Unfinished Sentence (The Charlie Davies Mysteries Book 2)

by Clare Kauter

  We hurried along the front of the building and slipped in through the unlocked door. Inside, the club was dark and eerily quiet.

  “Where are we going?” Os whispered.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Keep an eye out for any sinister-looking doorways, I guess.”

  The fact that the front door had been unlocked worried me. I had a feeling that someone was meant to be watching it. Where were they? More importantly, when would they be back? I did not want to get caught before I was ready. To be honest, I wasn’t sure that I’d ever be ready, but I certainly wouldn’t be any time soon. I wanted to save my ninja heel moves until we were in the basement, preferably after freeing James and Adam, who were definitely going to be the more physically capable members of our squad (although Celia had always been pretty good in the kitchen, so her knife work might give us an edge – seriously, watching that girl chop a cabbage had me fearing for my life).

  A murmur of voices carried through the room towards us and we all looked at each other in panic. Judging by the lack of gunshots, we hadn’t been spotted yet, but the voices were drawing nearer. I still had no idea where they were coming from. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flicker of movement – a shadow coming around the corner behind the bar.

  Grabbing the other two, I crouched down and dragged them to the bar, sitting on the floor as the two men emerged from the back room. We were safe sitting on the floor around the other side of the counter, out of sight as long as they stayed around their side. There was the clinking of glasses and the sound of pouring liquor. They were making themselves drinks.

  “What’s he keeping them around for?” said a voice I didn’t recognise. Not Coconut Head or the short guy. I guessed they would be down in the basement with Volkov. “If it was me, I would have offed them at the hotel. Less time and effort. Less likely to get caught, too.”

  Did that mean James and Adam were still alive? A tiny wave of relief flooded through me. Not really a wave – more like a ripple. A small one.

  “He wants to know who they’ve told,” said the other guy. “Can’t find out what else he’s gotta clean up if he’s already killed his main sources of information.”

  “It’s not like they’re being that helpful. Off them, then deal with the girl.”

  Gulp. I was guessing ‘the girl’ was me.

  “They’re not saying anything yet. Lionel’s got his ways, though. Trust me.”

  I shuddered. Jesus. OK, we needed to get going.

  “We better head back out to the front door before Lionel decides to take his anger out on us,” said one of the voices.

  Shit.

  I glanced at the other two who just looked panicked. They didn’t have any plans either. The guys were pushing through the hinged door at the end of the bar. The second they were through they were going to see us.

  Fuck it, I thought. Time to get proactive.

  I stood and grabbed the two bottles – whisky and bourbon – that they’d left on the bar from making their drinks, and ran towards them.

  “Hey –”

  With one bottle in each hand, I swung them at the guys’ heads, connecting the bottles with their skulls and causing a chain reaction where they then head-butted their heads together and fell to the ground, unconscious.

  “Shit,” said Os. “You’re way better at this than I would have expected.”

  You and me both, Os.

  The three of us dragged the men behind the bar and into the cool room. We pulled the latch across the door, hoping the men would remain unconscious and contained for long enough that we could get downstairs and find James and Adam.

  While we were dragging the men out into the back room, we’d found a locked door that looked promising. I took out my skewer and picked the lock, my heart in my throat. I had no idea what we were going to find on the other side.

  I took a deep breath and cracked the door open.

  On the other side was the strange dungeon-style room Stacey had told me about. It was a tall room with a metal platform running around the walls on the level we’d entered from, with a metal staircase leading down to the basement level. The lighting was strangely green, and from within I could hear Volkov’s voice reverberating around the room.

  We cracked the door open a little more and crept in slowly, still crouching, trying to remain as invisible as possible. There didn’t appear to be any guards on the top-level platform where we were, so we were able to watch the action from a bird’s eye view without worrying too much about being seen. Even so, I was so nervous I felt like I might vomit at any moment.

  We lay side by side on our stomachs, watching the scene below over the edge of the platform. Volkov was there, along with Coconut Head and Shorty acting as backup. James and Adam sat side by side, bound by their legs and arms to chairs. Stacey was there too – tied to a post in the corner, crying.

  “Your bravery is admirable, gentlemen, but I’m about at the end of my patience. If you do not answer my questions soon –”

  “What? You’ll kill us?” James asked, voice oozing with sarcasm. Ooh, sassy. “As if you were ever going to let us go.”

  James looked pissed. I was impressed – I would have expected him to try and charm his way out of this sort of situation rather than take the aggressive approach.

  “I was not going to pretend that I would not kill you. We all know that you are about to die. However, there are many options within that. You can answer my questions and die painlessly. Or, if I am forced to, I will… encourage you to answer me.”

  Even from this distance, I could see James roll his eyes. He was having none of it. “Fuck you. Stop reciting passages from your gangster 101 handbook. Try something original.”

  “I assure you, Mr McKenzie, I have plenty of original techniques that I very much look forward to showing you if you do not tell me where the girl is.”

  “And which girl is that?”

  “Charlie,” Volkov growled.

  Admittedly, I was quite tempted at that moment to stand up and announce my presence, but that didn’t quite fit in with my overall plan. (Currently, that plan consisted of ‘lie here silently until you come up with a plan’.)

  “I don’t know. You should ask Adam. You know how close they are.”

  Volkov was fast losing patience. James was acting exactly like I would in that situation – trying to piss his kidnapper off as a last hurrah.

  “You do not seem to understand the gravity of the situation, Mr McKenzie.”

  “You’re going to torture and kill us, I get it. You’ve been telling us for hours. Why don’t you just fucking do something?”

  Volkov took his phone from his pocket and began scrolling through.

  “Are we keeping you?” James asked.

  “You think I’m all talk?” asked Volkov.

  “I’m just saying that from your reputation, I kind of expected more.”

  Volkov thrust his phone in McKenzie’s face. “Your friend is already dead. She drowned slowly, alone and terrified.”

  “Well, if you wanted to get me onside, that was certainly the right picture to show me,” James said sarcastically, but he seemed a little less confident now. I guessed he’d shown him a picture of Celia tied to the pier. “Ask me anything. I really want to help you now.”

  “Where is Charlie?” Volkov demanded.

  James stared at him in disgusted disbelief.

  “I’m obviously not going to tell you.”

  “I’m giving you the option to do this pain-free.”

  “You seem really reluctant to hurt me.”

  “I made a deal that I wouldn’t cause you any needless pain.”

  “A deal? With who?”

  “I’m obviously not going to tell you,” Volkov said, mimicking James.

  “Why? If you’re going to kill me anyway.”

  Volkov sighed. “We have a mutual friend.”

  “I doubt it.”

  Volkov smiled, slowly and cruelly. “Personally, I don’t know what
he sees in you, but he was very insistent that no unnecessary harm come to you.”

  Harcourt. I’d bet any amount of money. You know, if I had any money to bet. If Joe worked for Harcourt, that meant that James did too. Knowing James, he’d be his boss’s favourite, hence the ‘don’t hurt him’ deal.

  “Killing me is kind of causing me harm.”

  “Yes, but not unnecessarily.”

  Oh, good. James was going to be murdered on a technicality.

  “Let’s get on with it, then,” said Adam.

  Volkov seemed to be really gearing up for it now. I needed to do something, so I pulled my phone from my pocket and sent Joe a text message – Rift. Basement. Now.

  “I hope you do not think that your father is coming to save you, Mr Baxter.” Adam’s facial expression didn’t change at all. He’d be a bitch of a poker opponent. “Because he is currently on his way out of town, looking for you at one of my other properties. Apparently he received some bad information. The property happens to exist in a mobile black spot, so he won’t be able to call the information in.” I guess that explained why Harry hadn’t answered his phone earlier. He was out of range. “By the time he gets back, you’ll be long gone. We should, however, have plenty of time to get creative in the interim.”

  “Sounds like fun,” Adam answered, completely unconcerned.

  “Well then, do you have anything to tell me before I get started?”

  Adam and James stared back at him silently. I needed to move quickly, before Volkov got to work. But how? Maybe if it was just Volkov we could rush him, but Coconut Head and Shorty would stop us before we even got close. I couldn’t see any weapons on them, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that they wouldn’t be able to overpower us anyway. We couldn’t just lie here and watch, though.

  “What do we do?” Celia hissed in my ear.

  “I –” I began, but stopped at the sound of Stacey’s voice from downstairs.

  “Stop it!” she screamed. “What are you doing? Why are you hurting them?”

  Her voice was uneven and her face was all red. I guessed she’d been crying.

  “My dear, I’m afraid I have to. This is just how I do business.”

  “This isn’t doing business! You’re being cruel and scary and – and –”

  Volkov sighed. “Stacey, my dear, this is a discussion for another time.”

  “When?” she screamed back at him. “After you kill them?”

  “Yes. Now be quiet so I can concentrate.”

  “How can you do this? This isn’t something we’re going to be able to work through! You can’t murder people!”

  “My darling, we all have to make compromises in relationships,” said Volkov condescendingly.

  “Compromises? I’m not going to compromise on you not killing people! That’s kind of a condition of us staying together.”

  “Oh, Stacey, do not be like this.”

  Volkov was a psychopath. He was treating it like they were having a minor tiff about him murdering two people. This was the most terrifying he’d ever seemed to me – this total nonchalance even in these circumstances.

  “Let me go!” she screamed. “Untie me! You’re crazy.”

  There was a change in Volkov when she said that. He spoke his next words very quietly.

  “You do not ever call me crazy,” he hissed.

  “Then let me go! Why have you got me tied up in your creepy torture basement? That’s not normal!”

  She appeared to have hit a button.

  “How dare you, you little bitch? Your stupid friends have been spying on me and you treat me like I am acting irrationally by punishing them?”

  “Killing people isn’t right!”

  Volkov laughed bitterly and raised his hand. He hit Stacey hard across the face.

  “What are you doing?” James cried out.

  “Shut up, James,” said Adam quietly. It was too late, though. Volkov had noticed.

  “Oh,” he said, grinning maliciously as he turned back to them. “Have we found something that will make you talk?”

  Shit. If they didn’t answer his questions – tell him where I was (which they didn’t even know) – he was going to hurt Stacey. We’d run out of time.

  James was now looking a little pale. “You can’t hurt her. Do what you’ve got to do to us, but she doesn’t need to get involved.”

  “You don’t care if I hurt you. If I hit Stacey, on the other hand – ”

  He began to walk back towards her.

  “No!” James shouted. “You – you love her, right? She’s not going to forgive you if you hit her. Let her go, and do what you have to do to us. She’ll forget about this. She loves you. Just – she doesn’t need to get hurt.”

  Volkov glanced at Stacey who nodded maniacally in agreement with James. Volkov looked back to James.

  “Really, James, do you think I am so stupid? She is not in love with me. If I let her go, she will only call for help. I like her, but she is tainted.”

  “Tainted by what? Not wanting you to kill people?”

  “She is weak. And so are you. Now tell me,” he said, picking up a hammer from a nearby table and moving towards Stacey, “Where is Charlie?”

  “She’s here!” I screamed, standing and running down the steps.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Even Adam couldn’t hide his exasperation with me. Yep, I’d walked right into the lion’s den, armed with a pair of shoes, with my only backup being two people wielding kitchen tools.

  “Charlie,” James said, looking defeated. Then brightening a little when he saw Celia behind me. Then looking even more defeated. “What have you done?”

  “Come at me, bro,” I said to Volkov, taking a fighting stance. He laughed once, placed the hammer back on the table, and took off his jacket before making his way over to me. Ooh, fighting with honour. What a novel concept. He crouched, fists up, ready to block my hits. I had no idea what I was doing, but hey, YOLO, right?

  Celia and Oswald ran towards Adam and James, but Coconut Head and Shorty blocked them. Stacey shrieked, an ear-splitting sound. Coconut Head and Shorty whipped around to see why she was screaming. Being a bit thick, they hadn’t realised that it was a distraction. Celia used the opportunity to run to James, using her massive knife to cut through his bonds. Os smacked Coconut Head right on the coconut with his frypan, and he went like a sack of potatoes. He landed on Shorty on the way, pinning him down, and Os ran over to work on Adam’s bonds.

  Volkov and I didn’t break eye contact. The look of focus on Volkov’s face made me wonder if he even knew what was going on around us. Secretly, I was praying that James and Adam would be freed before I’d have to engage in any sort of battle. This guy looked ready to mash my brains into the concrete. The trouble was, even with the kitchen knife, there was a lot of rope for Celia to cut through. They weren’t going to be free for a while.

  Duck and weave. Just dodge. Don’t try to go on the offensive.

  I tried to swallow down my internal panic. Volkov was a big guy, and he worked out. If his fist made contact with my face, there was a chance I wouldn’t wake up from it. I could hear Tim’s voice in my head. Come on, honey. Focus. The longer you keep them swinging, the more you’ll wear them out. You’re little. You’re a small target. You can move faster than the big guys. Make them chase you. Then, when they’re worn out –

  Get them.

  What I wouldn’t have given to have Tim there in person.

  Volkov launched himself at me.

  I had the best intentions of standing and fighting, I really did. The thing was, though, when that mountain of muscle started to come towards me, I sort of panicked. Instead of standing my ground and dodging his blows I –

  Well, OK. I squealed and ran away. It was totally a strategic choice, I reasoned. This would wear him out quicker. It would take a lot of energy to haul that amount of muscle around. Making him chase me was an excellent tactic.

  I ran around the other side of his tortur
e table – the one with the hammers, nails, pliers and other implements sitting atop it – and turned back to face Volkov. He stood around the other side of the table, ready to come for me the second I tried to run – or tried to lean across and grab a weapon. (They were all lined up around the other side of the bench, just out of reach. Great.) I stepped to the left – he mirrored me. The right – the same. This would have been funny if he wasn’t itching to murder me.

  Taking a deep breath, I decided to commit and make a run for it. I bolted around from behind the table and across the room, back to the staircase. Yeah, OK, so I was heading for the exit. Maybe I was leaving my friends behind. Whatever. They had better weapons than me, plus there were more of them, and the guys trying to get them were incapacitated.

  I reached the top of the stairs, the sound of Volkov’s steps on the steel clanging in my ears, causing me more panic as they drew closer. I grabbed the door and pulled.

  Locked.

  What the fuck? Who – who – had pulled it shut behind us? What the hell were they thinking? First rule of walking into a dungeon, guys, is that you NEVER shut the door behind you! Great, now I was trapped. I was going to disown whichever one was responsible for this. Well, I was going to disown them from the afterlife. Which I didn’t believe in. So really, I wasn’t going to have time to disown them, but if I did –

  OK, I was getting distracted.

  I didn’t have enough time to try and pick the lock, and Volkov had already reached the top of the stairs, blocking my path back down. I started breathing faster, panicked, and looked around for an exit. There was none. OK. Now I had to stand and fight.

  I chose that moment to unsheathe my heels.

  Volkov looked decidedly unimpressed by my weaponry. Clearly Coconut Head hadn’t explained his eye injury, otherwise this guy would have been quaking in his boots.

  He came for me again.

  This time, I lashed out with my high-heel knuckle-dusters.

  The thing about heels is this: if you’ve never come into contact with one, you might not realise how painful they can be. If, however, you’ve had someone wearing heels stand on your bare foot, you know that they’re actually very dangerous. It’s not just the pain from the pressure of them – they’re also kind of sharp on the edges. Those bitches take skin off.