Black Widow

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Grabbing Jeanette with one hand and clutching the gun in the other, Annie went into the hallway and picked up the phone.

‘Inez?’ Her voice sounded like someone else’s. Some dry old woman’s. She was breathless with panic and whatever crap they had used to knock her out had affected her voice, made her throat dry and sore.

‘Annie Carter.’

Annie dropped the phone. It had been a man’s voice, low and mean and Irish. Not Inez. She hauled the damned thing back up by the cord, shaking like a leaf, and clamped it back to her ear.

‘Who is it?’ Jeanette bleated anxiously.

‘Shut up,’ said Annie. She took a breath and spoke into the phone. ‘Who wants her?’

‘No questions.’

Annie was suddenly furious. ‘What the fuck have you done with them, you tosser?’

The man was laughing. She’d amused him. She wanted to smash the phone against the wall; she wanted to crawl down inside it and come out the other end and smash this creep to smithereens.

‘Where’s my daughter?’ she screamed at him.

‘Ah, the girl. I’ve got her here somewhere.’

‘And Max. Where’s Max?’

‘You mean Max Carter?’

He was toying with her; she could hear laughter in his voice; this was a massive joke to him—her distress, her fear, her horror was meat and drink to him.

‘You’ll pay for this,’ she promised.

‘Fine words,’ he said.

‘He’ll make you pay.’

‘That would be a neat trick. He’s dead.’

Annie sagged against the wall. Her head was thumping with pain now, she was frightened she was going to faint. ‘He’s not dead,’ she said. She couldn’t let herself take that in. She couldn’t allow herself to believe it, not for an instant. If she did, she was afraid she wouldn’t go on. Not even for Layla’s sake.

‘Oh but he is. We pushed him off a fucking mountain and watched him bounce all the way to the bottom.’

‘What is it?’ Jeanette was wild-eyed, clutching at Annie’s shoulder, almost shaking her. ‘What are they saying? Who’s dead?’

Annie sank to the floor, unable to hold herself up.

‘He’s not dead,’ she told the man on the end of the phone.

‘He’s dead.’ The voice was harsh. ‘Get used to it. I’ll phone back in an hour. Be waiting. Oh—and your staff, in case you were wondering, are a bit tied up. An hour. Be ready.’

The line went dead.

A bit tied up. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Had these bastards done something to Inez and Rufio? Their smaller villa was up by the gate—maybe they had seen the men coming in and had questioned them? Or had the men come down from the hills behind the property, to maintain the element of surprise?

They had an hour. This bastard was on the other end of a phone, so he wasn’t lurking outside.

No, he isn’t—but what if he’s left someone behind, someone to watch and see what you do?

No matter. She couldn’t just sit on her arse for an hour with Jeanette bawling and screaming in her ear. She had to do something, or go crazy.

‘Did they say Max was dead too?’ Jeanette was demanding.

‘Yes,’ said Annie.

Oh shit, why doesn’t the silly bitch just shut up? I don’t want to hear that again. Not now, not ever.

‘Come on,’ Annie said sharply. ‘We’re going to go and get Inez and Rufio.’

Jeanette looked at her as if she’d gone mad. ‘But what about Jonjo?’

‘Jonjo’s dead for sure. We can see that with our own eyes. Whether we stay or go, there’s no help for him.’

Jeanette flinched back as if Annie had slapped her again.

‘Jesus,’ said Jeanette on a shuddering breath. ‘Jonjo said you were a hard bitch, and now I believe it.’

‘We can’t help Jonjo,’ said Annie. ‘But we can see that Inez and Rufio are okay.’

Jeanette’s eyes were suddenly cold. ‘I can see why he hated you,’ she said.

‘He wasn’t my first choice for a brother-in-law either,’ said Annie. ‘He didn’t like any woman close to Max.’

Jeanette’s face sagged. ‘God, I can’t believe he’s dead. I can’t believe it! Did they really say that Max is gone too?’

Annie felt a surge of hate for Jeanette, but she reined it in. Jeanette might be stupid, she might be a gobby little tart, but she didn’t deserve Annie’s anger. She regained control of herself with an effort.

‘They said so. But we don’t know it’s true.’

‘Oh fuck,’ bleated Jeanette, dissolving into tears again. ‘It must be true! What would they make it up for?’

Again that almost unstoppable urge to strike out, to stop Jeanette uttering another word. ‘I don’t know,’ said Annie through gritted teeth. ‘I don’t understand any of this. But we’ve got…’ she glanced at her watch. God bless Rolex. Still working, despite the blast, despite the water. ‘…three-quarters of an hour to get up there and back again. It’s time enough.’

‘But…should we go outside?’ asked Jeanette fearfully.

‘Maybe not. But we’re going to, all right? Because if they’d wanted us dead too, then I’m guessing we’d be dead already.’

Jeanette nodded dumbly.

‘Right. Let’s go,’ said Annie. ‘We’re going to keep under cover as much as possible, and we’re not going to speak, okay? You’re going to follow me, step where I step, and keep your fat mouth shut for a change, got that?’

Another nod.

Annie lifted the gun, slipped off the safety catch, and opened the door on to the poolside terrace. She looked out. The wreckage of the pool house was still smoking. The sun was still shining.

‘Jesus God,’ shrieked Jeanette.

Annie’s stomach flinched with fear. All the hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

Jonjo’s body was gone.

‘All right, shut up. Shut up!’

Jeanette was off again, shrieking her head off, signalling their precise whereabouts to anyone who cared to listen. Annie turned in the finca’s doorway and whacked her a good one across the face. She was putting them both at risk; it had to be done. Jeanette reeled back and thumped against the wall and was instantly silent. Annie held a finger to her lips and her eyes told Jeanette to shut it, right now, or she’d get another one.

Someone was playing mind games with them. Someone had left them alive when they ought to be dead. Someone was here, right here, noting what they were doing, noting their reactions. Perhaps just toying with them until they felt like doing the deed. But perhaps not. Maybe there was a faint grain of hope to be found here, for them and for Layla too.

Annie had to cling to that. She was used to standing alone against the odds. A drunken mother, an absent father, all kinds of rucks after she had betrayed her sister Ruthie, all kinds of battles to be fought. And she had fought them, and somehow she had won through. Where there was life, there was hope.

She put any thought of Max aside with ruthless firmness now. She tucked all that away in a box in her mind marked PRIVATE. She would look in there later. But for now, she was alive, she had a chance. She was not going to throw it away. And there was Layla. She owed it to herself, but more than that she owed it to Max’s daughter. If she had to beat this poor dumb idiot to a pulp to shut her up, she’d do it; and Jeanette saw that resolve very clearly in Annie’s face.

‘We’re going to get Inez and Rufio,’ said Annie, slowly and clearly, as Jeanette stood there with tears streaming down her bruised face. ‘If I hear another sound out of you before we get up there, I’m going to make you pay for it. You got that now?’

Jeanette nodded and swallowed. Annie looked capable of anything. She looked scary.

‘You draw attention to us again, I’ll just knock you unconscious with this.’ Annie held up the gun. ‘You’d better believe what I’m saying.’

Jeanette nodded. ‘I do,’ she said weakly.

‘Good. Now let’s go. Keep right behind me and keep checking behind us as we go, okay? You see anything, tap my shoulder but say nothing. Got it?’

Another nod.

Annie looked down at Jeanette’s feet. Why had she put high heels on?

‘Take those bloody shoes off, they’re too noisy.’

Jeanette kicked off the shoes and held them sheepishly in her hand.

‘Shut the door behind us, quietly. Okay?’

Nod.

‘Good. Come on then.’

And Annie was off, keeping close to the finca’s wall as she skirted the terrace, stepping off and into beds of hibiscus. She paused as she hit the driveway, keeping close to the rocky edge of the drive where they would be concealed from anyone hiding out on the scrubby rock face behind the property.

She looked back at Jeanette, who was nervously looking all around them. That was good. Fear was making her alert. Annie felt fearful herself, and exposed, all her nerves jangling, her skin crawling.

Everything was quiet, only the rising wind in the palms and the faint rush of the sea making any noise at all. At any moment she expected someone to come at them, to finish the job, but she walked on, cat-footed, creeping along the edge of the drive, watching, walking…it seemed endless. But finally they were there, stepping on to the back terrace where in summer a huge bougainvillea trailed papery magenta blooms over a rickety pergola. Stepping into deep shade, Annie stopped at the closed blue-painted back door.

Annie was aware that she was wet through with nervous sweat. Runnels of perspiration trickled down between her breasts, and her T-shirt was sticking unpleasantly to her back. She had to keep blinking sweat out of her eyes.

This was stark, consuming terror of a type she had only experienced once before, when Pat Delaney had come after her with mayhem and murder in his twisted mind. It was horrible, making her bowels feel loose, making her want to puke. But if Jeanette saw her losing it, then she would lose it too—and then where would they be? She reached out with a shaking hand and tried the handle. It gave and the door moved inward. She braced herself. Looked back at Jeanette. Jeanette nodded. No one about. Annie brushed the sweat from her stinging eyes with the back of one hand. Found she didn’t want to open the door at all. Felt afraid. Horribly, mortally afraid.

She pushed the door open anyway.