Sharp Turn (25 page)

As soon as I passed the first cross-street on the way to the gym, though, I saw the dark sedan. My heart started to hammer and I had an overwhelming desire to plant my foot on the accelerator and just flat out race away. Instead, I took the next random corner and ducked and weaved in and out of all the side streets I knew.

I suddenly wished I’d brought my phone with me. If Viaspa had set this guy on me it wouldn’t be to watch out for my wellbeing. I lost the sedan somewhere near View Street and headed on to the gym without being followed.

‘Tara!’

It was Josh, waving to me from the back wall of the underground car park. He was standing close to a car with an open boot. Creepily, it looked like the one that had been following me.

I found a parking spot near him and locked Mona up.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked as I joined him.

‘It’s nothing. Just some bad drivers on the road,’ I said, trying to catch a glimpse of the licence plate in the car park gloom.

‘You look like you need a hug.’

He reached out and pulled me into his arms. It wasn’t a Nick Tozzi bear hug, but it was comforting and he smelled nice, like . . . oh my fricking Lord . . . My bag was wrenched off my shoulder, and my head and shoulder hit something hard.

Next thing, the boot lid slammed on me, shutting out the light.

Fuck!

I kicked and shouted and thumped until my voice went hoarse and my hands and feet hurt too much to continue. And even then I kept going. I probably should have kept still and tried to count turns and listen for sounds that gave away my destination, but I was too freaked.

Freaked, and mad with myself for not realising that Josh had been my stalker.

Eventually, the car began to slow and lurch, as if going over speed humps. I felt around for anything that I could use as a weapon. Might only get one chance. But he’d taken out the jack and spare tyre and I found nothing except what felt like a hessian shopping bag.

The car stopped and a few seconds later the boot opened.

‘Get out. Quietly,’ said Josh, shoving a gun against my ear before I could unstick my tongue from the top of my mouth.

I thought about launching at him, risking being shot and gambling on my size to give me an advantage, but I knew from the gym that he had dense, toned muscle. So I unfolded my body and climbed out over the lip of the boot. We were in a dark, empty lock-up garage.

He pointed towards an open door that led to a lit stairway. I took a couple of quick steps towards it before he grabbed my elbow and spun me around. The pistol that had been against my ear was now pressed hard against my lips. The sight of his skin-coloured rubber gloves all but closed my throat over. This guy was a professional.

‘I’ve got a silencer on the pistol. No one will even know you’re dead until they find you with your guts full of gas, floating in one of those fancy marinas. Don’t piss me off.’

He forced me up the staircase. It came out in a hallway of what looked like a townhouse, as empty as the garage. There were some Chinese takeaway cartons on the floor, but otherwise this guy was leaving minimal trace.

‘Sit,’ he said as he pushed me past the kitchen and laundry and into the smaller of two bedrooms. The only furniture was a heavy wood garden chair in the centre of a large plastic tarpaulin.

Josh pushed me over to the chair, then went to the built-in cupboard and opened the door. Inside was a fold-over suitcase. He pulled rope out of one of the zippered compartments and handled it with chilling dexterity.

When he placed the pistol on the floor and began to tie my legs, a window of opportunity flashed before me. A two-feet kick would knock him off balance and then I could dive on the gun.

‘If you move, I’ll break every bone in your body,’ he said, reading my thoughts.

His quiet threat paralysed me. I didn’t doubt he meant what he said. As he deftly knotted my feet and hands to the chair, I stared at his aura. I hadn’t misread his calm – just the reason for it. Unfortunately, auras don’t come with ‘cold-blooded killer’ warnings. A new release of adrenaline vibrated through every part of me.

He felt me tremble. ‘Cool it.’ He reached into his pocket and brought out a scarf.

‘What the fuck is this about?’ I demanded, the adrenaline loosening my throat. ‘What kind of a crazy are you?’

He smiled in an empty way. The face that I’d found so pleasant now seemed unfamiliar and cold. I saw a sulphurous yellow snaking through his aura. Not the colour of pus like Johnny Viaspa’s aura, but the sickly tinge of jaundice.

‘Don’t talk, you’ll spoil it.’ With that, he wound the scarf so tight across my mouth and around the back of my neck that I gagged.

He made another trip to the fold-over case and retrieved a tool wrap, which he laid out carefully on the plastic in front of me. I could see enough of the steel implements sticking out of the pockets to know they weren’t made by Meccano. Not unless Meccano had gotten into scalpels, small hand drills and chisels.

The precision and calm of his movements sent my panic meter spiking off the scale. He was deliberately psyching me out and it was working a treat. Fear made it impossible to think. All I knew was that I wanted to pee. Badly.

A phone started ringing. His. In the fold-over suitcase.

He answered it, listened for a moment, then left the room, shutting the door.

Though I could hear him moving around downstairs, he didn’t come back all day. I sat there, terrified, unable to move any part of my body. Staring at his bundle of instruments.

Chapter 24

W
HEN
J
OSH RETURNED
, it was nearly dark. I made a desperate pleading noise and he unwound the scarf.

‘Please. I need to . . . pee.’

He shrugged at that idea.

‘Let me go to the loo. Please.’

He lifted his shoulders and dropped them again as if vexed, then punched me in the mouth. Pain exploded along my jawline and my head jerked back. He grabbed me by the hair and wrenched my head upright.

‘Don’t speak to me again,’ he said close to my ear, and tied the gag back – tighter.

The smack in the face was a big favour – somehow it unstuck my brain freeze. When he left the room this time, I finally began to think.

He’d left the light on so I could contemplate his choice of torture implements. I needed to get to the scalpel. I started working frantically to get my hands loose from the arms of the chair.

After an hour or more, the rope hadn’t slackened at all and my skin was raw.

I rested for a short spell, wondering how long I had before he came back and used his tools on me. And why he was waiting, anyway? What had that phone call been about? Was he just trying to scare me or did he have another reason for delaying?

I went back to working on the rope, getting nowhere, but refusing to give in.

Some time later, after midnight perhaps, I heard the engine start and the car pull out of the garage below. I counted to fifty and it didn’t return. Maybe he’d gone to get food. Or to kill someone else.

I began to work even more frantically, not worried anymore about making noise. My hands remained trapped, but the rope around my ankles had loosened a fraction, just enough that my feet were able to touch the floor.

I began to rock my weight until my momentum toppled me forward. I forced my legs to brace so that I stopped just short of falling on my face, teetering like a hermit crab with the chair on my back. The weight and angle strained my knees to buckling point but I tensed my calves. After a moment of reaching balance, I leaned to one side, attempting to reach the tool wrap. Immediately the chair weight began to tip me over and I had to rock back.

Shit.
Move on to plan B.

Plan B involved waddling to the door and positioning myself behind it. When Josh came through it, I’d take him out with the legs of the chair. If I had the strength. If I was quick enough.

With each step towards the wall, my bladder threatened to burst and my back screamed in protest. I gritted my teeth and told myself that peeing my pants was preferable to being sliced up by a psycho.

It took forever to get in the right position but when I did, I was able to lean the back legs of the chair against the wall and take some of the weight off my spine.

Sweat poured off me, even though the air temperature had cooled off. I tried to relax my muscles to give them a chance to recover but a cramp attacked my right foot. I wiggled it around and nearly tipped over again. More sweating and straining to keep balance.

When the next cramp came, I just swore and waited it out, letting the tears flow.

The sound of the car returning brought a welcome surge of adrenaline to my numb legs and crippled back.

This was it! He’d come straight up and check on me for sure. I had to get him first swing.

There was a creak on the stairs as he headed up.

I sucked in a quick couple of breaths, bunched my muscles and rose up onto my toes. The door opened quietly and he stood there for a second. Once he realised I was gone, he stepped into the room and looked behind the door.

With every little bit of force I had in me, I swung the back of the chair around and socked it to him.

One of the higher back legs caught him under the jaw and he fell. I used my momentum to spin right around and dropped the chair down on top of him.

He tried to push me off, but I threw my whole weight backwards and dropped hard again. I was eighty kilos to contend with and this time something cracked – his rib, I hoped, or an arm.

He didn’t make a noise, just moved to roll. Fighting to keep balanced, I let his movement push me back to my feet again then repeated my action. This time the crack was louder and, from the groan that escaped, more painful.

Then he stopped moving.

I tried to see underneath the chair. Had I killed him?

From my upside-down view, he looked unconscious but I didn’t want to take any chances.

And what the hell did I do now?

It was then that I heard a faint movement on the stairs. Another creak. Quick, quiet footsteps. Shit, there was someone else in the house!

A tight fist squeezed my heart. I had nothing left in the tank for this. I’d beaten Josh but I was still going to die.

When a stocky figure with red hair and too many tattoos commando-rolled through the door, I nearly fainted on the spot from relief.

‘Arrgh!’

‘Boss!’

He took in the situation at a glance and let out a noise that sounded like part relief, part satisfaction. A second later he was by my side, cutting the ropes off with a huge knife and removing my gag.

As soon as my hands were free, I leaned down and punched Josh in the face, just for good measure. Then I got up from the chair and fell over.

While I massaged blood back into my limbs, Wal took the chair off Josh and tied his feet and hands together. Then transferred my gag to his mouth. When he was done, he surveyed the room with a low whistle.

‘Looks like he wuz plannin’ a party. What do you want to do?’

‘What’s the time?’ I croaked.

‘Around 5 am. It’ll be light soon.’

‘Let’s get out of here in case someone else comes.

I’ll make an anonymous call to the cops.’

‘You sure? If for some reason they don’t get him, he’ll likely come for you again.’

Wal was right, but I had to get out of here and away from Josh before I started screaming.

‘Bligh will get him.’ Would she?

Wal slid his kitbag from his shoulders and pulled out a pair of gloves similar to those Josh wore. Then he drew a cloth out of a ziplock bag and began wiping down the chair.

‘What else did you touch?’

I thought about it. ‘Just the inside of the boot. It’s downstairs in the lock-up garage. Nothing else. He had a gun on me the whole time.’

‘Go get in the car. It’s a white Calais, a block down on the right. It’s open. I’ll go over the boot.’

I nodded. ‘In a minute. You got another set of gloves?’

He handed his bag to me. ‘Help yourself.’