02 Heller's Revenge - Heller

by JD Nixon

  For once, I woke before him and lazed in bed enjoying the simple pleasure of watching him sleep. His beautiful face was tranquil and almost vulnerable in slumber. It was very appealing. A rush of emotion for him swamped me. I never really allowed myself to properly examine my feelings for him, because deep down it frightened me to think that I might love him. Loving Heller would be dangerous and foolish. Letting myself love Heller would only be buying a one-way ticket on the Heartbreak Express, and I’ve always been too much of a coward to willingly step into such an emotional maelstrom.

  Watching him slumber, I realised how much trust he had in me to let me see him like that. And I recognised my feelings for him were only growing stronger the more I knew him, no matter what happened between us or how objectionable his actions were on occasion. But as usual, I cravenly crushed that line of thought and forced myself to stop watching him before I crossed the line into creepy stalker territory. I climbed out of bed quietly, not disturbing him. I showered, dressed, ate and went down to the office and turned on my PC. I hadn’t checked my email since the accident, and my inbox was positively bursting at the seams. Once I had deleted all the spam, there were only a handful of genuine emails. One of them was from Kitty.

  Dearest Tilly

  Clarrie and I were shocked to hear about your terrible accident and hope that you are making a good recovery. And our best wishes for your passenger as well.

  I’m currently in LA visiting Clarrie. He invited me over not long after he returned. Said he couldn’t live without me, which is so sweet. Just like him, don’t you think?

  Would love to catch up with you when I return soon.

  Much love, Kitty and Clarrie xxxx

  Well, blow me! A happy ending for the little creep. No one deserved it less, in my opinion. I shot off a quick and insincere answering email, although I was genuine when I said I’d love to see her again.

  Dixie had responded to my disbelief about her photo of the engineering students: I’m afraid it’s true. I did have a nerd orgy. It wasn’t too bad to be honest. I’ve had another two since I sent you that photo. They don’t mind the threesome. In fact they seem to prefer it. I suspect they’ve secretly got a boner for each other. I’m just the meat in their gay sandwich. I’ll leave you with that appealing mental image. D xxxxxx

  I groaned out loud with revulsion at the thought. Dixie, how could you? I thought, nauseated.

  “Something the matter?” asked Daniel as he walked in and observed the grimace on my face.

  “I need a truckload of brain bleach delivered immediately!” I joked. Perplexed, he shook his head and sat at his desk.

  There was also an email from Gayle: I hate you, Tilly! I know why you gave those photos to Brian. You’re jealous that I’ve fucked Heller and you haven’t. He told me that you haven’t. You can suck it up, bitch! He was the best fuck I’ve ever had in my entire life, and I’m going to make sure I do it again. Soon.

  Good luck with that, dumbarse, I thought with scorn. She clearly didn’t realise that Heller didn’t piss in the same paddock twice, and was obviously either too stupid to work out that it was Heller who had taken the photos to give to Brian, not me, or didn’t care that he had betrayed her. Some women were like that. I’d never warmed to her catty personality, and briefly played with the idea of forwarding her email onto Brian. I chose not to though, not wanting to become further involved in their domestic troubles. I wisely decided that I’d already done enough damage. But I also decided not to delete that email – it might come in handy one day. I was learning from Heller.

  When he finally made his appearance, I followed Heller into his office and sat down facing him, waiting for him to speak. He leaned back in his chair and made a steeple with his fingers, a very thoughtful look on his face.

  “I just don’t know about this one, Matilda,” he admitted, swinging on his chair. “I don’t know whether to take the job and I don’t know whether to send you to do it even if I do. It’s unbelievably profitable and high profile, but . . . it’s unusual.” Well, he certainly knew how to capture a person’s attention, my boss did. I was sitting on the edge of my chair with anticipation. “Why don’t you come to the preliminary interview with me tomorrow? Then you can tell me what you think after we hear what the client says.”

  That instinctively should have made me deeply suspicious from the beginning, because Heller had never consulted with me about a client before. But I was innocently eager and happy to be back at work again, so I agreed without thinking twice.

  True to my word, I moved back into my flat that afternoon. The first night lying in my bed alone, I missed Heller intensely. But it didn’t take long before I rediscovered the joys of living alone, although in reality I was rarely alone, and it was only during the lonely hours of the night that I wished I was back in Heller’s bed, his arms tightly around me.

  Our interview with the prospective client wasn’t until late morning, so I spent the early morning in the gym and catching up on paperwork. I had a lot of reading material to wade through after my long absence. When it came time to leave for our appointment, Heller walked past my desk and stopped briefly, tapping his fingers twice on my desk to get my attention. I looked up from my reading, only to abandon it hastily to follow him down the stairs. We were both dressed in our Heller’s uniforms.

  On the drive to our meeting, I tried to pump him for information about the client but he wasn’t sharing.

  He threw me an enigmatic look. “Tell me what you think after the meeting, Matilda. And be honest, please.” And at that point, probably a bit too late, doubts about his motives sprang into my mind. Why did he keep saying that? What was so unusual about this job? I remained in thoughtful silence for the rest of our drive.

  He pulled into a visitor parking spot at one of the city’s many hotels. It wasn’t one of the luxurious top-end hotels like Clarrie had stayed at, but one of the numerous bland hotels primarily catering to visiting business people, who were after functional comfort at a reasonable price.

  Our potential client opened the door to his room himself, greeting us with a friendly smile. Now you’d think I’d be oblivious to the appearance of other men when I was in close proximity to my delectable Norse god of a boss, but this man was very attractive. He was about thirty-years-old and tall, with a lean, fit body. He had shoulder-length, dark-blond hair that was loose and slightly unkempt, as if we had just woken him from a sleep. His eyes were light gray, the colour of a cloudy sky that promised, but didn’t intend, to deliver any rain. His mouth was insanely kissable. I had to tear my eyes away from it, fighting an almost uncontrollable desire to latch onto his lips like a suckerfish. His skin was very brown in all the bits that I could see (and I was having a very good look), as if he permanently lived outdoors. He was barefoot, dressed casually in dark blue jeans and a white Amnesty International t-shirt, the organisation’s barbed wire and candle symbol in black. It was love at first sight for me – well, okay, that’s a little strong – maybe lust at first sight would be more honest.

  As soon as he opened his mouth, I realised he had an accent similar to Heller’s – Northern European of some kind, charming and sexy. “Mr Heller. Lovely lady. Welcome, my friends,” he said in a genial tone, waving us inside.

  The room was boringly ordinary with twin queen-sized beds, one of which was dishevelled, an ensuite, a single chair pulled up to a table next to the TV, a single armchair and a small round table pushed against the wall. It was an anonymous hotel room like millions of others in the world, and a dull and commonplace setting for the loveliness of him. I recognised his face, but was struggling to match a name to it. I wished Heller had filled me in before we arrived. I didn’t care to appear ignorant in front of this wonderful man.

  The men shook hands and Heller took control. “Dr Eriksen, this is my employee, Matilda Chalmers. And Matilda, I’d like to introduce you to Dr Meili Eriksen.”

  He pronounced the man’s first name as May-lee. I shook his hand, which was warm and
firm, smiling up into his lovely eyes as I finally remembered who he was. When I’d worked for Clarrie, I’d devoured the paper in great detail every day and had read a lot about Meili Eriksen. He was also regularly on television, usually in the news.

  “Dr Eriksen, what a pleasure,” I said, trying to inject an equal amount of charm and sincerity into my voice.

  “Call me Meili please, Matilda,” he said, smiling at me in a way that made me melt like a clock in a Salvador Dali painting.

  “Call me Tilly please, Meili,” I parroted, coming back with a smile so dazzling it could have powered Las Vegas for an hour or two.

  “Okay, Tilly.”

  He smiled again and squeezed my hand, which he was still holding. I was about to volunteer to have his children. Except you can’t, reminded that nasty negative part of my brain that constantly likes to point out unpalatable truths. My smile wavered for only a second when I thought that, I’m sure, but Meili frowned slightly as if he’d noticed. An observant man attuned to a woman’s moods? I wondered. Hmm, I was yet to find anything about him so far that wasn’t perfect.

  Meili ushered me to the more comfortable armchair, like the incredibly hot gentleman that he was. Heller took the other chair, while Meili sat on the unrumpled bed, smiling amiably at us both.

  “Thanks for meeting with me. Can you believe that no other firm was willing to do so?” He shook his head, his eyebrows drawing together with bewilderment.

  I wanted to jump onto his lap and soothe his puckered brow. And then while I was there, I would kiss those luscious lips and run my hands over his chest and then I’d push him back onto the bed and . . . Jesus! I snapped back into the moment. What the hell was the matter with me? I was hardly acting professionally and I had a boyfriend, for heaven’s sake! I took a deep breath and composed myself. Heller shot me a cool glance loaded with some kind of unpleasant emotion that I couldn’t interpret. I hastily applied myself to the conversation.

  “I realise the reason for that, Dr Eriksen,” Heller replied coldly, “but what can we do for you?” They exchanged measured looks.

  “I don’t want security. You know that, don’t you, Mr Heller? I don’t want to protect myself. Not anymore. I’m in danger and I know that. Every day of my life, I’m in danger. It seems pointless to try to fight it anymore.” His laugh was joyless. “I simply want someone to bear witness to whatever happens during my visit to your fair city.”

  They looked at each other again. I had no idea what they were talking about, but they were having a silent conversation between them that I wasn’t invited to join. Heller shot out what sounded like a question. The reason I didn’t know whether it was a question or not was because he was no longer speaking in English.

  Meili considered what Heller had said, his head on one side. Then he crossed his arms, gave a slight shrug and replied in the same language. They went back and forth in that language, Heller belligerent, Meili calm and soothing.

  I was pissed off. I happen to think that it’s pretty rude to talk in another language in front of a third person. Especially when I started to get the impression that their conversation was mostly about me. And judging from the glances they both threw me, I knew I wasn’t far off the mark. Why were they talking, even arguing, about me?

  I didn’t find out quickly. Heller stood and said in English, “I’ll let you know in an hour or so.”

  Meili nodded graciously and stood also. Heller was taller, but not by much. The two men eyed each other off for a brief moment and shook hands again.

  “Time to go, Matilda,” Heller ordered.

  I stood obediently, but was terribly confused. What the hell had just happened in this hotel room? I’d been there, but I had no idea what they had discussed or even what the assignment was, which apparently no other firm, not even Select Security, wanted to touch. By God, Heller was going to have to answer some questions on the way home, I thought angrily.

  “Bye Meili,” I said, shaking his hand and looking up at him, not sure if I’d ever see him again. He shot me a sharp glance before turning to Heller, saying something in that other language. Heller said something very prickly in response. They could have been talking to each other in Old Viking for all I knew, the two of them were so incomprehensible.

  Heller and I made our departure and returned to his Mercedes, securing our seatbelts.

  “So,” I said, and I drew that little word out into a whole conversation of its own. He glanced at me. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on or should I refuse to do anything for you ever again?” There was a healthy dose of heat in my tone and eyes that showed him that I meant business.

  He sighed heavily, pulled over at the next convenient spot and turned off the engine, twisting in his seat to face me. “He’s Meili Eriksen, famous eco-warrior or eco-terrorist, depending on what side of the argument you’re on. You’ve heard of him, I’m sure.”

  I nodded heartily. I was firmly on the eco-warrior side of the argument. Knowing Heller, he wouldn’t be on either side, not caring one way or the other.

  “He’s in the city for two reasons. Firstly, he’s here to defend himself in court against a charge of trespassing and vandalism. Do you remember that he and his friend defaced the city’s cultural centre a few months ago when he last visited during the whale migration season? It was a big story on the news.” I nodded. Of course I remembered. They’d scaled the cultural centre where Meili had abseiled down one side, writing ‘STOP WHALE SLAUGHTER’ on the building. He’d written the words in two-metre high text with red paint that had bled down the centre’s stark whiteness in a pointed message. It had caused a public commotion, people equally divided in reaction between admiration and outrage. They’d both been arrested when they climbed down but were later released on bail, receiving a lot of publicity in the process. Which was the whole objective of the stunt, I presumed. “And secondly, he’s giving some lectures while he’s here, sponsored by one of the city’s universities.”

  “Okay, so why does he want security?”

  “You heard what he said. He doesn’t want security, even though he’s been seriously threatened a number of times.” He paused, looking at me steadily. “His girlfriend was murdered about a year ago. Unsolved, but she’d been threatened too. She was a fellow warrior.”

  “Oh my God, that’s terrible! Who threatened them?”

  He gave a brief laugh. “Who hasn’t threatened him? He’s a thorn in the side of a number of big industries – mining, logging, fishing, whaling, not to mention several governments as well. There’s no shortage of suspects.”

  “So why doesn’t he want security if he’s in danger? And does he think something is going to happen to him here?”

  He didn’t respond for a while, his eyes moving away to watch the traffic zooming past us, before returning to me. “He’s prepared to be a martyr.”

  “What?”

  “He’s happy to die for his cause. He’s resigned to it.”

  “That’s insane!” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  “Matilda, he’s a fanatic. He’s probably not the most rational person around. He knows it’s only a matter of time before ‘they’ kill him, whoever ‘they’ end up being.”

  I sat quietly for a time looking down at my hands, before raising my eyes to him again. “Why does he want someone with him then, if he doesn’t want to be protected? I can’t protect him against an assassin.”

  “If he’s assassinated, he wants someone to witness it and tell everyone. He wants to ensure that everyone knows he was murdered in the course of his attempts to save the planet. He wants to live on through his actions. And he doesn’t want to die alone, like his girlfriend did. So he has someone with him all the time now, just for that purpose. And that’s where we come in.”

  I could see why no other firm wanted to touch the job. It was a doozy.

  “You’re asking me to watch a man be murdered?” I was proud at how even and steady my voice sounded.

  “Possibly, Mati
lda. That’s why I just can’t make up my mind about whether to take this assignment or not. He assures me that he has no reason at all to think that anything will happen to him while he’s here. He’s only taking precautions, as he always does. He assured me you’d not be in any danger at any time.”

  “Heller, I’m twenty-five-years-old. If I saw a man being murdered now, it would affect me for the rest of my life. How could I ever forget it? I’ve only recently faced death myself. Is that what you want from me?” My voice cracked and I drew in a few ragged breaths.

  “Matilda, I don’t know what to do. That’s why I’m leaving it up to you.” He regarded me closely, strong emotions on his face.

  Oh boy! I thought about it carefully. On the one hand, I might have to watch someone die, which was not something to take lightly. It would be very traumatic. I probably would never get over witnessing such a thing. I’d probably need counselling afterwards. I’d probably have nightmares. And if someone was killing him, what was to stop them killing me as well? Meili might want to leave a witness to his murder, but the murderers might not be so generous. My life would be in danger, no matter what Meili or Heller said.

  On the other hand, Meili was a passionate and interesting man. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend some time with someone who believed in his cause so much that he was willing to risk his life for it. That’s not something you encounter every day. And if I refused to take on this assignment and no other firm was willing to take it on either, he would have nobody with him when he died, if ‘they’ managed to get him while he was here. He might die alone, like his poor girlfriend. Thinking of his lovely warm eyes, I knew I couldn’t deny a man his dying wish.

  I looked up at Heller, uncertainty in my eyes.