Bonbons and Betrayal: Book 3 in The Chocolate Cafe Series (9 page)

“Will you be alright if I leave you for a bit?” Mac asked. She needn’t have. Sabrina was already dangling the keys to her motorbike in front of her.

“Take the bike. You walked here this morning. Just… wear my helmet and don’t break it.”

Mac snatched the keys from her hand, and headed to the door without hesitation.

“Keep your eye out for maniac Ted Talk-ers.” Mac said over her shoulder.

“Will do.”

Even though it was mid-morning, the streets of Mackenzie Bay were practically deserted. In a few months, when the summer season began to ramp up, there would barely be enough space to walk down the sidewalk without getting jostled or smeared by an errant ice cream. Now however, in the height of storm season, the only people brave enough to venture out were a few locals, stocking up on candles and beer before the next storm hit.

And it was going to be an impressive display, indeed.

As Mac maneuvered Brie’s bike carefully down the already rain splattered streets, she couldn’t help but notice the bank of black clouds that was making its way to shore. They reminded her of massive, furious rhinoceroses, pounding their way toward the little town.

She had to get to Louis’ place quickly. Mac was by no means an accomplished biker – she could barely get from one place to another without a panic attack. Getting there in hurricane force winds however, that was going to be another story.

She turned the bike off of the main roads toward what they townsfolk referred to as the ‘old roads’. There was a generalized mixture of affection and wariness whenever this area was spoken of, like it was better to whisper the name than say it out loud.

Once a haven for Mackenzie Bay’s miniscule hippie population in the 60’s, the old roads were home to a few ‘off the grid’ places that managed to survive long after the non-conformists
had been driven out. Louis’s home was the best example of the kind of eccentricity that had been unable to thrive in such an old money community.

The house hung over the cliff that led
down to the beach, held up by a series of pillars that always seemed to sway a little too much when the wind hit. Everything was raw wood and hand blown glass, carefully constructed by the kind of people who cultivated their own sprouts, fermented things and painted murals on bathroom walls.

Mac approached the turn off to Louis’ house. The closer she got to the sea, the more gnarled and sparse the trees became. The ones that surrounded Louis’ home were so warped from years of furious storms that they were practically bent backwards, stripped of their bark like penitent monks.

She slowed the bike down as she hit the gravel driveway and rolled to a stop beside the Toyota. Mac frowned as she pulled her helmet off her head.

The front door of the house was open, yawning wide and dark like a mouth frozen in a scream. Alarm bells immediately went off in Mac’s head and her heart began to beat harder.
Stay calm and don’t be silly,
her rational voice scolded her.
You’re reacting strongly because of the last month’s dramas
.
He’s a bit absent minded, he probably just left it open by accident.

But he wasn’t absent minded. He was as nervous as she was and there was no way he would leave the door open. He had given her a guard dog for heaven’s sake.

Mac walked to the open door, tightening her grip on the helmet nervously.

“Louis?” she called out into the silent house. There was no radio on, no television, and no podcast blaring out from his stereo as usual. The blonde wood of the floors was smeared with rainwater. Her heartbeat increased. “Louis are you home?”

Silence. Not a thump. Not a cough.

Mac walked into the living room, which was suspended above the beach. The floor to ceiling windows that faced the water flooded the room with a grey light which seemed to be decreasing every second as the menacing black bank of clouds drew closer.

Louis’ jacket hung on the back of a chair, long and limp, the hem pooling on the floor. He wouldn’t have gone anywhere without it, not in this weather.

She walked further into the room toward the windows, scanning for any indication of where he might have gone. And then she stopped.

The coffee table they had spent many a night resting their feet upon was overturned in the center of the room. The glass had smashed on impact and millions of pieces glimmered in the dying light like constellations.

Mac stopped breathing. Her head felt as if it would pop right off her shoulders, as panic forced adrenaline through her system.

“Louis!” she shouted, her voice tight with concern. “Louis where are…”

His gun was there on the floor. She’d barely ever seen it outside of its holster, let alone abandoned in the middle of a sea of shattered glass. This wasn’t good. This was so far away from good it was ridiculous.

Without thinking, she crunched across the glass and picked up the gun. That rational voice in her head was as silent as the house around her. There was most certainly something wrong and she had a feeling Louis’ gun might come in handy.

The gun in her hand, she looked down at the beach from the wall of windows in front of her.

Her heart, which she was certain had stopped, burst into life again. Her blood began thumping in her limbs like a frenetic drum beat.

There was a second driveway on the beach that the former tenants had used to bring boats down to the water in the community’s heyday. What was happening there now, however, was far more sinister.

A man, not much bigger than she, was stuffing what were unmistakably Louis’ stockinged feet into the back seat of a car. His teeth were gritted with the effort, his dirty white t-shirt stained with sweat. She could almost make out his grunts as he practically folded Louis into the subcompact. From the limpness of Louis’ limbs, he was obviously unconscious.

Horrified, Mac slammed her hand against the glass and screamed at the man below to stop.

Not the most sensible move. He looked up at her sharply, hunched like a gremlin against the increasing winds and rain. As soon as turned his face to her, Mac recognized him immediately.

Randall Eisenhower, the troubled genius and so called innocent madman from the newspaper.

For a moment they were frozen, staring like animals about to launch at each other’s throats. Then, as smoothly as if they had orchestrated it together, Randall turned to leap into the front seat of the car as Mac tore from the house.

She scrambled across the gravel and jumped on Brie’s bike. She could hear the engine of the car squealing as Randall
drove it at full speed up the steep hill that wound from the beach to the main road. She didn’t have a second to lose. If she was going to catch up to him, and she most certainly was, she had to get moving.

She awkwardly stuffed Louis’ gun down the front of her jeans and kicked the bike awake with more force that she knew she was capable of. It roared beneath her.

Spraying a fan of gravel behind her, she wobbled out of the driveway. She had forgotten her helmet back at the house, but barely noticed. Without the shield to keep her dry, the rain plastered her hair to her face and made it difficult to see.

She pulled the throttle back as far as she could, feeling the full power of the bike beneath her. Thank god Sabrina didn’t mess around. She had no idea this thing could move this fast and even less of an idea of whether or not she could handle it.

Did she have a choice? Hardly. She would make this work. She had to get to Louis. She had to stop this murderous little creep before he took the one man that had meant anything to her in decades away.

Her anger made her forget about the how the rain was turning to blades against her bare face. Her rage made her fearless, even as the bike threatened to slip beneath her on the soaking pavement. Even as the wind, much stronger now, seemed to do its best to make a plaything out of her – she wasn’t stopping.

Where was the car? Surely she was going fast enough to catch up to it now?

She wiped the water out of her eyes impatiently.

Finally, as she tore around a particularly tight corner, she found herself directly behind the taillights of Eisenhower’s unassuming car. In the blur of the rain, she focused on the red glow of those taillights. Just catch up to it. She told herself. Just catch up to it and then you’ll figure out what to do next.

The rational voice was back.

And what are you going to do Ms. Catharine? How can an inexperienced biker, on a rainy, winding seaside road, do a damned thing to stop a car?
What are you going to do, pull up beside him and politely motion to him to pull over? Do you think that will do the trick?

Well, no…Mac thought. It won’t do the trick.

The car was only a few feet away now. Her frenetically whizzing front wheel steadily encroached on the back bumper.

What will do the trick?
Mac carefully took one hand off the handlebar and removed Louis’ gun from the front of her jeans where it had been pressed against her skin, pinching her flesh with its cold steel.

The chaos maneuver.

Terrified, but knowing it was her only option, Mac awkwardly unlocked the safety on the pistol.

She squinted in the downpour. Her left arm ached as she fought to control the bike, moving closer still to the car.

Just don’t breathe. Hold your breath and fire.
If Brie could pull it off, why couldn’t she?

Because you’ve hardly ever held a gun, let alone fired one. Because Sabrina has this kind of thing in her blood while you…you’re made of designer fragrance and true crime novels.

Mac gritted her teeth and fired.

The kick from the gun caused her arm to jerk back. Her ears seemed to explode with a sharp hum. Frantically, she shoved the gun back into its spot and swerved dangerously on the soaking wet roads.

Did she hit it? Did she pull it off?

The brake lights of the car shone bright red in the growing dark and the car began to rapidly slow. It took the same swerving, erratic path that Mac was struggling out of and came to a sudden stop at the side of the road. She saw the shadow of Eisenhower's head jerk forward and back as it bounced off the steering wheel.

Mac let out a yelp of triumph and brought the bike, now under her control, to a stop beside the still purring car. She leapt off, pulling the pistol back out of her soaking wet jeans, gripping it tightly in her hand.

Without hesitation, she ran to the driver’s side of the car and yanked the door open. Her ears still ringing from the gunshot, she pointed the pistol at Eisenhower where he was hunched over the steering wheel, cradling his head in his hands.

“Get out of the car.”

Randall Eisenhower didn’t get out of the car so much as he poured out onto the concrete. His limbs were so limp he reminded Mac of how a jellyfish, once out of water, was reduced to nothing more than a quivering pile of goo.

Here was the New York Times’ up and coming tech giant, reduced to the same state. He was sobbing at her feet, loud enough to be heard even over Mac’s damaged eardrums and the roar of the storm.

“What did you do to him? I swear to god, if you hurt him…” Mac hunched down, still pointing the gun with a steady hand. “How much did you pay the landlady to lie for you, you maniac?”

Eisenhower shook his head, his hair plastered in snaky ropes against his face.

“He’s going to steal my idea. He’s going to steal it and use it, just like Paul did. Just like they all will...”

“What are you talking about?” Mac grabbed him by the collar of his wet t-shirt. Now that she was closer, she could tell he hadn’t bathed in quite some time. His face was covered in scabs where he had picked at his own skin. When he looked at Mac, there was little behind his eyes except panic. Panic and insanity.

“He came to my house. He saw what I was working on. Did he plant anything? Did he plant bugs? Paul did. Paul is probably still listening. They’re always listening. Even after I killed him. Did I kill him? Is he still alive? He’s still listening. Just like the detective. Planting bugs in my skin. Nano technology. Listening and waiting for me to finish, so they can swoop in… like… vultures.” The young man spat out his words, saliva dripping from his mouth like a furious toddler.