“I know, I know.” The American ran a hand through his short brown hair, making it stand on end. “But he trashed his house, Elle. You were there. He hit Lake and would have knocked him out if he hadn’t been drunk off his ass. I’m not sure what he’s capable of anymore. He hasn’t even spoken to any of the team for months.”
Elle cast a glance at Dimitri to make sure he wasn’t listening when she brought up his sister. Although Katrina was doing well now, living and working in a shelter for abused women in Invertary, the memory of what had happened to her was still very fresh for all of them.
“You saw how Callum reacted after we rescued Katrina from the bastard who was holding her as his sex slave,” Elle whispered. “He would never force himself on someone. Never.”
Joe’s eyes went hard. “I didn’t say that. I asked if he was too rough. I wanted to know if he was in control.”
“Well, hell, Joe, why didn’t you just say that?” She turned back to her laptop, wishing she was dealing with code instead of people. There was never any chance of misunderstanding computer code. “I’ve been worried about him.”
Joe nodded, placed a hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “We all are.”
“Why are you all in here?” Rachel Ford-Talbot’s voice cut through the room like a buzzsaw on glass. “We’re meeting in the conference room.” She made a show of looking at her Rolex. “Five minutes ago.”
Ryan caught Elle’s gaze and rolled his eyes. They were all desperate for Callum to come back to work, because that meant Rachel would no longer be their only on-site boss. Being in charge was going to Rachel’s head, and it was only a matter of time before someone locked her in one of the basement interrogation rooms and “forgot” she was there.
“We’re monitoring Callum,” Elle told Rachel. “He seems to be doing better. I think it’s time he came back.”
“I miss Callum,” Megan said. “I miss the way he’d come in, shout at us, grumble about having to work with a bunch of amateurs and then lock himself in his office for hours planning military manoeuvres, in case we needed them.”
“Good times,” Joe agreed.
“Elle’s right: we need to make more of an effort to get him back,” Megan said.
“How exactly should we do that?” Dimitri said. “He won’t even talk to any of us. If he knew about the surveillance we have on him, he’d lose his mind.”
“I thought he’d notice it months ago,” Elle said. “But he hasn’t been his usual paranoid self. He shows no interest in anything. The only person he talks to is Betty, and those conversations are seriously disturbing.”
Megan made the sign of the cross. “Betty McLeod is Invertary’s answer to Satan. She’s probably whispering ways he could off himself into his ear.” She stopped suddenly, her eyes going wide. “Could he be brainwashed?”
“Don’t be daft,” Ryan said.
“No, seriously,” Megan said. “Think about it. He was perfectly fine until Peru. Maybe Betty was in contact with him earlier than we think.”
“I don’t think Betty has the skills to brainwash anyone,” Joe said of the eighty-nine-year-old. “Half the time she can’t even find her own teeth. Brainwashing seems beyond her abilities.”
“Don’t underestimate her,” Megan warned. “That’s where people usually go wrong. It’s best to assume she can do whatever you suspect her of doing.”
“I’ve been monitoring his cell since he came on board with Benson Security,” Elle said. “I would know if he’d been talking to Betty.”
Everyone gaped at her.
“What?” She held up her hands.
Joe frowned at her. “Do you monitor our cell phones too?”
The tension in the room amped up. Elle wasn’t threatened. She was doing it for their own good. “Sure I do. I have GPS tracking on all of you. If there’s a problem, I’m going to know about it. And after Megan’s run-in with the psycho who kept texting her, I also record all your messages and calls.”
The glares were uniform, so Elle didn’t bother telling them that she had tracking devices planted in their belongings, and monitoring software on all of their devices. If someone was going to be threatened, or go missing, on her watch, she was prepared to deal with it.
“It’s not like I listen to your calls,” she told them. “I have a program that monitors for keywords, and alerts me if they come up.”
“Keywords such as?” Megan folded her arms over her black leather biker jacket and tapped her toe.
“Like ‘ransom’, ‘death’, stuff like that. Get a grip. I’m looking out for you the best way I know how.”
“Without our knowledge or permission,” Dimitri said.
“And in a way that is obviously illegal,” Rachel said.
“What she said.” Megan pointed at Rachel. “Plus it’s icky. You’re like a mastermind stalker.”
Rachel’s pointed a talon at Elle. “I’m ordering you to stop it. Immediately.”
“You didn’t wave your magic wand,” Ryan said. “It only counts when you wave the wand.”
They glared at each other.
“Whatever,” Elle muttered as an alert came from her laptop.
“What is it?” Joe stepped up behind her.
“Some keywords triggered my alert program.” Elle’s fingers flew over the keyboard.
“What keywords?” Dimitri asked as the rest of them crowded behind Elle.
Her fingers froze when the answer came up. “Dead body,” she said.
As one, they leaned towards the laptop while Elle brought up the sound bite that had triggered her program. A female voice rang out through the room: “I came here for help with the dead body!”
“What the hell?” Joe said. “Bring up the live feed. We need to see what’s going on. If Callum’s found trouble, he’s going to need our help.”
“Thank God,” Ryan said towards heaven. “It’s about time.”
“I’ll start packing,” Megan said. “How long will it take us to get there?”
“Couple of hours,” Dimitri said.
“Stop right there,” Rachel ordered.
As one, the team turned to look at her. She folded her arms, blood-red fingernails spread out against the dark wool of her designer suit. “Nobody is rushing to help Callum. Not until he asks for it.”
“But Rachel…” Elle said.
“No.” Rachel held up a hand. “He walked out on us. He can damn well walk back in. I’m tired of pandering to his childish tantrums. So he lost limbs. Boohoo. It’s time for him to man up and get past it. Until then, we focus on the work we do have, from the people who actually want us to help them. Am I clear?”
There was muttering, shuffling feet and dejected nods.
Rachel straightened her shoulders and flicked back her poker-straight hair. “Now. Meeting in the conference room. Five minutes.”
With that, she turned and swept out of the room.
“I hate it when she’s right,” Megan said. “It goes against the laws of nature.”
“I want Callum back,” Elle said.
“We all do,” Ryan said, watching the door which Rachel had just sailed through. “Hopefully before one of us kills Rachel and buries her body in the basement.” He looked at the others. “Which could be pretty damn soon.”
There was nothing to do with that, except agree.
CHAPTER 6
“I CAN’T BELIEVE I DID this again,” Isobel wailed, as she scooped her shirt from the floor. It was ripped down the front. “I can’t wear this. Where are your shirts?”
Callum didn’t answer. In fact, he didn’t even seem to register she was still there. He’d turned into a statue that blocked his front door. His open front door. Yeah, she’d had sex with a virtual stranger, in full view of the world. She was just oozing with class.
“Fine! I’ll find them myself.” She strode away from him, into the house. She also needed to find a bathroom and get cleaned up.
Because she’d had unprotected sex.
Again!
Had she learned from her teenage mistake, the way any other reasonable adult woman did? No. Because here she was at thirty-two, jumping the local bad boy without even sparing a thought for the consequences. She had no one to blame but herself. He’d stopped to make sure she wanted to carry on. And what had she said? Get in me now! Because she’d been thinking with her hoo-ha and not with her brain. If she’d been thinking with her brain, she might have remembered that she already had two kids and didn’t need a third.
She slammed open doors until she found the main bedroom. There was hardly any sign that Callum actually lived in the house. The furnishings were sparse and there were no personal knick-knacks anywhere. She yanked open drawers until she found a shirt. One of many identical grey Henleys. What the hell was that? Only a serial killer dressed in the same thing every damn day. She froze for a second. Had she had sex with a serial killer? Up against the wall. Without any protection.
She spun around and saw the perfectly made bed, which irritated her even more. Only someone with a deeply disturbed mind could be that neat. It was a bad sign. One of many she should have picked up before she jumped the man. Furious, Isobel bounced on the bed until it was a mess.
Better. She felt much better.
There was still no sign of Callum when Isobel strode into the bathroom. She turned the shower on to warm up as she surveyed the mess she’d made of herself. Her skirt was tucked in on itself and she’d been flashing her backside at Callum as she stormed through the house. Not that it mattered. Because really, was there any way she could add to her humiliation? She’d had sex with someone who was practically a stranger. In his hallway. In broad daylight. With the door open.
As steam filled the room, Isobel stripped and threw her trashed underwear in the bin. She stepped into the shower and let the heat take her away for a second, before her hand covered her abdomen. She did the math and figured out that it wasn’t the best time to fall pregnant. It was still possible, but it wasn’t probable. She clung to that hope with the smidgeon of sanity she had left.
“You aren’t on the pill.”
The rough voice startled Isobel, and she screamed.
“Are you insane?” She glared through the glass at Callum, who was standing, legs apart and arms folded, glaring back at her. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”
“You aren’t on the pill,” he said again. “And we didn’t use protection.”
She could have sworn he paled under his tan.
“No. We didn’t. But don’t worry. I-I’m sure I’m n-not pregnant.” Okay, so that was an outright lie, but still, what else was she supposed to say? If I am pregnant, there’s a good chance I’ll put my head in the oven and leave all three kids to you. Yeah, she didn’t think that’d go over well.
His eyes narrowed. “You stutter when you lie.”
It wasn’t a question, so she ignored him. Instead, she shut off the water, grabbed a perfectly folded towel from the rack and wrapped herself in it. Even his towels were equidistant from each other. Another thing that irritated her.
“Do you have OCD?” she asked.
His eyes went wide before they narrowed again. “No. But I’m beginning to think you might suffer from attention deficit disorder. Focus. We didn’t use protection.” For one second his calm demeanour cracked and he looked harried. “That’s never happened to me. I always use protection. Always.”
“Not this time, you didn’t. Guess I’m just special that way.”
His eyes hardened at her flippancy. “You could be pregnant.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No. I won’t allow it.” She couldn’t be pregnant. She just couldn’t.
The temperature in the room seemed to drop about forty degrees. Callum stepped right into the small bathroom, taking up all the space, and his hand wrapped around her bicep.
“Do you plan to abort my baby?” His tone was death.
She blinked up at him as the words sank in, and then she yanked her arm from his grip. “What? No! I plan to not be pregnant in the first place. I can’t be. It can’t happen. Not again.”
She pushed past him, holding what clothes she had left tight against her chest, and strode into his bedroom. Callum didn’t seem to have any problem watching her dress.
“A little privacy, if you don’t mind?” she snapped at him.
He cocked an eyebrow at her as though she was daft to ask. Which, quite possibly, she was. He blocked the door, so Isobel had no choice but to turn her back on him and pretend he wasn’t there. She dropped the towel and pulled on his shirt.
“I can’t believe this is happening again. I must be an idiot.” She stopped dead in the middle of pulling the shirt over her head as a horrible thought occurred to her. “I’m not an idiot. I’m one of those women who turn up on Jerry Springer. The kind who has four million kids by four million fathers and is still having an affair with her sister’s husband and her best friend’s boyfriend—at the same time. I’m a white-trash cliché!”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Isobel barely registered that he was talking, as she carried on tugging on her clothes. “The first time I ever slept with a boy, I got pregnant. I was fifteen. I could be forgiven for being naïve and in love. I even thought we’d get married and live happily ever after. But no. As soon as I told him he was going to be a father, he ran. I haven’t seen him since. So I got wise.” She yanked on her skirt. “The next guy I slept with had to marry me first, so that I could do things in the right order for once. So that I would be certain he wouldn’t run out on me after we had sex.” She spun on Callum. “And do you know what happened?”
He stared at her as though she was losing her mind. And, quite possibly, she might be.
“I’ll tell you what happened. We had a beautiful little girl together and he said he was going to Glasgow for a job interview. A promotion. A step up the ladder in his career.” She snorted. “It was rubbish. He ran and he never came back! The next I heard from him was divorce papers in the mail.”
She stomped past Callum and headed for his kitchen. He followed behind her, not saying a word when she started opening and shutting cupboard doors looking for junk food.
Isobel slammed the pantry door shut and glared at him. “There is no chocolate in your house.”
“No. But there appears to be an irrational woman in my kitchen.”
She clenched her fists and glared at him, wondering if she would have to jump to hit him in the jaw. He was so damn tall. For a second, she swore she could see amusement in his eyes before they became flat and hard again.
“I want to know the minute you find out if you’re pregnant or not.”
“I am not pregnant!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, hoping volume would make it so.
He just stared at her.
“I can’t cope with this right now,” Isobel told him. “I have a mountain of bad debt my ex-husband left in my name. A loan shark after me for payments. And a dead body in my freezer. I need to make a list. I need to prioritise. I need a plan. I need chocolate!” she wailed.
Callum cursed loudly, and then she felt his hands on her shoulders and realised he was moving her towards the table in the corner of the kitchen. “Sit.” He pushed her down into a wooden chair. He pointed at her. “Stay. I’ll make tea.”
“I am not a dog!” She was shouting again.
She wasn’t too proud to admit that she might have become a little hysterical. But, to be fair, she was having a helluva day. She sat fuming, her mind racing over her many, many problems, as Callum went about making tea. Every movement he made was efficient and controlled. Which made it all the stranger that he’d lost that control with her earlier. Her face burned at the memory. Although the dull ache throughout her body wasn’t going to let her forget what they’d done anytime soon.
“Here.” He placed a mug and spoon on the table in front of her then reached into the cupboard behind him and produced a jar of honey. “Add this. It will help.�
�
Isobel fell on the honey like Winnie the Pooh. She ignored the tea and spooned some into her mouth instead. Sugar. Better. She closed her eyes and sighed. It wasn’t chocolate, but maybe if she finished the whole jar she’d get the same high?
“I wish I drank,” she said wistfully. “Now would be a good time to develop a taste for whisky.”
“It wouldn’t make any difference. I don’t keep any alcohol in the house.”
Her eyes shot to his. “Why not?”
“I don’t like who I am when I drink.”
“Oh. I just don’t like the taste.” She ate another spoonful of honey while she thought about it. “But then, I never needed to be drunk to make ill-advised decisions. Seems I’m capable of doing that stone-cold sober.”
They sat in silence for a minute, while she ate her way through the honey and Callum dealt with being one of her ill-advised decisions.
“Tell me about the body,” he said.
“Do you only speak in demands? Are you capable of asking a polite question? Like, ‘Isobel, would you like to have sex with me?’ Or ‘Isobel, why is there a dead man in your freezer?’”
His eyes narrowed. “I asked if you wanted to have sex. If I remember right, you moaned your answer in my ear. Again. And again. And again.”
She felt her stomach lurch. “There’s no need to be a bastard about it.”
“There’s never any need for my being a bastard. It happens naturally.” He leaned forward, into her space. “Now tell me about the body.”
The words hit her hard and her stomach clenched even tighter. There was a body. In her freezer. Suddenly it was hard to breathe.
“Don’t you dare,” Callum snapped. “You freaking out and forgetting how to breathe is how we got into this mess in the first place.” He lifted the warm mug of tea and pressed it into her hands. “Drink. Then talk.”
For once, Isobel did as she was told. The hot tea was soothing. It would have been better if he’d put milk in it, but you couldn’t have everything. As she drank, she studied the man she’d had sex with. He’d been starring in her dreams for months, with his brooding good looks and his dangerous persona. Everything about him simultaneously warned her off and attracted her to him. From his broad shoulders and bulging arms, to the lines around his eyes that spoke of experience. His nose had been broken at some point, and there was a scar on his chin that had whitened with age. Even the planes of his face were sharp and brutal. But it was all softened by the lush fullness of his lips. She blushed just thinking about those lips and the parts of her body that had already experienced the feel of them.
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