Behind the Facade

by Rebecca Heap

  Should he leave him where he was? An idea then came to him. Dragging him across the floor without too much effort, grateful for the almost obsessional passion he had for keeping in shape, he carried him down stairs and deposited him, together with his file, in exactly the same spot, one floor down. Luckily the offices were identical in equipment and layout. Now, when his unwelcome visitor regained consciousness, he would likely believe he had caught some activity going on at an entirely different computer.

  He left the building, glancing behind him but deciding to leave the security settings as they were and the place unlocked. That was when fortune had well and truly ambushed him, in the innocent yet disastrous form of Kate Pearson. He’d been so close to success, even dodging the returning employee. He should have considered the man might have a companion. He had been an idiot not to exit via the underground car park, but he hadn’t been entirely sure he’d shut the cameras off on that level.

  Kate. His thoughts lingered on her. His search for Brenna’s killer had begun and ended with her, when she shouldn’t have been a part of it at all. It had always worried him that he might easily cross paths with her again.

  In the comfort of his American home, he’d finally found the link with Bespoke Cars, the email Charles had sent to their accounts section, finance@bc.com. Charles was querying a discrepancy with a car on an invoice he’d come across. Unfortunately, the email did not give a great deal of information, not even a delivery address for the purchaser. Sean had searched but had been unable to find an electronic copy of the mysterious invoice but, one thing had been certain, if Charles was right about the car it was describing, it was a car that did not exist. A whisper had shivered down his spine, as if Brenna herself was telling him something, when he’d seen the date of the email – it was the same date as Brenna’s death. He’d felt sure that this was no coincidence. Had Charlie felt curious enough to go and look at the car for himself? Had he stumbled across something else entirely? Had he stumbled across Brenna? It had all made a sick and eerily logical kind of sense. Charlie had talked about Bespoke Cars selling girls and this email did suggest something was afoot.

  He’d become convinced that there was a sinister trade behind the seemingly wholesome façade of Bespoke Cars and its owner, Harry Pearson. There was not enough evidence to take to the police and so it was up to him to uncover that evidence. He had nothing better to do after all. If he was mistaken, what had he lost? It gave him a focus, it gave him a reason to carry on living and most of all it could give him the vengeance he so desperately sought for his sister. He had worked hard on inventing a new persona, obtaining fake id and social security, building up his own car sales business and website, even having some plastic surgery done on his nose to alter his appearance. He’d known that patience and thoroughness was necessary if he wanted to enter into Harry Pearson’s life and, more importantly, into his confidence.

  He had thought he could avoid any contact with Katherine Pearson and if he did come across her he would just keep his distance. Well, something else had ambushed him the second time he’d met her: his own heart. Battered beyond repair, he’d believed it had finally died when his sister had. It had been extremely inconvenient of it to make some spastic attempt to resurrect itself. He shook his head, dispelling this line of thought. He didn’t love her. He didn’t deserve to. It was time to forget her and remember his objective. It was time to end this. It was time to avenge his sister.

  CHAPTER 25

  It wasn’t too long before Kate regained consciousness. She moaned as she came round, her eyelids flickering. She tried to sit up but this sent a flood of nausea crashing through her and she remained on the floor, waiting for the dizziness to subside a little. By degrees, she managed to get herself into a sitting position against the wall.

  She tentatively explored her head and body but could find no injury or bleeding. She remembered the gun pointing at her. What had happened? She looked towards the dressing table and saw unused bullets gleaming dully on the floor. She’d been so certain he intended to kill her, certain that the bullet would find her head or her heart. But he’d emptied the gun. He’d never intended to shoot her. She must have fainted, like the weak-willed, gullible fool she was. It was then that the tears started to flow and she gave herself up to them, the emotion and trauma of what had happened to her drowning her in a wave of despair and anguish.

  She eventually regained enough composure to think coherently. Her crying fit had left her hiccupping violently but at least she no longer felt as dazed and paralysed. She hadn’t had time to dress after her shower and she slowly pulled on some clothes. She then made her way falteringly to the bathroom to splash water on her tear-fractured face.

  As she looked at herself in the mirror, she stared at the girl who stared back at her. What she saw was a face she did not recognise. A face once full of joy, now empty and devoid of hope. Grief had dissolved to leave a horrible nothingness. Hope had betrayed her. It had led her to believe she was on the cusp of a new, marvellous chapter in her life. That hope had proved not only vain, but treacherous. She raised her hand, prompted to destroy the image before her, erasing the eyes that looked back with only despair and defeat in their depths.

  How could she possibly go on from here? Her whole life had been turned upside down. Why had he returned to destroy what was left of her already shaken sanity? Had she been an accessory to her own undoing? She had seduced him after all. No! The shame and horror of this was too much. Her mind recoiled from the thought. He was a sick, twisted man. He must have planned the whole thing. Taking down her defences one by one, earning her trust through lies and deceit and then destroying her, leaving her to wallow in her own self-loathing. But why? Did he hate her that much?

  This thought incited a fresh bout of tears. She suddenly swiped at her face in disgust. She was indulging in self-pity. How dare he make her a victim again! Well he wasn’t going to get away with it this time. She shouldn’t just be sitting here. She should be exposing him. Her anger propelled her to her feet and she looked around for her mobile phone. Where was it? She checked the nightstand, her pockets, under the bed. No phone. She stopped abruptly. The bastard had taken it. Had he known she had no landline? He must have anticipated that she’d want to call someone, to call her father.

  “My sister was tortured and murdered. Your father was responsible.” These words suddenly seemed to echo, like clanging bells, in her mind. She wasn’t the object of his hatred, or maybe she was, but only by association. He hated her father. He blamed him for his sister’s death. She clapped a hand to her mouth as she was hit with a frightening truth. Her father was in danger. She couldn’t stay here. She had to warn him! It was interesting that she never, for one minute, considered that her nemesis could have been speaking the truth. He was a deceiver. Her battered psyche could now only accept black and white, not shades of grey. Her father had loved and cherished her all her life. To believe him an evil doer, a murderer? That would truly be trading sanity for madness.

  She now looked around for her bag, which contained her purse and car keys. She swore when, after ten minutes of fruitless, increasingly frenzied, searching, it was still nowhere to be found. He must have taken that as well! Her body began to shake and she could feel the sweat blooming from her pores. He had clearly done everything he could to prevent her following him, which added more credence to the idea that he was going after her father. She sat down heavily on the bed, gritting her teeth and fighting against the panic that threatened to consume her. Get a grip, girl, and think! she cajoled herself.

  Perhaps she could rouse one of her neighbours and get them to ring the police? But her glance fell on the digital display of the clock next to her bed. It was now past 2am in the morning. A number of her neighbours were elderly people and she’d probably have to knock so loud she’d end up waking the whole floor. Was it a good idea to get the police involved anyway? Would they come quickly enough when she had no proof of the danger to her father and the immediate threa
t to herself had passed? She groaned in frustration and bit the inside of her cheek. That bastard had played her like a puppet! But she’d be damned if she’d allow him to render her completely helpless yet again. She suddenly raced through to her living room and reached up on a shelf for the vase she kept her spare change in. She counted through it. Thank God she was a hoarder; there should be enough for a taxi at least. She scribbled a quick note and posted it through the door of her nearest neighbour. It didn’t say very much but at least it meant that someone would keep an eye on her unlocked flat and might be prompted to call the police if she did not return. That last thought sent a shiver through her. She had every intention of returning but what awaited her at her father’s house? Was her father already dead? Would her adversary think twice about killing her if she confronted him again?

  She returned to her flat and wrenched opened a drawer in the living room. She found what she was expecting to find: a taser. She had recently stopped taking it with her everywhere she went. Even with her amnesia, the fear of her ordeal had stayed with her and she had hated the idea of being left helpless and defenceless again. This was also the reason she had kept a gun in the apartment. The irony was that Michael had made her feel much more positive and secure and she had stopped keeping the taser on her person all of the time. She picked it up and almost dropped it in alarm as mental images flashed before her mind’s eye. She now remembered, in horrific, vivid detail, the last time she had used one. She forced herself to grip it tightly instead. She must not balk from using it again. It had the shape of a gun and could even be used to masquerade as one. Her life and her father’s life could depend on it.

  She put the weapon in her pocket, grabbed her coat and ran outside. She’d head for the taxi rank nearby and may even be lucky enough to flag a taxi down before she got there.

  *

  Sean was granted access to Harry’s house and, considering it was after 1.30am in the morning, he was surprised to find the man still up, dressed and in ebullient spirits. Well, he thought to himself, he would soon be turning his mood right around. He had done what he could to expose Harry’s diseased operation and the maggots who fed from it. Now all that was left was to truly punish the bastard. He fingered the gun in his pocket. He could put a bullet in his skull right here and now. However, he was loath to do so. This man had handed his sister, and God knows how many other innocent girls, into the hands of depraved monsters and he did not deserve a quick and easy death. He accepted Harry’s offer of a drink and sat down in the seat that was indicated.

  “Sorry to call at such a late hour,” he said “but I think I have some very important information about the man who abducted your daughter.”

  Harry turned to him, his hooded eyes glittering dangerously. Sean had a second to register a frisson of concern at what he read in their stygian depths. Before he could react, bands of steel had slid out from concealed cavities in the chair he was sitting on and he was clamped immovably to it at his wrists and ankles. He sensed another presence behind him and watched helplessly as Sebastian, sporting a huge, inane grin, retrieved Kate’s gun from the depths of his coat pocket.

  Harry smiled at him. The smile contained about as much humanity as a viper. “You’re diligence is commendable,” he said, his voice jarringly cheerful, “but his identity was revealed to me not fifteen minutes ago.” Sean’s first thought was that, despite his precautions, Kate had undergone a miraculous recovery and managed to get in touch with him.

  Harry approached the chair. “You’re first big mistake was when you targeted Dominic. It was only a matter of time before I made the connection to Brenna Monaghan, our first and only reject, and from there to her Irish-American brother, Sean. A bit stupid of you to use the same name, don’t you think?”

  Sean lunged toward Harry but his restraints did their job, preventing any forward momentum. His form heaving in frustration and rage, he spat “She was no reject, you fucker! And it was no mistake to get rid of that perverted butcher! Don’t you realise, you idiot, that I wanted you to know who was behind his fate?”

  He sat back, calmer now and content to use words as his weapons. “Seeing your reaction that day in your office, it was priceless,” he finished cockily.

  Harry knew that Sean was just trying to get a rise out of him. He simply smiled, content in the knowledge that he finally had this weasel right where he wanted him. “You’re next mistake was when you tried to implicate Robert Spencer. It was Robert, God bless him, who noticed the resemblance between our Sean Murphy, captured on camera, and a certain American he’d met who was dating my daughter. Perhaps, he was simply less prejudiced than the rest of us, or just paid closer attention to you. He certainly saw things more clearly than I.”

  His grin widened. “Thank you for so kindly handing yourself in to me. It saved me the trouble of going looking for you.”

  He now bent in front of Michael and his expression changed to one of venomous contempt.

  “You underestimated me. Did you really think that I would not find you out?”

  Sean glowered at him. “Well it took you long enough, you pathetic prick. You even let me fuck your precious daughter.”

  Sebastian let out a howl of rage at this and clubbed him savagely across the head with the gun.

  While he was still reeling from the blow, Harry’s hand grabbed him by the throat. “Well I hope that memory sustains you. Because by the time we’re done with you, you’ll be cursing her name and wishing you’d never set eyes on her.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Kate pulled up in the taxi around the corner from her father’s house. She apologised to the driver for not being able to leave much of a tip and stepped out into the chilly morning air. It was still dark and the crescent moon shed little illumination in a sky choked with sullen clouds. She took a back route to the house, hoping to enter it unnoticed so that she had time for some reconnaissance. She crept along the grass, flinching when her feet crunched on the gravel surrounding the back of the house and wondering how a burglar ever managed to break in anywhere without expiring from nerves first. None of the windows at the back of the house were lit so at least there appeared to be no danger of being seen. However, there was barely any wind and the small sounds she was making seemed echoingly loud in the stillness.

  She reached one of the rear doors without incident. Her body was trembling and her head had begun to pound again, thumping painfully with every beat of her frantic heart. She took a deep breath and forced herself to relax, rubbing at the tendons in her neck that had grown rigid with tension. She opened a panel hidden on the wall and placed her hand flat on the surface of the rectangular pad that was revealed there. A tiny light flashed green and then she heard the faintest of clicks as the door mechanism released. She pushed gently on the door and entered the darkened kitchen.

  Kate almost cried out when she bumped her hip on the corner of a kitchen unit on her way through. She released a repressed hiss of pain instead, biting her lip and rubbing vigorously at the bruised area. She could barely see through the gloom but she daren’t turn any lights on.

  She left the kitchen and headed towards her father’s office, noticing that a faint glow seemed to be coming from that direction. When she got within sight of it, light was indeed seeping from around the edges of the closed door. Her heartbeat increased another notch. She stood behind the door, her ears straining for any sound. She couldn’t hear anything. Her hands shook as she took the taser from out of her bag. She gripped it hard, partly to stop her hands from shaking and partly to try and glean some necessary courage from it.

  She quietly turned the door handle and crouched by the door as it slowly swung open. She entered the room tentatively, the taser held in front of her like a gun and her eyes flitting anxiously from side to side. The room was empty. Her eyes were drawn to the wing chair in front of her father’s desk. It looked innocuous. However, she then spotted marks almost hidden in the thick pile of the carpet next to it. She bent and peered more closely but qu
ickly shot upright in horrified dismay. They looked like fresh bloodstains. She seized the top of the chair and closed her eyes, her breaths coming in desperate gasps. What if her father was already dead? She almost turned tail then and there. She managed to find some mental strength from somewhere. She opened her eyes and renewed her grip on the taser. If he wasn’t dead, she might be his only hope of survival. She could not give up now.

  She looked back at the carpet, but could see no trail of blood that she might have followed. Her eyes flitted around the room for more clues. She could see nothing else out of place. The house was large but this room had only one entry. There was no point staying here, she needed to search elsewhere.

  She was about to leave, when a thought hit her like a lightning strike. The cameras! Behind her father’s desk was a huge wall. It was dark at the moment but it was in fact a massive screen. She knew her father used it like a computer monitor but it could also show images from the security cameras dotted around his home. She might be able to locate him using this facility. She pressed a button on the side of the screen and it immediately came to life. “Yes!” she whispered fiercely, glad that at last luck was on her side. It was already set to camera mode and she was looking at a crystal clear view of the driveway leading up to the house. She touched “Options” at the bottom of the screen and then selected “All cameras”. The screen now split into numerous windows, each displaying a different view or room of the house. She had to quell a hysterical giggle. She could have easily been spotted on here, sneaking towards the back of the house!