Shiver Sweet (15 page)

"W-what?" Claire asked, wiping her face dry of tears.  “What lesson?”

"No one dumps my sister for another woman and gets away with it."

"I don't want you to hurt him.  But it gets worse.”

“Tell me.”

“I just want him back and to get that bitch out of his life before he realises that... he’s Sarah’s dad."

“Jeez!  How do you know that?”

As she explained, Claire balled her fist and slotted it between her breasts, desperate to fill the agonizing hole where her shattered heart had been ripped from.

"All I want is for you to be happy.  We need to find a way to ensure that Brian stays out of Christa's life," he stated.

"Definitely.  If it weren't for her, he'd have fallen in love with me."  Claire could picture herself happy and settled with Brian.  He’d bring out her good side.  Hell, with him, she could even picture herself enjoying becoming the homely type.  Perhaps even quit working with her brother on the website and... get an honest job.  Or at least give it a go, see what it felt like.  She took a deep breath, then stood and paced the room.

He tugged her wrist, forced her to sit again and gathered her into his arms.  "Leave it to me, sweets.  No one hurts my sister like this.  No one.  Brian has just made the biggest mistake of his life."  He stroked her hair.  "Mess with my sister, and that means he’s messing with me."

"No.  Not Brian.  Make Christa pay.  That bitch has ruined everything."

"We can't afford to throw more spotlights on that house.  Nicola's barely holding it together.  I’ll come up with a better idea.  Something that’ll cause Brian to keep his distance from
her
.”

“Like what?”

“Not sure yet.  But if he's as hooked on pussy as I think he is then..."

Claire stared at her brother in wonder.  He generally spared her the details of his white-hot violent ways, but still, Claire knew his impulses caused him to go off fully-cocked and do terrible things.  In essence, he was a rogue within a gang of thugs who were yet to experience just how vicious and ruthless he could be.  Somehow, so far as she knew, her brother had managed to curb his anger when around them.

"I think it's time that Brian showed he’s ready to do his
duty
."

“I don’t understand.  How?”  Claire knew he was referring to the Bible.  He often threw out little quotes he'd read during his time in jail.  He'd found God while behind bars, but not in a good way.

“Drive a wedge between them, right?” he said.

She forced herself to silently count to ten, hoping to muster the strength to tell her brother not to make a move on Brian.  It didn't work.  She reached the count of eight and gave in to her dark side.  "Okay, mess his life up a little.  But don't hurt him."

"I won't, well not physically.  Let the Lord strike him down in that way.  By the time I've finished screwing with Brian's life, he'll be crawling on his hands and knees, begging you to take him back.  That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

She nodded.  “Yes, but... give me some time.  I’ll text you to give you the go ahead.” 
Or not
, she thought, torn.

“What’s he doing today?"

“Going to his mum’s house, then home to change clothes.  He’s got an important meeting for work this afternoon.  Some big deal he’s desperate for which is why he’s pleased to have the courtesy car.”

His eyebrows quirked.  “Really?  Perhaps I can mess that up for him.”

CHAPTER 18

NICOLA

Nicola slipped the flash drive containing the webcam-activating software into her back pocket, and nipped outside to the patio.  She lit a cigarette, her eyes jerking, her body jittery as though drugs coursed through her veins.  Taking a deep drag and swaying on her feet, she waited for the microwave to ding, for Christa to leave the kitchen and start watching a film with Sarah. 

Despite snow still on the ground, it was a bright afternoon, but in Nicola’s mind it was the dead of night.  She huddled into herself. 

Like many a folk, Nicola watched the news on TV regularly.  Plenty of sick, twisted people existed in the world, but she never once thought that their paths would ever cross with hers.  The photos of John and the bloody knife were no longer what put the fear of God into her.  No.

The guy’s parting words from last night grated through her mind;
do as we ask, or your local funeral director will be booked out for weeks.  We know where all your family and friends live, where they work, and where Sarah goes to school.

He’d lowered his face to hers at this point...

Scary bedtime stories will feel like a treat once we’re done with her.  Try to signal someone, contact the cops, waver from your routines by even an inch, or do a midnight flit and...

A wave of shudders moved through Nicola.  She pulled at the high collar concealing her bruises.  Everything about her life was suffocating.  Her predicament.  Her stupidity.  And now her clothes. 

Life was tough enough before last night.  Pretending to Christa that she was going to work each day, and struggling to make her cash stretch, was enough of a headache.  But that paled against this.  And now she regretted all those days she handed Christa's computer business flyers out in town to secretly help her drum up business in the hope that Christa might need an assistant.  Need Nicola.  But her covert marketing would now result in even more unsuspecting customers having their private lives made public.

Those guys had made it absolutely clear that they would hunt her, and everyone she knew at anytime, anywhere.  Having seen their website, it was perfectly reasonable to discern that they did indeed have eyes everywhere.

Nicola hugged herself and puffed smoke rings into the crisp air.  How the hell could she ever forget about the cameras and pretend life was normal?  No.  There had to be a way out.  She would have to put on a bloody good act to convince them she was being compliant while thinking up a way to screw them over.  If only she could work out who they were and where they operated from. 

The microwave dinged. 
At last.

“We’re going to put the film on now,” Christa told Nicola, hugging a bowl of butter-scented, slightly charred popcorn to her chest, below the pretty necklace Sarah had made her.  “The office is all yours.  Join us when you’re done paying your bills and you can help us demolish that box of chocolates.  Apart from the toffee ones, I’m saving those for Brian.”

Lost in her dark, suffocating thoughts, Nicola gave a strange mock salute.  "Try and stop me."

“I thought John would have phoned me by now, seeing as today is the deadline.”  Christa pursed her lips.  “Strange, huh?  Think he wants me to sweat it out?”

John's bloodied body returned to Nicola's mind, shooting arrows of fear and repulsion to her core.  Christa’s feet were planted on the very spot where John’s body had been.  She shuddered.  Lying to Christa felt awful, but it was for her own good.  At least until Nicola could figure a way out of this mess without getting them all stabbed and mummified in cling film.

“Hurry up, mum,” Sarah shouted.  “The film’s starting.”

Christa grimaced at Nicola.  “You’re acting kinda weird today.  You sure everything's all right with you?  You know you can tell me anything, right?”

Nicola hummed a yes while clenching her teeth for fear of blurting out the truth.  It almost felt as though Christa's words were puckering the air, causing a shuddering ripple after ripple over her skin.  She ached to confide in her best friend, even had a note in her pocket which she intended to slip to Christa when the moment felt right.  But it didn’t feel right.  Not yet. 

She couldn't risk endangering Christa or Sarah, not until she'd got a grasp on what to do.  If Christa reacted badly to the note, the guys would surely see, storm in and attack them. 

"And just so you know,” Christa said from the kitchen.  “Sarah's grounded."

"Again?" Nicola asked, trying to sound normal.

"She went out after dark last night."

"She's a devious one."

"Yup.  But how does she sneak in and out of this house?  That’s what I want to know.  I’ve asked her, but she says I’m going deaf and mustn’t hear her, and says I forget when I say she can go out because I’m always busy working  The other week, I sat waiting and worrying because she was late coming home, and then she wandered downstairs claiming she came back half an hour ago.  I know she didn’t, but I don’t know how she snuck back in."  She frowned at the walls and ceiling.  "Breathe in this place and a floorboard creaks, especially on the stairs.  She can't climb in or out of her window because it's a drop onto concrete.  I’m stumped."

Nicola's mood brightened.  She had no need to force out a response, Christa had just unwittingly gifted her with the perfect excuse to enter rooms she'd otherwise stay out of.  "Tell you what... I'll have a nose around while you watch the film.  See if I can find how she sneaks out."

"Thanks, love.  I’d appreciate it.  But I suppose that’s the least of my worries now we’re gonna lose this house."

“S’pose.”

A phone beeped. 

“Oh, that’s mine, again,” Christa said.  “A text.  It beeped earlier but I forgot.  Oh, heck.  What if it’s from John?”  She picked the phone up off the worktop and glanced at the screen.  “From Claire?  Oh, this won’t be good.  I’ll read it in a minute.”

The second that Christa disappeared into the snug and the door sucked closed, Nicola dropped her cigarette and rushed indoors. 

She crept upstairs, her battered body aching at every movement.  She dragged a chair into Christa’s ensuite.  It was extremely probable that one of those sick, voyeur monsters would be watching her right now.  So, she turned the shower on hoping to act normal, but at its hottest setting to create steam, while subtly scanning the walls and ceiling.

Where the hell is the camera?

She slid her gaze to the blind on the window, the wall cabinet, towel rail and...  Aha!  The air vent.  That had to be it.  It seemed obvious now she’d thought about it.

Moments later, steam from the shower began misting the bathroom.  Convinced that she would be beneath the camera’s viewing range, she pushed the chair up to the wall directly beneath the vent and climbed up.  With heat rising to her cheeks, she wiggled the plastic casing until it came away from the wall.  There, in a dark little nook in the brickwork, sat a camera no larger than a carton of cigarettes. 

Gotcha! 

After rummaging through Christa’s toiletry basket, Nicola climbed back onto the chair and dabbed a scraping of vaseline onto the tiny lens. 
That should do the trick, blurr the footage, look like steam had gotten under the lens.
 

She jumped off the chair, turned and stuck two fingers up at the camera. 
Bastards.

After putting everything back the way it was, she left the room, relieved.  But her satisfaction that Sarah and Christa’s bathing would no longer be broadcast over the internet, well perhaps blurry, soon got nibbled into by worry.  If those monsters realised what she was up to, would they do something about it? 

Despite how much it sickened her, so long as Nicola kept the viewers sufficiently entertained, those monsters might not kick up a stink about losing Sarah and Christa's saucy clips from the video feed.  Hopefully they’d let it ride.

Mentally drained, Nicola moved onto the landing.  She slumped against the wall and took a breather before sabotaging the camera in Sarah’s bedroom with a dab of pearly nail polish.  She left Christa’s bedroom and the other rooms untouched, worried that would be a step too far, then collapsed to her knees for a moment.  It felt like her world was being swung by the scraggy tail, and she wanted to jump off this nauseating ride. 

CHAPTER 19

CLAIRE

Cleavage riding high! 

How could he resist me?
  Freshly plucked and shaved, in a push-up bra, skinny jeans, heels, a slinky top and open jacket, Claire climbed into her car and drove the short distance to Brian’s house.

It was approaching two hours since he’d left her home.  Surely he’d be back from his parents’ by now and getting ready for his meeting?  He certainly wasn’t at Christa’s house.  She’d not seen a peep of him through the feed on the website.  And she’d been watching.  Carefully.  And wondering why some of the cameras had misted up. 

Christa.

Anger and upset raged in her belly like great, leaping flames at the thought of that bitch’s name.  She’d have to contain her emotions if she wanted to charm her way back into Brian’s pants. 

There were no cameras in Brian’s house.  Dale had forbidden it, no doubt not wanting to view his sister’s naked bum on the web.  To her surprise, the
elusive
person in charge didn’t protest. 

And now, thankfully, her brother would not be able to witness her seducing Brian.

But if her charms failed, she’d give her brother the nod to screw up Brian’s life, his meeting, or whatever.  God knew what Dale had in mind, but she needed something to extinguish her anguish.

She turned into Brian’s street and spotted his courtesy car.  Yes! He’s home.  She halted her car on the street a mere inch behind Brian’s.  She applied a final good-luck sweep of pink gloss to her lips, pouted in the mirror then tottered, slipping and sliding in her five inch stilettos in snow to his front door. 

Brian just needed to be reminded of how good they were together, how much he needed her, how wild and exciting the sex was.  She smoothed her hair to one side exposing more of the neck he so loved to nibble and kiss.  She pressed the bell and waited.

The door opened.  Brian appeared, smartly dressed in a slick black suit with a slice of toast in hand, chomping.

Claire flashed him her flirtiest, lottery-winner’s smile.  “Hey, there,” she said, softly.

“Oh, um...  Hi.”  He glanced over his shoulder.  “Sorry, Claire.  I’m kinda busy.”

Her smile collapsed, but she fought to keep it in place.  “Eating lunch?  I wouldn’t call that being busy.”  She ached to touch him, run a hand down his chest.  “I can’t leave things like this, Brian.  It’s killing me.  We need to talk.”