WILL TIME WAIT: Boxed set of 3 bestselling 'ticking clock' thrillers (31 page)

I
held my breath.  It was like Russian roulette.

He
raised the bar and paused, suspending it in mid-air strike mode above us. 
“You blackmailed me, Chelsea.  You, and your boyfriend over there. 
Paul didn’t.  I’m his best man.  What am I meant to think?”

“Please,
Mark.”  I fell back onto my elbows, heard the scrape of metal against tile
behind me. 
Shit!
 
Paul’s got the knife.
 

Mark
lifted his foot to step over my legs, and raised the bar higher.

“Hit
him!” Paul rasped.

“It’s
Paul,” Lee yelled, and tried to throw himself at Mark.

“No!
 Lee!”  I lost balance and rolled onto my back.  Then I heard a
whack. 

The
sickening crack of bone made me shudder. 

The
world went still.  I lay there, paralysed, afraid to open my eyes. 

And
then, suddenly, crackling in the background, Paul’s voice kicked in on the
dictaphone.  “When I’m done with you, I’m going after that bitch
girlfriend of yours.  Nice ‘n’ slow.  Then I’ll watch Mark go to the
slammer for...” 

“Mark!”
I cried.  “You bastard!”  The confession coming out too late was like
the devil himself laughing at me.  I couldn’t believe he’d struck
Lee. 
Now I’ve lost everyone.

Hot
with outrage, I booted Mark’s shin.  But when I looked over my shoulder,
fully prepared to see Paul pounce on me, I was soon stunned into
stillness.  “What the fuck?”

Mark’s
reputation for solving puzzles had certainly
not
exceeded him.

“I
can’t believe it,” I yelped, blinked and looked again.

Lee’s
jaw was hanging open, but not because he’d been hit.

Paul
writhed in a bloodied heap on the floor beside Lee, head flopping to the
side.  His left shoulder had collapsed into mush.  The knife had
flown out of his open hand and he started yelling.  The pain and shock
hitting him.

Lee
finally staggered to his feet.  “Jesus.  Mark, you had me worried
there, mate.”

Mark
said, “No one hurts the girl I love.  There, I’ve finally said it.”

“How
did you...?”

“Paul
always ripped me for wearing those gloves.  Said he’d never be seen dead
in them.”

While
Mark helped to steady Lee, I saw movement. 

“I
have to check on Laura,” Mark said.

Paul
growled, “I’ll kill the lot of you.”  He swiped the blade in an arc and
plunged it into Lee’s lower leg.

Lee
cried out, snatched the crowbar from Mark, and struck Paul on the head. 
“People have to pay for what they’ve done, asshole.” 

T
he threat had
been neutralized, the nightmare ended, and I had nothing left in me.  Fear
and panic left me, but I now felt numb, empty and raw.  My best friend was
dead, my other friends brutally, if not fatally injured, and I’d kissed a huge
chunk of my heart goodbye.  Gone forever and I knew it.

Mark
said, “Take Chelsea outside.  I’ll check on the girls, and phone for an
ambulance.”

I
heard the tearing of fabric.

“Thanks,”
Lee said. 

“Knot
it tight to stem the bleed,” Mark said, then his footsteps tapped across the
room.

I lay
helpless on the kitchen floor, eyes squeezed shut, feeling like my insides had
been ripped out through my chest.  I pressed my hands harder over my
ears.  Unable and unwilling to absorb the enormity of the devastation
around me, I wanted to stay here, balled on the floor in a near soundproof
chamber of darkness, and never endure the awaiting reality.

But
then, Lee placed a jacket around me.  He scooped me up and hobbled,
struggling to carry me outdoors.  “Put your arms around my neck,” he
said. 

He
set me on my feet outside, where I finally opened my eyes and let blinding
reality return.  He tore a strip off the lining from the jacket, and tied
it around the knife wound on my arm.  “You’ll need stitches.”

Tears
ran non-stop down my cheeks.  “Oh my God.  This is all so
unreal.”  Backlit with a silver glow, I stared at Laura’s once beautiful
home, awash in darkness and gloom.  The effect of infidelity was
indisputably in sight.  It seemed fictitious, yet was painfully
true.  How could this immaculate pad contain such ripples of menace? 
Every memory associated with this house was now forever blackened in my mind by
the avalanche of carnage, betrayal, blood spatter and red smeared floors.

I
shrank into Lee’s open arms and listened, waiting for the rise of sirens to
pierce the still and deadly night.  Waiting for the rescuers that were too
late.

Lee
kissed my forehead.  “It’s over.” 

Mark
staggered out through the front door supporting both Emma and Claire around the
waist. 

Disbelief
screamed through me.  My heart thawed out a fraction at this welcoming
site.  I stumbled, almost drunkenly, over to them. 

Mark
pointed a fob at the driveway.  A car beeped.  He moved over to
it.  After easing Emma and Claire inside, he raced back to the
house. 

“Mark. 
What about…” I shouted, but he had gone.  My words hung in the night air.

I
dipped down, leaned inside the back of the car and hugged my friends, embracing
their warmth.  Love and relief spread between us, and we all sobbed
brokenly.

“How
could he do that?”  Emma cried.  “They were so in love.  What on
earth caused—”

“Painful
childhood,” I said.  “Twisted mind.”

Lee
came up beside me.  He stroked his hand down the length of my back, and
then rested against the side of the car.

It
felt like we’d squeezed through the eye of a needle.  Our orderly lives
had been mangled and destroyed in less than a week by an accident in my past,
and the lies, grief and inner demons of people around us.  Too much to get
my head around.

I’d
saved myself from whatever violent act of revenge Paul had planned for me after
the wedding.  In a way I should have felt relieved.  But how could
I?  If Paul hadn’t discovered I was onto him, tonight’s tragedy wouldn’t
have happened.  The outcome we’d fought tooth and nail to avoid – Laura
losing her inheritance money and Paul jilting her at the altar - was the one
I’d now prefer.  A broken heart has a chance of being mended.  A dead
body, however, does not.

Claire
spotted a bottle of water in the foot well, drank some, then handed it to Emma
who took a big gulp.  She then offered it to me.  I patted Emma’s
leg, kissed Claire’s cheek then pulled away and stood outside the car, shaking
from the inside out. 

I
drank from the plastic bottle, but when a flicker of light in the hall caught
my attention, I handed it over to Lee.  I stared through the front
door.  Mark had crouched down on the floor beside Laura, and was using his
arm to support her head. 

I
watched with baited breath.  “Is she?” I couldn’t say the dreaded ‘dead’
word.

Mark
gave me the thumbs up.  “She’s coming round, Chelsea.  She’s
breathing.”

LAURA’S
ALIVE.

A
shot of pure relief flooded my system and my legs went wobbly.  Someone
grabbed me under my arms.  Lee.  I wanted to run to Laura, squeeze
her and kiss her all over, but my legs refused to hold me up.

Piercing
sirens wailed, rising through the night air.  The engines of approaching
cavalry hummed ever louder.  A couple of the neighbours rushed past me
heading towards Laura, shouting, “Mother of God!  What the hell’s happened
here?”  Bursts of blue light struck the dark skies like repetitive
lightning bolts.

“How’s
your leg?” I asked Lee.

“Hurts
like hell, but I’ll live.”

Lee
held me upright, tugged the jacket further over my shoulders.  The torn
sleeves dangled over my arms while he rubbed my back.  Then he paused, and
leaned into me.  His warm breath brushed over my ear as he said, “I’m more
concerned about you.”

I
shivered, liking his touch.  I’d fallen for the man I thought I would
neither find nor deserve.  But, how could I wrap myself in his arms after
this?  Let him catch me, hold me, and hope to ease each other’s
pain?  Having a man in my life was what set this whole sordid mess in
motion.  A mess that saw Laura’s parents, and then Lee’s brother, and some
of my closest friends meet their death. 

I
pivoted around and stared into Lee’s swollen eyes, wondering if I deserved him,
wondering if when he looked at me he’d one day blame me for his brother’s
death, just as Paul had blamed me for Laura’s affair. 

Or
maybe I had been slow on the uptake about Paul, blinded by emotion.  Would
I have made the connection to Paul earlier if I hadn’t met Lee?  If I
hadn’t been distracted by lust?  
Oh, God.  Not more ‘what
if’s.’ 
I couldn’t cope with any more of those.

My
chest feeling tight and heavy, I traced my finger down the length of his
blood-streaked face, then shrugged him away.  I blinked up at the house
hoping that it wouldn’t be there.  That none of this had occurred, and if
I blinked hard or fast enough, tapped my red shoes together as I would have
done as a child, I’d wake up under my favourite bedspread with little more than
a hangover to explain away the nightmare.  Unfortunately, the house didn’t
vanish.  The malevolent reality confronted me like a smack in my face.

Paul’s
bitter scowl flashed into my mind.

This
was a chain of events leading to a disaster that was set in motion when Paul
was conceived.  I was a small link in that long, ill-fated chain. 
Paul had had options.  Instead of breaking up with Laura and walking away,
he chose to do the unthinkable. 

My
car crash last year was an accident.  One that would always cut into me
deeply, but it wasn’t a choice.

Paul’s
evil actions had set me free of my guilt.

Vehicles
screeched to a halt on the street behind me, and a succession of doors slammed
shut.

I
heard Laura coughing and rushed to the front door.

Circled
by the neighbours, Mark cradled Laura on the hall floor.  “Let’s give her
some room to breathe,” he said, waving them away. 

The
neighbours stepped back, as did I.

Mark
smoothed Laura’s hair, stroked the back of his fingers along her cheek, pulled
her top down to cover her stomach and held her against him.

Lee
came up behind me again.  He cupped the back of my head and dotted kisses
on my hair.  He slid his arms around my waist from behind.

We
swayed gently.  It felt natural to snuggle against him.  Safe and
warm. 

I
ignored my aching body and turned around in his arms to face him, searching for
any sign that if the two of us were together, it would cause people problems
and pain.  If the love between Laura and Paul could turn that sour, what
hope was there for the rest of us? 

The
bad stuff is over.  It has to be.
  I struggled to remember what it
was like to
not
have guilt, a secret or a hidden agenda controlling my
life.  And to
really
let someone be there for me. 

I
gazed deep into Lee’s moonlit brown eyes and found only a pureness within them,
which I trusted and didn’t want to let go of.  I smiled, awed by something
good and powerful that seemed to sparkle in the air around us.  “I
couldn’t believe it when you burst into the kitchen.  And then, Mark
showing up like that.”

Lee
tucked a lock of hair behind my ear.  “Been one hell of a night.”

“One
giant whiplash of a week.”

He
dipped his head and planted a soft kiss on my lips.

My
heart jumped a few beats ahead.  The hormone rush was just what I
needed.  Lee made me feel invincible, but I knew that none of us actually
were.

He
winked.  “Let’s save the debriefing for the bedroom.”  Lee nibbled
his lip, looking worried about my reaction.

I
smiled at his inappropriate attempt to distract me from the horrors of
reality. 

Lee,
although shocked, seemed less troubled for having solved his brother’s murder.

From
the edge of my vision, I spotted Laura, still cradled protectively by
Mark. 

“Go
on,” Lee said, his voice soft against my ear.  “I know you’re itching to
go over to her.”

I
took one step towards the door, then stopped.  A loosening of the
tightness in my chest told me she was going to be okay.  Albeit,
eventually.  I shook my head, and surprised him by saying, “You’re
wrong.  I think she’s doing just fine with Mark.”

Laura’s
wedding had indeed brought the point of change to many lives.  A day
earlier than expected, and not in the way I had hoped.  But, a colossal
change nonetheless.

I
lifted my head and focused back on Lee.  With an intensity that didn’t
surprise me, I desperately needed to be closer to him.  Life has no dress
rehearsal, no encore.  It’s a one-off gift, and shouldn’t be wasted. 
I had to wrap myself in every part of it.  Leave no areas
papered-over.  Not be afraid to open myself up, or accept support. 

I
gripped the back of Lee’s neck, pulled his head low and lost myself in steamy oblivion. 
Tingles spread from my centre out to my arms and legs.  This time, having
a man by my side had saved lives.  I owed it to myself to move on and give
this relationship a go.

My
lips fell away from Lee’s as my legs buckled with emotion.

Lee
caught me.

And
I let him.

THE END