Stone Cold

by Dean Crawford

  Stephen seemed so stunned that he could not speak. He glanced out of the windshield through the sheets of water blurring the streets outside. The sky was low and dark, the streetlights glowing. People running with their umbrellas held up against the torrent as rain started hammering the roof of the car.

  ‘She wore a dress,’ Stephen whispered.

  ‘What?’

  Stephen turned back to face Ally. ‘She wore a dress that belonged to my wife. Does Kathryn know where we live?’

  ‘Your wife? You mean that you’re married to the other woman?’

  Stephen glared at Ally. ‘Like I said, it’s complicated.’

  Ally blinked in surprise and nodded. ‘You see, this is what I was afraid of. She’s gone too far. That’s all I have for you, thanks for listening. I’m going to go now and…’

  The door locks clicked as one, sealing her in. Ally knew what had happened but she still tried the door handle anyway. It was locked. She turned back to Stephen and saw him release the locking button on his key fob.

  ‘Stephen, this isn’t helping,’ she said to him. ‘Kathryn’s who you need to be talking to. I just came here to let you know what was happening and…’

  Ally was silenced as Stephen, smiling, reached out and pressed a finger to Ally’s lips. She stared at him as his hand slid gently around to cup her jaw and he leaned across. Moments later, his lips were pressed against hers as he kissed her.

  Ally tried to pull back, but her body would not respond as Stephen’s arms slid around her shoulders and she melted into his embrace.

  Then a sharp pain pierced the back of her neck and she squealed. Stephen’s embrace became fierce as she felt something cold flood into her neck, some kind of fluid. She gasped, struggling against Stephen, trying to scream, but he held her firmly as he pulled away from the kiss and yanked her head deep into his chest.

  Ally writhed and struggled, but then she felt her arms and legs weaken as though she were utterly exhausted. Her heart fluttered in her chest and her breath shuddered in her lungs as she felt her bladder suddenly empty onto the expensive seat beneath her. Her face slumped against Stephen’s chest until he pushed her back into the seat and dragged the seatbelt across her, plugging it into place.

  Ally’s head sank back against the headrest and lolled uselessly to one side as her tongue drooped from between her lips.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Stephen said as he pulled out into the road again. ‘We’ll just go for a little drive and then you can tell me all about your adventures with Kathryn, and exactly what she’s done.’

  Ally managed to rotate her numb eyeballs up toward the top of her head, where she saw Stephen driving as he looked down at her and smiled.

  ‘And if you don’t tell me every single detail, I swear I shall carve that fat carcass of yours into a thousand tiny pieces and feed you to the fish.’

  Moments later, Ally’s consciousness slipped silently away from her.

  ***

  35

  Ally awoke to a throbbing sensation filling her face, as though it was swollen to twice its normal size. She blinked through tears that sprung unbidden from her eyes and looked around as she saw Stephen stand up from where he must have knelt and slapped her awake.

  She was lying on her back on wet grass and her entire body was quivering in the cold. She felt the raindrops drumming on her naked skin and realised that her clothes had all been removed. Horror filled her with a dread chill and she tried to move, but her limbs did not respond. Even her head felt too heavy to move.

  The night sky above was inky black, the falling rain illuminated by bright white beams from a vehicle’s headlamps somewhere out of her sight.

  ‘I’ll make this as brief as possible.’

  She tried to speak, but her lips seemed numb and her words sounded weak and distorted.

  ‘Stephen… What the hell’s going on?’

  Stephen stood over her, and in one hand he held a small piece of paper that he had retrieved from her purse, which he now held in the other hand. He shielded the paper from the rain as he read from it.

  ‘A ticket purchase,’ he announced, ‘from Ventura Air by credit card number…’ Stephen read the number out and looked down at Ally. ‘Does that number sound familiar to you, Ally?’

  Ally felt her lips trembling along with the rest of her body as she fought over the cold to reply.

  ‘Kathryn asked me to buy them,’ she said. ‘She wouldn’t say what for, but I figured that she was taking you somewhere, that it was all part of her plan to punish you and then make it all up.’

  Stephen chuckled heartily and slipped the paper back into his pocket. Abby realised with a lance of terror that he was wearing blue surgical gloves and in his right hand he held a knife.

  ‘Oh, she was taking me somewhere all right,’ Stephen chortled at her. ‘For a fucking ride, and you had ringside seats, didn’t you Ally?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that!’ Ally snapped. ‘She wanted revenge, but she didn’t want to end things! Jesus, Stephen I’m just the messenger okay? I haven’t done anything to harm you, let me go!’

  Stephen stared down at her.

  ‘Tell me, was there anything else that Kathryn asked you to buy for her? Anything else at all?’

  Ally struggled to remember what had been on Kathryn’s list.

  ‘There was some food, cleaning materials, I don’t know, just stuff. She didn’t give me the details.’

  ‘Tell me everything on that list!’ Stephen bellowed down at her.

  ‘I can’t remember!’ Ally wailed through her numb lips. ‘The address of a lock–up storage company downtown, maybe some…’

  ‘A lock–up?’ Stephen echoed.

  ‘Yeah. I figure that’s where she would keep all her stuff when she moved out.’

  ‘Where is the lock–up?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Stephen knelt down alongside her shivering body, looking her up and down with interest.

  ‘I can see why it might have been fun for you,’ he said. ‘I mean, since you let yourself go you haven’t exactly had much in the way of excitement in your life, have you?’

  Ally dredged up a feeble morsel of anger and spat it out at Stephen.

  ‘Is that all you’ve got, Stephen? Childish insults?’

  Stephen smiled at her. ‘No.’

  The blade in his hand flashed down and sliced through the flesh of her thigh as though it were not even there. Pain seared Ally’s leg and she squealed in agony as Stephen watched her like an insect caught between finger and thumb.

  Ally sobbed as what little courage she had left deserted her.

  ‘Please, don’t, why are you doing this?’

  Stephen shrugged thoughtfully and looked at the blade in his hand. ‘It’s been long overdue, to be honest. Tell me, did you laugh and joke about me with Kathryn while she was running this charade with you?’

  Ally squeezed her eyes tight shut and shook her head vigorously. ‘No.’

  ‘Are you sure, Ally?’ Stephen quizzed her. ‘You see, I know you well enough to know what a sharp little wit you are. I can just see it now, Kathryn sitting down with you after what she pulled in the restaurant, or after she broke into my home, and having a good old chuckle together at my expense.’

  Ally, her voice broken with sobs and shivers, tried to reply.

  ‘You… started… it. You… were… already... married.. .to…’

  ‘Sheila,’ Stephen cut her off, bored already. ‘Yes, my wife. Such a shame, don’t you think, both of them having to be silenced? If only they’d remained good and quiet and faithful and not…’

  Stephen sliced Ally’s thigh again to a squeal of pain.

  ‘…gotten..’

  Another slice, deeper now, to more agonised cries.

  ‘…involved…’

  Stephen sliced her other thigh for good measure, and Ally felt warm blood spilling down her thighs in the rain as Stephen shifted position and held the knife vertically above her belly, the b
lade pointing down at her and dripping blood.

  ‘Tell me, where is Kathryn’s lock–up?’

  Ally, paralysed with fear and pain, could barely speak.

  ‘L..l…l…let.. me.. go…’

  Stephen smiled down at her. ‘You tell me where Kathryn is and I’ll let you go.’

  Ally gaped as words fluttered in broken pieces from her lips.

  ‘I… don’t… know…’

  Stephen slammed the blade hilt–deep into Ally’s belly. Ally’s cries of pain descended into gagging noises, her eyes wide and her mouth agape as Stephen twisted the blade inside her and a deep rush of blood spilled from the wound and flooded down her quivering flanks.

  ‘It’s the Triple A, off 2nd Avenue!’ Ally screamed in horror as her life blood poured from within her and she broke down into trembling sobs.

  ‘A shame,’ Stephen said, ‘that you didn’t see sense sooner.’

  ‘Please…, help me,’ Ally gasped.

  Stephen stood up, turned and stalked away from her into the night.

  Ally, pinned on her back and with blood pulsing around the edge of the blade buried in her stomach, heard the car drive away into the night as an intense, deep chill enveloped her shivering body.

  ***

  36

  Sheila McKenzie lay pinned to the recliner and shivered in the darkness.

  Her right wrist was rubbed raw from where she had spent hours working it back and forth beneath the tight rope bonds, pain seething through her skin, but the pain merely drove her onward as she thought of her cheating, lying husband and his selfish plan to deprive her of both her fortune and her life.

  She wondered how long he had planned all of this. Months. Years? Just waiting for the right time to orchestrate her downfall. She could picture him vividly in her mind’s eye; his grief before television cameras at his beloved wife’s disappearance; his devastation at the discovery by police of her dead body discarded in some obscure commercial storage unit somewhere or buried far out on some lonely plain; his long and difficult period of recovery and suffering while collecting on her life insurance and taking an extended leave of compassion from his airline. Selling her beloved art gallery for whatever additional profit he could make. Maybe taking a holiday using Sheila’s money with that younger bitch of his and fucking her while laughing at his ex–wife’s demise.

  Sheila gritted her teeth and pulled harder against her bonds. Pain seared her wrist as it slipped further, tearing her skin another tiny fraction as though she were peeling it off by choice. She squealed through her gag as her hand slid a little further out, probably lubricated by the blood that must by now have drenched the cords.

  A sudden ripple of vibrations trembled through the recliner and with a start of horror Sheila realised that her abductor had returned. There was no way that they would miss the damage to her skin or the blood on the bonds.

  Sheila sucked in a deep lungful of air and then yanked her wrist as hard as she could.

  She gagged and stars and whorls of light flashed before her as white pain burned her upper wrist and hand, but with a horrible sucking sound like water draining from a plug her hand wrenched free from the cords.

  Sheila reached up to her hair and pulled a clip free, an inch–long pin that she immediately concealed in her palm as she dropped her hand back down. She slid her fingers and thumb back over the restraints and hoped that it would be enough to conceal, however briefly, what she had done.

  The shutters rumbled up and then hit their stops as the smell of fresh air and rain filled Sheila’s nostrils. She felt rather than heard hurried footsteps rush into the storage unit and this time the shutter doors did not close behind them.

  For a moment Sheila thought that rescue might finally have arrived, that she was finally to be liberated from this living hell. She sensed the person move close to her and she tensed her body ready to drive the hairpin deep into their eyes.

  Suddenly the ear plugs were yanked from her ears and a voice, a woman’s voice, whispered in her ear.

  ‘It’s okay, don’t move, I’m here to rescue you.’

  Sheila closed her hand a little tighter around the pin in her hand as she felt the blindfold that had denied her vision for so long being loosened around her head. Suddenly it was pulled free and Sheila squinted against even the dull light that flooded into her world.

  The recliner was in the centre of a storage unit, no more than twenty by eight by six feet, all cold metal walls and a thin rubber carpet that both helped to insulate the unit a little and deadened all footfalls. An old chair leaned near one wall to her right, and to her left was a pile of old paper bags from a supermarket or convenience store.

  Outside the unit it was raining, the torrential downfall glowing in the brilliant headlamps of a vehicle parked nearby. The harsh white beams scythed through the rain and into the storage unit, illuminating the face of a woman in her thirties, long brown hair and business suit, a concerned expression etched into her features.

  ‘We have to leave, right now.’

  Sheila stared at the woman in disbelief. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ the woman replied. ‘Your husband is going to kill you in return for your life insurance. We need to go, now.’

  Sheila was about to scream and plunge the pin into the woman’s eyes when she caught a waft of a scent that she had recognised and a shadow passed in front of the car’s headlamps to fill the storage unit. Both Sheila and the woman looked up to see a man standing silhouetted in the entrance to the storage unit, rain dripping from his hair and gleaming on a pistol he held close to his thigh. Sheila blinked in surprise as she recognised the man watching them.

  ‘Dale?’

  ***

  37

  Griffin sat in his car and waited.

  It was an odd thing about police work that you got so used to sitting around waiting for something to happen. In many ways, it had been the same in the military. Hurry up and wait. Griffin was bored and a little anxious, but he shut his mind down and waited in stoic silence.

  She appeared out of the drizzle, the streetlights reflecting off the damp pavements like glittering galaxies as she hurried across to the car and opened the door. Griffin watched as she climbed in and shook out her umbrella.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Griffin said.

  Angela looked at him as though to snap a retort, but then her expression changed as she took him in. She started to say something, hesitated, then tried again.

  ‘Something happened,’ she said clairvoyantly.

  ‘Yeah,’ he replied, ‘it did.’

  Angela watched him for a moment. ‘You look, better.’

  ‘You look amazing.’

  Griffin wasn’t just saying it. Angela’s strawberry blonde hair was hanging in curls to her shoulders, and he could see that she was wearing a jet–black dress cut just above the knee on one side and cut low to her ankle on the other. Black shoes to match. Earrings and a slim gold necklace that he’d bought her when he left the military sparkled in the light. She looked perfect.

  ‘You look amazed,’ she smiled back. ‘When was the last time I dolled up for you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Griffin said as he started the car. ‘You’re here now.’

  Angela yanked the mirror down to check her look.

  ‘Damn it,’ she muttered. ‘I had my hair done.’

  ‘What made you change your mind?’ Griffin asked. ‘I wasn’t sure you’d come out.’

  Angela fluffed her hair as she replied. ‘I’m your wife. You asked nicely. What the hell else was I supposed to do?’

  He drove her to the restaurant that Kathryn had recommended, which was only a few minutes away, and they walked in together. A wide reception area greeted them, all glossy black with electric blue lighting. A glass panel on one wall was filled with photographs taken inside the restaurant. The waitress took their jackets and guided them to their table, opposite a vast mirror down which flowed torrents of water through
rainbow hues. Menus appeared, along with glasses of sparkling complimentary champagne.

  Griffin, his collar feeling tight and his jacket scratchy, took a sip of the champagne as Angela arranged her handbag, checked her look in a little folding mirror, checked her cell phone and then her look one more time. Such things used to annoy the hell out of Griffin, but suddenly they had become endearing again, tiny little habits that he’d forgotten he liked so much.

  ‘You’re staring,’ Angela said.

  Griffin blinked. ‘You blame me?’ He looked around at the restaurant. ‘Great place.’

  ‘It was a good choice,’ Angela agreed. ‘Somewhere nice but neutral so we can talk.’

  Griffin felt himself tense a little, but she raised a hand to forestall him.

  ‘No arguments,’ she said. ‘No rows, no accusations, no blame. Just talking.’

  Griffin relaxed a little and picked up his champagne again. ‘Okay, I can deal with that.’

  ‘Good,’ Angela said. ‘So, you’ve been a world class asshole lately.’

  Griffin coughed on his champagne and shot Angela a look, only to see her grinning behind her glass. Griffin’s face split into a smile that hurt.

  ‘That your idea of no accusations?’

  ‘I didn’t say we couldn’t state facts,’ she replied. ‘For the record I’m willing to state that, on occasion, I may also have acted without due consideration for your feelings.’

  ‘Is that a confession?’

  ‘It’s another fact. I think that the problem here, and the one that’s never come up between us, is that we’re both suffering in our own ways but haven’t been able to share that suffering.’

  ‘You’ve lost me,’ Griffin said. ‘I don’t mean that in a bad way, okay? I’m just not following.’

  Angela set her glass down. ‘You ever hear about that study, something to do with ordinary people in extraordinary situations, how they relate to others?’

  ‘Yeah, there have been loads of them, we used to hear about them in the army,’ Griffin replied. ‘Everybody thinks that they’re carrying the can while everybody else is doing less than them and… Ah, I’m with you.’