The Fear Within

by J. S. Law

  Paperwork and personal items, some headache tablets and nail clippers, lots of pens and a penknife next to some jewelry and a pair of brand-new lieutenant commander rank badges, one above Cox’s actual rank; maybe she, or someone else, had been hopeful of advancement.

  Dan looked at the papers. Bank statements, pay chits, and paperwork for Sarah Cox’s car. She noted down the registration number and details and then carried on sifting through.

  “The door being kicked in and the broken padlock gives us ample reason to have come in. To see if anyone was hurt.”

  Dan looked up at John, saw him standing in the doorway.

  “What?” she said.

  “I mean, we shouldn’t really have come up here.”

  Dan scrunched up her face and mouthed “Who cares?” to him, lowering her head back down and poking the papers around with the nib of her pen. She turned to the drawers and tipped one over to look inside. Beneath it she saw a few buff-colored folders. They looked like navy issue, straight out of the stationery cupboard at work, and Dan used her pen to open the top one.

  She saw a handwritten letter and leaned down to read it.

  Please leave me alone you fucking psycho.

  Dan frowned and called John over to look.

  “Sucks Cox,” he said. “Not the world’s greatest nickname.”

  Dan shook her head and used the pen to see the sheet beneath it. There was another letter, same handwriting.

  Stop bothering me. I won’t do what you want, not now, not ever!

  Dan looked to the next folder. It was stiff card stock, impossible to open with just a pen, and Dan used her fingers to touch the edge and see inside.

  Sarah,

  Thank you for all your help.

  Tash xxx

  The handwriting was different from that of the previous letters, obviously not written by the same person.

  “Those letters look like they’re from a guy,” said John.

  Dan agreed.

  She pulled the folder wide open by its edges and laid it on the bed.

  Beneath the letter was a sheaf of pictures. Dan stared at them for a moment and then used her pen to jostle them out of the folder and onto the bedsheets.

  There were pictures of Natasha Moore on Defiance, good-quality focused shots. Next to them there were others like the ones they’d found in Black’s locker and bunk space, grainy, taken from social media or cut as stills from video, cropped to make Natasha Moore the focus.

  Dan flicked quickly through them. She stopped when she reached a shot of Natasha in the stores office on board Defiance, the quality of the image making it clear it was a still from video. Then she saw the next one, a grainy, dark, poor-quality picture, taken from a distance, as Natasha Moore, recognizable by her long blond hair, straddled someone on what looked like a bench.

  Dan dropped the pictures, then something else caught her eye: a sketch, like Natasha Moore, but not her. She held it up to John.

  “Jesus,” he said. “The overboard from Defiance.”

  “Small, blond, pretty,” said Dan. “Same tastes as Knight.”

  She put the sketch down.

  “I don’t get it,” said Dan. “I just don’t. The break-in looks professional, padlock cut and replaced, door jimmied open with what’s probably a crowbar. Whoever did that came prepared to do it. The inside’s worse than the outside, like someone was trying to hide what they were doing. But the inside hasn’t been burgled. The room’s a mess, but the jewelry’s all there.” She pointed to an open jewelry box on a table by the window. “The televisions are all here, and look, there’s an iPad next to the bed. It’s not a burglary.”

  “What does it say to you?” he asked.

  “Honestly?” said Dan, standing up. “If I ignore the broken padlock and the broken doors, this room says to me that she’s running. Look at the way it’s been done, fast, reckless. She’s panicking and taking whatever she thinks she’ll need to get away.”

  John walked to the window and looked out, then down at the jewelry and the iPad again.

  “What about the break-in, though?” he asked. “Could she have done it, maybe to try and say…” His words trailed off as his idea died. “Where’s she going to run to? We’ll find her car, she’s a smart woman, she’ll know that. The Hampshire lot will find her and it won’t take them long.”

  Dan paced toward the door and stopped.

  “But why run?” said Dan. “She was fine yesterday. What set her off, what made her go?”

  John shrugged.

  “If we assume she’s running, then we have to assume she knows she’s done for,” said John. “I don’t know how, but she knew we were coming for her. She knows that driving anywhere isn’t going to help her.” He looked out the window and then moved across to the main dresser opposite the bed.

  “I think we have to assume that Mummy and Daddy have some pretty serious lawyers, so she might’ve gone home, that would be a good place to look, but ultimately it won’t help her as we’ll get there shortly, she’d know that,” said Dan.

  “And turning up at even the most doting parent’s house with an injured hostage isn’t a foolproof plan,” said John. “But she may well not be rational at the moment, so she might look for help there. It looks to me like they pretty much ran her life for her.”

  He was looking down at the floor now, his face twitching and his lips moving a little as he worked through the possibilities himself.

  “But if she’s really running, then she needs to go far…”

  Dan looked up at the same moment John did.

  “Her yacht,” said John. “She’s going for the yacht.”

  Dan was already running toward the door.

  “If she hasn’t gone already.”

  “Do you know where she berths it?” asked John.

  “The marina at Port Solent,” said Dan over her shoulder. “Get Josie on it now. Tell her to call as soon as she knows for sure. I bet someone on Defiance will confirm it.”

  “We’ll need to call the locals and tell them what we think,” said John, fishing in his pocket for his phone. “You can’t just run off on your own.”

  “I’m not going alone,” said Dan “You’re coming with me.”

  “Danny.”

  The tone of John’s voice made her stop and turn.

  He was by the dresser, and he pointed to a small red mark on the wall above it.

  “You need to come and see this,” he said, his face dropping a shade whiter.

  Dan walked over and looked at the mark.

  “Blood,” she said.

  “Down there,” said John, pointing behind the dresser.

  Dan looked down and took a few moments to realize what she was looking at. On the floor beneath the mark on the wall was a small pink finger with two engagement rings on it, one above the other.

  40

  Sarah Cox—Tuesday, February 3 (yesterday)

  Breathe, that’s what she needed to think about now. It was all going to be okay.

  Black was stupid, no question about that, but he also had an awful lot to lose, and he’d shown his hand way too early. If he could’ve just kept his dumb mouth shut and ridden this out, they’d have been fine, though she’d rather he’d managed to kill himself, that would’ve been neater.

  There was another problem, though, not insurmountable, but that had to be dealt with.

  Cox leaned back in her car, fished out her pay-as-you-go phone from beneath the driver’s seat, and dialed the number.

  “Please don’t call me again.”

  Cox smiled at the greeting.

  “Don’t hang up,” she said, her voice very calm. “I haven’t told anyone that you’re not on rugby tour. I haven’t asked anyone to check the signal. I’m pretty certain I’m the only one who knows what you’re doing. Goodness knows, if Sam found out you were shacked up with your ex-wife again, she’d shop you in a heartbeat. I think you broke her heart, you know.”

  He was silent for a while, but he hadn�
�t hung up.

  “Look, I’m not with Sam, and I’m not ‘shacked up’ with anyone. I’m spending time with my little girl, because she’s staying at my mum’s for a week, and you know full well why I have to do it.”

  “It is a little bit sad, Mark, you have to admit it. Running out of leave and having to lie your way to spending time with your daughter without her mummy’s knowledge. I mean, it’s gloriously heartbreaking that a father would take the risk just to see his daughter, but still, just go to court, for God’s sake, and get it sorted legally.”

  This time he was silent for longer, and Sarah knew he wouldn’t speak unless she did.

  “I’d help you. My uncle—”

  “I’m not doing what you want me to do to pay for your help. You’re a fucking freak, you hold your uncle over me like I’ll go to prison if I tell anyone, but you know full well that you’d be in the shit, too, just for asking.”

  Sarah held the phone away from her ear and looked at it.

  Coker was such a granny.

  She’d really thought he’d had potential, seemed like a bit of a playboy when she first heard about him, and women definitely liked him, but all she’d suggested, after months of contact involving long and tedious talks about sports training and conditioning, was that he videotape himself screwing the loud, slutty one from the junior rates’ mess.

  It’d have been a start, something to get a small, initial hook into him with, something to build on and develop.

  She’d seen him on the rugby field, seen him working out in the gym; small, but powerful, driven, and aggressive; he could fuck women for her with the right motivation, just like he could come to see her now with the right motivation.

  “What do you want?” Mark said after a long pause.

  “I want to talk, not for long.”

  “What about?”

  “Tash contacted me. She’s frightened, she’s been up home for some reason and it didn’t go well. She wants to come back, but she’s worried about going to the commanding officer’s table. She’s coming here. I said I’d call you and get you to come here and talk to her before she goes.”

  “Okay,” said Mark, without hesitation.

  “But, Mark, you must tell no one, okay? We’ll wait for you.”

  “Put her on the phone,” he said, pausing, then adding, “please.”

  “I can’t, but she’ll be here any minute and then you can speak to her face-to-face.”

  “Okay, I’m on my way,” he said. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “Thank you. Tash really needs you,” she said, “and park up the side, out of sight, in case anyone from the ship sees your bike; I’ll keep your secret for you.”

  Sarah ended the call and grabbed her bag. She stepped out of the car onto the gravel drive and headed for the side of the house. She had to, because the bloody, stupid front door stuck so badly it was impossible to open these days. She’d asked her dad to have it changed, or at least fixed, but he wouldn’t even hear of it, told her to “improvise, adapt, and overcome,” to “spend more time on isometrics and swinging clubs to build up that strength.” Instead, she’d just started using the side gate and back door. She’d asked for a light to go up there, too, but the response to that had been something about keeping bridge watches in the darkest of nights, in the middle of the ocean, under thick clouds where the light simply didn’t reach, or some such bollocks.

  She walked along the side and reached for her keys, the padlock falling away in her hand as soon as she grasped it.

  Sarah’s heart missed a beat.

  Her hands began to shake and she thought about running, right now, but it could be nothing, an attempted break-in. No one knew, and even if Black had recovered enough to open his mouth, there’d be police everywhere.

  The gate pushed open quietly and Cox stepped through. She was wary, listening, walking slowly, trying not to make a sound as she approached the back of the house and scanned the garden.

  Nothing.

  She moved to the back door, instantly knew it’d been opened by force.

  No way would the police do this. No way would they break in, put a padlock back again, force a door, and try to reset it so it looked normal.

  She lowered her bag to the floor and looked in through the kitchen window.

  The room was empty.

  She pushed the door open and stepped inside, placing her foot down slowly, walking to the countertop area and pulling a large knife out of the block. Then she headed up the stairs.

  Her mind was changing now. Was it possible that someone hadn’t broken in, but had instead broken out?

  If so, she’d need to move fast, to run, but first she needed to know for sure.

  She reached the landing and saw the door to Natasha’s room, the broken frame from where it had been kicked open from the outside. She ran toward the door, pushing it open and looking to the bed, the empty bed.

  “Shit, fuck!” She spat the words out as a wave of rage washed over her, as she tried to process what was going on.

  Natasha was gone. Escaped. But if it was escape, how did she get out, free herself? How could she have cut the padlock, forced the back door? Her bedroom door had been kicked in from the outside. No, not escaped—been freed.

  “Fucking Black!” she shrieked, clenching her hands and biting so hard that she drew blood from her lower lip.

  “No, no, no.”

  It couldn’t be Black. He might have figured she was here, but he was in custody, no way he was getting out of there. Then who?

  She turned in circles for a moment, looked up at the ceiling and then down at the floor.

  “Who?” she said, the word seething out from her.

  She walked into her bedroom, next to Natasha’s, and stopped.

  Her bedding was white, with small flowers around the trim, and in the center of it, laid in a small pool of dark, crusty red, was a human finger.

  Sarah stopped now, her heart pumping.

  No one, but no one, escapes and then cuts off their finger to leave as a calling card. She grabbed it, recognized the two engagement rings, each cheap and worthless, then hurled the finger against the wall.

  She heard it drop behind the dresser, and then she heard a voice in the downstairs hallway.

  She spun, walked toward the door, the thick carpets masking any sound, and waited.

  “Tash? Sarah?”

  “Up here,” she called, listening to his muffled footsteps as he bounded up the stairs.

  She watched him through the crack in the door as he stepped onto the landing and saw the broken door to his current love’s bedroom.

  “What the fuck?” he said, looking around.

  “Tash! Sarah!” he shouted now, his voice louder, more urgent.

  She saw the panic in his face; he really was one of the good guys, she’d misjudged him.

  He acted loud, but he was all talk and no trousers, acted like a player but was just a little boy, idealistic and naive, in love, a waste of a great body; corrupting him slowly would have been a lot of fun, and those muscles of his could’ve done some serious damage to a handpicked partner.

  Here and now, though, she smiled at the panic in his voice.

  She stepped out from behind the door and smiled, the knife behind her back.

  “I’m okay,” she said, a sniff and a sob breaking through as she let her shoulders fall and stepped toward him. “Tash isn’t here yet, but I’ve been burgled.”

  He hesitated when he should have just embraced her, that’s what a good guy would’ve done, but the discomfort was evident in his eyes.

  She hunched down and tried to shrink into him, as though she were not bigger, broader, as though she was a little woman, frail and in need of protection.

  He did eventually reach out, wrapping his arms hesitantly around her oversized frame; he obviously didn’t feel comfortable with girls as big as her, while he’d been completely natural with Natasha’s petite frame.

  She leaned her head on his sh
oulder and slipped her arm around him. Then she drove the knife up, under his ribs, and into his lung.

  He shuddered and gasped, and Sarah pulled back so she could see his face as his mouth dropped open.

  Her stomach tingled the way it had the first time William had touched her, the first time he’d gently pushed her away, not interested in more after what she’d watched him do.

  It was so much nicer when you could really see what was happening, see the pain and pleasure mix in his eyes.

  “Don’t bleed on my carpet,” she whispered as she laid him down on his stomach and ran to get towels.

  She stemmed the flow and then dragged him into the bathroom, where the tiles would be easier to clean. Then she stood up and looked around.

  What was she doing?

  Someone had come for Natasha.

  Someone had taken Natasha.

  Someone knew.

  There were no police here; Black was locked up; Coker was whimpering out his last breaths at her feet; and Natasha was gone.

  She looked down at Mark Coker and then leaned over the toilet and vomited.

  The plan was shot. Making him vanish and become the main suspect in Natasha’s disappearance was no longer viable.

  Someone knew, they’d been here, and that meant that more would soon know.

  She wiped her mouth and looked at Coker again as though seeing him for the first time.

  He was dead, she’d killed him, in her own house.

  “Stupid bitch!” she cursed.

  She vomited again, then took a deep breath.

  It wasn’t the fact that she’d killed him—that’d been the plan all along—but here and now, after what had happened? This was bad, a big mistake. She needed to get rid of this body, and she needed to run.

  41

  Wednesday, February 4

  John almost mounted the curb as he pulled the car up outside the marina entrance.

  Dan was already out the car and running into the office. She pulled out her military SIB credentials and flashed them at the receptionist.

  The card meant nothing outside a military establishment, but Dan hoped that the woman behind the desk wouldn’t know that.