A State Of Sin Amsterdam Occult Series Book Two, Mark Hobson [notion reading list txt] 📗

Kaatje smiled when she heard his voice.

“They said I can come home. Well, not home home.”

“Already? But I thought…?”

“The doctors told me there’s no reason for me to stay here. Especially when I explained to them that I’d be staying with a friend. I think they probably need the bed, you know what hospitals are like these days? They ship you out as soon as they’ve patched you up. Besides, there’s nothing to report yet on how the op has turned out.”

She shrugged, looking all tiny and fragile, he thought.

He went over and sat on the bed next to her and gave her a big hug.

“That’s great news,” he said.

“Has something been going on while I’ve been in here?” she asked.

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh, it’s just that when they brought me back up there was a lot of commotion going on just outside my room. I could hear the guard out there on his radio, and then some other people joined him, I think I recognized their voices from the station, and they were talking about a shoot-out or something. Is it connected to the case, Boss?”

Pieter laughed gently. He found her amazing.

“What are you laughing at?” She stuck her elbow into his ribs.

“Nothing. But don’t you start worrying about work, you need to rest, put your feet up on the couch for a few days, let me wait on you hand and foot.”

“Boring! I want to crack on with the case Boss, find the people who did this to me and get Nina back safe and sound. We’re a team, remember?”

Kaatje hopped to the floor like a determined little pocket-rocket or something, ready to go. Then she wobbled and tottered to the side, and he grabbed her quickly as she sagged.

She let him support her, and this time her smile was a little weaker, and she leaned her head against his shoulder.

“Come on,” he told her. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Pieter used the remote on his key fob to open the electronic garage doors, and turned the wheel to steer the car inside. Out in the street a tow truck was just winching the hire car away. The snow had stopped, the blizzard having temporarily moved on, and overhead the night sky twinkled with stars.

Punching in a six-digit code into the touch-screen display on the wall, he set the garage alarm, and then tapped in a different sequence of numbers to open the door leading from the garage to the house. The front door itself had its own alarm system, as did all of the windows, including the attic dormer beneath the bell gable. After his intruder earlier that year, who had somehow managed to get into his home - something he could still not explain - he was taking no chances.

Guiding Kaatje gently by the elbow he led her up the flights of narrow wooden stairs, explaining the rough layout of his home as they went. She asked a few questions but was mostly quiet, her pinched face and small mouth all serious and listening to his every word, which brought another laugh from him and another frown from her.

The main living area was on the third floor and Pieter paused on the landing by the window.

“Welcome to your new home,” he said gently. “I’ll take you to your room.”

Kaatje took a hold of his hand and held him firmly, and then she pressed her tiny frame into his, seeking warmth and comfort he thought, but before he knew what was happening she kissed him on the lips, her mouth parting slightly. After a moment she pulled back, and he saw she was breathless, and he touched the bandages over her eyes tenderly.

“Make love to me,” her whispered words came to him.

Afterwards, they lay on the bed holding tightly onto each other, their bodies bathed in sweat and their limbs still entwined. There was nothing to say to one another, for their shared fears had found an outlet and a temporary respite, and they sank into its soft welcoming void. To forget, if only for a short while.

They drifted off to sleep.

Just as oblivion took him, a thought pushed its way into Pieter’s mind. Something he should have done. He struggled to remember what.

Something about the bed.

The salt. Yes, that’s what it was. The circle of salt around the bed.

Sleep overcame him, and the thought melted away in the dark.

◆◆◆

Nina had remained locked inside the small cage for over two full days now. Since her failed attempt to escape, she had seen nothing of Tobias, nor had she eaten or drank anything. Her empty stomach felt like a hollow pit and her lips and throat had become parched, her tongue all swollen up, leaving a bitter taste in her mouth.

Her entire universe had shrunk down to this tiny, square prison. She barely had room to sit up or to stretch her legs out, and after several hours her body had become painfully cramped, the muscles in her thighs and back feeling as hard as iron, all twisted and knotted together.

She was also frozen to the core. As punishment Tobias must have switched off the heating, and although there was a rolled-up blanket in the cage, dressed as she was in just leggings and a hoodie it was completely inadequate in keeping her warm.

There was also nothing to use as a toilet. She had held off needing to pee for the first night, but by the middle of the following morning her bladder felt like it was about to burst, and so with little choice she had hitched down her clothes and squatted in the far corner.

Throughout, she was petrified.

Petrified that Tobias would come stalking back down the stairs and kill her for what she’d done.

Then later and after several hours with no sign of him, she became petrified that he had just upped and left, having decided to abandon her here to a horrible fate, to die slowly of hunger.

But the following morning she