Heller's Revenge (21 page)

“That was a wonderful dinner,
guys. Thanks again for your hard work,” I said as I sat at my
desk.

“I’m surprised you remember any
of it,” Daniel teased. I pulled a face at him and he blew me a kiss
back.

Heller was busy working in his
office and I walked in, after gently knocking on the door. He
looked up and smiled.

“Matilda, you’ve risen from the
dead.”

I threw myself into a chair and
stared at him accusingly. “I feel like death warmed-up. Why did you
let me drink so much? You’re supposed to be the responsible
adult.”

He flung up his hands in
exasperation. “As if I have any chance of ever stopping you from
doing exactly what you want.”

“You should have tried
harder.”

“I’ll remember that for next
time,” he said dryly, returning to his computer.

I watched him typing for a
moment, his graceful fingers flying over the keyboard. “Thanks for
. . . you know . . . keeping me virtuous last night. You were
right. I’m glad you were so restrained.” My cheeks reddened.

He gave me that sexy half-smile.
“I’d like to say ‘my pleasure’, but unfortunately it wasn’t.”

I smiled. I had brought my
camera in with me. “I have some photos that I want to put into safe
storage. I might need to blackmail some men with them sometime in
the future.”

He raised his eyebrows and took
the camera from me, plugging it into his computer. He downloaded
the photos of Clarrie and Milt, flicking through them, his
expression affectionately resigned.

“Matilda. I’m constantly
surprised by what you get up to when I set you loose on the world.”
He leaned back in his chair and contemplated one photo of me
between the two men, grinning and giving the victory sign. “You
know, I actually feel sorry for those men. They had no idea what
they were up against, did they?”

“They both made the mistake of
thinking I was some kind of easy lay. They got what they deserved.
In fact, I probably should have shot their balls off like I
threatened.”

“The gun wasn’t real.”

“What? Wow, lucky I didn’t try
to shoot them.” I thought for a moment. “Milt must have been sold a
dud. I’m positive he thought it was real too.”

“Possibly. From what you’ve
said, he doesn’t strike me as being tight with the criminal
community.”

“Heller, I need some weapons
training. I might come up against a gun again one day, and it would
be nice to know that at least I could tell if it’s real or
not.”

“I’ll think about it,” he
promised. “Now, I’ll send these photos to my secure off-site
digital storage facility.”

“You have other sensitive
photos?”

“And films. You’d be surprised
what we pick up doing surveillance. It’s my insurance policy. It
comes in quite handy sometimes when I’m trying to persuade someone
to do me a favour.” I’d love to get a peep at those photos and
films one day! “Speaking of sensitive photos, I have something to
show you. You’re going to be very angry with me, but I want to
remind you that it is none of your business.”

My interest was immediately
piqued. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a large envelope,
sliding it across the table to me.

“I’ve picked up a few tips from
your friend Dixie,” he said, smiling at me in a way that wasn’t
quite pleasant.

I cautiously opened the envelope
and pulled out some large, glossy photos. My jaw nearly dropped to
the floor in shock as I looked at them and I couldn’t breathe for a
moment.

“Heller,” I choked out, my voice
strangled. “Please tell me you didn’t take these photos.”

“I did take them.” He was never
one to sugarcoat the truth.

I spread the photos out on his
desk. They were an assortment of shots of a sleeping and naked
red-haired woman sprawled indecently across a rumpled king-size bed
in a hotel room. She was lying on her stomach, slightly on one
side, her face turned towards the camera, arms thrown out in
exhaustion, one of her breasts visible, her legs asunder with her
private parts on display. I knew the woman. Well, I should, because
she was my sister-in-law, Gayle, wife of my oldest brother, Brian.
Heller had taken his revenge on Brian, just as he had promised all
those months ago.

“Oh my God. I can’t believe you
did this. She’s married. She has kids.”

“I didn’t force her to do
anything. She approached me. She recognised me and came over to me
at the hotel bar. She chatted me up. I didn’t even remember who she
was until she reminded me. It was a great opportunity that dropped
into my lap.”

Heller regularly trawled the
bars of the city’s top hotels to pick up women, spending the night
with the lucky woman in her hotel room. It was his preferred way of
finding partners for casual sex and he always scored. He didn’t
care about the women or their circumstances; he never saw any of
them again. But this style of pick-up suited him, as he would never
bring a stranger back to the Warehouse, being almost paranoid about
security in his building. None of us were allowed to have people
over. Will had never visited me in my flat and never would.

“What was she doing at the
hotel?” I was struggling to take in the implications of what I was
learning.

“She told me that she was having
a weekend there with some of her friends. One of them is getting
married soon. She ditched them pretty quickly once she set eyes on
me.”

I was sickened. “What are you
going to do with these photos?”

“That’s where you come in.
You’re going to hand them to your brother. He won’t meet with me
and I want them delivered to him in person.”

“No. I won’t do that.” My
stomach was churning with terrible emotions.

“I will give them to your mother
then.”

“
No!
” God! That would be
the death of her. How could he even think of doing such a
thing?

“It’s your choice, Matilda,” he
said, cruelly calm. He had never looked more uncaring and detached.
He had never looked less human.

I stared at him bitterly. I
hated him then. “Brian.”

He reached into his drawer and
pulled out another photo. “I want to add this one as well.”

He pushed it over to me. He had
obviously used the camera’s timer, because it was a photo of him,
fully dressed, sitting on the bed staring into the camera, next to
the slumbering Gayle, whose face was clearly identifiable. He had a
truly evil half-smile on his face. It was his
piece de
resistance
.

“Why do you even take a camera
out with you?”

“I take a camera everywhere. You
never know when it will come in handy.” He pulled out his wallet
and showed me a very thin digital camera, barely thicker than a
credit card. It wasn’t something you could buy in a shop and would
have cost him thousands. Not that I cared at that moment.

“You’re going to destroy their
marriage. They’ve been married for eight years.”

“I’m not interested in that. And
you shouldn’t either. What kind of a decent wife would do such a
thing to her husband? He’s better off without her. I’m doing him a
favour. She didn’t feel guilty. She loved every second of what I
did to her. She begged me for more. She begged me to see her
again.”

“
Stop it! Shut up!
” I
shouted and stumbled out of his office. I slumped at my desk, my
head in my hands. I couldn’t believe what he was making me do. I
hadn’t fully realised before what a heartless bastard he was.

Heller came out of his office
and dropped the envelope on my desk. “Do it today, please,” he
demanded, before walking away.

Physically ill, I picked up my
mobile and rang Brian.

“What do you want?” he snapped.
We hadn’t parted on the best of terms the last time I’d seen
him.

“I need to see you today, Brian.
Just for ten minutes. Please.”

“Come to the station at
five-thirty. I have a few minutes to spare then.”

“Okay. Thanks. See you then.”
But he had already hung up on me.

Somehow I made it through the
rest of the day. My eyes kept wandering back to the envelope,
sitting innocently on my desk hiding its guilty secret. I had
decided to go straight to Will’s house from the police station, so
when it came time to leave, I went to the basement to get my car.
On the way to the station, I kept going over and over in my head
what I would say and what Brian’s reaction would be.

I introduced myself at the
reception counter and waited patiently until Brian came out from
the rear offices. He took me back to his desk, which was in an open
plan office with other detectives milling around working. I asked
if we could go somewhere more private. I didn’t want him to suffer
in public. He sighed impatiently and took me into a tiny, smelly,
windowless interview room.

“What is it, Tilly? I’m busy,”
he demanded, sitting down heavily on one of the old metal and vinyl
chairs, resting his elbows on the battered table and drumming his
fingers. I took a chair on the opposite side of the table. We
probably needed something between us in case he became really angry
with me. He’d been a homicide detective for about as long as he’d
been married, and either his job or his marriage, or maybe both,
had driven all remnants of joy from his life. I hadn’t seen him
smile in years. I felt like a worm adding to his troubles.

I pulled the envelope out of my
handbag and pushed it across the table at him. “Heller asked me to
give you this.”

He frowned and picked the
envelope up. “What’s in it?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. “Heller
gave it to me and asked me to drop it off. I was heading out to
have dinner with a friend.”

He stood up.

“He wants you to open it while
I’m here.”

“Why?” He was immediately
suspicious. I couldn’t blame him. He had to know that Heller had
nothing but hatred for him. And the feeling was extensively
mutual.

“I don’t know. That’s what he
said. He’s my boss so I do as I’m told.” I swallowed nervously, my
stomach all stirred up.

He sat back down again with
visible irritation and slowly opened the envelope. He glanced
inside and noticed that it contained photos. He took one out,
careful not to let me view its contents. Anger swept across his
face, though he said nothing. He slammed the first photo face down
on the table and quickly grabbed the others, flipping through them
in fury, silent until he got to the last one.

“That bastard,” he said, his
voice quiet with white-hot anger.

“Is everything okay, Brian?” I
asked, with sham ignorance but genuine concern.

He pointed an enraged finger at
me. “No, everything is
not
fucking okay! You tell that
motherfucking prick that you work for that this is
not
over!
Not by a fucking long shot!”

“Brian . . .” I entreated.

He cut me off. “Get the fuck out
of here. Now!”

“Brian . . .” I tried again.

“
NOW!
” he screamed,
spittle flecking his lips, his face crimson with rage. I got the
fuck out of there.

I kept replaying the scene in my
head on my drive to Will’s place. This was going to tear my family
apart. I didn’t like Gayle, but she didn’t deserve what was heading
her way. Neither did her two little beautiful girls, my young
nieces.

When I pulled up outside Will’s
house, I had to sit in my car for ten minutes trying to subdue my
emotions. I couldn’t dump this stuff on him; it wasn’t fair. He
didn’t even know my family. I took a deep breath and stepped out of
the car, a jaunty smile forced onto my face. As I knocked on the
front door, I noticed a delicious aroma wafting out of his house.
Will greeted me very warmly and I had a quick peek at dinner, which
was simmering on the stove, before he dragged me to his bedroom and
gave me an even warmer welcoming present.

Afterwards, I lay on my back,
eyes closed, savouring the relaxing powers of my very satisfying
orgasm. Will laid on his side, his leg thrown possessively over me,
idly drawing circles around my nipple with his finger.

“I missed you,” he said. He
kissed me tenderly.

“I missed you too.”

“Was that you on TV the other
night?”

“Yes.”

“Wow! I liked your dress. It was
. . . um . . .”

“Revealing?”

“Yeah.” He grasped one of my
breasts gently. “I was worried these puppies were going to pop
out!”

I laughed. “So was I. Especially
in front of the PM.”

“That would have made the news.
Not to mention the PM’s day.”

I stretched pleasurably.

“So that was Heller?” he asked
in a casual tone that didn’t fool me.

“Yep. That’s him.” I decided to
keep it light.

“For some reason, I had an image
of him as much older and uglier. Maybe it’s the way you speak about
him.”

“I haven’t really said much
about him, have I?”

“No.” A pause. “I’m surprised
about that now that I think about it. He’s very memorable. It just
seems like something you might have mentioned.”

I looked at him. “What should I
have said?
Hi Will, nice to meet you. By the way, did you know
that my boss is completely gorgeous?
”

“You think he’s gorgeous?”

“You’d have to be blind or
insane not to acknowledge the fact that he is definitely
gorgeous.”

“Have you and he ever –”

“No! He’s my boss, Will.”

“Your gorgeous boss.”

“Yes, and you’re my gorgeous
boyfriend,” I snapped. “What’s the problem?”

He smiled, defusing my growing
irritation, leaning down to kiss me. “No problem.”

“Good.”

“He seemed very friendly with
you.”

“We are very friendly. Normally.
But I’m quite angry with him at the moment.”

“I’d rather you be angry with
him then friendly.”

“You should be happy then. I’m
very angry with him.”