Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

I stepped closer to him, stared hard into his eyes, studied the texture of his skin, noted the rise and fall of his chest. “You need to understand something, Teddy. Detective Dehan is not just my partner. She’s the woman I love. I will do whatever I have to do to save her life. If I lose my job, go to jail for the rest of my life, that is fine by me. Where is she?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What was that noise downstairs? It sounded like a bomb…”

I jerked my gun at him. “Stand up.”

He got to his feet with his hands held at shoulder height. I waved him toward the passage. “The bedroom.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I am going to blow your head off and ransack this building if you don’t do what I say, Teddy. I have probably already lost my job. Don’t push me any further!”

“OK, OK… Stay calm. This is all a misunderstanding. I will cooperate.”

He inched around the coffee table and moved toward the bedroom. I stayed close. He stopped in front of the door. “I’m going to open it, OK?”

“Do it.”

He turned the handle and eased it open, then reached in and flipped on the light. “Shall I go in?” He raised his hands again.

“Go in.”

He went in a few steps and I followed. It was as sparse and cold as the living room. The bed was made. There was no room under it for anything. There was a small wardrobe. I said, “Open it,” but I knew she wasn’t in there. He opened it and there was just a few shirts, pants and jackets.

I could feel my heart pounding, close to panic. My belly was burning. I fought to keep control, to try and understand. “The bathroom.”

He nodded, hurried to the bathroom door and pushed it open. There was an airing cupboard which he opened without being told. It was empty, as was the half-sized bath. I growled at him, “Where is she, Teddy?”

“I swear to God I don’t know what you’re talking about, Detective!”

I felt a chill creep over my skin. I was terrified at what I was about to do. My voice wasn’t my own. It was cold and quiet. “I am going to count to three. Then I start shooting. Where is she?”

His eyes were wide. I saw his pupils contract, and now his skin went pale and pasty. “There is nowhere else in the house! What else can I show you? She isn’t here!”

“One…”

His voice began to rise. “What can I do? Tell me! For God’s sake! I haven’t got her! You can see…”

“Two…”

“She isn’t here! For Christ’s sake! How can I convince you…?”

“Three.”

I leveled the gun at his head. He screamed, “Wait! The cellar!”

I paused.

“Where we keep the beer barrels. If I show you, and she’s not there, will you believe me? I don’t know what else I can do. You’ve made a mistake.”

“Shut up. Show me the cellar.”

He moved past me to the stairs and I followed him down. We went through the kitchen and out to the darkness of the bar. The streetlamps gleamed eerily off the shattered glass and the Jag sitting there, with its dark windows and the door hanging open. He stared at the scene of wreckage and chaos with his mouth open. “Sweet Jesus,” he said. “You’re insane.”

I snarled, “You’d better believe it. The cellar.”

He stared at me, swallowed and moved to a door that stood beside the bathrooms and was marked ‘private’. In the distance I could hear sirens. He fumbled in his trouser pocket and pulled out a bunch of keys. I watched his hands as he slipped one of the keys in the lock and opened the door. It gave onto a small, narrow landing. He hit the switch and the light revealed a short flight of wooden steps that led down to a concrete floor. There I could just make out a stack of steel barrels.

“Go down.”

He nodded and climbed down the stairs. At the bottom he backed up a little and watched me follow. I stood for a moment, looking around. There were stacks of crates: soft drinks, bottled beer, water. There were stacks of twelve-packs of cans, cartons of wine and against the far wall a wooden wine rack stacked with dusty bottles.

I watched him a moment. He swallowed three times in rapid succession. He looked like he might start crying. I gave something that might have been a rueful smile. He shook his head and spread his hands. “You can see she’s not here. Honest to God, Detective. I have no idea where she is.”

I nodded. After a moment I said, “Teddy’s Late Night Bar.”

He blinked.

“Your Australian barman was worried that we were after your license, because you stay open after you’re supposed to close most nights.”

He went very still. “We close the door. Just a few regulars shooting the breeze.”

I took a couple of steps into the room, staring around me. “Tonight you closed early. By eleven thirty, when I arrived to see Wayne, you were shut. What made you close early, Teddy?”

He didn’t answer for a moment. Then he said, “They’re not worth it, Detective. Even the sweet ones are just whores.”

My head exploded. The pain was shattering. Then a concrete wall hit me in the face and I knew I had fallen to the floor. A voice in my head told me not to let go of my gun, but a crushing pain in my hand made me cry out and I felt him levering the pistol from my fingers.

“Get up.”

I looked up at him.

He was expressionless. There was no anger and no fear.