“Yes.”
“Best doughnuts around. Idiot.”
“Excuse me?”
“Not you.” He twisted the wheel left, squeezing us between double parked cars with barely an inch to spare. “Benjamin. Risking it for bloody crullers.”
“Risking what exactly?” I asked, gripping the door as the car swerved around a left corner and the park railings came into view.
“What?” He glanced my way, back to the road. “Oh, er … bumping into Ivan.”
I frowned. “How do you kno—”
The car skidded over the sludge-covered road, grinding to a halt outside the gate Benjamin had charged us through.
Drake twisted to me. “Stay in the car.”
Before I could respond, he exited the Mercedes and vanished into the park before his door had even slammed shut. I unclipped my belt and dived across to peer through the driver’s window, eyes squinted like that would help me see beyond the hedge.
One minute passed. I massaged my toes in an attempt to circulate the blood.
Two minutes passed.
Three.
Jesus, where are they?
I flopped back into my seat and flipped the door catch. Chill air rushed through the gap as I swung the door open. Wetness sifted through what was left of my stockings as I stepped into the road.
“What part of stay in the car didn’t you understand?”
My head snapped up to see Drake rounding the gate. I held my breath, releasing it slowly when Benjamin marched out behind him and straight to me.
His arms scooped beneath my legs and around my shoulders, and he deposited me back in the passenger seat. “Do you ever do as you’re told?”
“Yes, often.” As I met his gaze, his eyes turned a warm shade of honey and seemed to glow in the dimness. I swallowed. “Did you find my purse?”
He withdrew from the car without answering and shut me in. The rear and driver’s doors opened, and the both of them joined me. Without a word from either of them, the engine turned over, first gear was engaged, and Drake slid the car away from the kerbside.
I straightened in my seat after Drake had taken two left turns, heading us back toward river car park and away from my house. “You took a wrong turn.”
He didn’t answer, just stared straight ahead, both hands on the wheel.
I pointed behind us. “My house is that way.” My panic might not have hit me full mode, but my voice still wavered and arrived a little shrill. “Where are we going? Surely, we’re still not going to bloody Flunkies after this?”
“We’re going somewhere safe,” Benjamin said behind me.
I twisted to bring him into view. “My house is safe.”
“Not any more it isn’t.”
“Wh …” I frowned, forced down a gulp. “What do you mean?”
“I couldn’t find your purse, Cole. It wasn’t there. If it was, I’d have sme—” He averted his gaze, drawing in a deep sigh. “I’d have found it.”
“So … I’ll change my locks.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that simple. The fact it was missing means that they most likely have it. Which means they may now have your address. As well as your keys. So—”
“Oh, my God! Kellie!”
“Who’s Kellie?” Drake said, just as Benjamin’s uttered, “Shit!” burst out.
“You have to take me back.” I grabbed Drake’s arm, my gaze on Benjamin. “We have to go back there.”
“Cole, calm down.” Benjamin reached over and pried my fingers from jerking Drake side-to-side. “Drake, where’s your phone?”
With a bit of hip thrusting and prying, he retrieved it from his pocket, and Benjamin took it and passed it to me. “Call home.”
Though my hands shook a little, I managed to enter the house number before pressing dial and sticking the phone to my ear.
Silence preceded static and the chirp of the ringtone.
I held my breath, mentally counting through the bleeps like a chant: un-uhn, un-uhn, un-uhn … After the eighth round, the click of the answer phone sounded.
I hung up, dialled again, ignoring the weight of Benjamin’s attention and distracted from the fact Drake still drove the wrong way at death-miles-per-hour.
Same amount of bleeps, same click, followed by, ‘Hey, this is Cole and Kellie—’
I hung up. “No answer.”
“She have a mobile?” Drake asked.
“Yes, but …” I stared down at the phone, jaw tight. “I’ve never had to dial it. It’s been stored in my mobile so long, I’m not even sure of the number. I mean, is it oh-seven-nine-eight, or oh-seven-eight-nine, or—dammit, I don’t know.”
“Try them both,” Benjamin said. “We’ll reach my place in a minute, anyway, and then I’ll go check on her.” His hand slipped through the seats, his thumb brushing across my cheek. “It’ll be okay, Cole. I promise.”
Taking a deep breath, I nodded. “Oh-seven … oh-seven …” I mumbled the combination of numbers beneath my breath, closing my eyes in concentration as I worked through the sequence like a long-forgotten song. Just try the damn number, I yelled at myself and began pressing buttons.
As the ring tone buzzed at my ear, the car made a sharp veer onto a road that put its suspension to the test. I sat up straighter, hand braced against the window as I peered into total blackness.
My pulse notched up a gear. “Where on earth are you tak—?”
I jolted at the connecting click through the phone line.
Static silence.
I looked across at Drake, his glinting eyes telling me he stared my way through the dark interior. “Hello?”
“Who’s this?” Gruff didn’t quite cover the answering tone.
“Oh, um … I … was after my friend. I think I may have the wrong number. So sorry to bother you.”
“Whatever.” Click.
“Charming,” I muttered as the car quit its bouncing act and rolled over a new surface that didn’t threaten to wreck my teeth. A check through the windscreen showed glowing squares more commonly known as illuminated windows and a couple of parked vehicles. “Where—”
“My house.” Benjamin climbed from the car, and a few seconds later, he opened my door. Before I could even swing a leg out, he reached in and hugged me against his chest.
Though my mind rebelled at the dominant gesture, I kept mute, instead calling home again. While Benjamin marched us across a rough lain drive, I checked out my surroundings.
What I’d have described as a wooden shack, had it not been two storeys high with a double frontage and a canopied deck that seemed to circle the building, loomed over us. The light I’d seen spilled from downstairs windows, while the upstairs ones stared back like a couple of unseeing eyes.
My gaze darted side-to-side, searching for neighbours.
Like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, only deserted, snow-blanketed land spanned left and right, barely a tree or bush rising out of the darkness. The chirping tone at my ear at least lent an illusionary connection to normalcy.
Click. ‘Hey, this is Cole and Kellie. Sorry we’re not able to take your call at the moment, but if you leave a name and number, we’ll do our best to get back to you,’ we both sang, before Kellie’s tag of, ‘Or not!’ ended the message. Beep.
“Kellie, if you’re there, for goodness sake call me … on … how the heck’s she going to call me?” When I glanced up at Benjamin, he rattled off a landline number, which I recited into the phone. “If you’re asleep and ignoring the bloody phone, I swear to God, Kellie, I’ll make you cook every night this week. Are you even listening to me?”
As I hung up on a sigh, Drake opened a door to the rear of the property, and we entered to a lit kitchen decked out with the same distressed appearance as the outside.
A chair scraped back from a generous table set to one side. The giant that evacuated it stared our way from beneath hair as ginger as a brandy snap, his wide eyes flitting left, right, left, right. He finally settled on a
spot just above my shoulder. “Ben …” He said the word slowly. “What’s going on?”
“Complications to the evening.” Benjamin carried me straight to one of the counters and set me down with legs dangling.
“Understatement,” Drake said. “Ivan Koposky is what really happened.”
“Shit!” The redhead raked his fingers through his hair. “You think they were gunning for you?”
“No, just coincidence and …” Benjamin’s gaze settled on me before fluttering away. “… distractions.”
“You still owe him a shedload of dough from your last trespass, Ben. I thought tonight was supposed to be a straight in and out and no loiter? What the hell were you thinking?”
Beneath my frown, my attention flitted from male to male.
“Trying to Flunky-impress the female,” Drake muttered.
Benjamin sent them a glare and turned back to me. As he caught one of my feet up, he frowned before his fingers pressed my cheek near the scratch I’d forgotten about. “You’re hurt.”
“And you’re still naked. Do you often run around Horton with no clothes on, Benjamin?”
“No.”
“Why were you …” A gulp started to wedge in my throat again as alternating flashes whipped through my mind: scrapped clothes-lion-scrapped clothes-lion-scrapped—I blinked. “Why were your clothes torn to shreds?” My gaze skimmed over him—fast, so I didn’t have time to linger on any one solid, muscular spot. “And there’re no marks on you—how is that possible?”
His golden eyes gazed into me, ensuring my throat obstruction expanded by at least fifty percent. After a few seconds, he pushed away and stalked from the room.
I stared after him before turning to the gingernut, who studied me like an alien had come for afternoon tea, and to Drake, who gave a small headshake, one corner of his mouth curved up in the barest of smiles.
Benjamin reappeared in the kitchen doorway, a pair of boxers in his hand. “How about if I just leave you to come to terms with what I suspect you’ve already figured out?”
Um … huh? My mouth opened.
“In the meantime …” He pointed at my hand and Drake’s mobile I still hogged. “Keep trying your friend’s phone.”
The following minutes seemed to pass in a manic blur. While I tried differing combinations of the digits stuck in my head, Benjamin dressed and tossed orders at Drake and the redhead.
Mid-dial, for the seventh time, a fourth guy entered the fray, his attention falling on me like a hydraulic hammer. “Has anyone else noticed there’s a cute feme sitting on the kitchen counter?” The Attila-the-Hun lookalike stoppered my throat for a moment as the darkest eyes I’d ever seen seemed to appraise me from head to toe. All while the loomer wore a leer on his chops. “So, who brought the entertainment, then?” he asked, when Benjamin shoved past him from the hallway.
“She’s off limits. Cole meet Corey. Don’t worry,” he said, like he’d caught my momentary panic, “he’s not as thuggish as he looks.”
I went back to my task of trying new sets of digits, half listening to Benjamin re-cover the issue and his big plan for them to head off to Ivan’s boss’s condo and snatch back Kellie with whatever force they deemed necessary. All while I sat alone, in a strange house, in the middle of nowhere, worrying myself sick.
The dial tone at my ear stalled; the quiet connective click sounded.
“Hello,” purred a smooth, deep voice.
My sigh arrived heavy. “Sorry, I think I must have the wrong number.” Again.
“Tell me who you’re looking for, and I’ll be the judge of that.”
For some reason, the hairs prickled along my nape. “My friend, Kellie.”
“Cole, I presume? Why don’t you put one of the Toms I can hear in the background on the line?”
Toms?
My heart stuttered as I glanced toward where the four men mumbled about infiltration and backup. No mention of heading to my house to check on Kellie. Did they already know she wouldn’t be there? What hadn’t Benjamin told me, exactly?
As though he’d sensed my scrutiny, his honeyed gaze spun to me. “Cole?”
The three other men quit talking and turned toward me, too, and my hand holding the phone reached out like it belonged to someone else.
Benjamin stepped forward. “Yes?”
I knew when the guy on the line began speaking because Benjamin’s jaw set rigid, the muscles clenched in his cheeks, and a deep V cut a groove between his eyebrows.
“Twenty-five?” Anger laced the words as his hand fisted around the mobile. More quiet minutes passed, a flat expressionless glaze entering Benjamin’s eyes, making him appear more terrifying than if he’d bared his teeth and screamed out the frustration pumping from him like a pulsed energy. Finally, he said, “Unharmed, or no deal.”
He hit the disconnect button and faced the ceiling, his chest rising and falling like he struggled to contain himself.
“Twenty-five?” Corey asked.
Eyes still aimed heavenward, Benjamin nodded.
“But you only owe him two from the last time.”
“Yep,” Benjamin muttered.
“How’s he justify—”
“Interest.”
“But … we don’t have twenty-five,” Drake said. “We don’t even have the two … do we?”
“Nope.” On an extra deep inhale and exhale, Benjamin lowered his face and stepped back to me. “Keep this.” He handed me the phone, his other hand brushing across my cheek. “I’ll call you as soon as we have your friend.” He gazed into me for seconds, seemed to want to say more, but turned away and nodded to the others. “Let’s go get her.”
From my perch on the worktop, I watched as the four of them trailed from the room like they were heading for nothing more pressing than a grocery-shopping trip.
Like they tackled potential kidnaps every day.
Because I was certain that was what had happened to Kellie. Because of me. The realisation turned my blood cold.
The second the front door closed on the departing men, leaving me surrounded by a strange house, totally unknowing of my location and one-hundred percent alone, my body began to tremble. I couldn’t seem to stop it—just as I couldn’t seem to halt thoughts of the evening rampaging through my mind. From the moment it truly sank in that I’d rather book an escort than tell my father where to stick his blasted orders, right up until the phone call that confirmed the only person in the world I considered a true friend had been dragged into danger.
And I’m just sitting here, I thought as I blotted away a rogue tear with my sleeve.
What else could I do? It wasn’t like I could join Benjamin in whatever method he intended applying to get Kellie back—because the glint in his eye told me it didn’t involve negotiations.
I didn’t even know where they’d headed, anyway. Maybe I should have gotten at least that much info from the man before I’d handed the phone over to Benjamin.
Stilling, I stared down at the mobile in my hand. Get it now, Cole.
Dare I, though? Benjamin evidently wanted me out of the way while the men dealt with the situation.
All while Kellie was being held by … what?
My mind whirled again, whizzing back to what I’d seen in the park. Back to that lion with eyes like … like … Say it, Cole.
“Eyes like Benjamin’s,” I whispered.
What did that say about the panthers?
“The panthers have Kellie.”
Hand trembling, I hit redial as though on autopilot.
Only one ring buzzed through before the connection clicked.
“Yes?” The same smooth voice as before.
I placed the phone to my ear. “It … it’s Cole.”
No response.
Tamping down my nerves and drawing on my heritage I tried so hard to ignore, I pushed forth. “I need to confirm the amount payable and the place of exchange for my friend.”
A chuckle, then, “Does Benjamin know of this call?”
“That’s irrelevant.” I allowed a hint of the steel learned from my father into my tone. “Would you like your payment, or not?”
Another chuckle travelled the line. “Twenty-five. Beech Farm, on the main A-road out of Horton toward Leominster.”
“Twenty-five pounds?”
“No.”
“Twenty-five hundred?”
He sighed. “No, Ms Harrington. Twenty-five K. I’ll be seeing you shortly.”
The line went dead.
Jesus Christ. Who were these people that they thought they could charge such ridiculous amounts just for a stroll in the bloody park? Some kind of crime organisation?
I glanced at the clock on the wall. Benjamin had been gone only ten minutes. The A-road the man spoke of stretched from the far side of town, meaning Benjamin had to bypass my house to get there. Could I make it before him? Even with a detour to grab the funds?
Who the hell was I trying to kid? I hadn’t even any wheels.
My mind flashed to the outside driveway and the vehicles I’d seen there. Where there’re vehicles, there are … “Keys. Find the keys.”
I hopped from the worktop, the tile floor cold against my soles. After scanning the visible surfaces and checking drawers, I headed for a dresser on the far side of the table and struck gold when I pulled open a glass-fronted door. Two key-fobs sat in a ceramic bowl, one for a Ford, the other for a Toyota. Something made me opt for the latter, and before I could change my mind, I shot from the house.
Chapter 4
Thankfully, the keys worked in a RAV4, it had fuel in its tank, and did a decent job tackling the snow still littering the streets.
At the kerbside outside my house, I yanked on the handbrake and jumped from the vehicle, hopping to the porch like I travelled over hot coals rather than an ice-carpet. My front door had been left ajar—no doubt as a message—and I pushed through without pausing, tossing my useless shoes into the hall corner on my way to the lounge.
The red light of the answer-machine blinked like crazy. I hit the play button, slipping out of my coat as the messages ran through.
‘Cole, where did you go, baby?’ Tony. The evening’s interaction with him seemed a lifetime away.
Curse of Christmas: A Collection of Paranormal Holiday Stories Page 56
