For the second time since she’d arrived, Sarah stood stunned. The study was more of a private library, lined with bookshelves and real books. An antique, dark oaken desk took pride of place facing a large bay window. Sarah sighed.
‘It’s Charles Dickens’s desk, and yours to use. We can change the chair for a more contemporary job if this one doesn’t work for you,’ Suzie said.
Sarah sat, feeling her body mould comfortably with the ancient timber. She ran her fingers over the desk’s well-worn surface and shivered.
‘I thought I’d seen his desk exhibited in London,’ Sarah said. ‘A much smaller one.’
‘You have, and it’s still there. This is from his Gad’s Hill home—the one he wrote Great Expectations on.’
Sarah sighed and stared towards the window.
‘Oops, sorry,’ Suzie said, ‘what sort of view do you prefer to work with?’
‘What sort of view? What do you mean?’
‘Peaceful river!’ Suzie commanded.
Sarah watched as the view from the window slowly dissolved. A river appeared, bathed in dappled light and bounded by overhanging willows, moving languidly in a light breeze. She could see a small rowing boat moored to a moss covered rock and could clearly see ripples spreading gently from its bow.
‘I don’t believe it, it’s like being in a Turner—so totally real,’ Sarah said, watching a swan glide into view.
‘I know,’ Suzie agreed, ‘it’s got over two hundred variations on inspirational scenes programmed in—everything from riverboat trips along the old Mississippi to storms at sea—whatever fires up the creative juices.’
‘I don’t know if that will work for me,’ Sarah said, ‘but I’ll give it a try. When do I start?’
‘You have,’ Suzie smiled, ‘and your luggage is being brought over from the hotel now.’
‘Really?’ Sarah said, fighting to keep a surge of irritation out of her voice. ‘Yes, sorry about the short notice,’ Suzie said, smoothly, ‘Argon is a little
concerned about security. How did get you here?’ she asked unexpectedly. ‘I didn’t see a cab.’
Perhaps it was the thought of people messing with her personal stuff, the sudden mention of security, or the fact that her arrival had been watched that did it—she wasn’t sure—but, for whatever reason, she lied.
‘I walked,’ she replied, staring candidly into Suzie’s eyes.
Sarah saw only the barest dilation in the younger woman’s pupils. Suzie had definitely been watching for an untruth. She was pleased that Ben and Sam had dropped her off in Oxford Street, just around the corner and, luckily, out of sight. So she really had walked.
‘Great day for it too,’ Sarah said, enthusiastically. ‘On the way I saw lots of interesting coffee shops for me to lurk in.’
‘Aah,’ Suzie said, opening one of the desk drawers to reveal a flexi-pad, ‘you have the world’s best espresso machine right here in your kitchen and I know how to use it. You won’t need to go out. The fridges are full of goodies and a nearby restaurant will prepare anything you need and have it delivered. You’ll need to use this too,’ she added, not giving Sarah a moment to respond.
‘What’s wrong with my own flexi?’ Sarah asked, ‘I have all my reference links already on it.’
From the corner of her eye, Sarah saw Suzie purse her lips. She put the flexi-pad on the desk and sighed.
‘This is a really nice place, but sadly none of our personal flexis or smartcoms work here. It’s something to do with transformer interference. We have to use company stuff but, don’t worry, all your reference data will be transferred today by a tech.’
Quailing inside, Sarah nodded, pretending to accept Suzie’s words as gospel. She was beginning to feel trapped. She hadn’t expected to find herself suffocating in a cleverly constructed veneer of kindness and generosity. Ethan had talked of beaches—real sand and crashing waves, not a fake picture window compromise.
‘You’ve forgotten your juice,’ Suzie said, handing Sarah her drink.
Sarah sipped, looking around the study. She wasn’t used to such a tightly controlled and contrived working space. Her desk at home, parked by an open window, was a comfortable shambles of what she often referred to as organized chaos. As each project neared completion she would attack her desk in a frenzy of tidying, ready for the next big job—that’s how she worked. And if the muse eluded her, she would grab her flexi and trot down to one of her favorite coffee shops, the comings and goings of locals always serving to stimulate her sluggish brain.
Sarah felt Suzie’s eyes upon her. The woman’s message was clear—the writer was to be banged up for the duration—no arguments. Well, if she thought this one was going to be pushed around … Sarah felt her scalp prickle and become clammy beneath her hair. There’s no fresh air—I can’t breathe.
‘Mind if I have a chat to Ethan?’ she asked, feeling her heart palpitate momentarily out of rhythm.
‘Ethan?’ Suzie queried, frowning.
Her heart banged. Sarah had never felt it pound like this before. She wanted to scream but couldn’t.
‘Ethan Cross, the guy from Argon who organized my trip here,’ she replied, breathing in short gasps. Inexplicably, she wanted to reach out and strangle Suzie’s flawless little neck. What was the matter with her?
‘I want to speak to Ethan right now,’ she demanded, surprising herself with the vehemence in her voice. ‘It’s that or I walk out of here and you can stick your book up your …’
She swayed as the room tipped.
Suzie gently took the glass from her hand.
‘Are you alright?’ she asked. ‘You’d better sit down.’
Sarah plunked herself down before her rubbery legs gave way. She could hear Suzie’s voice fading in and out.
‘The arrangements have all been made by our CEO, Mark Payne. We’re to report directly to him and nobody else.’
Sarah tried to stand. Waves of rolling blackness swept over her accompanied by a peculiar buzzing.
‘I need to talk to Ethan,’ she whispered, watching herself slip sideways off her chair into a very deep hole.
26.
Friends at the top
Mark Payne sat on an elegant chaise lounge, contemplating the sleeping woman. Knowing he had exactly ten more minutes, his gaze moved from the fine lines of her forehead to watching her eyelids flickering in REM sleep. What was she dreaming of? So far, so good, he thought.
He nodded at Suzie who left the room. She’d done well, considering he’d anticipated Sarah’s reaction but miscalculated its intensity. What he now required was the writer’s total compliance.
Grudgingly, he admitted to himself that he was pleased. With Corsfield’s fingers running at a blur of speed, hacking out his stuff at a phenomenal pace, the schedule was rushing ahead. And Payne had to admit, although the author’s first 20,000 words had been fear-driven garbage, Zack’s writing was now developing the characteristic cohesiveness of his earlier novels. He’d powered up as soon as he’d seen the heavily edited video of his wife’s near-death, little suspecting that her would-be assassin’s efforts had been well and truly clusterfucked by an over-zealous cop. He had no idea where Kristen Corsfield was now and didn’t care. Her husband was doing his thing, that’s all that mattered.
He wondered how long the author would last. His man on the spot had sent video links of Corsfield’s insanely protracted bouts of scribing, uninterrupted by sleep, pausing to perform only the basic bodily functions. They almost had all the material they needed.
Sighing, Sarah Marsden opened her eyes. Bathed in sunshine, the room looked lovely and the covers on her body felt snug without being heavy. Her eyes came to rest on a most distinguished looking gentleman sitting close by—a doctor maybe?
‘Hello,’ he said, quietly. ‘How are you feeling?’
Sarah stretched and then remembered falling off her chair.
‘What happened?’ she asked.
The man chuckled. It was a deep melodious
sound, reminding her of her father. He would laugh like that when she related something funny to him from her day at school.
‘I’m afraid you’ve been overdoing it Ms Marsden,’ he said, smiling. ‘We took the liberty of asking the doctor to have a look at you while you were having a rather deep sleep. It appears that the trip, combined with lack of proper rest and some possible stress has taken its toll. You collapsed you know—went clean out for quite a few hours. I’m Mark Payne by the way,’ he added putting out his hand.
Sarah took his outstretched palm. It was warm, firm and somehow very comforting. She vaguely recalled the name from somewhere. She also remembered drinking a lot of champagne recently and decided not to mention that.
‘Are you the big boss?’ she asked, licking her lips. They felt dry.
Payne looked surprised.
‘Not really,’ he said, picking up a glass of water and holding it while she sipped. ‘I’m a sort of an ad hoc Bill Gates of our organization—you know, trying to deflect some of our ill-gotten gains to the greater good. Like this place,’ he added looking around at the sumptuous surroundings, ‘this is reserved for our most important business contacts and it’s nice to see it used for something worthwhile for a change.’
Payne frowned as he placed the water glass to one side.
‘Yes, it is rather nice,’ Sarah agreed, looking at the man’s kind face. He looked worried. ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘It’s just … well, I don’t want you to feel obligated to stay here,’ he said, ‘but it would be safer. It seems there are people out there who don’t have your best interests at heart.’
‘Really? I thought this was all a bit of a secret mission. Who else could know about me?’
‘That’s what Ethan’s trying to find out right now,’ Payne smiled, watching the woman’s face flush with pleasure at his errant protégé’s name. ‘He’s gone under cover. What we can do to help him stay safe and get on with the job is tighten up on our own security as best we can. But …’ he added, shrugging his shoulders.
For a moment Sarah felt dreadful and then she understood. Her concerns about the place were so pathetic. So much had been done to make her feel comfortable. From the time she’d set foot in the door, she’d been pampered to the max and had then reacted with selfish ingratitude.
‘Would it help if I just stayed here and got on with the work?’ she asked, anxious to help.
Payne’s face brightened.
‘Well, if it’s not too much trouble. I’m sure once we get a message to Ethan he’ll be relieved to know that you’re absolutely safe too.’
Sarah smiled and pulled her covers back.
‘Right then, a dip in that gorgeous marble tub, something to eat, and I’m off to my lovely Dickens desk to get started.’
Payne held out his hand to help her up.
‘You really are an extraordinary woman, Sarah,’ he smiled. ‘It’s no wonder Ethan thinks so highly of you.’
He watched her blush again. That slippery young man had done an outstanding job on her. He went into the kitchen where Suzie was switching off her flexi-pad.
‘Get all that?’
Suzie nodded, watching him. Although he’d miscalculated, he knew she was concerned that she’d caused the fuck up, and he wouldn’t be letting her off the hook any time soon. That wasn’t his way.
‘You were lucky there. When did you give her the dose?’
‘I dropped it into her juice as soon as I thought she was losing it,’ Suzie
replied.
Payne considered her answer for a minute as if he was about to pass
judgment and then smiled unexpectedly. As he did so, he could see Suzie’s shoulders drop by a minute fraction of an inch.
‘Well, with any luck we won’t have any more trouble from her. I’ve injected a
slow-release capsule under her skin and it’s already working. She thinks we’re wonderful people, so let’s try to keep it that way.’
Reaching for his smartcom, Payne stepped away. Now there was just the small matter of Ethan Cross to deal with before he got out of hand completely.
27.
The prisoner
‘Is he alright?’ the woman asked, ‘I mean really OK? He hasn’t called for days. Tell me what’s happening and don’t give me any bullshit Kralinsky. You know I love you but that won’t stop me killing you’
Kralinsky forced a laugh, holding his hand against the torrent of words.
‘Calm down Cara. He’s in love. Isn’t that a state of okayness?’
Cara Cortez made a lunge at Kralinsky who put both hand in the air in surrender.
‘Alright, alright,’ he said.
He and Cara were sitting in Ethan Cross’s apartment facing an enormous floor to ceiling curved window. It was night-time and the way the light-filled buildings floated all around them still made Cara shiver.
‘Cara, I haven’t heard from him since he went to Sydney. For him to drop out of circulation like that is a bit usual, but he has done it before.’
‘For this long?’
Kralinsky chewed his lower lip. He had to be straight up with her. She’d lost a husband and then followed their advice not to go to his funeral. All three of them had wept with her as they followed the ceremony on surveillance cameras. She’d seen so many people she knew there including Ben Cox.
Her abduction, obviously contrived, attracted Ben’s quiet anger as planned. Soon after, Sam Hawke’s brilliant, lateral thinking came on line. They’d hit the jackpot when the ex fed and former seal had taken the equation one stage further by getting hooked up. Both he and Ethan were impressed at the speed at which they zeroed in on Redray Seven, finding the opening Ethan had left for them by turning down exclusive access to his research to find the perfect ghostwriter, Sarah Marsden. They were a powerful combination and would hopefully be their backup should they need one.
Kralinsky grinned ruefully, remembering the fight Cara had put up as they whisked her out of her apartment. She calmed down only when they explained to her how much fire-power was on its way to eliminate both her and Ben. There would have been no pasta, no cozy chats, and definitely no fake blood. It would have been theirs and very real. Convincing her to allow Ben to think she’d been abducted was far more difficult.
‘What are smiling at?’ Cara demanded, throwing a cushion at him.
‘Puttanesca actually,’ Kralinsky said. ‘Well, more of Ben and Sam. Those two have disappeared too, along with Sarah Marsden.’
‘Losing Sarah, that’s serious isn’t it?’
Kralinsky nodded.
‘Ethan’s idea to get Mark Payne moving worked a little too well. He went to Sydney at speed. The trouble is, on the way, he disconnected Ethan from Sarah somehow. When Ethan arrived at the hotel, he found Sarah had checked out.’
‘Cold feet?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Sarah and Ethan really have something going—he adores her. He asked her to wait at the hotel and enjoy some shopping until she heard from him. When Ethan got there, he managed to have a word with one of the managers, a guy called Geoffrey—remember, we saw him on the CCTV footage introducing Sarah to Ben and Sam—he was quite cagey about her but was definitely pissed off that she’d gone without a word to anyone.’
‘It’s all moving a bit fast, isn’t it?’ Cara asked.
‘Yes and no,’ Kralinsky agreed. ‘Payne hasn’t been telling Ethan everything, it seems. For instance, we think that Payne had a major hand in having Sarah’s kids removed from her care.’
‘What!’ Cara exclaimed, going pale. ‘Why would he do that?’
Kralinsky shrugged.
‘It’s the way he works, Cara. He softens up his targets in advance even if he doesn’t need to. In Sarah’s case he created massive emotional and financial stress, anticipating that she’d jump at the ghostwriting offer.’
‘But she didn’t, did she?’
‘No, she’s got principles,’ Kralinsky agreed. ‘Ethan really appreciated that
and was slowly bringing her round to join us. We really needed her to accept the offer so that Payne would move to the next stage and, hopefully, reveal what he has in mind for the third book and how he intends to implement it. Meanwhile, as we’ve just discovered, the bastard has a kid murdered over in Brownsville and sends two tame cops over with some drugs to harass Sarah in her apartment. That put an entirely different spin on things.’
‘That poor girl, she doesn’t know the truth about you and Ethan, does she?’ Cara asked.
Kralinsky sighed, wondering if that’s where they’d gone wrong. He reminded Cara how much they’d underestimated Payne’s penchant for secrecy, and ruthlessness. Aware that Payne was not only responsible for Zack’s abduction but had made two serious attempts on Kristen’s life, she was grateful her old friend was now recovering in a secure and highly secret medical facility outside Sydney.
‘And now, with Ethan falling for Sarah and her boys, he’s found himself between a rock and a hard place, Kralinsky said. ‘All of a sudden it was too late to come clean, Cara. All trust would have gone, Sarah would have turned her back on Ethan, and rightly so. That would have left Payne to come after her with everything he had.’
‘I don’t know that you made the right call there,’ Cara told him. ‘Sarah deserved to be told the truth and allowed to be a part of the decision making. It affected her directly, it’s her right.’
Kralinsky stared unhappily over the city’s lights.
‘We agonized over it, Cara—truly,’ he said. ‘We had no idea that Payne would go so far and so quickly, or that Ethan and Sarah would fall for each other. Before Ethan had the opportunity to come clean, things had moved along and the moment for truth had passed. How would you feel if everything you knew about someone you were in love with was suddenly a lie? Would you be happy to go along with their mind-boggling plans to save the world? I doubt it. Ethan knows he’ll lose her because of this.’
‘That’s probably true,’ Cara said. ‘This is a terrible thing to say but how could she ever trust him again?’
The Last Book. A Thriller Page 21
