Authors: Jessie Keane
‘What if I say no?’ she asked, teasing, half enjoying herself now.
She’d never got over him and she knew she never would. Which was tragic, when you considered what
he
thought about
her
.
‘Not an option,’ he said firmly.
She turned in his arms, felt the welcoming strength of him as he pulled her in close. All right, she was fooling herself, but why shouldn’t she take some comfort from this? To hold him close was magical; to let him love her was like recapturing an old and precious memory and bringing it alive again. Alive, when she had thought that death and separation were all she could expect.
‘Kiss me,’ she moaned, wanting to blot out her own tormenting thoughts.
He kissed her, already pushing her back onto the bed, parting her thighs and slipping inside her so easily and naturally.
Oh, this was so good.
He was just as she remembered: tender, strong, filled with desire for her. But he was just making use of her. Keeping her safe, yes – but only until he knew where Layla was. She was his key to Layla.
Annie stiffened, turned her head away when he sought her lips.
‘Stop . . .’ she said faintly. ‘No,’ he murmured against her neck, and finished quickly, biting her shoulder quite hard, but not hard enough to bruise or draw blood.
Oh, she remembered that. That Max was more
physical
, more brutal than Constantine. Constantine had been a smooth, accomplished, considerate lover; Max was energetic and aggressive.
It turned her on now, just as it always had. Even while she was whispering that he should stop, that she didn’t want this, she did, she did.
He was using her, just like he’d use a whore. He’d called her that, and now he was using her like that too. He could already have made her pregnant again, could have just fathered another child on her, but one born not of love but of hatred.
He pulled out of her and rolled onto his back, easing her up against his chest, his breathing growing steadier. She could hear his strong, vibrant heartbeat.
Max Carter was back in her life.
She hadn’t quite believed it until now.
But he wasn’t back to stay. She sternly reminded herself of that. When he got Layla, he would leave her and take Layla with him. If he knew that she was fully aware of Layla’s whereabouts right now, he’d probably break her neck.
Did she want that to happen? No. She didn’t. But one day soon it would, and she saw no way of preventing it.
What the fuck was she going to
do
?
Max had dropped her off at Ellie’s and said he’d be back in five – he had to talk to Gary. She was trying to apologize to the shaken Madam and her girls for the whole bomb fiasco, but it looked as if what could have been a disaster had turned into a result for Ellie. Chris was there at the kitchen table with her, and he was being very attentive, Annie thought.
Then the phone rang in the hall. Rosie answered it, and called through to Annie in the kitchen.
‘It’s for you. Someone called Alberto.’
Annie hurried through to the hall and took the phone. ‘Alberto?’
‘Hi, sweetheart,’ he said, sounding worried.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Annie, instantly alert.
‘I’m glad I caught you. I didn’t think this could wait until you got back. I just had a call from Jenny Parsons,’ he said.
‘Oh?’ Annie clutched the phone harder.
‘She says Layla’s been taken ill. She thought it was flu, but it could be more serious than that.’
‘
What?
’ Annie felt sickness sweep through her guts like a tidal wave.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you, but they say it looks quite serious and you really ought to be there with her.’
‘She still at the Parsons’ yard? They haven’t taken her to hospital or anything?’
‘Not yet, no.’
‘Jesus.’ Annie was thinking fast. She had to get to Layla. But she couldn’t wait for Max to come back, and she didn’t want to risk Max finding out where Layla was, not yet. Not
ever
, maybe. Perhaps the wisest thing to do would be to just snatch Layla herself and take off into the sunset – that was,
if
the poor little thing was well enough. ‘Is there anything I can do?’ asked Alberto.
‘Nothing. I’ll get straight over there.’
Annie put the phone down and hurried into the kitchen.
‘Chris, you got your car outside?’ she asked him quickly.
‘Yeah, sure.’
‘Can you drive me over to Newbury?’
‘When?’
‘Now. This minute.’
‘Well . . . yeah. No problem.’ He was standing up.
‘What’s up? Trouble?’ asked Ellie, watching them both anxiously.
‘Not here, Ells. Don’t worry.’
‘Let’s go then,’ said Chris.
‘What about when Mr Carter gets back?’ Ellie shouted after them as they went down the hall to the front door. ‘What should I tell him?’
Annie didn’t even break her stride.
‘Tell him something came up, you don’t know what,’ she yelled back, and then they were out through the door and gone.
They got to the yard on the outskirts of the town by late afternoon. Horses were dozing in their boxes and the yard was quiet, swept clean, the flower baskets watered. The aura of the place was one of calm efficiency, the day’s work having drawn to its close.
‘You want me to come in with you?’ asked Chris.
Annie shook her head. If they had to go to the hospital, it was better Chris stayed in the car at the ready. Layla could easily have deteriorated in the time it had taken them to get here.
‘No, stay here, I’ll be back as quick as I can.’
She hurried across the yard and into the house, calling for Josh’s wife Jenny as she went.
She found her in the kitchen, dusted with flour, as were the worktops, the floor and the four excited children with her.
Layla was among them.
Annie dashed in, taking in Jenny’s startled face as she ran to her daughter, bent and snatched her up.
‘Baby, you okay?’ she asked urgently, aware of Jenny watching her with surprise on her face.
Annie glanced up at Jenny. She was just as she remembered – slightly scruffy, with her medium-length red hair in a tangle of curls, her freckled face flushed from the Aga’s heat, her pretty grey eyes wide with amazement as they stared at Annie.
‘Where’s Gerda?’ she asked.
‘Upstairs in the loo. What’s up?’
‘I got a call. They said Layla was ill.’
‘
Ill?
’ Jenny let out a laugh. ‘God no. She’s fine. We’re just making jam tarts for tea, she’s having a whale of a time.’
Annie looked intently at Layla’s face.
‘Mummy, you’re squishing me,’ complained Layla.
‘Sorry . . .’ said Annie faintly.
What the hell . . .?
Annie stared at Jenny. ‘You didn’t phone the Holland Park house?’
‘Of course not!’
But Alberto had sounded so sure, so concerned . . .
Annie stiffened. Max had said that he expected one of the family to make their move soon. But . . . oh my
God . . .
No. Not Alberto.
Please
not him.
She looked around. It was a happy domestic scene in here . . . but she had been
lured
here. By Alberto. By the man she had thought was her friend.
Chris. She had to go outside, get Chris.
Had to take whatever was happening away from Jenny and her kids, away from Layla.
‘What’s going on?’ Jenny was asking, her eyes on Annie’s wild face. ‘Was someone playing some sort of joke on you? Layla’s not ill, she’s absolutely fine.’
‘Jenny . . .’ Annie was looking around frantically, unconsciously searching for a weapon. She turned back to Jenny and tried to speak calmly, not to frighten her or the kids. ‘Jenny, I want you to do something and not to ask for explanations, okay? I want you to just
do
it. All right?’
‘All . . . right,’ said Jenny uncertainly. Now she was looking at Annie as if she’d gone mad.
‘Swear.’
‘Yes. Of course. I’ll do it.’
‘I want you to take all the kids upstairs and get into a room with a phone and barricade yourself in there. Take Gerda in with you. Then I want you to call the police.’
‘The
police
?’ Jenny gaped.
‘Tell them there’s been an accident. A shooting. Something.
Anything.
Just get them here.’
‘But that’s wasting police time . . .’ Jenny protested feebly.
Annie’s expression would have stopped a ten-ton truck.
‘
Jenny
,’ she said, and there was fire in her voice now. This was the old Annie, Annie Carter, tough as nails and twice as nasty, and when she gave orders, people followed them. ‘Get the kids upstairs. Just
do it.
’
Jenny decided not to argue. Going pale, she tore off her apron and started ushering the children out of the kitchen, up the stairs.
‘But Mummy, I wanted to show you . . .’ Layla’s voice drifted back to Annie.
‘Not now, petal,’ Jenny said, shushing her.
Annie went to the drawers and starting throwing them open until she found a large knife. She tucked it into her coat pocket. Then she tore across the kitchen, out through the door and was across the deserted yard in a flash. She approached Chris’s old Zephyr at a flat run.
‘Chris!’ she was shouting. ‘It’s a trap! It’s . . .’
She froze mere feet from the car.
Looked for the first time and
saw.
The Zephyr’s windscreen was shattered, a thousand little chunks of glass glittering like ice, sparkling in the sun on the highly polished bonnet.
Kicked out from inside.
Oh no.
She forced herself to move forward, to look in the car.
Chris was slumped across the big sofa seat, one of his feet up on the dashboard. There was a damp stain on the crotch of his trousers. His eyes were closed and his face was a blotched, ugly red. His neck was a mass of livid red bruising.
Annie stepped back. The back door on her side was open. She was almost too scared to look, but she forced herself to do it. There was no one in there. Not any more. Someone had jumped into the back seat and throttled Chris from behind. He had kicked out the windscreen in his death throes. And now . . . whoever had killed Chris was out here somewhere, and she was alone.
‘Oh, Stepmom,’ said Alberto’s voice softly from behind her.
She was frozen to the spot, too terrified to even turn round. Her right hand was clenched around the knife’s handle in her pocket. She was just staring at Chris, lying there dead, and into her mind, stupidly, came the thought:
How am I supposed to explain this to Ellie?
But she wasn’t going to get the chance to explain anything. Alberto had finished off Chris and now he was going to finish her. Her throat was dry, her tongue felt swollen in her mouth with the force of her terror and revulsion. Her heart was thwacking against her chest wall so hard she thought she might faint.
Alberto wasn’t her friend. She told herself that and tried to make herself believe it. That night in Montauk when Constantine had been blown to bits and she had been catapulted onto the sand, he’d been leaning over her. She’d thought he was checking she was still alive. But he had been checking she was
dead.
And he must have been so angry that she wasn’t. He had looked distressed – and so he had been. Distressed that she was still breathing.
She started to turn, words tumbling from her mouth.
‘Why would you do this, Alberto? Why?’ she gasped out, turning.
Turning.
Everything slowing down.
Waiting to see what she knew she must and what her heart told her could not be true. Alberto, waiting to kill her.
And then she could put it off no longer. She turned fully and raised her eyes and
looked.
The man standing there was not Alberto. This man was an abomination. She stared at him in bewildered horror and fascination because
she had heard Alberto speak.
And yet Alberto was nowhere to be seen.
‘What the . . .?’ she said hoarsely.
God, he was hideous. What was most shocking about his deformity was that it was only partial. He had copper-gold straight hair, lustrous, thick; his skin was clear and unblemished. He had deep-set grey eyes, a smattering of freckles over his long, aristocratic nose, a prominent chin. He could almost be handsome, but . . .
Jesus, his mouth.
His mouth was a travesty. It looked as if someone had taken a knife to it and sliced it open at both ends. There were deep purple scars running almost to his ears on both sides of it. When he smiled – he was smiling now – the scars puckered angrily and gave him a ferocious, predatory look.
‘Who . . .?’ Annie managed to say.
‘Oh, I’m nobody,’ said the freak.
He was still speaking in Alberto’s voice; it was pitch-perfect. That sound, so familiar, so loved, coming out of that abused purple
slit
of a mouth made Annie’s blood run cold.
This was a trap and she had blundered right into it.
Max was miles away.
Chris was dead.
She was totally alone here, with this lunatic.
‘It was you on the phone,’ she said unsteadily.
‘Not a bad little part,’ he was saying, and now his voice wasn’t Alberto’s at all. It was radio English, cultured and with beautifully rounded vowel sounds. ‘I think I played it rather well, considering. The accent was tricky but I had a tape to study so that I could get it just so. There’s a mile of difference between Bronx and Manhattan, as you know. I flatter myself that accents are something of a speciality of mine and I do tend to get them spot-on.’
‘You killed Chris,’ said Annie, still trying to take it in.
‘What, the meathead in the car? A small precaution,’ he returned.
The cold precision of his speech chilled her. Her hand tightened around the knife. If he came any closer, she was going to do it. She was determined on that. If it was him or her, it was going to be him.