Ghosts, Matt Rogers [reading the story of the .txt] 📗

Alan Ward and Gloria Kerr. Just you. No one else.’

King said, ‘I have a friend with me. She’ll come along to help. I can’t handle two resisting hostages on my own.’

‘“She”?’ Ray said. ‘You got a harem going on or something?’

King masked his disgust.

King said, ‘Me. My friend. Kerr. Ward. I want you and Alexis out front, and no one else. You don’t need help for one hostage. Keep your boys back inside. I’m sure you’ll want them in the windows with guns on me, but that’s not how this is going to go. Do we have an understanding?’

‘We do.’

‘I have more men,’ King warned. ‘I’m keeping them back. Don’t get greedy and turn this into a shitstorm because you think I’m an idiot for playing by the rules. Don’t make me send them in.’

‘Are you really ex-black ops?’ Ray said. ‘That’s some serious shit.’

King hesitated. What’s Alexis told him?

He said, ‘You don’t need to worry about that.’

Silence.

King said, ‘One more thing. What have you done to her so far?’

Ray said, ‘None of your business.’

‘You’re interested in self-preservation, Keith,’ King said. ‘You know if I find out anything happened to her the deal is off. You’ll get to kill her, sure, but then you’ll make me and all my friends real angry. You don’t want to do that.’

Keith said, ‘I haven’t done anything yet.’

Yet.

‘Then you’re not going to lay a finger on her,’ King said. ‘When we get her back, if I hear the slightest hint that you put your hands on her, there’ll be hell to pay.’

‘What if she lies?’ Ray said. ‘What if she says I did?’

‘She’ll tell the truth,’ King said. ‘We’re not like you.’

Quiet.

King said, ‘Nine p.m.’

He hung up.

48

Alexis didn’t hear anything.

The door was practically soundproof, and when he opened it again she’d managed to regain some semblance of composure. The phone call had lasted ten minutes, fifteen tops. An awful lot of information can be conveyed in fifteen minutes.

Internally she screamed at herself to stay calm, to not show anything on her face.

He wants you to be scared.

That’s what he likes.

But his face was blank, a world apart from how he’d stepped out. He looked almost forlorn. Maybe the cocaine was wearing off — he might be on the comedown.

She’d almost resigned herself to being raped.

The look on his face started to sway her.

She didn’t allow it to. It was exactly the type of sick game he’d play. Let her think she’d escaped harm just to take advantage when she was at her most vulnerable.

To crush her completely.

He said, ‘It’s your lucky day.’

She sat rigid.

He said, ‘If the man upstairs exists, he’s on your side. I’ve just arranged a trade with your friends. They seemed very interested in getting you back.’

Hope speared through her.

He took a step forward, reached out a hand, and stroked it through the air inches from her face.

He half-smiled — sad and pathetic. ‘I’m not allowed to touch you. That was their rule. I’m smart enough to honour it. Here’s the deal. Are you willing to work with me here?’

She couldn’t have been more confused.

He looked scared.

He said, ‘I’m not going to lay a finger on you until the trade. In exchange, I’d like you to forget our little altercation before. I didn’t touch your breasts. I was going to, I know, but that was then. This is now. The circumstances have changed.’

She rocked back, flabbergasted.

He said, ‘Will you tell them I’m a man of my word?’

She wanted to laugh at him. She wanted to spit in his face. She wanted to shout and scream obscenities until the sun rose the next morning. But the reality was she was still handcuffed to a desk, still the prisoner of a coke addict, still well and truly in danger. Ray was practically bipolar in his mood swings — that didn’t mean he wouldn’t swing back again in the other direction.

She had to keep him placid until King, Slater and Violetta came for her.

She said, ‘That’s our little secret. As long as nothing happens in future.’

He nodded. ‘You have my word.’

She thought, They’ve got you scared, Keith.

They’ve got you fearing for your fucking life.

It felt so good.

He nodded brusquely to her, turned and left her in peace, closing the door behind him. He’d left the lamp on for her. It was luxury compared to the dark. Nothing was worse than the pitch blackness, so total and all-encompassing it had almost crept into her soul. With her free hand she reached up and wiped the smudged mascara off her cheeks. Composing herself.

The ball’s back in our court.

More tears wanted to come.

She didn’t let them out.

They’d be tears of joy, and she had no reason to celebrate until the trade actually took place, proving it wasn’t a figment of her imagination.

Trade me for who? she thought.

Kerr?

Had they kidnapped the District Attorney?

She gulped back apprehension.

Even if she made it out of this godforsaken warehouse, there’d be far-reaching consequences for what they’d already done.

Vegas had every chance of chewing them up and spitting them out before the night was through.

49

A clock above the fridge ticked.

King cradled a glass.

Violetta watched him.

He knew she was judging. He swirled the remnants of whiskey around the bottom of the glass and gulped it back. He didn’t lift his eyes to meet hers. He closed them instead. Felt the warm burn against the back of his throat. Inhaled through his nostrils. Held the breath. Let it out.

When he opened them, he was calmer.

She said, ‘Don’t become Will.’

He looked at her finally, and rolled his eyes. ‘Do I look like I’m becoming Will?’

They were alone in the kitchen with the overhead light off. The adjacent sitting room had its bulbs blazing, and there was more than enough of it to spill through to the kitchen, half-illuminating them. As it had grown dark outside neither one of them had got up to light the kitchen island. They seemed to mutually agree that the best kind of thinking took place in the shadows.

Violetta said,