We Can See You

by Simon Kernick

  Reyes turned to his wife. ‘Now, go over there and stand next to your friend.’

  ‘Please don’t do this,’ sobbed Maria.

  Reyes stepped forward and struck her hard around the face.

  Maria staggered backwards, putting up her hands to defend herself.

  ‘Do it, you whore!’ he roared, his voice echoing around the room.

  With her head down, Maria crossed the floor and stood on the tarpaulin a few feet away from Brook, refusing to make eye contact.

  Now Reyes came over, swaggering as he walked, and Brook realized he was revelling in the power he had over them. She’d never seen a true sadist at work before, and it was taking all her self-discipline to stay calm and not give up entirely. Never lose hope, she kept repeating to herself. While you’re still breathing, there’s a chance.

  ‘Face each other,’ Reyes snapped.

  They did as they were told, standing barely four feet apart.

  Reyes placed the barrel of his pistol against the side of his wife’s head. ‘You’ve betrayed me, you bitch. And even worse, you’ve betrayed our sons, too. You were going to walk away and desert them. You sicken me.’

  Tears ran freely down Maria’s face and her legs quivered and shook. . ‘Please, Tony, it wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Then what was it like? Tell me. Because maybe my ears were deceiving me but I’m certain I heard you tell this whore here that you were going to go to the authorities and testify against me. After everything – everything I’ve done for you.’

  ‘Forgive me, please. For the sake of Peter and Michael. I’m still their mother. I swear I’ll never even think of leaving you again.’

  Brook stood there in silence. It felt like she was watching a TV drama that was being acted out especially for her, but her eyes were fixated on Reyes’s tensed trigger finger. He was serious. A tiny bit of added pressure and the gun would go off.

  ‘Please, baby,’ continued Maria, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor. ‘Give me one last chance. I’ll do anything. Please.’

  That same little half-smile he’d been wearing earlier appeared on Tony Reyes’s face. ‘Anything?’ he asked, looking towards Brook.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Maria said hurriedly, nodding her head frantically as a tiny chink of hope appeared for her, just as it disappeared for Brook.

  ‘Good, because I can be a merciful man. I’m going to spare your life, Maria, even though you don’t deserve it.’

  ‘Thank you, baby. Thank you.’

  ‘But there’s a condition.’ He puffed out his chest, clearly enjoying this. ‘My worry is that you know too much about my business to be trusted. But of course, if you do something that makes you a part of it, that will go a long way to allaying my concerns.’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Very simple,’ he said, motioning towards Brook with a contemptuous nod. ‘Kill Ms Connor here.’ He pulled Brook’s own gun from the waistband of his slacks and placed it in Maria’s hand. ‘Kill her and you can leave. You can go wherever you want. I no longer want you as a wife. You’ve betrayed me once. You’ll only do it again.’

  He took a step back, still keeping his gun on her and, with his free hand, took out a cell, pressed a few buttons on it through his plastic gloves and pointed it at the two of them. A few yards behind him, the two gunmen stood, watching impassively.

  ‘You’re on film now, baby,’ continued Reyes. ‘Kill her and you can be free.’

  And then, as Brook watched, Maria’s grip on the gun tightened perceptibly and she slowly raised it so that it was pointed at Brook’s face, their eyes meeting for the first time since they’d been in the car.

  Brook’s whole body stiffened as she waited for what was to come. She held Maria’s gaze and saw all kinds of emotions crossing her face: fear, regret, anger, determination, confusion.

  ‘Please don’t kill me,’ Brook said to her. ‘You know your husband killed Logan, the man you loved. Think about his little girl. She’s five years old. All I want to do is find her.’

  Maria’s gun hand shook slightly.

  ‘See, that’s your problem, Ms Connor,’ said Reyes. ‘You’ve been so convinced I had your husband killed that you’ve ceased to think straight. If I wanted him dead, no one would ever have seen him again and I wouldn’t have bothered involving either you or his daughter. Someone else targeted your family, Ms Connor, and it may not have been your husband they were after. I think they were after you. The problem you have right now is you’re never going to know.’

  ‘She’s five years old,’ said Brook, turning towards him. ‘Have a heart. I’m her only chance.’

  Reyes shook his head. ‘It’s not my problem. In a few moments it won’t be yours either. Finish her, Maria, and then you can start your new life. There’ll be no Logan Harris, but I’m sure there’ll be someone else for you to fuck.’

  Brook turned back towards the gun, begging now. ‘Don’t kill me, Maria. Please. Not for my sake, but for a little girl who’s all alone.’

  Maria’s face contorted with all kinds of emotion. ‘You fucked me, you bitch,’ she hissed. ‘You put me in this position. You!’

  Two feet separated Brook’s forehead from the end of the gun barrel, and now she could see Maria’s gun hand steadying as she prepared to take the shot.

  Brook could no longer speak. It was as if all the words were stuck in her throat. She felt terror like she’d never experienced before. There was no fight left. It had gone. She prayed there was a heaven and that she would be going there, to be reunited with her mom and dad, Logan, maybe even Paige. We could start again, it would be all right …

  She shut her eyes.

  A second passed. Then another. And another.

  The wait seemed to last an age.

  And then the shot erupted in the room and it was all over.

  33

  Brook fell backwards to the floor, conscious of the warm, sticky liquid that had splattered onto her face, realizing with shock and confusion that she was still alive and not in any kind of obvious pain.

  She opened her eyes and sat up, blinking away the blood, which was when she saw Maria lying on her back on the tarpaulin, her left leg jutting out at an odd angle, the gun she’d been about to shoot Brook with lying a few feet away from her. A tiny pall of black smoke rose up from her temple where the bullet had entered, and blood pooled around her ear. As Brook watched, her body twitched wildly, then stopped just as suddenly, as if announcing her death.

  It took her a couple of seconds to realize that Maria had turned the gun on herself.

  Tony Reyes was standing a few yards away, his gun by his side, staring at her body as if he couldn’t quite believe that his wife of close to a quarter of a century could defy him in such a way, while the two other gunmen looked on nervously, seemingly unsure what to do.

  ‘What the fuck?’ shouted Reyes at no one in particular. ‘What the fuck?’ Then he gave Brook a look of such hatred that she thought he was going to pull the trigger then and there. ‘You!’ he demanded, waving his gun at her. ‘Stand up and step off the tarpaulin. Now!’

  For the tiniest moment Brook thought about going for the gun that Maria had shot herself with. After all, it was her own pistol and she knew how to use it. But there were still three men pointing their weapons at her, so she got to her feet, hands in the air, and stepped off the tarpaulin.

  Reyes shouted to his men in Spanish and they temporarily put away their weapons and hurried over to the tarpaulin, wrapping Maria’s body in one of the sheets, but leaving the gun that she’d killed herself with lying on the other one.

  ‘You’re going to die fucking slowly for this,’ Reyes snarled at Brook as he stalked over to the tarpaulin and leaned down to pick up the gun.

  And that was when he made a mistake. Maybe it was the shock of his wife’s death, maybe it was simple complacency, but Reyes had turned away from Brook as he leaned down and was only pointing the gun loosely in her direction. At the same time his men were bot
h occupied wrapping up Maria’s body. Barely three yards separated Brook and Reyes and, in that single moment, she knew this was going to be her only chance.

  Still full of adrenalin, she charged at him.

  He just had time to register what she was doing but, even as he was swinging his gun around to face her, she was on him, jumping onto his back and grabbing him in a chokehold, while at the same time wrapping her legs around his and grabbing his gun hand at the wrist. They both stumbled to one side together while Reyes desperately tried to keep his balance.

  The two other men went for their weapons as Brook tried to get control of Reyes’s gun hand while simultaneously staying on his back, but now that he’d got over the shock of her initial assault, Reyes was trying to shake her off. He was strong, too, and angry, but she was holding fast and he was weakening.

  The other two were manoeuvring around so that they could get a clean shot at her, but then, as Reyes suddenly yanked his gun hand free of her grip, the gun went off, hitting the guy with the machine gun in the leg. He fell backwards, crying out in pain, and the machine gun opened up in an explosion of noise.

  Instinctively Brook loosened her grip on Reyes, and both of them dived for cover in different directions. Brook rolled onto the remaining strip of tarpaulin, immediately scrambling for the gun that Maria had killed herself with. It was the one she’d practised with at the range plenty of times, and she grabbed it and rolled over onto her back, just as Reyes and the other gunman were stumbling to their feet. Reyes was going for his gun on the floor, and so was temporarily the lesser of the two threats, so Brook fired at the other man – two shots without hesitation, exactly as she’d been taught. She hit him somewhere in the body, because he went down and his gun went off as well, a single shot that seemed to ricochet around the room, but thankfully didn’t come anywhere near her. Reyes had now picked up his own gun and fired a shot at her, but it was a wild one as he was already trying to jump out of the way as Brook sat up and swung round, holding her gun two-handed as she took aim and squeezed the trigger twice more, both shots missing him.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Brook saw the machine gunner sit back up, his face scrunched up in pain but still holding onto his weapon. He was trying to rest it on his knee with the barrel pointing her way, ready to fire. But before he did so, an intensely loud alarm started up all around the house, which momentarily stopped everyone in their tracks.

  Taking advantage of this sudden interruption, which seemed to disorient Reyes and the machine gunner more than it did her, Brook brought her gun round in a sudden movement and shot at the machine gunner. He fell or dived backwards – she couldn’t tell which – but the machine gun clattered to the floor. And then she was swinging the gun back to aim at Reyes, who was now running for the door, firing wildly in her direction, the bullets whizzing around the room.

  Brook flattened herself on the floor, desperate not to get hit by a stray round, and then, as Reyes reached the door, she took rapid aim at him and pulled the trigger to loose off a final shot, before the slide extended to signify that she was out of ammunition.

  The alarm was going crazy now, sounding like it was coming from every room, and if Reyes had decided to make a run for it, Brook knew it could only mean one thing: the property’s security had been breached. Panting with adrenalin, she rolled over and jumped to her feet, took a last look back at the two gunmen – both of whom were writhing on the floor, but no longer representing any immediate threat – and ran.

  As Brook came out into the corridor there was no sign of Reyes, so she kept going back through the house the way she’d just come, looking for a route out and feeling a heady mix of panic and elation. But as she approached the living room where she’d first confronted Reyes, she saw flashing blue lights reflecting off the whitewashed walls in the entrance hall, followed by banging on the front door, which was loud enough to be heard above the alarm.

  She turned back round, pulled open the nearest door and found herself in a study bathed in silver-blue moonlight, with a large, bay window at the far end, looking out onto trees. The window was open and she ran over to it, tripping over a chair she didn’t see en route, and saw the figure of Tony Reyes sprinting along a tree-lined path that ran between two stretches of perfectly manicured lawn. He was no longer holding the gun. Brook remembered what Maria had told her about the emergency escape route. It looked like that was where he was heading. Somewhere off to the left she could hear the sound of dogs barking wildly above the din of the alarm.

  She scrambled out of the window, banging her head on the frame, and took off after Reyes along the flagstones. He had about thirty yards on her, but Brook was a fast runner and, even after what had just happened, she still had enough energy and adrenalin to sprint, and soon she was gaining fast.

  Reyes must have heard her pursuit, because he glanced back over his shoulder, saw her coming up behind him, and redoubled his pace.

  As the path curved around, she could see a shed at the end of it, in front of the high, wire-topped wall marking the border of the property, and by the time Reyes reached it, the thirty yards had reduced to ten.

  Hurriedly he typed some numbers onto a keypad, took a last glance at Brook, then yanked opened the door and went inside, slamming it shut behind him.

  The door was a self-locking heavy steel model, designed to be secure, and doubtless Reyes thought there was no way Brook was going to get to him now and so, knowing that surprise was on her side, she punched in the 9999 code that Maria had given her and rushed in after him.

  He was on his knees in the middle of the floor, a roughly rolled-up rug to one side, just about to pull open the trapdoor. His gun was on the floor next to him.

  Reyes looked shocked to see her and immediately went for the gun. But Brook was already running forward and, as he grabbed hold of it, she launched a flying kick, which hit him full in the face with an immensely satisfying smack. The gun flew out of his hand and he toppled over backwards, lying sprawled across the floor.

  Brook landed on her feet, stabilized herself, and leaped on top of him, sitting on his chest and pinning his arms down by his side with her knees. His face was bleeding and he looked dazed, but she wasn’t going to give this bastard an inch of slack. She drove her fist into his face three times, putting all her power into the blows, wanting to really hurt this man for all that he’d done. He cried out in pain and turned his head to one side, spitting out blood.

  ‘Where’s my daughter?’ hissed Brook, still not convinced that he’d been telling the truth earlier. ‘Tell me, or I’ll kill you.’

  He looked up at her, a raging anger in his eyes. ‘Fuck you!’

  She rained punches down on him then, knocking his head from side to side, splattering his blood on the floor, hatred fuelling her like a poison, before leaning over and grabbing his gun. She thrust it into his face, holding his chin in her other hand, forcing him to look up at her.

  She could still hear the incessant barking of the dogs and knew that pursuers wouldn’t be far behind. She had to move fast. ‘You have five seconds to tell me where Paige is or, so help me God, I will pull this trigger.’

  That was when his expression changed to one of fear, because he could see that she was deadly serious.

  ‘I keep telling you, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I never had anything to do with what happened.’

  ‘Last chance,’ she said through clenched teeth.

  ‘I’m telling the truth, by God!’ he shouted.

  She got up, still keeping the gun trained on him. ‘Stand up. Now!’

  Reluctantly Reyes got unsteadily to his feet and, as soon as he was upright, Brook delivered a front snap-kick to his groin, putting all her force into it.

  He went down to his knees, his mouth open, suddenly very pale and now completely incapacitated. She would have liked to make him suffer more, but she now knew she’d been wasting her time here. Whatever else Tony Reyes was guilty of, there was no way he knew Paige was. He wasn’t that brave.
He would have told her.

  She unloaded his gun, scattered the bullets on the floor, then threw it across the room. The next second she was on her hands and knees and scrabbling around in the darkness for the trapdoor handle, pulling it open and climbing inside, feet first.

  Her feet found the rung of a metal stepladder, and she took a further couple of steps down it and shut the lid behind her, turning the world pitch-black. Brook hated dark, enclosed spaces. She always had. On a trip to Mexico once with a former boyfriend he’d persuaded her to visit a cave complex and she’d barely got ten yards inside before she’d broken into a cold sweat. But as she clambered down the steps to the bottom and felt her way through the narrow black tunnel, all she could think about was putting as much distance as possible between herself and the Reyes house.

  She walked quickly, with her hands straight out in front of her, until she reached another stepladder. With a sigh of relief she climbed it, fumbled around for a slightly panicky thirty seconds until she found the latch and then, with a big shove, pushed open another trapdoor and clambered out into a tangle of thick brush. Looking back towards the house, she thought she could see figures moving down the path towards the shed.

  For a moment she thought about giving herself up to the police, but dismissed the notion just as quickly. What could she say? That she’d entered a private residence by stealth to interrogate the home owner at gunpoint, to find out the location of her kidnapped stepdaughter, whom it seemed he hadn’t actually taken? No one would believe a word of it, especially given her current fugitive status. In hindsight, she’d made her situation a whole lot worse by coming here tonight, but the time to worry about that had already been and gone. Now she needed to keep moving.