly did an about-face and practically galloped down the stairs. From that direction, Sara could hear hushed voices where a crowd must have formed.
Despite her apprehension, she followed in Simon’s footsteps although she did not run like he did. Her feet were bare, the stairway as cold as a mortician’s slab.
She only made it halfway down the last flight of stairs before she saw the people crowded around the hotel owner’s desk. They stood in rapt attention in a circle around two men wearing uniforms that resembled hospital scrubs.
The paramedics had stretched out a large black bag and one bent to pick something up from the floor.
The crowd let out out a collective sigh, as if they had just been witness to a particularly clever magic trick. But what the few who stood on the tips of their toes to see, Sara saw clearly from her vantage point upon the stairwell.
The paramedic had picked up a hand that had been torn away at the wrist.
Sara felt the gorge rising in her throat as the screaming of crows echoed in her thoughts.
Low voices murmured in the crowd, and Sara heard Mr. Johnson from the third floor.
“They say there’s no blood...tapped like a maple tree, he was.”
Mrs. Johnson hushed her husband, then said with voice meant for anyone to hear, “No dear. Poor Mr. Jenkins must’ve met his maker somewhere else and then they brought his body back here.”
She nodded to no one in particular, then said, “That’s how they do it on the Friday night mysteries.”
There was a loud squawk from the hotel’s front entrance, then she saw men dressed in policemen’s blues forcing their way through the crowd.
Seeing them broke the spell that held Sara frozen in place.
Backing away slowly until she could no longer see downstairs, she spun around and ran back the way she had come, taking the stairs two at a time.
Her breath was ragged as she slammed her door shut. Then, she ran to the few papers she kept.
On top of the pile was the brown paper envelope within which lay the handwritten letter from the evening before.
...tapped like a maple tree...
Sara stumbled to the tiny room’s sink with the letter in hand. It took her several tries because her hands were shaking so severely...
Like a maple leaf.
...but she finally managed to light a match and set the letter on fire.
She held it out from her, watching the orange flames eat into the paper while it sent up blue and black smoke.
Sara had never like Mr. Jenkins or the way he leered at her. But she would have never wished him such a horrible end.
And, she knew, all of it was her fault. She had done what was demanded of her and been rewarded handsomely.
She also knew that Mr. Johnson had the right of it, after all.
A monster had decided to write her a letter of congratulations. Only it had been in need of ink....
The flames gobbled up the paper and its horrid words hungrily before she finally let the blackening remnants fall into the sink’s basin.
Sara swallowed, wondering if she would be questioned by the police. She barely had time for the thought when she screamed out loud as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony blared from behind her.
Turning around, she saw the cellphone Flair had given her dancing as it buzzed upon the nightstand.
Wishing only to make it stop and hoping that it had not drawn anyone’s attention, Sara picked it up.
A young man’s voice floated out of the cellphone.
“...passport and your toothbrush,” she heard him say.
“Uh, hello,” she said as she held the phone to her ear.
“Miss Renardine, I was just saying that I’ve got orders to come pick you up in half an hour. You’re going to need your passport,” he replied, then added, “I was just kidding about the toothbrush.”
Sara swallowed dryly. Anything to get her out of the hotel and avoid whatever questions the police might want to ask her seemed like a very good idea just then.
“But I don’t have a passport,” she said.
“Ok...well, bring whatever ID you’ve got. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
The phone went dead in her hands.
None of this is right. I mean, the interview wasn’t really like that. It was late..sure. But that was it. A stupid nightmare is what has me so spooked.
As she set the cellphone down Sara remembered the watch that needed a new battery. The one that had stopped working a couple months earlier.
But, if she thought about it...really thought about it, it was not just two months ago. It had stopped working the day of her interview.
She rummaged in the small drawer of her nightstand and then she had it in her hands and felt her blood run cold. The tiny hands had stopped at the stroke of midnight. Which must have been the hour that her so-called interview had begun.
But it wasn’t really like that. I’m just remembering a bad dream...not real.
She repeated these thoughts to herself, knowing full well that a man had been murdered last night. That he had already been lying there, dismembered, as she came back to her squalid room the evening before.
Sara walked softly across the room, wondering if the police were still there. She pulled the yellowed curtain slowly to one side and saw someone standing across the street leaning casually against a streetlight post.
He was staring straight back at Sara from the street down below. She startled as he nodded at her and she dropped the curtain to fall back into place. It was the homeless man from the previous day.
What in the hell is going on..?
Unable to help herself, Sara slowly pulled the curtain aside once more, but the homeless man was no longer there.
But I already knew that, didn’t I?
Taking hold of herself, Sara decided that none of it mattered. She was going to see him again.
Thirty minutes. She spun into action as she readied herself once more to see those extraordinary amber eyes. Only this time, she had his name.
Brazier Abraxis, the enigmatic billionaire, and he wanted her. Now.
Despite everything, despite the horror spooling out two floors under her feet, Sara smiled.
~~~
Flair held the door for Sara.
They had just pulled up to the airport after an uneventful ride from Sara’s hotel.
Any pretext at keeping her exact address hidden from Flair disappeared as he had somehow found her in the alley behind her hotel.
Sara had slipped through the crowd that still lingered at the foot of the hotel’s stairs and instead of trying to force her way to the front entrance, she turned in the opposite direction and away from the police to go out through the back, past the building’s garbage bins and into the alley beyond.
The black sedan that had carried her home the previous evening was already there, its motor grumbling low and smooth.
As they rolled away from the hotel, Sara had asked Flair why she would need something like a passport for that day. His reply was that he did not know anything for certain, except that their destination was the airport.
Sara had fallen silent after that.
And then, as she climbed out of the sedan’s cosy leather interior, she found herself standing not in front of the airport’s main entrance leading to its various boarding gates, but rather at the far end where she saw only a few cargo vans and no passengers whatsoever.
Flair said, “Ok...I need whatever ID you’ve got.”
Sara passed over her driver’s license and a notarized copy of her birth certificate.
The young man sniffed as he glanced down at her license, then handed her back the birth certificate.
“This should take just a minute,” he said, then walked over to one of the cargo vans.
Once there, Sara saw him shake h
ands with a driver who descended from his seat and together they appeared to confer as Flair passed him her license before having it handed back to him after only a cursory glance.
With a last nod to the van driver, Flair marched back to her and returned her license.
“Well, Miss Renardine, this will be just a little cloak and dagger, but we do what we have to do, don’t we?”
He opened the passenger door once more and motioned for Sara to take her seat.
Flair regained his place behind the sedan’s steering wheel but, to her surprise, did not turn the key in the ignition.
A moment later, the cargo van from earlier started up then eased back across the macadam in reverse until it was just next to the sedan.
Sara saw the sliding side door open, the van’s interior filled with cardboard boxes of all sizes, then Flair cleared his throat.
“My apologies, but I can’t get the door for you this time, Miss Renardine. Our friend here is going to see you the rest of the way to your plane.”
Then he turned his head and with a smile continued, “But don’t worry. You can trust him. He’s one of ours.”
There was something in Flair’s voice, in his tone. The way he had said, he’s one of ours.
Somehow, it felt important to Sara, as if it had more than one meaning. And, in a disconnected fashion, she could not help but think of the argent flash she thought she had seen in his eyes the previous evening.
She opened her door. There was just room enough for her to squeeze by and step outside.
Sara turned back to poke her head inside the sedan and said, “Flair. I just want to say thanks.”
Thank you for not judging me.
The young man winked at her and smiled, then said, “No problem. Now you’ve got a plane to catch, Miss Renardine.”
Sara nodded, then closed the door.
The cargo van’s driver had not descended, so Sara made the obvious choice. She climbed in among the boxes and slid the door shut with a bang.
It felt like forever as the van trundled along, when Sara supposed it had only been ten or fifteen minutes. But, the van finally came to a halt and she heard the driver get out.
There were voices, garbled, low, then laughter.
Her Billionaire, Her Wolf--The Novel (A Paranormal Alpha Werewolf Romance) Page 6