Lethal in Love

by Michelle Somers

  The knowledge that they’d been monitored despite their precautions made him physically sick. His daily scans with the spectrum analyser had been worthless.

  ‘I’ve found something!’ The techie’s fingers flew over the keyboard and Seth rushed to the computer, almost colliding with Chase as he did the same. The mouse clicked like thunder in one of those dry, ominous storms. His stomach surged to his throat, his hands gripping the head of the boy’s chair.

  The screen had split.

  Juz filled the left, seated on some bench seat like he was hosting a Sunday afternoon tea party. He waved his arm through the air. A giant vice grabbed Seth’s chest and squeezed. The bastard had a knife.

  He switched focus to the right and his nightmare bolted to life.

  Jayda stood, hands bound behind her back, blood smeared across her face and down her top. She seemed unaware of the camera, her wide eyes fixed on her captor. Her shoulders slumped, but her head remained high. He knew her well enough to know she was scared, but that spunk he loved and admired forbade her from giving Juz the same satisfaction.

  His gaze slid back to the left. Juz raised his chin and stared into the camera, his smile a ghoulish split of lips across over-white teeth. Seth’s greatest fears came to life with that one look.

  The picture stuttered, then jumped. He watched the same feed run again.

  A looped video, which meant old footage. How old? And what did that mean for Jayda?

  They would not be too late to save her. He wouldn’t allow any other outcome. There had to be something. Anything. And if the kid at the keyboard didn’t act fast, he’d find himself on the floor and Seth in his place.

  He scanned the screen. It didn’t reveal much. Large white sheets covering, what? Furniture? Were they in a warehouse? A storeroom? Or an attic, perhaps?

  ‘Can you get a location on the feed?’

  Chase shot him a “you’re pissing on my turf” look. He didn’t care. He’d piss all over this case if it meant getting Jayda back alive.

  The boy looked to Chase who nodded, then turned back to the computer, his gloved fingers dancing like a seasoned performer across the keyboard. He seemed to know what he was doing. If only he’d do it a damn sight faster.

  Seth squinted, caught something in the corner of the screen. ‘Can you freeze that?’

  This time the kid didn’t wait for permission.

  ‘Rewind it back a little . . . That’s it. Stop.’

  He stared. He hadn’t imagined it. What looked like a stack of weights poked out from beneath a sheet left of the screen.

  A gym, perhaps. But gyms were like milk bars—everywhere. So, where to begin?

  He turned to Chase. ‘What gym does Juz work in?’

  ‘Prahran Health and Fitness. But they’re closed at the moment. Asbestos.’

  That was it. ‘We need to get down there. Now.’

  Boom!

  His hands flew to his ears. Too late. A rapier sliced his eardrums, then a splintering crack! echoed through the apartment.

  Chase pushed him back, racing from the study, drawing his gun. Seth regained his balance and with one last look at the screen ran after him.

  ‘The bedroom!’

  Chase stopped outside the door. ‘Shit!’

  Seth skirted the other man and slammed straight into Garry’s blue-green gaze. Wide. Lifeless.

  Agonised.

  Chase pulled him back from the snow of white powder. Plaster flakes coated his hair and the cream carpet at his feet. Seth shrugged the other man’s hand from his shoulder and stared at the ceiling. It gaped in a perfect, premeditated circle. Through the shattered plaster hung a rope and from the rope hung Garry.

  The detective holstered his weapon. ‘Forensics!’

  A woman brushed past wearing the signature white overalls and yellow vest. Chase took a couple of steps towards her then stopped. ‘Tell me what we’ve got.’

  She surveyed the body. ‘Three stabs to the abdomen, one cut to the throat.’ She took a closer look. ‘He was dead long before he was trussed in the rope.’ She looked up. ‘Looks like the ceiling was weakened and some kind of explosive finished the job.’

  Seth followed her gaze to the floor. Two seconds before he saw it she extracted a small device from the rubble with gloved hands.

  ‘A timer.’

  Chase’s gaze met his. Seth recognised the instant he reached the same conclusion.

  He turned to the pitiful remains slumped forwards into its noose. Juz had planned the exact moment he wanted them to find it. Had planned it to the second.

  They had all the evidence they needed for a conviction. Nothing was hidden. Nothing encrypted. Juz had set the party, laid out the welcome mat and invited them in.

  His eyes strayed to the knife jutting from Garry’s chest, and the bloodied paper it pinned there.

  His heart pounded.

  Beat the clock.

  A pocket stopwatch hung from the blade and he watched it click over from fifty-nine minutes to fifty-eight. Blood thundered through his veins, building to a heavy throb against his temple.

  Juz had sent a message and that message was clear. His game was nearly up and he had no intention of coming back.

  ‘Wait. There’s something else.’

  The woman extracted a pair of tweezers from a pouch at her waist and with a gloved hand she pried open Garry’s mouth. It was then he noticed something wedged between the dead man’s teeth.

  Carefully she extracted a folded piece of paper.

  ‘What does it say?’

  Chase shot him another look and he returned it. If the man didn’t ask the questions, he would.

  She opened the note and her fingers shook. ‘Boom!’

  This time the look they shared was consensus.

  ‘Run!’

  63

  Jayda swung her head left then right.

  Where the hell had that dumbbell come from?

  Juz hadn’t moved. She could still hear the wheeze of his laboured breathing from across the room. She dodged behind a large multi-gym, moving towards the sound. She needed to see him.

  Her shoulders ached. Her arms, her neck, her trembling legs only just managing to hold her upright. Every part of her ached. Not least of all, her heart.

  Difficult to believe that every single shitty thing in her life could be linked back to the actions of one man.

  ‘You attacked my father because he was my hero.’

  ‘There would be no reason to drag him down if he wasn’t. Everything I’ve done so far has been because of you. Bec, Eric, your father, my mother, Tumbles. Even Garry, once he began spouting your virtues. They each have you to thank for their demise.’

  ‘You killed Garry too?’

  ‘He never was the smartest tool in the shed. But even idiots must die if they start asking awkward questions. I moved all the evidence out of the apartment and into the conveniently out-of-order lift. But when he still wouldn’t quit, it was time for him to go.’

  She sagged against the wall. It was ridiculous, really. With everything Juz had done, she’d imagined she’d known the extent of his hate. But Garry? His only crime—loving the wrong man. And then the discovery that Juz had been making plans while they were children . . .

  She’d been raised inside her parents’ protective bubble, oblivious to her past, unaware that she was anything other than a normal child with a normal past and a normal future ahead.

  Juz had grown up under Madden’s umbrella. It had twisted his mind and blackened any loving, healthy portion of his heart. He’d orchestrated her stepmother’s death, ensured Madden was caught and imprisoned, set her father up so he could later use the information to bring him down. All to hurt her.

  The realisation was a dagger in her chest that Juz was slowly, methodically twisting.

  By hiding the truth, her parents had saved her from a similar fate. Yet, when she’d discovered what they’d done, she’d laid blame at their feet. Not once had she shown gratitude or thanked
them.

  Her fingers tightened around the knife handle and she tilted her head up to the water-marked ceiling. Please give me the chance to thank them!

  With a shaky hand she pushed away from the wall. ‘Garry loved you, so he had to die.’

  ‘All this talk of love. Such a pointless emotion. Madden wasted all he had on Lydia, and in return she dragged his heart through the dirt and married his best friend.’

  She moved closer still and caught a glimpse of him through a line of treadmills. He held a mobile in his hand, and every few seconds his gaze dropped to the screen. Where the hell had it come from? There’d been no mobile when she searched him earlier. She’d swear to it.

  Damn!

  This whole situation brimmed with madness, and where Juz had hidden a phone was the very least of her worries.

  With a flare of his nostrils, he bared his teeth. ‘What? No comments on mummy Lydia’s betrayal?’

  ‘She never loved him, you know. And she didn’t lead him on to believe she did.’ Jayda bit her lip to prevent herself from saying more. A calm negotiator encourages a calm hostage environment. ‘Madden may have imagined they had a love affair, but they never did.’

  ‘Is that what she told you?’ His eyes glinted almost black. ‘Lydia Thomasz is a liar as well as a whore.’

  Jayda’s teeth ground down on her lip. Don’t engage. Stay calm and stay alive. She waited, blood thundering through her veins.

  ‘He was going to leave mother for Lydia. When Lydia rejected him, he married her bitch friend and committed my life to a purgatory with my whining excuse for a mother. I was promised a father, stability, Friday night football and Sunday afternoon roasts. Instead I got leftovers. Yours.’ His fingers twisted and her body chilled with every knuckle click. ‘He gave you everything and left me scraps. I never forgave him for that.’

  ‘Yet you continued his legacy.’

  ‘It was the only promise he made that he kept. Even then, passing me the Night Terror reins was more for his profit than mine. He always was a self-centred sonovabitch.’

  He gripped onto a weights stand, fighting for breath, his voice a laboured rasp. She strained to hear it.

  ‘Not that it mattered. Becoming the Night Terror helped pass the time while I worked at fulfilling my own destiny.’

  ‘Why Bec?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘She had nothing to do with you.’

  ‘You loved her and therefore she had everything to do with me. She was a snotty, spoiled little brat. Killing her was worth the old man’s wrath.’

  She recoiled from the snap of his words. ‘You broke victimology.’

  ‘Another point, Sherlock. Have you worked out my unsanctioned father’s predilection for virgins?’

  ‘He wanted to possess them unspoiled?’

  ‘Correct again. Any idea why?’

  ‘To be their first, the way he couldn’t be my mother’s.’

  ‘Top of the class.’ The wide spread of his lips made her skin crawl. It was so far from the smile of the friend she remembered. ‘And the significance of the severed finger?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Jayda? I can’t hear when you shake your head.’

  It was as if the security camera above winked. She edged further behind the hulking metal. Whilst it offered limited cover, what it did offer was concealment.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Come, come. Don’t stop while you’re on such a roll. Or perhaps you need a little incentive.’

  Metal flashed in his hand and a 9mm projectile whizzed past her left ear. Plaster sprayed out from the wall behind her.

  She threw herself to the ground. Pain ripped across her cut stomach and she gasped, dragging white powder into her mouth and nostrils. Dust hit the back of her throat. She gagged, spluttered, spat it out. Ironic that if a bullet didn’t get her today, the asbestos would. She would have laughed if she wasn’t damn well bawling. She scrubbed her eyes while her heart tried to beat its way out of her chest.

  Where the hell did the gun come from? Her gun. Had he left it hidden? Had he planned on her breaking free?

  Juz was still anticipating her actions, manipulating her even.

  She blinked back the tears. She was tired. Of the game. Of wondering whether she’d see the people she loved again. Her parents. Seth.

  Struggling for breath, she crawled closer to an expanse of white sheet and sat up. Juz’s feet still remained firmly planted where she’d seen him last. Why couldn’t he just collapse and die? Or had her blow to his throat missed its mark?

  ‘Jayda? I missed deliberately, so I know you’re still there. I’m waiting for an answer.’ Through a tear in the sheet she watched him raise his hand again. ‘Or should I keep going?’

  What was it about the finger? ‘It’s . . . it’s the victim’s ring finger!’

  He nodded and dropped the hand with the gun. Tension leached from her shoulders and she released the breath she hadn’t noticed was wedged in the back of her throat.

  Her semi remained in his hand, a reminder that while he still breathed, he still held the balance of control. ‘Significance?’

  She gripped the cold metal of the equipment and pulled herself up. With the hem of her tee, she mopped her face. As the fabric fell, she sucked in a lungful of air and searched for the strength to continue.

  ‘Wakey, wakey!’

  This time the bullet hurtled to her right. She shrunk into the sheet, body quaking beneath the rain of plaster. Anywhere else and she could hope that someone would hear the shots and call the police. Not so in this sound-proofed space.

  With thoughts that his third shot might just reach its mark, she searched for an answer. ‘By removing the ring finger, he ensured his victims could never wear another man’s ring. They’d belong to him alone.’

  ‘Bravo.’ Hoarse coughs racked his body. He pressed his wrist to his mouth and when he removed it, the sleeve was soaked with red.

  That wasn’t from her blow to his throat.

  Realisation swirled through her mind as the implications of that blood clicked into place. ‘You’re sick.’

  He didn’t appear surprised she could see. But then again, the placement of the two bullets indicated he had a pretty accurate idea of her location. That he may have access to the security camera feed didn’t help. She moved further behind the sheet, knowing it provided little more than a semblance of protection.

  ‘Oh, I’m much more than that.’

  Realisation transformed any residual hopes into indulgence. ‘You’re dying?’

  He glanced again at the screen of his phone, his expression like the big bad wolf seconds before he ate Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. Why’d he look so damned pleased?

  That thought was closely followed by another—Juz had nothing to lose.

  64

  ‘Yes, I’m dying. Another legacy from the bastard you get to call Dad.’

  She bit her lip and swallowed the denial on her tongue.

  ‘Ever heard of chronic poisoning?’

  She shook her head, then remembered the whirr of the bullet past her ear. ‘No.’

  ‘Long-term exposure to a toxic substance. You’ll laugh when I tell you what. Want to guess?’

  Dying didn’t seem to faze him. He clutched the metal stand for support, his lips spread thinly across his teeth in a sickening grin. This was all just a game. A fun-filled afternoon.

  His life’s work coming to fruition.

  Her mind raced. How did he mean to catch and kill her now she’d escaped? The semi held fifteen rounds so thirteen remained, including the one in the chamber. Randomly shooting until he hit the jackpot wasn’t his style. The worst of it was that he didn’t appear concerned. If anything, he looked confident. The knowledge made her uneasy.

  She fumbled for something. Anything. ‘Cyanide.’

  He shook his head and tut-tutted. ‘If it were cyanide I’d be dead already. Don’t throw just anything out there. Think.’

 
‘I can’t give a diagnosis if I don’t know the symptoms.’

  ‘Watching?’ Without waiting for her answer, he extracted a clean handkerchief and rubbed at the underside of his jaw and down his neck. The olive she’d always associated with Juz was slowly overrun by sallow.

  He wore makeup?

  ‘Pale and peeling skin. You’ve seen me cough up blood. Then there’s sensitivity to light, loss of appetite, nausea and vomiting, bone pain, and most important, the kidney damage that’s killing me even as we speak. Any ideas now?’

  Toxicology wasn’t her strong suit. It was something she left to forensic anthropologists like Teddy. ‘None.’

  ‘How disappointing. Not that I’m surprised. Who’d have thought you could be poisoned by something that’s supposed to be good for you? A vitamin, no less. Any guesses which one?’

  ‘A?’

  ‘Top of the class. Although I suspect it was more luck than educated guessing.’ He pushed away from the stand, and now that she knew his condition she picked up the stiffness in his movements. Funny how she’d never noticed before.

  ‘They say eavesdroppers never hear anything nice. I learned the hard way how true that is. Never imagined I’d catch mother and Madden in a phone discussion on how much I needed controlling, how illness would tie me to them in a way nothing else could. Turns out they’d been systematically “controlling” me for years.’ With a bark he cleared his throat. ‘Ever questioned why you’ve been feeling so sick lately?’

  Before she could dwell on whether the words held substance or were uttered purely to scare her, he glanced at his phone and murmured. ‘It’s time.’

  His words clutched at her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. Time for what?

  He tilted his head. ‘Where was I? Ah, yes. My mother, your father. They both got what they deserved. Perhaps I have too.’ Glittering black returned to her. ‘And now, so will you.’

  Every pound of her heart drove the copper taste of blood to the back of her throat.

  What had he planned?

  She slipped the mobile from her pocket and stared at the cracked screen. No signal. She’d had crappy luck lately with phones. It’d be funny if it wasn’t so damned inconvenient. And downright distressing.