Behind the Facade (26 page)

 Kate pulled up in the taxi around the corner
from her father’s house. She apologised to the driver for not being able to
leave much of a tip and stepped out into the chilly morning air. It was still
dark and the crescent moon shed little illumination in a sky choked with sullen
clouds. She took a back route to the house, hoping to enter it unnoticed so
that she had time for some reconnaissance. She crept along the grass, flinching
when her feet crunched on the gravel surrounding the back of the house and
wondering how a burglar ever managed to break in anywhere without expiring from
nerves first. None of the windows at the back of the house were lit so at least
there appeared to be no danger of being seen. However, there was barely any
wind and the small sounds she was making seemed echoingly loud in the
stillness.

She reached one of the rear doors without incident.
Her body was trembling and her head had begun to pound again, thumping
painfully with every beat of her frantic heart. She took a deep breath and
forced herself to relax, rubbing at the tendons in her neck that had grown
rigid with tension. She opened a panel hidden on the wall and placed her hand
flat on the surface of the rectangular pad that was revealed there. A tiny
light flashed green and then she heard the faintest of clicks as the door
mechanism released. She pushed gently on the door and entered the darkened
kitchen. 

Kate almost cried out when she bumped her hip on the
corner of a kitchen unit on her way through. She released a repressed hiss of
pain instead, biting her lip and rubbing vigorously at the bruised area. She
could barely see through the gloom but she daren’t turn any lights on.

She left the kitchen and headed towards her father’s
office, noticing that a faint glow seemed to be coming from that direction.
When she got within sight of it, light was indeed seeping from around the edges
of the closed door. Her heartbeat increased another notch. She stood behind the
door, her ears straining for any sound. She couldn’t hear anything. Her hands
shook as she took the
taser
from out of her bag. She
gripped it hard, partly to stop her hands from shaking and partly to try and
glean some necessary courage from it.

She quietly turned the door handle and crouched by
the door as it slowly swung open. She entered the room tentatively, the
taser
held in front of her like a gun and her eyes flitting
anxiously from side to side. The room was empty. Her eyes were drawn to the
wing chair in front of her father’s desk. It looked innocuous. However, she
then spotted marks almost hidden in the thick pile of the carpet next to it.
She bent and peered more closely but quickly shot upright in horrified dismay.
They looked like fresh bloodstains. She seized the top of the chair and closed
her eyes, her breaths coming in desperate gasps. What if her father was already
dead?  She almost turned tail then and there. She managed to find some
mental strength from somewhere. She opened her eyes and renewed her grip on the
taser
. If he wasn’t dead, she might be his only hope
of survival. She could not give up now.

She looked back at the carpet
,
but could see no
trail of blood that she might have followed. Her eyes flitted around the room
for more clues. She could see nothing else out of place. The house was large
but this room had only one entry. There was no point staying here, she needed
to search elsewhere.

She was about to leave, when a thought hit her like
a lightning strike. The cameras! Behind her father’s desk was a huge wall. It
was dark at the moment but it was in fact a massive screen. She knew her father
used it like a computer monitor but it could also show images from the security
cameras dotted around his home. She might be able to locate him using this
facility. She pressed a button on the side of the screen and it immediately
came to life. “Yes!” she whispered fiercely, glad that at last luck was on her
side. It was already set to camera mode and she was looking at a crystal clear
view of the driveway leading up to the house. She touched “Options” at the
bottom of the screen and then selected “All cameras”. The screen now split into
numerous windows, each displaying a different view or room of the house. She
had to quell a hysterical giggle. She could have easily been spotted on here,
sneaking towards the back of the house!

She looked through the images and noticed that one
was lit up very brightly. She didn’t bother examining it closely before she
tapped it so that it filled the whole screen. Her heart stopped beating and she
sucked in a breath but found herself unable to release it. She was looking at
the cellar beneath the house. All the lights were on. A man was lying on the
floor. He was naked. His hands and feet were tied and he was curled in a foetal
position. Dark blood was spattered on the bare floor.

She couldn’t see anyone else and her shocked brain
just screamed “Daddy!” However, the man on the floor suddenly lifted his head
and discredited her assumption. Even so, her breath still left her body on a
loud sob. It was Michael. He no longer wore the beard but his lower face was
smeared and speckled with bright blood, as if the hair had been viciously
shaved off, taking skin with it. Dark bruises stood out on his face like stains
and his nose looked broken. His body looked beaten but his eyes were undimmed,
bright and defiant in his damaged, swollen face.

She should have been euphoric. Here was her
kidnapper, clearly apprehended and defeated. But she just felt sick. A message
flashed up on screen. “Audio?” it asked. She pressed it with a trembling
finger.  She heard her father’s voice.

“Where is my daughter? Tell me what you have done
with her!” He kicked Michael in the stomach, hard. Michael grunted. Kate
winced. Did her father think this man had taken her again? He must have had
someone check her apartment. It would have looked disturbing with the door
unlocked, no answer on her mobile and no-one there. She’d left that note under
a neighbour’s door but it would not have been discovered yet. She no longer
wore the locket her father had used to track her down all that time ago.
Despite what had happened, or maybe because of it, she loathed the idea of
being tagged like an animal, unable to be truly free or make her own choices.

She was about to race down to the cellar and
assure
her father of her safety, when she heard Michael
reply. “Why does it bother you what has happened to her?” he
asked,
his voice hoarse but his words discernible. “You don’t care what happens to
other young girls as long as you are making money. You didn’t care what
happened to my sister. It hurts doesn’t it? It hurts to know that your loved
one may be lying in the cold and dark somewhere, may be lying broken and
bleeding...even dying.”

Her father let out a keening cry, the likes of which
she’d never heard before, and flew at Michael. He attacked him like a lunatic, spittle
spraying out of his mouth and his face demonically deformed by the intensity of
his fury. Kate was appalled. She had never in her life seen her father lose his
control.

Sebastian eventually pulled her father off, shouting
“You’ll kill him! You’ll kill him! And then he’ll never tell you where she is!”

Michael’s face was now so swollen up, he was
unrecognisable. He coughed, rackingly, and spat blood and what looked like
broken fragments of tooth on to the floor. Kate couldn’t believe it when she
heard him laughing. “Who would have believed you would come to my rescue!” he
said to Sebastian. “You’re not the rescuing type, are you? Does Harry know you
tried to force yourself on his daughter? That you caused the car accident and
left her for dead? That it was me who resuscitated her?”

Sebastian glared at Michael. “Shut up, you lying
prick!”

Harry was now standing, red faced and sweating and
trying to recover his breath. He turned to Sebastian, “What the fuck is he
talking about?”

“Ignore him,” Sebastian said. “He’s just trying to
screw with your head. He’s trying to turn us against each other.”

Michael tried to sit up. “You can’t pretend you
don’t know what Sebastian is,” he said to Harry. “He’s a rapist and a murderer.
He killed Angela, not me. He did all the dirty work, while you sat back and
deluded yourself that your sordid little empire was all light and happiness. It
still amazes me that you ever trusted your daughter with this monster.”

Harry glared at Michael. “Stop twisting things! It’s
you I should never have trusted her with! You’re the fucking monster! Now where
is she?”

Michael ignored Harry’s question. “Twisting things?
How is it twisting things? I’m making you finally face reality Harry! My
sister, Brenna, was tortured and mortally wounded by one of your wonderful
clients and then you allowed her to die! You ordered the murder of the one
person who tried to help her and then covered it up! Is that what happened to
Kate’s mother too? Did she find out what you were up to?”

Kate was still riveted to the screen. There he was
accusing her father to his face. Could what he said actually be true? It
occurred to her that the only reason Michael wasn’t dead was because they
thought he had information about where she was. Her anger towards Michael had
  died
, like a match flame, fierce but short-lived. She
looked at his battered face and just felt a wrenching sadness. She had to make
her presence known, before something terrible happened.    

She ran out of the room and flung herself down the
stone stairs leading to the cellar. The room had no door, only a stone archway.
She was about to enter the brightly lit room when she heard her father speak
again.

“I had no choice!” he protested.

“Neither did Brenna or any of the girls you groom.
Do you even care what happens to them? Or are they just commodities to you?”

Harry’s voice suddenly returned to its icy tones.
“You have the nerve to question me like this? You’re no better. You kidnapped
my daughter and terrorised her. Where was her choice? Have you killed her? Is
that your idea of justice?”

There was a hollow silence now but then Michael’s
next words dropped into it like cold pebbles in a still pond. “The kidnap
wasn’t planned, whatever you might think. I didn’t even know she was your
daughter. I couldn’t kill her, even if my life depended on it. I’m in love with
her.” There was a shattered pause.

Kate's heart plummeted and she couldn't prevent the
sob that escaped from her. She had moved into the entranceway and found two
pairs of wide eyes gaping at her in shock.

"Katie?" Michael rasped out. "Is that
you?" he was facing her, but clearly couldn't see her. He’d either been
blinded or his eyes were swollen shut from the trauma to his face.
Even though she had seen him on the camera, the extent of his
injuries, when seen close up, appalled her.

"Katie!" her father shouted in relief and
ran towards her with his arms open. She lifted the
taser
.
"Stop!" she commanded. Harry came to an abrupt halt. Tears were now
streaming down Kate's cheeks.

An evil grin settled over Sebastian's face. He
lifted a gun from his pocket. Kate recognised the compact weapon as hers. He
pointed the gun at Michael's head. "Well Katherine, I’m glad you’re here.
Now you can enjoy seeing this traitorous cunt finally get what was always coming
to him."

"No!" Kate screamed and pressed the
taser's
trigger. Two electrodes snaked out and hit
Sebastian in the chest. He
spasmed
violently and fell
heavily on the large rack of wine behind him. He released a strange, gurgling
scream and then fell silent. But it wasn't enough to prevent the gun from
firing. The shot echoed loudly in the confined space and Michael collapsed.

 “No!” Kate screamed again and ran to the
fallen man. She stroked the hair back from his broken face. "Michael can
you hear me? Michael, please? I haven't finished with you yet!"

She felt someone slowly draw her away. “He's dead
sweetheart,” her father said. She turned on him like a scalded cat. “Don’t
touch me! What have you done? This is your fault! All of this is your fault!”

Her father drew back in surprise at her outburst.
How much did Kate know? She turned back to Michael's body, hunched over and
sobbing.

She felt a hand scrape her cheek and opened her
eyes. She gasped.

"Katie," he whispered, his eyes glittering
at her from between folds of bloodied flesh, his voice a harsh wheeze.
"You have to get out. There's a bomb." She was amazed when he managed
to crack what could only be a smile, distorted as it was by his damaged mouth.
"I mean it this time."

Kate's eyes widened and then her mouth set in a
determined line. She reached around him, attempting to lift him. He groaned and
she noticed now the ragged furrow on his shoulder where the bullet had gouged
him. Blood flowed on to her hand.  “Then you're coming with me," she
asserted.

"No! You haven't got time! Please Kate. I'm not
going to make it anyway. Please just go!" he begged.

"I can't leave you!" she cried. She turned
to try and enlist her father's help but he had disappeared. She frowned and
tried to lift Sean again, but she only succeeded in hurting him.