Heller's Girlfriend (40 page)

I guess I’d always thought that
Heller would know if I was in trouble and would rush to my
rescue.

But I guess I was wrong.

Chapter 29

“Oh God!” she said with
contempt. “Look at you blubbing like a baby.”

Her sneering words did the trick
for me. I hardened up and brought myself under control. Crying
wasn’t going to help me survive.

She untied my left hand and
pulled up a chair in front of me. She studied my hand, turning it
over to look at my palm. She traced along one of the lines on
it.

“These are the hands you can’t
keep away from my Heller.” She glanced up at me. “Do you know how
hard I worked to make him mine?” She didn’t wait for a response. “I
remember the first time I saw him. He was with you at the time. I
was on the counter at the police station and you were called in to
identify a suspect in a murder case. It was love at first sight for
me when I saw him. I knew I had to have him. I knew he was my soul
mate. I heard you calling him Heller and it didn’t take much
detective work to track him down. I started following him, learning
his routine, learning about his pick-ups at hotels. So I put myself
in his way one evening. Oh God, it was heaven.”

She pulled a hammer out of her
bag. And then a table tennis paddle.

“Cost me a fortune staying at
that hotel, pretending I was in town on a buying trip. Cleaned out
my bank account actually, but I couldn’t take him back to my tiny
little hovel.”

She tied my wrist to the handle
of the paddle, so that my hand rested on its oval surface.

“I pretended I was my sister. We
look alike and she lives in another city, so that made my story
authentic.”

She laid the paddle and my hand
on her lap and picked up the hammer.

“You really ought to keep your
hands off my Heller.”

She raised the hammer and
brought it down on my hand with force, over and over. I screamed
again, my whole body jerking in agony, but only a muffled groan
forced itself through the gag. Bones snapped in my hand and
fingers.

“I’ll let you think about that
before I start on the other one,” she offered as I sobbed
silently.

She sauntered into my kitchen to
my fridge and took out a bottle of wine, pouring herself a generous
glass. She sipped from it while her eyes roamed around my flat.

“Nice place you have here. Light
and airy.”

I could barely hear through the
intense pain. It consumed me, took over my senses – I could do
nothing except hurt. I was faint with pain. It was all I could
think about.

She finished her glass of wine
and came back to me, untying my broken hand from the paddle. I
wanted to punch her, but I couldn’t make my hand work properly and
every slight flex of my fingers sent off fresh waves of agony. I
let it dangle to my side.

She was about to untie my right
hand when there was a soft knock on the door. She froze, before
leaping up to retrieve her gun.

“Tilly?” I recognised Daniel’s
voice. “What are you doing up so late? Do you want some company? I
can’t sleep. Let me in.”

“Why is he here? It’s the middle
of the night,” she hissed at me.

He knocked harder. “Tilly? Open
up. Are you okay? Why is your light on?”

“He’s going to wake everyone up.
I’ll have to let him in.”

Go away, Daniel! Go away!
I begged him silently, hoping he could read my thoughts. She
approached the door, gun primed. She hid behind the door and pulled
it open.

Poor, unsuspecting Daniel walked
in and spotted me. Horrified, he ran to me, his only thought being
to help me. I desperately tried to warn him with my eyes, nodding
frantically towards where she was hiding, shouting at him through
the gag.

She stepped out from behind the
door and cold-bloodedly shot him in the back. He crumpled to the
floor, his blood pouring out on to my carpet. I struggled furiously
against my bindings, upending my chair and landing on my side on
the floor again. And that didn’t help either of us.

She dragged Daniel’s prone body
to a wall, where she propped him up roughly, taking no notice of
the blood that gushed from him. He slumped against the wall,
unconscious, his skin growing paler as I watched, the pool of blood
spreading. I watched it in desolation, knowing that all hope was
gone for both of us. She righted me in the chair again, whacking me
viciously across the face once more in punishment. My head
span.

“Right. Where were we?” She
looked around for the hammer and noticed her phone. “First though,
another message to my Heller.”

I couldn’t tear my eyes away
from Daniel. He appeared dead to me, limp and gray. My darling,
darling Danny, who I loved so much, dying without any help or care
or comfort. All because of this
bitch
.

I flexed my muscles. Falling
over a second time had loosened the bindings around my ankles and I
decided that I was able to move my legs enough to support a
half-crouching stand.

When she finished texting and
returned to me, I summoned all my hate and all my anger and all my
despair and launched myself up at her. It took her by surprise, and
the impact forced her backwards, falling down onto the floor, the
gun flying from her hand.

Still bound to the chair, I fell
on top of her in an awkward move. She wriggled to sit up, hands
against me to push me off her. So I headbutted her, cracking our
foreheads together. Her head hit the ground hard. Blinking in pain,
she moved to sit up again. I raised my left arm and crunched my
elbow down hard on her nose, finding her howl of pain
gratifying.

She was subdued for a moment,
rolling on the floor clutching her face. I scrabbled like a hermit
crab, chair on my back, black spots swimming in my eyes from the
headbutt. I reached for the gun with my broken hand, tucking it
into the waistband of my boxers.

Once I had that, I dragged
myself into the kitchen and repeatedly pressed the panic button,
part of me not really believing it would summon anyone.

Back on her feet, Violet
staggered towards me. I was cornered in the kitchen, lying on the
floor helplessly. I couldn’t shoot the gun with my broken hand, so
moved it underneath my body, hoping that might slow her down for a
few moments before she killed me.

My front door splintered open
and Heller burst in, a gun in his hands.

“Heller!” said Violet, pure
happiness on her face, turning towards him.

He strode over to her and
punched her in the face, knocking her down and probably breaking
her nose. Badly. Blood sprayed around the kitchen.

Clive and a couple of men
exploded into the flat, all armed. And while Heller crouched next
to me, cutting me free, Clive rang an ambulance and his men gave
Daniel as much first aid as they could, pressing on his wound with
wadded towels that they found in my linen cupboard.

As soon as Heller freed me, he
helped me to my feet. After checking me over, assessing my
injuries, he gathered me tightly in his arms, gently pressing my
head down onto his shoulder with his hand at the back of my neck.
And I didn’t mean to, because I wanted to be with Daniel, but I
leant against him and began to cry, huge gulping sobs of relief,
fear and pain. When the tears subsided, I started trembling, my
legs suddenly deciding that they didn’t want to support me any
more.

He swept me up in his arms and
carried me to the lounge, where he carefully deposited me and asked
one of the men to fetch an icepack for my hand and to help stem the
bleeding from my neck. There was so much blood everywhere, most of
it from Daniel.
Where was that ambulance?

Shooting a quick glance into the
kitchen to make sure Violet was still down, Heller kneeled next to
Daniel, checking his vital signs.

“How long did they say the
ambulance would take?” he asked Clive.

“Ten minutes.”

He placed one palm against
Daniel’s gray cheek and grasped Daniel’s bloodied hand with his
other.

“My Daniel,” he said, his voice
cracking with deep anguish. He pressed his lips on Daniel’s
hand.

Clive dragged Violet by her
ponytail out of the kitchen and dumped her in the lounge room. She
struggled to sit up, her face bloodied, but Clive pushed her back
to the ground with his foot on her chest.

Heller stood and looked down at
her with rage-filled eyes. “You did this to my Daniel.”

“It was an accident. I –” she
choked through her blood.

“That’s a lie! It wasn’t an
accident,” I protested tearfully. “She shot him on purpose.”

Heller kicked her hard in the
ribs. She groaned loudly and tried to roll over, but Clive’s foot
kept her still. He looked at Clive, his face full of intense anger.
“Take care of her for me for a while. But don’t . . . finish . . .
until I’m there.”

The glance the two men exchanged
held a thousand words. Clive nodded.

“No,” I interrupted. “Call the
police. I don’t want you to . . . take care . . . of her yourself.
I want the police to do it. I want her to go to jail. I want her to
suffer for years and years for what she did to Daniel.” I started
crying again and stumbled my way to Daniel, resting his head on my
lap and stroking his hair with my good hand.

Heller sighed, but his tone was
gentle enough. “Matilda, that will tie me up for hours here and I
want to go to the hospital with you and Daniel.”

I wiped away tears with the heel
of my palm. “Call Dr Kincaid. He can treat me while the police are
here and then we can join the others at the hospital.”

“No, my sweet. Your hand is
badly broken. I can tell that by looking at it and it needs to be
x-rayed. I will join you there afterwards.” And he reluctantly
pulled out his mobile and rang the police, as I wished.

We waited impatiently for the
ambulance to arrive. My eyes were riveted on Daniel, bleakly
observing his increasingly pale and clammy skin. Rivers of tears
flowed down my face and splashed onto his. It wasn’t fair. So many
terrible things had happened to him already in his life. He
deserved nothing but happiness – not to be lying on my carpet, his
life force draining out of him, all because some nut had fallen
hard for Heller. I couldn’t stop crying.

Heller crouched next to me,
clasping Daniel’s hand.

“I love him so much,” I
cried.

“He knows that,” Heller said
quietly. “He knows we all love him.”

The paramedics arrived, ushered
upstairs by one of the men. They were efficient and professional.
The police arrived not long afterwards, also ushered by one of the
men.

Clive, Sid and I prepared to
follow the ambulance, leaving Heller behind to deal with the
police. I grabbed Niq on the way after spotting his small,
frightened face in the hallway, tears in his eyes when he saw
Daniel and me.

Niq and I held hands in the back
seat all the way to the hospital, as I repeatedly assured him that
Daniel was going to be all right, even though I wasn’t sure about
that at all. Daniel was rushed into emergency where he was quickly
assessed and prepped for operating. I didn’t need to be a doctor to
know that he’d lost a lot of blood. It was spilled all over my
carpet and all over our clothes.

The four of us sat patiently in
the emergency waiting room. It was hours before I received any
medical attention myself although I was in a lot of pain and my
neck wounds still bled. All the doctors were fully occupied with
the victims of a serious multiple car accident who’d been rushed in
straight after Daniel was brought in.

Eventually a tired young Irish
doctor examined me. He stitched the wounds in my neck, doing a neat
job that would leave minimal scarring. I’d already had an x-ray on
my hand and he tutted over it before splinting it as well as three
of my fingers individually. It was an awkward injury and the x-ray
showed nine separate breaks. He explained that what he was doing
was only a temporary solution and I should make an appointment with
a doctor specialising in hand injuries to have a proper assessment.
Some of the breaks might need pinning, he advised. Then he gave me
some strong painkillers and sent me back out to the waiting room.
But before he did any of that though, he took before and after
photographs of my injuries for evidence.

We sat there for the rest of the
night waiting for some news about Daniel. People stared at me
curiously and I must have looked a fright, my blood-soaked pyjamas
crusting up, my hand splinted, and bruising rapidly developing from
the repeated hits to my head, not to mention the headbutt, bites
all over my neck and shoulder and the stitches in my neck. I began
to feel very self-conscious and a little underdressed for being in
public.

At some point Heller stormed
through the doors in a massively foul temper after his dealings
with the police, demanding an update on Daniel’s progress from the
cowed hospital staff. I imagine that he drew the attention of
everyone in the waiting room, but I missed his dramatically
impressive entrance because the painkillers had kicked in and I’d
fallen asleep against Sid’s shoulder. Niq slept on my shoulder,
still holding my good hand tightly.

When I groggily roused it was
Heller I was leaning against, not Sid. He had his arm around my
shoulder, his expression formidable. Niq was awake, watching the
silent TV mounted from the ceiling and munching on a very rare
packet of chips and cola soft drink with obvious enjoyment, feeling
like a normal teenager for once. Sid drank some vending machine
coffee with a grimace and Clive sprawled on a chair, his head
thrown back, snoring loudly. I sat there, leaning against Heller,
blinking sleepily for a while. My brain felt like fairy floss, the
painkillers deadening all my functions.

“Sid?” Heller called, throwing
him the keys to his 4WD. “I should have some spare clothes in a bag
in the back of the car. Can you find something else for Matilda to
wear, please?”