The Deception (35 page)

“Shut up. We’ll be there soon. Enjoy every breath you take. Who knows how many you have left?”

Tears blurred Savannah’s eyes. She was still at a complete loss to explain her brother’s total lack of conscience. How he could blithely hand her over to a man who wanted her dead was beyond her comprehension.

Had she been too hard on him? Foisted too many expectations on him? Shown him enough attention? Enough love? Too much?
The questions swirled around her head until she was dizzy and she still came up empty-handed. She had no answers and the harsh reality of it was, she probably never would.

At last, they reached the top of the hill and he dragged her across the road. Another hill loomed in front of them and Savannah couldn’t stifle a groan. Her chest hurt. Her feet ached. Every loose stone penetrated the flimsy shoes that covered them.

When Dylan had ordered her to dress, she’d been dazed with shock. With no idea what he had in store for her, she’d grabbed for the nearest thing at hand. Now, she longed for her comfortable, supportive Nikes.

“Hurry up,” Dylan growled and tightened his hold on her arm. “Vince is waiting.”

Fear renewed its grip on her heart. Blood pounded in her ears. She couldn’t believe her life might soon be over. She refused to believe it. Determination surged through her. She wouldn’t go down without a fight.

* * *

Will spied Pete and a handful of TRG officers outfitted in battle fatigues and Kevlar vests standing around the corner from the warehouse owned by Reid Marchant. The street was quiet, with only the occasional car passing by. Daylight had broken, bathing the sky in an array of orange and gold and pink. On another day, Will might have appreciated the colorful display. Today wasn’t that day.

He’d phoned Savannah again before he’d left and yet again, the call had gone through to her voicemail. He’d left another message begging her to contact him and let him know she was all right, but he still hadn’t heard from her. Now, with his recent knowledge of Max’s definite connection to Maranoa, his gut ached with uncertainty. He couldn’t shake the dreadful feeling that something terrible had happened to her.

In anticipation of the upcoming search, he’d turned his cell phone to silent. He now slipped it out of his pocket and checked again for messages.

Nothing.

With a grimace, he returned it to his jacket and tried to force his mind away from wondering about what the hell could have happened to her.

He clung to the possibility that she’d had second thoughts about reconciling and resolutely pushed other, more ominous, thoughts away. Now wasn’t the time to lose focus on the job at hand. He halted a few feet away from the group of officers. Pete stepped toward him.

“You all good?”

Will nodded. “Yeah. How’d you go with the warrant?”

“Good. It’s extensive, so we shouldn’t have a problem with the admissibility of any evidence we find.”

“That’s what we like to hear.”

“A couple of the others have done a reconnoiter of the building. There doesn’t appear to be too much going on. There’s a pickup truck parked ten yards or so up the road. We’re running a check on the plate right now to see if it belongs to one of our players.”

“Do we have any idea of the layout of the place?”

Pete nodded. “I found some old building plans online. The owner lodged a development application in the mid-nineties with the local council for extensions. There’s a small door next to a couple of big roller doors. You walk in on the main floor. It’s a large open space where I presume they used to house the printing press. There are a couple of smaller rooms at the back.”

“That’s where we hit first.”

“That’s the plan.”

“When do we go in?” Will asked.

Pete glanced at his watch. “We’ll start the countdown in five.”

* * *

The blister on Savannah’s heel had become unbearable. Blood squelched beneath her foot and made walking even more difficult. She limped and wheezed and panted against the pain. Dylan remained unmoved.

He dragged her the final few feet to an unpainted door that provided entry to a large brick building. The brick had faded over the years to a brownish-red and the sidewalk that surrounded it was thick with pigeon droppings. She tilted her head and spied hundreds of the birds roosting along the eaves.

“W-where are we?”

“You don’t know?” Dylan asked, his eyes widening in surprise.

Savannah frowned in confusion. “Should I?”

A smile tugged at his lips. “It’s a warehouse owned by the
Daily Mirror
. I’m surprised you weren’t given a tour.”

Savannah shook her head in disbelief.
Why would Vince Maranoa meet Dylan in a warehouse owned by her newspaper?
Nothing about that scenario made sense.

“I can see you don’t believe me,” Dylan said and then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You’ll find out soon enough.”

He dug into the pocket of his jeans and withdrew a key. Fitting it into the lock on the front door, he turned it. The door opened with a click. He shoved her through the opening.

Meager amounts of early morning sunlight barely penetrated the darkness of the warehouse. Savannah blinked her eyes in an effort to adjust to the dimness. The place smelled old and damp. The stale odors mixed with the familiar smell of ink.

Dylan produced a flashlight and with a less-than-gentle push to her back, guided her toward the rear of the building. A few moments later, he halted outside the door of what appeared to be a small office. The murmur of voices sounded from within. Savannah was suddenly paralyzed with fear.

Ignoring her sharp intake of breath and the small cry of alarm she was unable to contain, Dylan pushed open the door and dragged her in behind him.

* * *

“It looks like the place is empty.” Pete squinted in the dimness and then pulled down his night-vision goggles. The rest of the team followed suit. They’d come through the side door after one of the TRG officers had cut the lock.

Will made out darker shadows of what he assumed to be part of the heavy equipment used in the printing process. They now sat still and silent, like figures in an elephant graveyard. The smell of ink was sharp and caustic. The warehouse was quiet, apart from the sound of his breathing and the occasional scrape of a boot on the concrete floor made by one of the taskforce officers who waited for instructions behind him.

Pete lowered his voice to a murmur. “I want you to take a few of the others and check out the back storage rooms. It’s the most logical place to start. Once we’ve cleared the building, I’ll look around for some lights so that we can give the place a thorough sweep.”

Will nodded his assent and gave Pete a thumbs-up before turning on his heel. He pointed to three of the officers and communicated with hand signals that they were to follow him. Once he was satisfied they understood his instructions, he turned toward the rear of the building and picked his way through the derelict machinery.

The further back they went, the stronger the smell of ink and machinery oil. Will guessed it was because even less fresh air filtered its way all the way to the back. How anyone managed to work in the dark, dank space, he didn’t know. It wasn’t a place he’d want to turn up to every day. Then again, the warehouse didn’t exactly look like it had been occupied of late.

Dust lay thick on every surface. To his left, he spied a wall of newspapers. They were tied in bundles and were stacked to a height well above his head. He continued forward and came upon a partition wall that housed the small rooms Pete had mentioned.

The murmur of voices sounded from the other side of the wall. He put up his hand to halt the men behind him and strained hard to listen. There were at least two men and maybe a third. The sound of a woman’s cry of anguish broke the silence and stopped him cold.

* * *

Savannah stumbled into the room and gasped. An exposed light bulb hung from the ceiling and illuminated Vince Maranoa and Max O’Connor where they stood in one corner, holding bricks of white powder. The room was piled high with bundles of newspapers. They spun around as one and stared at her. Maranoa was the first to recover.

“Well, well, well. Who have we here?” His smile was as friendly as a barracuda’s. His eyes gleamed with feral anticipation.

Savannah backed up a step and collided with the solid wall of Dylan’s chest. He elbowed her in the back, propelling her toward Vince. Shock and confusion at her discovery that Max was in cahoots with the drug lord left her frozen.

“This is my sister. Savannah O’Neill.”

Vince closed the distance between them. His gaze traveled over her and his smile widened. “You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you?” He reached out and tilted her chin upwards with his fingers. Savannah flinched.

He frowned. “You look a little familiar, Savannah. Why is that?”

Fear congealed, cold and heavy, in the pit of her stomach. Her limbs were as limp as boiled spinach, but she refused to allow him the satisfaction of seeing her terror. She clenched her jaw and stared at him in defiance.

“Oh, we’ve met before. I’ve been in your brothel on more than one occasion. I’ve spoken to your girls. I’ve heard their terrible stories. How do you think I was able to write about it?”

The back-handed slap came from nowhere. She caught the flash of a ring on one of Maranoa’s fleshy fingers before it connected with her mouth. She cried out and went to clutch at her face, forgetting for an instant that her hands were bound.

Her lip throbbed from the impact. Within moments, it was double its size. Blood trickled from a cut and ran into her mouth. Her eyes watered from the pain, but she refused to allow the tears to fall.

Maranoa’s eyes blazed with fury. “That’s the least you deserve, you little bitch.”

Max stepped forward, his hands held out in a placating manner. “Vince, I’m not sure she needs to be treated like—”

“Shut the fuck up, Max. If you’d done what I’d told you and kept her away from the place, none of this would have fuckin’ happened. I wouldn’t have the fuckin’ cops breathin’ down my neck. I wouldn’t have had to move the shit and I wouldn’t have this sneaky little slut pokin’ her nose in where it isn’t wanted.”

Max wrung his hands in consternation, fear edging the shadows in his eyes. “Of course, Vince, I understand. She disobeyed my order. She must be punished. But… Do you have to be so violent about it?”

Vince scoffed. “You call that violent? That was nothin’. The little slut will be beggin’ me to kill her after I’ve finished with her. Right, Billy?”

Recalling her brother’s presence behind her, Savannah tensed and tried to edge away. Dylan’s laughing reply chilled her to the marrow.

“Oh, yeah. I was gonna kill her myself, but the more I thought about it, the more I knew I had to leave her to you. It was the right thing to do.”

“I like the way you think, Kid,” Vince chuckled. He moved closer until he stood inches away from her. He reached out and slid a hand down her face and then let it fall to her breast. He sneered at her and then gave her nipple a vicious pinch.

Savannah gasped from the pain and humiliation, but there was nothing she could do. With her hands still bound, the only thing she could resort to was her mouth.

“Get away from me, you vile piece of filth. I won’t rest until I see you punished for your crimes. You disgust me. You—”

His fist barreled toward her and connected with her cheek, right below her eye. The ring she’d noticed earlier split the skin above her cheekbone. She cried out again, wishing she could reach up and stem the burning pain that radiated across her face. Blood trickled down her cheek. She silently damned her inability to keep her mouth shut and vowed not to antagonize the evil brute again.

Vince turned to Dylan, his lip curling up in disgust. “You need to teach your sister some fuckin’ manners, Kid.”

Dylan stepped forward and grabbed Savannah by the arm. With the nails of his fingers digging into her, he dragged her toward the back of the room. She stumbled into a stack of newspapers and stubbed her toe, gasping involuntarily from the pain.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, you stupid bitch?” Dylan spat at her. “Do you
want
it to be slow and painful?”

Savannah stared up at her brother. Shock and overwhelming confusion rendered her speechless.

How could this maniac be her brother?
How could he have changed from the bright young boy with a few troubles as he struggled to adjust to the unexpected death of his parents to this—this…monster?

Dylan dragged her further back into the shadows. Her mind and body were weighted with concrete. Tears of anguish burned just below the surface. Her lip throbbed, her cheek ached, the blister on her heel flamed. Exhaustion weakened her determination to withstand Maranoa’s onslaught. Knowing her brother, her flesh and blood, was aiding and abetting her demise, crippled her resolve.

* * *

Will’s heart thumped hard. Blood pounded in his ears. He gulped in oxygen in an effort to ease the adrenaline that surged through him. Someone was on the other side of the wall. A few someones, from the sound of it.

He turned and motioned to the men behind him. With as few whispered words as he could manage and plenty of hand signals, he explained how they were going to deal with the presence behind the wall. The men nodded in understanding. Will counted them down with the fingers of one hand.

He eased himself forward and located a closed door. He looked down and noticed a faint gleam of light filtering through underneath. Straining to listen above the pounding of his heart, he eased his hand under his shirt and undid the clip on his holster. Another startled cry came from the other side of the door.

A sense of urgency flooded through him. He pulled out his gun and held it up in readiness. Checking that his men were with him, he leaned his shoulder into the door. To his relief, it opened without a sound.

Light flooded the room. He squinted through the brightness and hauled off his night vision goggles, leaving them dangling around his neck. The three TRG officers barged into the room behind him, their guns drawn.