Pitch Black: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 1) (2 page)

BOOK: Pitch Black: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 1)
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When I finally reached the ticket counter, I still hadn’t decided on a destination, but as my passport was British, I thought I’d aim for mainland Europe to avoid the need for a visa. Preferably an English, French, German, Spanish or Italian speaking country as I was fluent in all those languages, but I’d get by anywhere. It wasn’t like I wanted to talk to anybody, anyway.

“Where do you want to go?” asked a harried-looking employee. He glanced at his watch, no doubt counting down the seconds to the end of his shift.

“What tickets are available for Europe? On planes that are actually going to leave soon?”

He tapped away at his computer keys. “We’ve got…London Heathrow…and…Egypt…and.… No, that’s it.”

“Egypt isn’t in Europe.”

“It’s not?”

His blank face told me I’d be wasting my time giving him a geography lesson. “Are you sure that’s all you have?”

England was at the bottom of my list as the border controls were stricter, meaning I’d need to be more creative if I wanted to travel outside the country. This passport would be compromised soon, and the way things were it wouldn’t be as easy as it usually was for me to get another.

“Yes, I’m sure,” he said, glowering at me like I was a mosquito he wanted to swat. “Do you want the ticket or not?” He tapped his fingers on the desk and looked pointedly back down the queue, which grew longer with each passing second.

I didn’t have a lot of choice. I needed to get out of the US sharpish or I wouldn’t be able to make a clean break, and there weren’t any other viable options.

“Yes, I’ll take it,” I told him, digging out the cash to pay. It would have to do.

I cleared security without any hitches. I hadn’t been expecting any, as the guy who sorted out my passports was the best. Over the years he’d procured sources for blank documents from any number of different countries so whatever he produced for me was indistinguishable from the real thing.

As I collected my bag from the scanner, I was pleased to note that karma had raised her head, and the obnoxious guy from the check-in line was having his hand luggage emptied out by one of the security staff.

At least it wasn’t just me she hated at the moment.

The departures screen told me I had a while before I needed to head for the gate, so I stopped at a newsagent and bought a couple of magazines to try and occupy myself on the trip. Usually when I flew commercial I spent most of the time working, but with my employment status somewhat hazy and my head filled with rocks, that wasn’t a viable option. Plus the pounding in my temples at any sudden movements told me thinking wasn’t a good idea right now.

I wandered aimlessly around the rest of the shops, fitting in nicely with the rest of the tourists. The amount of crap you could buy at airports never ceased to amaze me. The only reason I went to them was to leave again as fast as possible, but some people seemed to treat the terminals as shopping destinations in their own right. I marvelled as one family staggered past carrying, among other things, two designer handbags, a games console, a surround sound speaker system, and a pair of cowboy boots. Good luck trying to stuff that lot into the overhead lockers.

With nothing better to do, I bought a hot chocolate with whipped cream in a vain attempt to make myself feel better then slumped into an empty chair outside the cafe to watch the display monitor.

After an interminably long time, my flight status changed from “Wait” to “Boarding.” I trudged to the gate and joined the rest of the throng as we were herded onto the plane like cattle, turning right into economy class as directed by an overly perky air hostess. Once my bag was safely stowed above my head, I buckled myself into my seat and closed my eyes.
Please let this trip go quickly.

Nobody listened, and we hung around on the tarmac for another half hour before the plane took off. I relaxed an infinitesimal amount as the wheels left the ground. The first part of my plan had gone as smoothly as I could have hoped, but now I was left to deal with the worst part. Loneliness. I only had my thoughts for company now. As soon as the pilot turned out the seatbelt light, I took the only sensible option—pressed the “call” button and ordered a large gin and tonic. I needed something to help me forget.
 

Memories and frustrations and pain invaded my head, and I wished I could flip an off-switch to give myself inner peace. But I couldn’t so alcohol would have to substitute.

With little to distract me, my thoughts turned back to earlier in the day. Darkness descended as I recalled the events that led me to be sitting here with my arse slowly going numb, eating tiny cardboard crackers out of a plastic wrapper, instead of being back at home with those I considered my family.

Chapter 2

I’D SAY I woke at dawn that morning, the day of the funeral, but the truth is I never really slept. As soon as the sun cleared the horizon, I headed into the office to work on the case that had occupied my every waking moment, as well as my dreams, for the past week.

The murder of my husband.

I felt like my heart had been ripped out, set on fire and then put in a blender. My head told me I should be out looking for his killers, that they needed to pay for what they’d done, but inside I was numb.

 
My friend Daniela had moved into my house, and each morning, she’d herd me out to the car and drive me to the office. We had a routine now.

“How are you feeling?” she’d ask.

“A little better,” I’d lie.

“We’re getting closer. We’ll find them, I promise.”

Dan was heading up the investigation and had a team of our best people working for her, but so far, every lead had petered out. I offered little help as I sat behind my desk, staring at the wall.

“Hey, watch it!”

I looked across as one of our technicians bumped into a chair, waking Evan, who’d been slumped sideways in it.

“Sorry.”

Evan shook his head. “No, it’s me who should apologise. I shouldn’t have snapped.”

Tension crackled through the air. Everyone was exhausted and tempers were frayed. The equipment in the company gym took a battering as the guys tried not to vent their frustrations on each other. The punch bags bore the brunt of it, and we’d replaced two of them already.

Nick stomped in at ten wearing a scowl. “Every cop I’ve spoken to in Mexico is either corrupt or incompetent.”

“You didn’t learn anything, then?”

“Apart from how to swear more creatively in Spanish, no.”

He’d been trying to trace the true identity of the sorry excuse for a human being currently on ice with the coroner. The team had narrowed it down to South America, but the fact that a good portion of his face was missing wasn’t helping to pinpoint things any further.

Nick sat back on the couch in the corner and sighed. I wasn’t the only person my husband’s death was affecting. Nick had been one of his best friends.

“Do you want me to make you a drink?” I asked. It was all I was good for at the moment.

He managed a small smile. “Coffee would be good.”

At least it gave me something to do, although when the machine flashed the “change water filter” light at me, I wanted to kick it. My tolerance of menial tasks had dropped considerably.

At 11 a.m. my office assistant, Sloane, gently nudged my arm. “It’s almost time.”

“Did Bradley bring something for me to wear?”

“It’s hanging on the back of your bathroom door.” Her voice cracked as she spoke.

I knew she’d been crying. She’d tried to hide it, but her eyes were puffy and had telltale smudges of mascara around them. I wanted to give her a hug, tell her to cry if it would make her feel better, but I couldn’t. I was afraid that if she started sobbing, then I would too, and I didn’t cry any more. Ever.

No matter how much of a wreck I was inside, to anyone looking at me, I was the ice queen. I never raised my voice, never got emotional. Not in front of anyone but my husband, anyway. He was the only person who saw the real me. And now he’d gone that girl was locked up inside, and I’d thrown away the key.

Sloane had arranged cars to take everyone to the church, but I decided to drive myself instead. I couldn’t take another pity-filled glance or offer of help, no matter how well-meaning everyone was. I collapsed into my Viper and sat for a few minutes, forcing myself to breathe deeply until I was calm. The others had left before me, which was just as well, because when I arrived at the church it turned out the media circus had come to town.

We’d suspected a few reporters might turn up, but it must have been a slow news day because there were dozens of them milling around in the parking lot. All the local press had arrived, plus a bunch of freelance paparazzi and even a TV crew. When I pulled in, there was a virtual stampede towards my car.

My husband and I did everything we could to keep a low profile, but when someone is killed in an undeniably attention-grabbing way, it has an unfortunate tendency to entice the media scum out from the rocks they usually reside beneath. There was even a crowd of the public, peering through the drizzle from under hoods and umbrellas, ghoulishly waiting to catch a glimpse of the “Black Widow,” as the press had dubbed me. Give them ten out of ten for originality, huh?

I hoped they were getting good and wet.

Barely resisting the urge to drive the Viper straight through the lot of them, I pulled to a halt next to the rest of our cars. My friends were waiting when I got out, and they formed a barrier around me to shield me from the circling sharks. One held an umbrella overhead, and we moved towards the church as one mass with the guys at the front shouldering any particularly persistent reporters out of the way.

Their shouts echoed in my ears.

“Look this way,” one yelled before Dan pushed him aside.

“Come on, just give us a picture,” another called.

As if.

I kept my head down, wishing the service was over before it had even started. A couple of my team stayed behind by the doors to keep reporters out of the church. A few of them tried to talk their way in by claiming to be friends or relatives, demonstrating they had as little respect for the dead as for the living.

I sat down on the front pew next to Nate, my husband’s best friend and business partner. Another of my girlfriends, Mack, took the other side. She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, not concerned with hiding her emotions like I was. Bradley leaned forward from the row behind and squeezed my shoulder in a show of support. He’d foregone his usual riot of colour and put on a black suit, but his watch was pink, and he had a diamond in his ear. He couldn’t help himself.

I nearly lost it when the pallbearers carried the casket in. Six of my husband’s oldest friends shouldered the burden, the grief on their faces mirroring my own. The casket was a plain oak affair, with brass handles and a simple arrangement of orchids on the top. He wouldn’t have wanted something fancy, and it was closed of course. In fact the whole thing was more for show than anything else, as firstly, there wasn’t a whole lot left of him, and secondly, what was left had pretty much been cremated already.

The pastor stood up and droned on for a lifetime. Well, about twenty-five minutes, but it seemed much longer. His whole speech came across as insincere—hardly surprising as he’d never met my husband. The part where he said our kids would miss their father terribly was particularly touching, considering we didn’t have any.

Still, I couldn’t totally blame him. I’d refused to give him any personal details, so he tried his best, and I had to be grateful for that. I blocked out the rest of his words and concentrated on staying calm.

Just breathing.

In and out.

In and out.

When he muttered his final prayer, we all trooped outside for the burial. It was still raining, which at least gave me a good reason for hiding under an umbrella once more. The last thing I wanted was to wake up the next day to find my face plastered across the front page. I wouldn’t put it beyond the reporters to photoshop a big grin on my face to show me “gleefully celebrating” the death of my husband, just to stir things up a bit.

As I watched the casket being lowered into the ground, my heart sank down with it. Never again could I love anyone the way I loved that man. When he died, a big part of me died too. I’d been reduced to a shell, mechanically doing the bare minimum to work and stay breathing but not caring whether I ultimately lived or died.

BOOK: Pitch Black: A Romantic Thriller (Blackwood Security Book 1)
8.29Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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