The Stranger, Mark Ayre [microsoft ebook reader .TXT] 📗

couldn’t wait upstairs to lure Ronson into a false sense of security at the cost of Travis ending up in hospital. This was the only way.

“I want to deal with you,” Ronson said. “I really do. But I’m busy. I got a job. Lucky you, I’m going to give you a chance. You walk down those stairs then Kline will step aside. Yes, you will,” Ronson snapped at Kline, who seemed repulsed by the suggestion. Back to Abbie: “You open the door, you walk away. You don’t bump into me again, then I promise you’ll come to no harm. Can’t say fairer than that, eh?”

Abbie looked over Kline’s shoulder at the door. Ronson had checked Abbie over and would not let her leave if she carried a bag. She believed he was genuine about the offer.

“How about you let Travis go,” she said. “Let me take his place.”

Ronson glanced down at Travis, still whimpering on the floor, still clutching his stomach, and bleeding from the nose.

“Lucky I didn’t carry around flowers,” Ronson said. “Looks like you’re more into weedy, pathetic kids than you are men.”

“What can I say,” said Abbie. “I’m a woman with needs, and you left me high and dry last night. In my despondency, I turned to the nearest fella who wanted me, and you know what, I don’t regret it. Last night with Travis, it was… I can’t say he rocked my world. More like tilted. He tilted my world. Don’t get the wrong impression there. When I say tilted, I don’t mean like a boat, like tilted enough that we started taking on water. More like tilted where you look at a table, and you think, is that level? It kind of looks like it might not be level, but I’m not sure. So you take a table tennis ball, right, or similar, and you put it on the table, and you learn that, yeah, the table isn’t flat. The ball doesn’t run away. It does roll, but slowly. Like it has somewhere to be but isn’t in a hurry. That’s what last night with Travis was like. He didn’t rock my world, but he did put it on ever such a slight incline. A girl needs a bit of that every now and then.”

Kline looked stupefied, confused. Like his head might explode.

Ronson said, “Are you done?”

“Maybe I’ve not made it clear,” said Abbie. “You two are the ones who are done.”

Ronson shook his head. Then kicked Travis’ stomach with such force that the teen slid along the wood flooring and hit the door of the under stairs cupboard. From the moment he pulled back his foot to the second he tugged his boot away from the soft, damaged flesh of Travis’ stomach, Ronson held Abbie’s eye.

“This ain’t going to go the way you want,” he said.

Abbie released the bannister and turned to start down the stairs. As she descended, Kline moved away from the door, stopping with his toes almost pressed against the bottom step.

“That’s inconvenient,” said Abbie.

Neither Kline nor Ronson responded. Both were wearing thick jackets within which it would be easy to conceal a weapon. Abbie had no doubt Francis would have access to guns and explosives, but in a country with such tight gun laws, he would be careful about which of his men carried and when. Regardless of how important was the bag to Francis, he expected his only opposition in retrieving it to be Travis. Therefore, it was unlikely either Kline or Ronson possessed firearms. Likewise, knives, though this was more likely. Whether they were armed or not, Abbie intended to move too fast for that to be a factor.

Three steps from the bottom, Abbie stopped. Her left hand she placed on the bannister and her right on the railing, which trailed the wall up the stairs. She held firmly to each.

Kline didn’t move. Having left Travis groaning and coughing up blood, Ronson edged along the corridor until he was standing next to the foot of the stairs, looking up at Abbie.

“You really think you got a chance here?” he asked.

“I’ve always got a chance,” said Abbie. “Still, can’t help but thinking it would be much more fun if it were only you and me.”

“You may be right.”

“So why don’t you send your idiot mate away.”

At the word idiot, Kline made a low, rumbling noise.

Abbie asked, “Did you just growl?”

Kline said nothing. He didn’t move. Loose by his side hung his arms. Big, beefy hands were not stuffed into fists, but the fingers were curled towards the palm, ready to be drawn the rest of the way at a moment’s notice.

Abbie pressed Ronson. “Well?”

Ronson looked at Kline, who signalled in no way what he thought about the request, then back to Abbie.

“I think if we fought, just you and me, I’d have a lot of fun. I give myself a 99% chance of beating you. 90% chance I do it without you getting in a scratch.”

“Oh, I never scratch,” said Abbie. “Don’t know what kind of cliched women you’ve been fighting.”

“Whatever you’d do,” said Ronson. “I don’t think it’s worth the risk. Even the slightest chance you could beat me one on one isn’t worth it when I know Kline and me got 100% chance two vs one. It may not seem fair or sporting, but you got to understand this isn’t about sport. Not even fun. This is a job. I got to get it done. You understand, right?”

In response, Abbie pushed up on the bannister and railing and lifted her legs, pulling her knees towards her chest.

Kline reacted immediately but badly. Rather than flattening his hands and grabbing her ankles, he clenched them into fists and raised them as though to punch her feet.

Like pistons, she fired her boots into his face, sending him crashing back into the wall.

As she’d lifted her legs, Ronson had stepped towards the bannister. While she smashed Kline’s face, he grabbed her top and heaved her into the air.

She’d had a decent