Falloir (Passion Noire Book 2) (27 page)

He hangs up and swings his legs out of bed. Immediately, I feel a chill, despite the room being anything but cool. I feel his loss as he sits with his back to me, messing around with his phone. He’s holding it up before his face.

‘Good morning,’ I say brightly as I stretch my limbs. My subtle attempt at getting his attention is only partly successful.

‘Morning. Did you sleep well?’

I’m irked. Spending the night in his arms was pretty major for me and I was looking forward to the benefits of morning kisses and cuddles. But no, they’re not on the agenda, apparently.

‘Yeah. You?’

He nods and then curses, dropping his phone. Suddenly, I realise what he’s doing. He’s attempting to use his phone as a mirror while he drops his coloured contacts back in. A warm, fuzzy feeling spreads out from the centre of my chest, spreading to my face and making me smile. I sit up and wrap my arms around him, resting my cheek against him.

‘You didn’t have to do that,’ I whisper.

He shrugs. ‘I didn’t want to risk ...’

I give him a squeeze. ‘I know. Thank you. Maybe in time.’

‘We’ll see,’ he says. ‘One day at a time, remember?’

I do. We agreed that last night. No rushing. No demands. No promises. Just one day at a time.

Eventually, he disentangles himself and turns around, taking my face in his hands and kissing me good and slow. ‘That’s better,’ he says. ‘Now it’s a good morning.’

I grin, lazily. ‘So you’re not freaked out yet?’

He smirks. ‘Not yet. Give me chance to wake up.’

I take his bottom lip between my teeth and apply a gentle pressure.

‘I’m awake,’ he chuckles, and I release his lip. ‘And I’m good. Well, apart from the fact that I need to get showered and over to Thierri’s in just over an hour and I have no clean clothes.’

‘Surely they’ll be fine. You only laundered them yesterday evening.’

He purses his lips. ‘Yeah, but I was lying on the ground underneath the nurse’s car, wasn’t I?’

‘Oh yeah.’ I feel a blush threatening to creep up my cheeks after our exchange on the subject last night. I give him a quick peck on the lips before sliding to the edge of the bed. ‘You get in the shower and I’ll throw your clothes in a thirty-minute wash. They’ll only have a short drying cycle so they might still be damp but you’ll soon dry in this weather.’

He pulls a face. ‘Oh well, I guess it will have to do, thanks. I can hardly turn up to nurse someone wearing a grubby tee-shirt, can I?’

I shake my head as I pull on my robe. As long as he gets his foot inside Thierri’s front door safely, it doesn’t matter what he looks like at close range. I pick his jeans up from the floor. On close inspection, although they’re dark in colour, they do look a bit dusty and grubby. ‘We need to get you some other clothes on the way back from Thierri’s.’

‘I can’t use my cards so ... hang on, what do you mean
we?
’

I grin and slink out of the door to put his clothes in the washing machine.

‘No way, Veuve,’ he calls after me. ‘You can get that idea right out of your head.’

I roll my eyes.
We’ll see about that.

An hour later and Jones is driving to Thierri’s. He’s had to jog to a nearby pub to retrieve his car first, much to his annoyance. I’d found a holdall that will have to do as a nursing supplies container after Jones expressed concern about walking up to the door empty handed, clad in jeans and a skinny tee-shirt. According to Brittany, he’s expected and a description of him has been passed on to Thierri’s carer. The dogs will be inside the house and, once they’ve met Phillip ... aka Jones, they will be fine with him thereafter so they’ll then be turned loose in the grounds. Jones doesn’t look convinced—he’s had a few close calls with ferociously trained attack dogs in the past but I’m sure he’ll be fine. The Kid appeared before we left and, when we filled him in, he thought it was funny. He’s half expecting Jones to return with a patch of the arse of his jeans missing, just like in cartoons.

And me? Well, I’m lying in the boot of Jones’ car. Let’s just say we compromised. Or we can tell the truth and admit that Jones lost and I won. But I took his point about blowing the whole thing if I’m sitting in the car and Thierri’s sister happens to look down from a first floor window and spots me. So I’m in the boot until he comes to get me ... which may or may not happen—I’m already planning to make him pay for the smirk he was wearing when he closed the boot. I suppose he thinks that he’s won and once those dogs are out ...
unless
... in theory, I’ve met the dogs so, if what Brittany says is true, and if the dogs have good memories, I should be fine to get out of the car and bang on the door. In theory ...

I feel the car slow to a stop and then a faint buzzing tone sounds. I hear Jones announce himself as his alias, Nurse Phillip Mortimer, but I don’t hear a reply. And we don’t move. I’m beginning to think we’ve been rumbled before we’ve even set tyres inside the gates but then I hear a humming noise and the car begins to move again. Very quickly, it stops again as one would expect.

‘Wish me luck,’ he mutters. ‘And, for fuck’s sake, be patient. No heroics. We don’t know what’s going on in there. Sit tight until I come and fetch you. Do you hear?’

‘You’ll be the one to blow it if she sees your lips moving.’

‘I’m bending down to get the holdall. Now, I mean it, Veuve. Don’t move a muscle.’

I huff but I hear the door open and close. Then all is silent.

I wait.

And I wait ... for what seems like hours. I’ve got cramp in places I didn’t think it was possible.

And ... fuck this ... I get up on to my knees and push up the parcel shelf, just a fraction so I can see out of the back window. All I can see is the gates. I work at trying to free the parcel shelf from its hinges so I can take it down completely to give me a forward view but the damn thing won’t budge.

I sit and wait, flexing my joints and trying to be patient. I manage to slide my hand in between the parcel shelf and the seat. I find a button and press it, releasing part of the back of the seat. I cringe as it slams into the seat cushion. I almost expect to hear the dogs starting to bark but they don’t. I peer through the hole and, through the gap of the two front seats, I can see part of the front of Thierri’s house. That’s it. And there’s nothing doing.

I wait a little longer but the torture of not knowing is killing me. There’s no way that Jones should have been in there for that long without overpowering Thierri’s sister or locking her in a cupboard or ... oh, I don’t fucking know. I hadn’t thought about what would happen once he was in there, only that he’d come and get me. I manage to release another section of the seat so that I can crawl through on my stomach. Wedged between the edge of the seat and the front seats, I manage to flip the back rests up again so I can lie across the back seat. I lie on my front so that I can easily come up on my knees and peer out of the window.

When I do, I swear my heart’s pounding loud enough for the dogs to hear. Again, there’s nothing to see. I can’t even see the bloody dogs. I twist around and look out the other side. No dogs. I’m tempted to make a run for it but I don’t know whether the front door is locked and, even if it isn’t, I might go running inside, and come face to face with them. Inside their property. Uninvited. All temptation vanishes.

I have a brainwave. I dig my phone out of my pocket and text Jones, asking what’s going on and demanding that he come and get me. I lie back smugly and wait.

And wait.

And fucking wait.

Another brainwave! I scroll through my contacts and find Thierri’s home number. I hit call and wait as it rings. And rings. Fucking hell! What is going on in there?

Very soon I have another problem. The car had been in the shadow of the house but, now that it was early afternoon, it’s completely bathed in strong sunshine. And I’m parched. Keeping low, I manage to find an unopened bottle of water and a chocolate chip cereal bar in the glove box. I grin. Jones really is a grown up Boy Scout. I gulp the water and, before I know it, the bottle’s empty. By the time I’ve demolished the cereal bar, I need to pee.

Within no time, I’m rocking back and forth, trying to think of anything but needing to pee. My bladder is burning and, just as I’m considering attempting to pee into the water bottle, I see movement in the pane of glass, next to the door. I stare at it but nothing moves. I don’t think it was a dog. In fact, I’m certain it wasn’t—the shadow, reflection or whatever it was that I saw was too high up to be a dog. Oh well, at least it stopped me thinking about needing to ... oh shit.

I glance at the time on my phone. It’s gone half three and we’ve been here since ten. I hope The Kid doesn’t start to worry. I wonder whether I should give him a call but I’m distracted by a very close call in my knickers. I don’t think I can hold my bladder any more. And I’m sweating like a horse. My head’s starting to bang and I feel sick. I suddenly wonder what Thierri’s sister, an old-age pensioner, can do to me that’s worse than the situation I’m in.

That does it. I pull the door handle and dash out of the car, not bothering to close the door behind me. I take about six strides and realise two things. One: that the dogs are not inside the house. And two: that the dogs are lying in the tiny bit of shade next to the front of the car. Fuuuuck! I leg it to the front door and prepare to hammer on it for all my life is worth but, to my surprise it opens and I almost fall through it. It’s then that I realise that the dogs haven’t moved. They’ve not so much as lifted their heads.

Jones sidesteps from behind the door with a massive grin on his face. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to disobey me. I have to say I’m impressed.’

I gawp at him as I struggle to regain control of my heart rate and my breathing. ‘You were ... watching? Waiting?’

He grins. ‘Yeah, sorry. But only for about half an hour and, in my defence, I wasn’t sure how long it would take for the tranquiliser to work on the dogs.’

‘You’ve tranquilised the fucking dogs? Oh my God, Jones.’

He just shrugs.

‘What if they don’t wake up? Thierri will fucking kill you.’

‘Thierri is so drugged up that it will probably be a week before he’s capable of stringing a sentence together, never mind commit a murderous act of revenge. And don’t worry, the dogs will be fine. I gave them far less than I gave Thierri’s sister.’

He nods his head towards the lounge. I creep over and gasp. She’s sprawled on the sofa, arms and legs akimbo looking like she’s fallen through the ceiling and just landed there.

‘Jesus Christ, Jones. Thank fuck you’ve got fake plates on your car. If anything goes wrong ...’

‘Relax,’ he says, walking over to her and whipping a long cable tie out of his back pocket. I watch in horror as he proceeds to cable tie her wrists and her ankles. He grins when he sees my expression. ‘Like I say, relax. I didn’t give her much, nor the dogs. She could wake anytime.’

‘Jones, she’s an old lady. You can’t just ... oh God, I can’t believe this.’

‘She’s been giving Thierri more than that on a regular basis and he’s weak, riddled with cancer, don’t forget. Frankly, I think that she deserves it.’

I shake my head. This is surreal. ‘Where is he? Is he in his room?’

‘Yeah, but he’s out of it.’

I don’t care. I take the stairs, two at a time, and stop short when I catch sight of him. He looks so frail. So old. So yellow. He’s dying. I can’t help but wonder whether being kept sedated isn’t a kindness after all. God knows how much pain he’s in these days. Jones appears and pulls me into his side.

I pull my phone out of my pocket. ‘I need to pee. Call Helene and tell her to get over here fast.’

When I return, Jones is checking Thierri’s pulse. I look at him as my brain prepares to panic but he smiles. ‘I’m just monitoring him, Veuve. I’m not a nurse. God only knows what sedating him constantly might do to him.’

I blow out a long breath but he has a point. ‘Do you have the agency’s number to hand?’

He nods and passes me a phone. I prepare to scroll down the shitload of contacts that everybody has nowadays but, to my surprise, there’s only one. Brittany. I hit call and wait.

Ten minutes later, after convincing Brittany that I was Thierri’s daughter, back from an extended holiday in France to be with my dying father. I raise concern about the nurse who’s been coming in to see to my father for weeks. I accuse him of being unprofessional and uncaring then I request a different nurse from now on. Would I like Phillip, the nurse who’s been today she asks. No, I say before telling her that I didn’t like him because he tried to seduce me and tried to touch me inappropriately. I know that Jones is listening, although he’s pretending he’s not.

That little matter sorted with a promise to have another male nurse here within the hour, I take Thierri’s papery hand and wait for Helene to arrive. She doesn’t take long. The poor thing is overwrought by the time she’s seen the dogs and Thierri’s sister. I take her up to see Thierri as Jones makes her a strong cup of tea. He then fills us in on all that he’s found since he set foot in the house and how he knew that Thierri was being heavily sedated from the nurse’s notes he’d accessed at the agency’s office.