by K. C. Finn
It takes a few transfers and some polite requests to get what she wants, but eventually Angelica Lane brightens at the sound of a smooth and charming tone at the end of the line.
“You were right Angel,” Redd Richmond states, “he followed the trail Flash and I set like breadcrumbs, bloody idiot. Is he, uh, taken care of?”
“No,” Angelica snaps back, venom rising in her throat, “Jobe’s goons botched the plan. I’ve told him to shoot Rex personally this time.”
“So you’re just ringing to let me know?” Redd asks, “Or are you about to ask me what I’m wearing? Believe me; it’s not going to excite you.”
In spite of her fury, Angelica laughs at that briefly.
“Talk to Flash for me. He’s about to get out on good behaviour,” she says.
Redd makes a scoffing sound at the other end of the line.
“Good behaviour? By whose standards?” he asks.
“Mine,” Angelica replies with a grin that’s audible in her tone.
Redd gives a petulant huff. “Oh great, he gets to go free. Why can’t I come out and play?”
“All in good time,” Angelica promises with an eyeroll, “But you wouldn’t want Flash’s new job, trust me.”
“Why?” Redd asks, his interest piqued, “What’s he going to do?”
Angelica pauses, toying with a strand of her blonde hair as she finalises her new plan.
“I want him to kill Damian Jobe.”
13.
Damian Jobe is a little too good at tying knots. Angelica lies in the sand beside him, her gasmask pressing hard against her face, unable to adjust it with her hands bound in plastic ties behind her back. Damian sits beside her, looking down at her prone form with a doubtful frown above his eyes.
“Are you sure this is the best way?” he whispers.
It’s difficult to nod with her face half-against the ground, but she tries anyway.
“It would look better if I appear to be your prisoner,” she insists, failing to hide her contempt at having to convince him yet again, “Then, if for some reason you have to go into hiding, I’m free to operate for the both of us.”
Damian flips the torch over in his hand, his fingers trembling over the on button. He is keeping his distance from the gun sitting at his feet and Angelica knows he’s having doubts about using it on Caecilius Rex even though he would have happily let someone else do the dirty work for him. She can’t stand his hypocrisy. Fortunately she won’t have to for very much longer.
“Coffee sir?”
A whisper breaks out nearby. Damian flashes his torch just the once and a figure comes into view. He’s a lanky thing by the name of Thomas Watt, a lackey that Damian inherited from Jack Lacroix when the crook met his maker a few days ago. Angelica doesn’t like the look of him, so she gives him her most helpless, pleading look when he discovers the sight of her tied up in the darkness.
Damian takes the flask of coffee in silence, removing his mask for the briefest of moments to take a deep swig. Angelica watches his throat contracting as he swallows, wondering idly how many more swallows he has before Flash Morgan appears to put a bullet in his body. Thomas Watt retreats into the smoke-filled night, but then a rustling up ahead alerts them both to a new player in the game. Damian re-masks and stares through a powerful set of night binoculars into the dark, smoggy scene ahead of them.
“It’s him,” he breathes, “It’s Rex.”
“Get on with it then,” Angelica hisses, swinging her leg to give him a nudge.
Damian rises slowly, painfully hesitant, but eventually he sets off into the darkness. Angelica begins to struggle with the knots at her back, disheartened to find them so well-tied. It makes her wonder if Damian isn’t just going to try and run from her and leave her there to struggle in the dunes. He ought to know better than to think she won’t find him if he does.
“Are you all right?”
It is several minutes later when Thomas Watt returns with a faint lantern, making the struggling woman on the floor tense. She hadn’t been expecting him to turn out to be a good guy; that’s certainly something that will warrant more investigation once this night is through. When he unbinds her hands and helps her turn over, Angelica is shocked to see another form over her, one that she initially thinks is Caecilius Rex himself. When the black-clad stranger speaks, however, she recognises the low but feminine drawl.
“Get up princess, we don’t have time for this. Cae’s out here somewhere and I’ve gotta find him.”
The solider, Kendra Nai, the mysterious survivor of Angelica’s best supply of top grade DEATH powder. Kendra drags her to her feet and Angelica lets herself be dragged, feigning weakness and shocked sobs to play her part well in this little ruse. She lets her feet become heavy, half-burying them in the sand to slow her little rescue party down as Kendra leads them in the direction of muffled voices not too far away.
Angelica’s keen eyes have just enough time to spot Damian raising the gun to Cae’s head in the darkness before Flash’s shot rings out just in time. She can’t see where the profiteer-turned assassin has fired from, but she knows he’s not stupid enough to hang around if anyone starts looking. Damian has already taken his final breath by the time Watt gets his lantern to illuminate the scene, but it isn’t the sight of the corpse that makes Angelica’s glassy eyes widen.
Caecilius Rex has the acid marks. She hasn’t thought about the superacid HCX in a long time and though she knew the young detective would have been burned by past events, she hadn’t imagined his pain was so extensive. Cae is far too busy snapping at his solider pal, accusing her of being the one to fire on Damian, to notice Angelica’s eyes trailing up and down his scarred arms and the part of his neck and chest that’s visible. The raw pink and crimson marks, the blood dripping from the back of his shoulder where his skin has come apart, it all consumes her mind with a new plan for revenge.
Before, she just wanted him dead, the last reminder of why her beloved father had been forced to meet an early grave. It would have been petty vengeance, but it might have assuaged her grief. But now, before Angelica Forsyth there lies an opportunity to do something much bigger, much nastier. Something her father would be proud of.
Caecilius Rex is already suffering. To kill him without a build-up would have been a frightful mistake, a release he might have even welcomed. Fate has given Angelica the chance to start a new game. To lure him in, put him on the trail of the elusive Face that haunts his past, and then destroy him just at the moment when he thinks he might have a chance at truth and vengeance of his own? Well, that’s an offer that a Forsyth should never pass up.
While all eyes are on the dead man, Angelica smiles in the dark.
14.
Three Months Ago
There is nothing quite so refreshing as being a free man in a really expensive suit. Redd Richmond takes a few paces away from Dartley’s central police station, sucking in the cool air between the filters of his gasmask as he conceals himself in a doorway where a crosswind has collected a neat little swirl of smoke.
From one pocket of his olive green suit he pulls out a phone and slides his finger along its screen to tap in a series of memorised numbers. He’s on strict instructions to never allow the number into his permanent phone memory and it has to be deleted every time he’s finished making these kind of calls. He taps one expensively-shoed foot as he waits, the long dial tone catching him by surprise. The connection is more far reaching than usual.
“Password?” says a voice on the other end. It is severely distorted by computer software.
“Poison,” Redd says, starting to grin.
Something clicks on the line and he hears a sudden, feminine laugh.
“I was hoping it’d be you,” Angelica replies, “So? I take it this means you’re off the hook?”
“Reduced parole,” Redd agrees, puffing out his chest even though she can’t see him do it, “but it took me long enough to get it.”
“How so?” Angelica asks.
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“The station was locked down for a good hour,” Redd says, “I did some snooping. Something about a strangling in the chem lab.”
Angelica just laughs. Redd quirks a brow.
“Do you have something to do with it?” he adds.
“Of course,” she replies simply, “I’ve been reprogramming a robot faction that Daddy acquired control of in Dartley. That virus kicked in quicker than I thought.”
Redd joins in the laughter, but there’s a quiver in it, like something invisible is stuck in the back of his throat.
“So there’s a murderous robot on the loose?” he confirms, “should I be worried?”
“It’s not programmed to hurt you, so long as you don’t get in its way,” Angelica answers, her voice a little distant suddenly. The tapping of keys is audible in the background of the crackling line.
“Who are you targeting?” he asks.
“Everyone that Daddy knew in your zone,” she replies.
The thought of a wipe-out on that scale does nothing to settle Redd’s growing sickly feeling. As much as he wants the protection of the new Face, Angelica’s methods are a lot less subtle than Lucien’s were. Redd has never been so deeply involved in the plot before now and he’s sincerely grateful that the young beauty can’t see his expression as she continues to unveil her scheme.
“Do you know Archie Watt?” Angelica asks.
“Sure,” Redd says with a shrug, “he’s into machinery and things, got mixed up with a drug smuggling op a few years back.”
“Well he’s moved into surveillance,” Angelica explains, “he’s manufactured a little troupe of security bots and I’m…repurposing them, shall we say? The original programmer’s up here, so it’s not been too difficult to hack into his mainframe.”
“Where’s ‘here’?” Redd queries.
“Lachrymosa.”
He nods against the phone in understanding.
“You’ve gone back home.”
She’s a long way from Dartley. The palpable relief all over Redd’s body is more comforting than it should be to the conman.
“Not for long,” Angelica says brightly. The tapping in the background stops. “Just keep an eye on Rex and that army girl until I’m done here. Offer them your services if need be.”
“Can do.”
Redd is about to make a hasty goodbye and enjoy what little free time he has before Rex inevitably comes knocking, but another thought crosses his mind.
“That programmer who runs the mainframe for the robots,” he begins, “It’s not old Howard Fowler, is it?”
“The very same,” Angelica says.
“I remember meeting him years ago along with that weird professor chappie,” Redd continues, “They were under your father’s thumb big time back then.”
“I suppose he’d let them slide a little for good behaviour,” Angelica answers. The bitterness in her tone is evident even across the poor connection. “Much like you.”
Redd laughs out one awkward breath. “Well I just wondered why you had to hack in. Couldn’t you have just told Fowler to do it?”
There’s a pause on the line.
“They don’t know about me yet,” Angelica reveals, “that professor, Cadinsky, I don’t trust him. I’m going to let them think they’re free men for a while, see what they try and do.”
Redd’s lips curve into a smile in spite of himself.
“You’re playing one hell of a game, you know,” he chuckles.
But all mirth falls from his features again at Angelica’s final words.
“I’m playing to win,” she snaps, “anyone who jeopardises that ends up on the losing side. And I don’t take prisoners.”
Redd swallows hard, the phone slicked with a sheen of sweat from his hand.
“Understood.”
15.
Four Weeks Ago.
“I’ve got a new task for you.”
It’s not comforting to find someone waiting for you in your own home that shouldn’t be there. Redd Richmond has never quite slept the same in his mansion since Angelica made herself a copy of his keys. He returns from a round of golf in the extensive range built into the dome behind his house to find the petite blonde sitting in his favourite chair in the study.
“A new task?” Redd says, feeling the colour run from his cheeks as his facial muscles grow tighter. “Please say it doesn’t involve running a gauntlet this time.”
Angelica raises a pale brow, toying with a strand of her golden locks.
“You’re not running out of steam on me, are you Redd?” she asks.
It won’t do to show reluctance, not now that the new Face is coming close to the end of her scheme. Once Caecilius Rex is dead, Redd will be free once again to pursue his passions without Angelica’s powerful shadow sending him into chills. At least, he hopes so.
“I’m a self-preservationist, sweetie,” Redd replies, plastering his most charming grin to his features, “So I just want to check this time what exactly I’ll be running into for you.”
“A sensible man,” Angelica answers with a nod and a giggle.
Redd thanks his lucky stars that his natural charm seems to be effective on the young crimelord. If it ever stops working, lord knows where he could end up.
Angelica leans forward in her chair, oblivious to the struggle going on behind the conman’s smile. She rests on her fingertips, tapping her chin as her eyes dart back and forth.
“Rex is getting a little too close to discovering where I’m based,” she reveals, “He’s been talking to Calista Locke.”
“I know,” Redd adds with a nod, “He’s her new pet detective; I did wonder what he was doing snooping around the House of Cards.”
“He’s looking for leads,” Angelica continues, “I did try to have the Locke woman axed, but the incompetent thing that I sent in only did half a job. He got the axe instead for that little blunder.”
Redd’s jaw tightens under the pressure of sustaining his grin. He likes Calista and secretly he’s glad that Angelica’s little scheme went awry on that score.
“So I’ve decided not to bother with her. I have a new approach.”
The conman is pleased to hear it; though he doesn’t dare show it until Angelica rises and crosses the room. With her back to him, Redd releases a silent sigh, one hand rising to mop the cold sweat from his hairline as he waits for instructions for his new part in the plan.
“Where do I fit in?” he presses.
Angelica spins on the spot, a wicked grin showcasing her bright teeth. They gleam, looking sharp in the artificial light of the study. She points a finger at him, eyes wide.
“I’m going to throw him a red herring,” she says.
There’s a pause. Redd waits, unflinching.
“Don’t you get it?” Angelica demands, “A Redd herring?”
“Oh,” is all the conman can reply, knowing that feigning a laugh now will look too lowly. He rolls his eyes at her in what he hopes looks like a friendly fashion. The slap on his shoulder that Angelica gives as she circles him tells him his message is received as intended.
“You’re hopeless,” she laughs.
Redd silently agrees. He has never felt more hopeless in his life than in her presence.
“So here’s the plan anyway,” Angelica continues, walking around Redd where he stands like a shark circling a diver. “All the sources that Rex is talking to still think that Daddy is alive out there somewhere. So he’ll be looking for a male who’s at least forty, ergo you.”
Redd is about to complain that he’s not actually forty yet, but thinks better of it, listening still.
“I want you to pretend to have been The Face all along,” Angelica says, coming level with Redd and tugging at his shirt to make sure his head comes down to meet hers. “Imagine his fury, having The Face in his grasp over and over again, never realising until now that it was you.”
The part, under different circumstances, would have been fun to play. Redd feigns his enthusiasm, ro
cking on the balls of his feet.
“Don’t you think he’s going to shoot me if I tell him I killed his mother?” he suggests as casually as he can.
Angelica wags that finger at him again.
“You do it all under my instructions,” she decrees, “And in that last moment where he realises it’s you, you’ll disappear.”
“Disappear” doesn’t sound promising on Angelica Forsyth’s tongue. She says it in a half-whisper that makes Redd’s throat dry out, but her excited grin helps him to the conclusion that she doesn’t mean him harm. Not yet anyway.
“And where do I disappear to?” Redd asks.
“I’ll share that part with you when we get there,” the blonde answers.
He doesn’t miss the “we” part. Wherever he’s going, Angelica intends to be with him, keeping him from even the prospect of escape.
16.
Three Weeks Ago.
Angelica Forsyth often has a sense that’s she doing the right thing, like a divine force is putting the pieces of her great game within her reach. It would be foolish to think that her father is still pulling the strings from some great beyond to aid her plan for vengeance, but then without him she wouldn’t be in control of the largest criminal network in existence. It therefore comes as no surprise to her to see Caecilius Rex arriving at her house so early in the day, sitting on her hardly-used sofa with an ornate-looking box in his gloved hands.
“What’s in the box, detective man?” she asks him, playing her part as sultry sidekick to the full.
“Drugs,” the detective answers.
Angelica continues her well-rehearsed persona, the one she intends to use to dig deeper into her target’s mind. She sits down beside him, close proximity making him visibly tense.
“Oh. You know, most men bring me chocolates, dome-grown flowers, that sort of thing,” she muses.
