by Sienna Grant
“Finley? What’s he done now?”
I sucked in a breath and sat in the chair before blowing it out. “He’s kidnapped Callie.”
Her hands covered her shocked gasp and tears filled her eyes. “Oh my God, Callie.”
“We need to find her, but apart from some footage from her friend's flat and some street CCTV showing a partial plate, we have nothing.” Taking her hand, I gripped it in mine. “Lou, we need anything that you can think of. Places he might go, people he might know or see… anything. She was taken yesterday, and every minute that goes by and we don’t find her, the less chance we have of finding her alive.”
“Oh God, poor Callie. You know he always had a thing for her, don’t you? Even when we were together and seemed happy, I used to catch him staring at her when he came in the flat and she was there. He took way too much interest in her. I tried to shake it off and I never said anything because I loved him.” She lifted her gaze back to me. “I knew he was capable of pretty much anything, but I never thought he would be capable of something like this.”
A tear slipped down her cheek. I knew her tears weren't for Finley, but for Callie and what she was going through. “There’s so much that went on between us that no one knows. He had a kink. He liked knives, blunt instruments that he could torture me with. He’d press the tip of the knife into my skin and watch as it dug in so far that it would pierce. A sick smile would appear on his face as the blood appeared, then he’d lick it away. I knew then I had to get away from him. I was scared. That was when the beatings started. When I started saying no. He threatened to kill me on more than one occasion.”
Closing my eyes for a minute, I had to gain the strength from somewhere to go. Knowing that she suffered like that at his hands made me angry. “Why didn’t you come to me, Lou? I could have you got you away from him.”
“Chris, not a day goes by that I don’t regret not coming to you to help me. But he knew you were a detective and he threatened to hurt you and my family. I couldn’t put anyone at risk.”
“But you put yourself at risk! I can look after myself!” There was no point getting angry with her, but it was only my anger and hurt that was driving me now.
“His family has a place in Devon. It’s a farmhouse, I think. He kept saying he would take me there, but he never got around to it. I don’t know it’s actual whereabouts, but I guess with your connections, you’ll find it. He may have taken her there, I don’t know. I’m sorry I couldn’t help more.” She lifted her shoulders in a huff, deflated at her own words.
“You’ve helped us loads.” I stood up and placed my lips on her forehead, letting my lips linger there for a moment. “Thank you.”
“Will you keep me informed?” Lou asked and sniffed back her tears.
“Of course I will. We’ll find her.”
With a tight smile and a hope that I didn’t have before, I left her room.
23
Chris
After another night of sleeping with my head on the desk and chasing leads for blue transits that went nowhere, I was starting to lose all hope of ever finding her. All the farmhouses we found were occupied. We even communicated with Devon and Somerset Police and had them looking, but every avenue came up empty. I had Callie’s mum on the phone every hour, and I’d gotten to the point where I didn’t know what to tell her anymore. The faith I’d had in finding her alive was getting slimmer. I wanted to run and hide from everyone and investigate, but I couldn’t do that. I had to fucking man up and put my feelings of guilt aside. I had to find the girl I’d come to love. If only I’d realised how much I loved her before then I could have protected her better. No. I had to keep telling myself to stop because it was eating away at me.
The door to my office burst open, and Walker and Reynolds rushed in. “We have a lead.”
“What?” It didn’t register in my fuzzy head what they were saying until Reynolds stood in front of me and held up a disc.
“We have a lead. The transit was sighted at a petrol station in the Barnstaple area of North Devon, not too long ago.”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
“Sarge?”
“Get on to Barnstaple police and tell them what’s come up and ask if they have manpower to start a search. We need a report on all the vacant and unused farmhouses and land in that area. We could be wrong with the unused part, so we need a comb of the area.”
“Consider it done.”
Walker left the office and Reynolds passed me the disc. I placed it in the machine and watched the footage. After twenty minutes, the transit pulled into the petrol station and a figure jumped from the van. As soon as I saw it, I knew it was Finley Brown. We waited for him to fill the van up with diesel and then he went into the kiosk like he’d done nothing wrong. He wasn’t in there long before he strutted out and jogged towards the van.
We decided against the national press conference because we didn’t want him going deeper underground than he already was. Social media would be enough for him to stay in hiding, but it seemed he’d fucked up. Acting like the dutiful citizen by paying for his fuel might have just sealed his fate. I watched closely as he got back in his van and turned left out of the petrol garage and disappeared.
“What road is that garage on? Maybe we can pinpoint where it is. We need to get down there. Fancy a drive?”
“Sarge, it’s three hours away at least.”
“Fuck. You’re right. See if there’s an available chopper. I’m going to contact Devon police myself and tell them what we’ve found. They will be able to give me more information about the area. Let me know if we can get a helicopter. I’ll be back.”
I left Reynolds with her task in hand and headed for the bathroom.
Going to the sink, I ran the cold tap and cupped my hand beneath it before splashing my face with water. My head was still hurting a bit, but not as much as it was. Right then, I didn’t give a shit about myself. I just needed to find Callie and get her back. I looked at the reflection that stared back at me. Dark circles ringed my eyes, but the spark I always had had gone from them. I angled my head so I could see the cut. I was doing okay, but I really needed to get the blood out of my hair. Screw that, I needed a shower and a change of clothes, but until this was done, I couldn’t think about me.
As I walked back into the office, Reynolds burst through. “Chopper will be ready to go in fifteen minutes.”
“Let’s go grab the team.”
Devon police had been in touch while we were in the chopper and told the pilot where to land. The guys had found his hideout, so by the time we landed in a farmer’s field, we were five miles out.
We jumped in one of the cars that greeted us and made our way.
We had an officer knock on the door while we hid in the vicinity. I hid with the detective from the Devon squad and waited. The door never opened, so the officer knocked again. When no answer came again, we ushered the officer out of the way and one of the others rammed the door with the battering ram and we were inside.
There was a flurry of shouting from me and the others as clear was shouted out and we moved through the house. There was no sign of Finley, and more to my frustration, there was no sign of Callie.
“What the fuck! I thought you said this is the place. It doesn’t even look like there’s been anyone here.”
“This is the place he was tracked to. She has to be here.”
“She’d better be.”
“Hey, Farmer, just remember we’re helping you out here…”
“Yeah, I know.”
The armed police went before us with their guns raised, all of us splitting into small groups, but each of us came up completely fucking empty.
“ARGH! Where the fuck is he?”
“He has to be here somewhere,” Simmons, the other lead said in a furious tone with his hands on his hips as he looked around him, at the ceiling, on the floor, anywhere where he thought there could be something that showed us the way. “These farmhouses were bui
lt before the war, right?”
“So...?”
“So, Detective Walker, what did they build especially for the war…?”
I felt my brow crease, but like a lightbulb moment, it came to me. “Bunkers!”
“Air raid bunkers.” He nodded with a smug grin. “So, somewhere in this house there's something that will lead us to a bunker, and I'll bet that’s where she’ll be.”
“Over here!”
We stared at each other for a moment and jogged over to where the officer was standing. Facing the closed door leading off the kitchen, I tried the handle, but it was locked. “It must be locked from the other side,” I said, rattling the door.
“Get the ram,” I called out, and before I could blink, it was being forced open. We took the concrete steps one by one, armed officers before us, and as we turned a corner, we came to another door. They didn’t waste a second. They called for us to stand back then blew a hole through the handle and the door swung open. They charged in, but what I saw before me I didn’t think I’d ever get out of my head.
The armed police stood with their guns raised in front of them, shouting for Finley to freeze. All I could hear was noise thundering in my ears. I couldn’t act quickly enough, and everything was happening in slow motion. Callie was out cold, covered in welts, bruises, and completely naked. My heart stopped as I stared at her, but when her chest rose and fell, I managed to drag some air into my lungs. All I wanted to do was get her the fuck out of there. But he had a knife to the side of her neck. One move and he’d take the life from her.
“FREEZE. DROP THE WEAPON.”
“I’ll slice her if you come any nearer.”
I seemed to come back to my senses, and everything was clearer.
“If you don’t drop the weapon and step away, we are trained to shoot, and we will shoot you.”
“Take your best shot.”
I wanted to grab him and beat the shit out of him. I wanted to take that gun from one of them and shoot him between the fucking eyes. If it was up to me, he wouldn’t walk out of there. He didn’t deserve to live.
The officers took a cautious step forward, but I could tell he was getting nervous, and this was where he was more dangerous. I stepped around the other officers until I was standing just behind the armoury.
“Finley. Let her go. You’re just making this worse for yourself. You’re looking at a lot of years in prison for this.”
“Then a few more aren’t going to hurt, are they? I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
“But you didn’t take your chance, did you? You weren’t brave enough…” I knew I was winding him up, but at that stage, I didn’t fucking care. I needed him to drop Callie.
“So, I’m here now.” I shrugged. “Do what you want. I’ll stand in Callie’s place. Do it.” I sneered at him. “You haven’t got the fucking balls, have you? You can’t overpower me like you can a woman. Come on, big man. Hurt me.”
His lip curled and his eyes narrowed. I could see the anger, the hate in his eyes. He shifted the knife and dragged the tip down her naked, pale bicep and across to her breast. My stomach bottomed out as he dragged it further between her breasts. He kept going until he reached the dip between her hip and her belly button and sank it into her skin. She didn't budge or even whimper. She must have been completely out of it. He dropped her like a discarded tissue and stood. My eyes didn’t leave him, but I almost missed when he lunged at me. The sound of gunfire deafened me, but the sight of Finley going down to the ground gave me a sickening pleasure. We waited on pins as one of the other officers went over to him and checked his pulse. “Clear!”
My feet moved quicker than my head could keep up with, and I dropped to my knees next to Callie’s lifeless body, shrugged out of my jacket, and covered her up from the front. “Can someone find something to cover her with, and can we get a fucking ambulance here now.”
I picked her up in my arms and hugged her to me. I’d never been so happy to hold her and feel her shallow breaths against my skin. I put her back down and put pressure on the stab wound, waiting until the ambulance crew arrived and took over her care before I slumped onto the floor and buried my head in my hands.
24
Callie
My next wake up found my heavy eyes unable to open, but my head was clearer than it had been in days, and my body was sore, but not as achy. I heard an odd noise beside me, and I slowly turned my head to see an exhausted-looking Chris lying by my head.
At first, I thought I was dreaming, but then the sounds started to get louder, as though someone was turning the volume up on the world.
“She’s waking up,” another voice said. That sounded suspiciously like Beth, and my vision wobbled as I turned to see her and my mum standing at the foot of my bed.
“Cals,” Chris muttered, and I turned to face him, trying to reach my hand over to touch him, to make sure he was real. “Cals, I’m so sorry we didn’t get there sooner. Your directions gave us a starting point, and when we searched Devon, we found a farmhouse he owned. It took us three days, and I…”
His tears fell as he leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to my forehead. My body tensed in alarm, but it wasn’t at him.
He frowned, and I saw him swallow the pain of my rejection before he smiled down at me.
“I’m so, so sorry for not believing you. For letting him get to you.”
The thought of him made my heart rate spike, and my eyes darted around the room as though I was expecting to see him hiding behind a chair or coming through the door.
“He’s gone. He was killed in the struggle.”
Chris’s soft, reassuring voice broke through the terror, and I reached over, grabbing his hand and holding it tightly.
I couldn’t speak, but I didn’t know what I’d say. Just knowing he was there for me, by my side, meant more than I could say. Before I could speak, Summers and Reynolds arrived, looking grim and contrite.
“Sorry to do this now, but we need your statement. We have all the physical evidence, and we just need your statement. Can you give us a minute, please?”
Beth and my mum nodded, both coming over and giving me soft hugs that made my body tense as they left.
“We’ll be right outside. Chris can let us know if you need anything.”
Beth met my eyes and smiled, but I could see the fear and worry in her eyes before Summers stepped in front of her, cutting her off from my sight. His eyes met mine, and he smiled gently at me as he said his next phrase.
“You are a very lucky girl. He’s done this before. We found his victims when we found you, and it could have been so much worse.”
I closed my eyes as a jolt of fear pulsed through me, and Chris muttered, ‘son of a bitch.’ I tried to concentrate, but my head was spinning, and I couldn’t formulate the words to answer their questions. I could see them getting frustrated with me, but I was scared, tired, and the pains in my body were becoming too extreme to ignore. I turned to Chris, and he stood up, motioning for the cops to follow him, but if I thought being left alone would be better, I was wrong.
I started to panic, and my machines started to go haywire until the nurses came into the room. One nurse offered to sedate me, but the other nurse came over and sat beside me, talking to me about a show she was watching. It was that small act of kindness that calmed me down until Chris came back. His eyes were glassy, and his hair was ruffled, but it was the pain in his expression that made my heart break. He could barely look at me. I wondered if he didn’t want me anymore because of Finley. My thoughts went round and round until his hand closed over mine. He lowered his lips to my cheek, burning my skin with his soft kiss.
“Hey, it’s okay. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”
His strong hands wrapped around me, and I sighed as he held me tightly while running his nose along my cheek.
“Chris, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I sent you…”
His fingers brushed my cheek, and he shushed me. “No. It’s fine. It’s
my fault. I shouldn’t have left you. No matter what I felt, I shouldn’t have gone.” He brushed my forehead with his lips and shuddered. “Cals, I love you. I think I always have, but this, almost losing you to that psycho, I can’t…” His voice breaks, and my amazingly strong protector breaks down in front of me. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
His soft words tore my heart apart, and I could only sit there because I didn’t know how to forgive him or fix things with us.
My head was a jumbled mess, and it was a relief when Beth came in a few moments later.
“Chris, I think you need to go now.”
Her voice was cold, making him stiffen. My eyes darted to where she was standing, but Chris nodded against my head, kissing me gently before he extracted himself and walked to the door.
“I’ll be right down the hall. Call me if she needs anything.”
My eyes widened as Beth ignored him and walked into the room with Charlie behind her. Neither of them acknowledged Chris or said a word to him to him as he hovered by the door, but it was when Charlie turned and closed the door in his face that I knew something must have happened before I woke up.
“Hey, Cals,” Beth said as she walked over to the seat Chris just vacated, and I saw the dark circles under her eyes.
“You okay? You look tired.”
My voice wobbled and shook as I tried to speak, and she leaned over, pressing her head softly against mine.
“I’ve been better. Getting a phone call from my friend’s ex to tell me she’s gone missing wasn’t the best start to my week.”
Her eyes darkened as she glanced down my body and Charlie spoke, breaking the momentary silence.
“Why didn’t you tell us? We would’ve come home. We would’ve believed you.”
And there it was. The reason they were being cold with Chris. I wanted to tell them it wasn’t his fault, but I didn’t know how to verbalise my feelings. It sucked that Chris was getting the blame when it was Finley. Just thinking his name had my heartbeat spiking in terror, and I closed my eyes, trying to breathe through it.