Fallen (10 page)

I don’t even bother laying hands on Sam. He’s too fucking pathetic. I turn and walk away, half wondering if he’s gonna retrieve his gun and shoot me in the back. I can imagine how it would feel with each and every step I take away from him—the searing burn of metal tearing into my body. The initial painless shock, and then the steadily building pressure that leads to the pain. The mind-numbing, all-consuming pain that tries to commandeer your brain, so you can’t think, feel, move past it. The pain never comes, though.

“Fine! You know what, go ahead! Go in there. Charlie’s gonna skin you alive, you fucking psycho!”

I keep on walking. The prospect of Charlie even trying is...well, it’s fucking delicious. He’s pushed me too fucking far. I will hunt the bastard to the ends of the earth and I will mount his head on a fucking spike before I rest easy again.

My mouth twists up into a smirk as I walk, because I’m pretty sure I’m about to set Charlie Holsan’s world on fire.

******

Charlie isn’t in his study. He’s not in his pretentious-ass library or anywhere else on the ground floor of his place either. I search the well-manicured grounds to the back of the building, and I search the pool house, too. Nothing. The bastard’s either ghosting me, or he’s upstairs. If he’s ghosting me, I will find him. If he’s upstairs, that means he’s probably with the Duchess. That could cause problems. Big ones. The Duchess is perhaps one of the stupidest people I’ve ever met—she still, after all these years, thinks Charlie’s a chartered accountant—but she’s also one of the nicest, too. It would serve no purpose to hurt her.

“Charlie!” I yell up the stairs, loud enough that my voice will reach every corner of the house. “CHARLIE!”
Come and get your fucking ass kicked.

No answer. Not a sound.

Fucking perfect.

I start up the stairs, reaching behind me to take hold of the weapon that sits there: the Desert Eagle. It hasn’t seen much action recently. The last person it shot was Frankie Monterello. Today, it’s gonna shoot Charlie Holsan, and then...then it will never shoot another person again.

The top of the stairs; the corridor; guest bedrooms one and two; a bathroom; another study: all of these rooms are empty as I make my way across the house. Soon, the only remaining rooms are Charlie’s and the one opposite. The one I slept in for so many years—my old room. I check Charlie’s first.

The lamp on the bedside table is still on, even though daylight is pouring through the windows. The bed covers are flung back, rumpled in a welter of sheets in the middle of the mattress, and there’s a half glass of water resting on top of a book on the nightstand. A blister pack of medication sits alongside it. I enter the room checking behind the door like a fucking loser to make sure Charlie isn’t lurking there, ready to smash me over the head with some of his insanely over-priced, fucking ugly artwork. He’s not; that’s not Charlie’s style, but right now I’m not taking any risks.

I reach the bedside and pick up the blister pack—Degarelix. Degarelix? I feel the frown forming on my face. Why the hell is Charlie taking Degarelix? I’ve never heard of the drug before; I have no idea what it’s for. Is he sick? Surely—

The sound of running water, a toilet flushing, cuts through the heavy silence of Charlie’s usually bustling household. The en suite toilet. Damn, I should have noticed that the door was closed. I have the Desert Eagle in my hand, locked and loaded and aimed at the door in a heartbeat. The faucet sounds, someone washing their hands, and then the handle on the door turns. It seems to take forever for the door to open.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. C’mon, asshole. Get your ass out here so I can shoot you.

My finger’s halfway through pulling the trigger before I realize the person standing in the doorway isn’t Charlie. It’s the Duchess.

“Fucking hell, Sophie. I thought you were—” I stop talking. She’s crying. Black mascara is streaked down her face in dark runnels, and her nose is red. She’s beautiful, always has been—I think I got my very first boner over this woman—and the devastating sorrow on her face only seems to make her even more so. “What’s wrong, Sophie?”

She sniffs, lifting a hand to swat away her tears. That’s when I see the knife. And the blood. And the way that her whole body is shaking. The front of her silk lingerie, a subtle ivory by design, bears a violent red stain over her stomach, and one of the straps has fallen from her shoulder, exposing the curve and swell of one of her breasts.

“You shouldn’t be here, Zeth,” she whispers, her voice cracking.

“What’s happened, Sophie? Where’s Charlie?”

The Duchess just looks at me, face completely blank. Her eyes are welling with tears, a darker blue than usual and filled with a distant pain. I don’t really know what I should do. Something terrible has obviously happened; she has to be in shock. I take a step forward and her face instantly transforms, shattering into a mask of grief and horror. She starts to sob, covering her face with her hands. Her blood-covered hands. The wickedly sharp knife she’s brandishing is dangerously close to her face.

"Hey, hey, come on. Come on.” I take the three steps toward her just as her legs collapse out from underneath her. I catch her before she hits the floor, holding her underneath the arms like a child. “Tell me, Sophie. Tell me what’s happened.”

She sobs into my chest, her skin sticking to my shirt with the tacky, almost dry blood that’s mottled all over her fingers and her palms. “I know. I know, I know...” she says, over and over again. “I know!” She rears back then, and her hand flashes out, surprising me. She slaps me so hard that my ear rings. “I
know.
I know all about him. And I know about
you
, too!” She tries to slap me again, but I grab hold of her wrist. Maybe I was a little ahead of myself just now. It seems as though Sophie might not think Charlie’s an accountant anymore. And she apparently knows my role in Charlie’s organization, too. For thirty years, she’s been by Charlie’s side. Thirty years and she’s only just learning the truth of him now.

“Who’s blood is this?” I ask, shaking her by the shoulders.

She stops struggling, pausing to look up at me, and the mania leaves her eyes. A certain clarity replaces it. “It’s yours,” she says.

“What?”

“It’s yours. Yours and mine, Zeth. We…oh, we are the greatest fools on the face of this earth.”

I look down, confused, trying to see what the hell she’s talking about. A ripple of horror travels through me when I see where the knife is—buried up to the hilt in my side. I can’t feel it. I can’t feel it buried inside me. I can’t feel a thing.

“Sophie…”

“I'm sorry, Zeth,” she whispers. She raises her hand to stroke the side of my face. Her wrist is mangled, torn to shreds and pumping her blood out with a determined force that will see her dead very soon. Very, very soon. “But some injustices are too grave to forgive.” That clarity that possessed her eyes a moment ago fades, and the rest of her seems to fade with it. The strength leaves her limbs, her body falling limp in my arms. I tense, catching hold of her again, and a wave of pain rockets through me—the knife. The sight of the knife embedded in my stomach has been nothing more than a visual illusion until now, but the teeth of the pre-warmed steel have started to bite, telling me that the blade is very real and hell bent on killing me. Of all the people...of all the fucking people...

The Duchess sags to the floor in a boneless heap. She’s not quite dead, but she will be soon. I touch the handle sticking out of my stomach, and a cold, calm voice echoes inside my head. “Don’t touch it. Don’t take it out.”

So I don’t. I turn and I walk out of the room, out of Charlie’s house. Sam and Paddy have vanished, along with their sedan. Charlie’s neighbor, his sometimes golf buddy, is across the street, mowing his lawn.

“Hey, there!” he calls, waving. Smiling. Mowing. Fucking Ralph Lauren polo shirt and chinos. “How’s the day go—oh! Oh, god. Are you—is everything—”

I slam the door on the Camaro, cutting off his surprise at seeing me trailing blood across his neighborhood. The car roars. My head is fucking spinning. The world grows bright and then dims, black spots dancing in my vision. This pain is an old friend. An old friend come to stay this time, it would seem. Perhaps I’ll make it out of this godforsaken fucking neighborhood before I can’t see anything at all. I gun the engine, spin the steering wheel, and I burn out of the place before I bleed out and die in motherfucking suburbia.

Zeth’s late.

He said he would be around by eight and he isn’t here. I’ve been back at my apartment for approximately one hour, long enough to grab some clothes and toiletries, plus my computer and my medical bag, and the rest of the time I’ve been sitting on my couch, waiting. Waiting for Zeth to show up. And so far he hasn’t. It’s eight forty-five. Forty-five minutes late. Where the hell is he? Zeth doesn’t exactly strike me as a guy who would be late for anything. It goes hand in hand with the whole honesty thing. If he says he’s gonna do something, he’s the type of person who does it, no excuses. Which has caused a deep well of doubt within me; maybe I shouldn’ have admitted that I wanted him in my life earlier. Maybe that was the stupidest thing I could ever have said to a man like him. My mother always did say that a guy would lose interest the moment you made things too easy for him. I’m pretty sure she was referring to sex at the time, though, and Zeth has already had that from me. No, sex has never been the real challenge between us. It’s what’s inside us that’s been the hardest thing to crack, and I gave in earlier, after holding off for so long. And now Zeth Mayfair hasn’t come to collect me.

I feel like throwing up.

It’s nine fifteen when my cell phone rings. I answer, heart pounding in my chest. “Zeth? Where are you? I—”

“Lost him already, sweetheart?” the man on the other end of the line asks. Rebel. Fucking Rebel, not Zeth. Again! He makes a soft chuckling noise, breath distorting the line. “You need me to send out the search party?”

I can’t fucking believe it. This guy just doesn’t seem to know when he’s not welcome, be that in person or on the other end of a phone. “What the hell do you want, Rebel?”

“Just checking to see what time you’re gonna be arriving. I’m having trouble keeping your sister in bed. Strange, really. I’ve never had that problem before. Usually I have problems getting her
out
of it.”

“Oh my god, you did not just say that.” I pinch the bridge of my nose, exhaling sharply. Tonight just keeps getting better. First I’ve totally screwed things up with Zeth, and now my brand-new brother-in-law is spilling about his sex life with my asshole of a sister. Something else is bound to happen, something utterly horrifying—they do say these things happen in threes. I don’t even want to think about what the third thing might be.

“Rebel, I’m not coming. I already told you—”

“Check your email,” he says. And then he hangs up.

“Fucking—fuck you, asshole!” I glare at my phone, grinding my teeth together, wishing just for a moment that the guy was standing in front of me so I could punch him in his face. Unbelievable. And he wants me to check my email? How on earth did he get my freaking email address? I don’t give that to anyone. I only have my work account, and the only people who have that are the hospital and Pippa. Not even my folks have it. But sure enough when I check the mail icon on my cell, there, among the numerous unread notices from St. Peter's, is a message from an address I don't recognize:
[email protected]
. Fastfuck83? Seriously? That sounds like a spam account from a sex site. The subject line is the only reason why I even open the damn message. It reads:
body temp: 102, 140/90, PaCO2 36 mmHG
. Only someone wanting to get a doctor's attention would send numbers like that. They’re patient stats...and they’re bad ones.

Inside the email, the message reads:

3412 Freemantle

Ribera, NM

87560

There’s nothing else. I google Ribera, New Mexico, and quickly find that it’s a tiny community not far from Santa Fe. The population is only just over a thousand people. It’s obviously where Rebel’s taken my sister.

Those stats are terrible. They indicate my sister has a seriously bad infection that’s affecting the rest of her body, on the brink of shutting it down. Her blood pressure is dangerously high, and her temperature is through the roof. Plus those CO
2
levels are reduced, too. It all points to sepsis. Either Alexis is in really bad shape, or Rebel’s figured out how to make it look like she is. Regardless, I still just can’t bring myself to hightail it over there. I just can’t. Ever since we left the hospital in San Jacinto, I’ve been trying so hard to let go of the anger that’s been gnawing at me. The anger that Lexi caused when she lied and consciously made a decision to let me, Mom and Dad live through hell the past few years. It was unforgivably selfish. And then to tell this guy that I didn’t care about her, that my work was more important, after everything I did and gave up to try and find her? No. Just no. I hit reply.