Blood Tears (43 page)

“
Don’t you dare talk to me, shitwit,” she barked at him. “When
I get my hands on you, you’re going to be singing fucking soprano
for the rest of your useless life.”

“
Ma’am, he needs to talk to you,” I said. “He wants to
deal.”

“
What? Are you taking his side? Fuck me. She’s got Stockholm
Syndrome already.”

“
Of
course I haven’t, ma’am. I’m just trying to help.”

“
Help?
You would have been more fucking help to me if
you’d just stayed in bed today playing with yourself. I do not want
to have to explain to that ugly, limp-dicked Commissioner why one
of my officers, a so-called professional, was handing out weapons
left, right, and centre to any fucking lowlife who
asked.”

“
Ma’am,” I complained, afraid we’d never get around to the
business of the hostage deal through her red hot ranting. But I was
equally glad we were conversing by phone and not in
person.

“
Tessie, are you okay?” came through the Sarge’s anxious
voice.

“
Zip
it, Maguire. Who asked you to speak? You just sit there, shut your
face, and be grateful I haven’t transferred you to Arseclown Island
where you belong. You’ve been back – what? Five minutes? And
Tessie’s already gone off and done something fucking stupid again.
How about transferring some of that blood in your dick back to your
brain again when she’s around? Do I need to remind you,
a-fucking-gain
, that you’re her supervisor, not her talking
dildo.”

“
Ma’am,” we both said in annoyed synchronicity.

“
Excuse me, Superintendent,” spoke up a snippy Merrick. “I’m
the one in charge of this conversation. Can you pipe down for five
seconds so we can parley?”

A deadly silence
emanated from the phone.

“
Superintendent?”

“
Don’t mind me,” she said in a deceptively mild voice. “I’m
just writing a list of all the things I’m going to use your
miniscule balls for when you’re captured. If I can find them, that
is.”

“
Superintendent! Can we please be serious?”

“
Who
said I’m not being serious?”

Merrick took a deep
breath. If he hadn’t been such a repulsive human being, I might
have managed to find a tiny portion of pity for him in having to
deal with Fiona, particularly in a negotiating role. But, seeing he
was
such a repulsive human being, my pity remained safely
sealed inside.

“
I
want to do a trade with you,” he started.

She cut him off. “Not
interested.”

He was clearly taken
aback. “Don’t you want to hear the details?”

“
An
exchange of Fuller for your shiny bits of shit and an escape.
Right?” she said, bored.

“
Yes,
but –”

“
Like
I said, not interested. I’d rather nail your arse to my door as a
souvenir, so no deal, and no escape.”

“
What
about your senior constable?” he asked, his voice rising shrilly at
the end.

“
You
can keep her, and good luck with that. She’s nothing but fucking
trouble, as you’ll soon find out to your cost.”

We heard a clunk, and
were left listening to a dial tone.

“
What
the hell?” asked Merrick, staring at his phone in disbelief. “She
hung up on me.”

“
Sorry,” I said, shrugging as best I could with my arms tied
behind my back. “I should have told you that I’m not really a
favourite of hers.”

“
It
shouldn’t matter if you’re a favourite of hers or not. You’re a
cop
. Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of cop
code?”

“
You
heard her. Unfortunately, the Super likes to make up her own
code.”

“
Great. Just fantastic,” he spat out, prowling about the room,
his shoulders hunched, face drawn into a caricature of itself. “Of
all the cops to take hostage, I had to choose the one that nobody
cares about.”

Oh geez
, I
thought.
That was a bit harsh
. But instead of indulging in
self-pity, I spent the time he prowled and ranted in loosening the
bonds tying my wrists. Luckily for me, these guys were strictly
amateurs when it came to taking hostages as they hadn’t secured my
ankles, so that once I’d freed my arms, I could make my move. The
only flaw was I didn’t have a clue exactly what I’d do when I
released myself.

I had no weapons on me,
but I could see my Glock carelessly left by Merrick on a side table
next to an armchair.
Run for the gun
, I told myself. I could
hold off the lot of them with the gun. I could go upstairs, grab
Annabel and Jamie, and we could leave the house, all with the help
of Ms Glock. But what then? Where would I go?
You’d use your
phone to ring the Big Town cops
, I told myself. Bingo, I had a
plan.

“
Ring
her again,” I told Merrick, more as a way of dragging out the
situation, so I could finish loosening my bonds.

“
Why?”

“
Um .
. .”
Think, Fuller, think
. “She likes to play hard-to-get.
You know, because she’s a woman in what’s still mostly a man’s
profession. She doesn’t want to seem like a pushover.”

“
Yeah?”

“
Yeah. Give it another shot.” I wiggled my hands and managed
to pull one hand out of the bindings.

He sighed with
impatience and punched in the station number again. After talking
to the same receptionist, he was put through to the Super
again.

“
Midden. Speak.”

“
It’s
Merrick,” he said coldly. “Can we start dealing now about your
senior constable?”

“
Fuck
off.”

We were treated to the
dulcet sound of the dial tone again.

“
This
is nuts,” Merrick ranted. “I’ve spent years –
years
– on my
collection. I’ll be damned if I’m just going to walk away from it
now.”

He eyed me malevolently
and again, I felt that frisson of fear running down my spine. I had
put myself in a vulnerable position with no plan in place. Not one
of my smartest moments. Even so, I almost laughed out loud when I
realised that at least my present woes had successfully taken my
mind off Jake for a while.

“
That
Superintendent isn’t taking us seriously enough,” Merrick mused,
still giving me the devil’s eye. “I need to convince her that I’m
deadly serious about my property, and if someone has to bleed to
prove it, then I’m sorry about that, but I tried to
negotiate.”

My heart started
racing.

“
She
gives every impression of not caring about you, Tess, which I
honestly find sad,” he said in a friendly, pitying voice, coming
closer to me. He ran his finger over the top of my left ear
thoughtfully. “But how would she feel if we . . . ramped it
up?”

“
What
do you mean?” I asked warily, my eyes darting around the room,
looking at each of them.
Run for the gun
.
Run for the
gun
.

“
It’s
nothing personal, Tess. But I feel a huge amount of loss thinking
of my property sitting in a police station. It’s mine.” His face
mottled red and he punched the wall, startling everyone. “It’s
mine
.”

The wariness in the
room shot up in to the stratosphere, and I realised that his gang
were afraid of him. He’d mostly kept it together since I’d been
with him, but I wondered how often he displayed this volatile side
of himself. Annabel had told me he’d hurt her, and I’d witnessed
him being rough with her earlier.

“
What
do you mean?” I asked again, trying to stop my eyes from darting to
my gun every five seconds. If only I held it in my hand. If only I
had my knife in my other hand as well.

His fingers fleeted
over my ear again. “Maybe if we just hurt you a little. Made you
bleed a little. Would that make your Superintendent take me more
seriously about my demands?”

“
No,
it wouldn’t,” I said, my heart pounding.

I shook the rope off my
other wrist, starting to talk again about anything I could think of
to cover the sound of it thudding to the floorboards.
Lurch up,
fists out, and collect him with both in the sides of his head. Then
run for the gun
.

I’d really thought the
Sarge would remember that he could track my phone through that app.
I felt sad and unbelievably disappointed that we couldn’t relay
thoughts to each other anymore, as we’d been able to do since his
first eventful week in Little Town.

All of a sudden,
Merrick was calm and congenial again. “I’m thinking an ear?”

I forced myself to
laugh, but it sounded hollow even to my own potentially ill-fated
ears. “You’ve been watching
Reservoir Dogs
too many times.
Nobody really does that sort of thing. It’s barbaric. And you told
me you hate blood and gore.”

“
I
must do what I need to, to recover my property, Tess. I’m sure you
understand.”

“
Not
really. The Super won’t cave in, so why don’t you just let me go.
I’ll take Annabel and the baby, and you’ll never need to worry
about any of us again.”

He laughed. “That’s not
going to happen. Sorry.”

When I took in his
expression, I felt red rage take over. “You lied to me,” I spat out
in fury. “You had no intention of letting her go.”

He laughed harder. “I
was never going to let you take my girlie from me. My property is
my property, and I won’t let people take it from me.” His mood
switched again. He slapped me across the face – hard. “I mean
that.”

“
Ring
her again,” I said, my cheek stinging.

“
Last
chance for you, Tess.” He jabbed in the now familiar number with
angry fingers. “Put me through to Midden.”

“
Midden. Speak and hurry the fuck up about it.”

He held the phone in
front of my mouth again, on speakerphone. “Ma’am, it’s Tess
Fuller,” I said between breaths.

There was a slight
pause. “And?”

“
He’s
going to hurt me if you don’t listen to him.”

Another pause. “Put him
on.”

“
Superintendent, so glad you’ve decided to see reason. All I’m
asking is that you return my property, which was stolen from me,
and you let me leave your fine town without any problems. In
return, I’ll give you back your senior constable in good shape, and
I’ll never return to Wattling Bay. I can’t be fairer than
that.”

At that moment, I leapt
from the chair and pushed him backwards fiercely. Knowing I had
mere seconds before the others recovered from their shock, I threw
myself forward, only just managing to grab the gun and roll over,
springing to my feet. Problem was, I ended up cornered. But at
least I had the reassuring feel of my gun in my hands. And my gun
and I could do a lot of damage in this room, if that became
necessary.

There was loud and
probably foul-mouthed shouting from the phone, which had gone
flying across the room when Merrick fell.

A couple of teens
rushed to help Merrick to his feet.

“
Looks like all the cards are in my hand now, aren’t they?” I
taunted.

He turned and viciously
whacked Jonah across the face. “I told you to tie her up
properly.”

He flinched. “I did,
Merrick. I swear I did.”

“
Don’t touch the boy again,” I warned, aiming my gun
carefully. “Or
you’ll
soon be missing a non-essential body
part.” I lowered the gun from his head down to between his legs so
he got my point. “Although that would be a good thing so you can’t
knock up any more young teens.”

Merrick seethed. I
could almost see the ugliness of his anger spreading through his
body. His face twisted and turned, almost mutating into something
supremely frightening and unattractive.

“
I’m
moving over to the stairs now,” I told them and edged out of the
corner, my gun ranging across them. It had never been more
important in my life to be so vigilant.

Nobody attempted to
stop me.

At the foot of the
stairs, facing the others, I yelled up, “Annabel, come down now
with your baby. Leave everything. Come now. We’re getting out of
here. Just you and me.”

Soft, hesitant
footsteps sounded on the treads as she made her cautious way down,
baby Jamie asleep in her arms. “Is it really safe?”

“
Yes.
Come on. Hurry up. I want to get out of here.” I pointed my gun at
Merrick directly. “You. Get your car keys. You’re going to
chauffeur us to the police station.”

He was a bit too slow
for my liking. I shot above their heads, scaring the crap out of
them, and also knowing I was leaving myself with a whole lifetime
of paperwork to explain that discharge.

With a surliness I
hadn’t seen since I’d clapped eyes on a Bycraft teen, he snatched
up his car key from a table and marched towards the back door.

Then it exploded into
splinters, a team of tactical response specialists bursting
through.

Chapter
30

We all stood in shock
staring at them.

“
Get
down! Get down! Get up against the wall!” they yelled at everyone,
stomping around, weapons up and ready to shoot.

We all obeyed, even me,
placing my Glock on the ground, hands up against the wall. I didn’t
want to be accidently shot for being mistaken as one of Merrick’s
gang.