Tess's Tale (The Chanel Series Book 3) (9 page)

We were quiet during the ride home, each of us lost in our own thoughts.

It wasn’t until we were both in bed that Harry spoke.

‘It won’t be forever.’ He pulled me backwards till his chest rested against my back, and wrapped his arms around me. ‘Once this is all over we’ll be free.’

I wanted to believe him, I really did, but events seemed to be conspiring against us. Every step we took was one further down the road of no return.

Tears leaked out of my eyes as I rolled towards him and took his face in my hands. ‘Of course we will,’ I lied as I planted a kiss on his lips. ‘Now go to sleep.’

And for the second time that day I started to sing, ‘Hush little baby don’t you cry….’

Only
this
time, I wasn’t sure which of us I was trying to console.

We woke the next morning to the sound of the front doorbell. Harry was still asleep as I climbed from bed and pulled on a robe.

Mickey and Riley were standing on our front door step. They held a tray of take-away coffees and a paper bag.

‘That better contain something delicious,’ I said, plucking a coffee out of the tray and the bag from Riley’s hands. Then I shut the door in their faces.

They were still there five minutes later when Harry opened the door. By then I was halfway through my chocolate croissant as I sipped my coffee.

‘Thanks.’ I lifted my coffee in a salute as they entered the lounge area.

‘No problems boss lady,’ Riley said.

Hmmm. Boss lady.
That had a nice ring to it.

‘Harry, Jim said you’re runnin’ the show now.’ Mickey pulled a croissant out of the bag and took a seat at the long table.

I pulled a face and took another bite of my breakfast. In
that
context I’d rather
not
be the boss lady.

‘Yeah.’ Harry scratched his cheeks with both hands. He was always itchy till he’d had his morning shave. ‘Just till Dad’s home. A couple of days, that’s all.’

I finished my coffee and headed up to the shower. By the time I’d washed and dressed, the boys were clustered around a notepad on the table. I paused and stared over their shoulders. A list of names was written down the left with writing next to each one.

Lou the Brain – too obvious.

Sam the Suit – no access during the time of the theft.

Ralphy – too dumb.

They were constructing a list of suspects.

‘What about Jim?’ I said.

They all turned to stare at me.

‘You have to examine everyone.’ I shrugged my shoulders. I mean
really
, I thought that was obvious.

‘She’s right.’ Harry quickly wrote down all their names plus Jolly Jim’s. He immediately wrote – had nothing to gain – next to Jim’s name.

The front door bell rang again before I could see what they wrote next to their own names. This time it was Hillary.

I stared down at her super-short skirt. ‘You forgot to get dressed this morning.’

She smiled and started to push past me.

I stuck my leg out to stop her. ‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

‘Hill,’ Mickey’s voice echoed down the hallway, ‘is that you?’

Her smile grew even broader. ‘I
was
Jim’s personal assistant. So I guess now that makes me Harry’s. I promise to treat him real good and give him whatever he needs.’ Her glance swept up and down my shirt and pants.

I resisted the urge to slap her. Hell, I resisted the urge to stick her head against the doorframe and slam the door. Instead, I took a deep breath and gave her a smile of my own.

‘Oh, well, seeing as how you’re my
husband’s
personal assistant, I guess that makes you mine as well.’

Her smile slipped from her smug, smug face.

‘And I really need some milk. So be a dear and toddle down to the shops to get some.’ I picked my handbag off the hallway table and pulled out my wallet. ‘Oh and Hill,’ I handed her a couple of dollars, ‘I’ll need a receipt with that.’

The look on her face as I closed the door was going to keep me smiling for the rest of my life.

***

The next few days continued the same. Mickey and Riley and a few other of Jim’s men came and went from the house. Hillary turned up in the morning and I sent her off on some errand designed to make her as shitty as possible. Dry-cleaning, sugar, laundry detergent, she bought it all.

Jolly Jim improved slowly and I counted the seconds till I could clear these intruders out of our life and get back to being a married couple.

Harry split his time between the house and the hotel, going over the accounts, making decisions, and issuing orders as if he had been born to do it. Watching it made me uneasy. He might deny it, but I could tell he was enjoying himself.

I spent more and more time with Liss and Thor. I hadn’t felt at home in the house before, and I certainly didn’t now that it was ‘Mob Central’.

One afternoon I was walking to Vegas Ladies when I noticed a man wearing a trench coat leaning against the wall of a building ahead of me. As I neared, he stood up and started walking in the same direction I was. He stopped to look at something in a window and when he straightened he was walking right beside me. I recognised him. It was the FBI agent from the wedding reception.

‘Morning Tristan,’ I said as if it were the most normal thing in the world. However, my stomach fluttered uneasily. Last time we had spoken I could claim innocence.

‘How’s Jolly Jim?’

I glanced sideways at him. As if he didn’t know.

‘Getting better,’ I said. ‘Should be home any day now.’

‘And then what?’

‘Things will return to normal.’

It was his turn to look at me. ‘Can they? Can they ever be normal again?’ He stopped walking and I paused beside him.

‘I don’t see why not.’ I crossed my fingers behind my back.

‘Tess, you and I both know you’re in deep. Too deep. You need help.’

‘Exactly what would helping me entail?’

‘Getting you out. Protective custody.’

‘And what do you want from me in return?’ As Liss always said, there was no such thing as a free lunch.

‘You testify.’

I burst out laughing. ‘I don’t
know
anything.’

‘You could. He’s your husband. You could get the information you needed.’

The enormity of what he was asking struck me. ‘You want me to betray my husband?’

‘Look we know Harry is clean at the moment. Your father-in-law is a different matter.’

They wanted me to finger Jim. I wasn’t surprised. What I
was
surprised about was the fact that I didn’t even have to think about it.

‘Well it’s been nice chatting.’ I continued on my way to the club.

‘We know about Giuseppe,’ he called after me.

I stopped, frozen by his words.

‘We know body parts keep turning up. It could be yours next. Or Harry’s. Then where will you be?’

‘Dead.’ My voice sounded quite pleasant even to my ears. ‘But at least I’ll have died knowing I didn’t betray my husband.’

I managed the walk to Liss’s without showing any weakness, but as soon as I was in the door, my knees gave way. I squatted in the hall with my head between my knees trying not to throw up.

‘Tess?’ Liss called down the stairs.

‘Yes.’ I clambered back to my feet and headed towards her voice.

‘Good Lord. You look awful. Come in here and I’ll make you a cup of tea.’

‘I’ll be there in a minute.’ I let my stomach do the talking as I bolted for the toilet. It seemed to be getting easier and easier to throw up. I guess it was all the practice.

‘Have you changed your skin care regime?’ Liss stared intently at my face.

‘Do I look that bad?’

‘No. Quite the opposite. Your skin looks amazing.’

‘I got a new exfoliator.’ It had cost me a bomb. ‘The saleswoman said it would totally transform my face.’

‘She was right. I’ll have to get some.’

I stayed at Liss’s for the rest of the afternoon unwilling to go home. I told myself it was because ‘they’ would be at the house, but the reality of the fact was that I didn’t want to hear anything.

At the moment I could claim innocence but if I actually heard something, that was null and void. What would I do with a get-out-of-jail-free card? If things got tough would I be tempted to use it? I was ashamed of the fact that I wasn’t totally sure, and I didn’t like that about myself.

***

Harry had promised me a night alone. Just him and me. Like it used to be before Tweedledee and Tweedledum came along. Mickey and Riley were almost impossible to get rid of.

I said goodbye to Liss, who was getting ready for a night out with Thor. Being the only night the club was shut, Monday nights were sacred. A warm breeze blew over my skin as I walked back home, but the sun was close enough to the horizon that I wasn’t covered in sweat.

Normally when I walk, I’m in my own little world. Thoughts of Harry or singing keep me so occupied that a comet could land and I might not even notice. But today I kept an eye out for Tristan Penn. I wasn’t ready for an encounter with him yet. My self-assurance still hadn’t recovered from the last one.

I turned the last corner warily, poking my head around to check the street was clear. If I hadn’t, I may not have noticed the strange men coming out of Harry’s and my house.

I’d had a lot of men in and out of my house over the last couple of weeks, but I knew these were strange because they carried three, limp bodies. Harry, Mickey and Riley.

A white van was parked out the front of the terrace, its door already open. They threw the bodies in the back and while four of them scrambled in after them, one slammed the door shut and jumped in the front passenger seat, and the other climbed into the driver’s side and started the engine.

The few minutes it had taken them to kidnap my husband had been the longest of my life. My heart banged around in my chest like a ping-pong ball as cold sweat broke out over my body.

Please let them be alive. Please let them be alive.

Sadly, all I had to cling to was the knowledge that Giuseppe would want to torture them
before
he killed them. I had to hold onto the very small hope I could rescue them before he got to that part.

As soon as the van left the curb I rushed up the road, running as soon as I was sure they wouldn’t notice me. I dug around in my handbag hoping I had put the spare set of car keys in there that morning with the house keys attached.

My hands closed around them and I shoved them into the driver’s side door and wrenched it open. The van was slowing for the corner at the end of the street as I started the car. It turned left as I roared away from the curb.

Six of them. There were six of them. I was pretty sure it had been Giuseppe who’d climbed into the driver’s side.

Fear, panic, nausea – I pushed them all away as I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles.

Six of them.

I stayed far enough back that they wouldn’t notice me tailing them. The growing shadows from the setting sun helped. We drove for what seemed like forever but I’m sure was not that long.

Please let Harry be alive. Please.

Finally they turned up a side street and into the back of a building. It looked like a warehouse.

I drove past the entrance and around the corner and then jumped out of the car. I wished I’d had time to get the gun. I wished I’d had time to ring for help. But who would I have rung?

Liss and Thor? I would never forgive myself if something happened to them.

But, six men!

I walked back past the end of the driveway, risking a quick glance as I went. Riley was halfway out of the van, struggling ineffectively at the men holding onto his shoulders and feet. Neither of them saw me.

I waited another minute and then walked back in the other direction. The lane was empty.

Before the logical part of my brain could register what my feet were doing, I darted up behind the van. A quick peep inside showed me it was empty. Any moment now they were going to start torturing them. Chopping off fingers and toes. Working their way around the bodies till there were no more small bits to cut off. Then things would get really serious.

I wouldn’t let them steal my husband away from me. Not like that. Piece by piece. Scream by scream.

The back door of the warehouse was closed but there was a small window to the left of it. I poked my head up until I could see over the window sill. The back room was empty except for one man.

I let out a small gasp as I ducked back down. An anxious couple of seconds passed before I was certain he hadn’t heard me. I’m sure he was meant to be guarding the back door, but from what I’d seen, he was more interested in what was happening in the next room.

It was going to start any moment. I had to hurry.

I looked around for a weapon. Discarded Coke can. Crumpled piece of paper. Plank of wood. Ah, now
that
had potential. I picked it up and swung it from side-to-side. It was going to have to do.

Standing to the side, I rapped gently on the door. I’ve never been so scared. Not before, nor since. But I knew if I didn’t do this, if I let them all die without trying, that I would never be able to live with myself.

I didn’t even think as that door opened. I reacted purely on instinct, lifting the wood and smashing it down on the Italian’s head.

He went down with an, ‘Ooooph,’ and I smashed him again for good measure. Then I dragged his body back into the room and hid it against the far wall. Blood smeared the floor but I didn’t have time to do anything about it. Any moment now my Harry would start losing fingers.

I felt around the Italian’s waist. Nothing there. His jacket, however, was a different matter. A gun nestled in one of the pockets. I pulled it free and looked at it. It was a Model 64 Smith and Wesson. The same type of revolver Jim had given Harry.

I flicked the open cylinder and checked the bullets. Six. One for each of them. The thought made me smile.

Squeezing the safety, I held it out in front of me as I crept towards the next door.

What had Harry said? Just aim and shoot.

I took hold of the door handle with my left hand and sighted down the gun in my right. Then I threw open the door and stepped into the next room.

Harry, Riley and Mickey were sitting in chairs. Their hands and feet were secured to the arms and legs. Well Harry and Riley’s were. One of Mickey’s legs was still free and a man knelt by his side tying it. His hands were busy. I would kill him last.

The other five were scattered around the room. Giuseppe held a knife in his right hand, its blade throwing light off the razor-sharp blade. He would be slower to draw. I would take him second last.

One of them had his back to me as he watched Mickey’s leg being secured. He would be third last.

Of the other three, one was sweaty and fat. Fourth last.

That just left the two staring at me with mouths open wide. It was tough deciding between the two of them. But one was a split second faster reaching for his gun. Him, I would kill first.