Stone Cold (14 page)

‘Any reason for that?’ Maietta asked.

‘Like I said, she grew up an orphan,’ McKenzie replied. ‘She’s used to having nobody to fall back upon but herself. I imagine her childhood was quite lonely, intimidating even. People like that grow up security conscious.’

‘Like you?’ Griffin asked. ‘You’re an orphan too, you said?’

‘I am,’ McKenzie replied, ‘but we men are not quite the target that attractive, successful women can be.’

‘Sheila’s abductor was either allowed into this house or knew the code well enough to enter the property and then re–set the alarm before they left. Somebody, somewhere, knew the code.’

‘I don’t know how that could be,’ McKenzie insisted. ‘I’m the only other person who knows it.’

‘I think that you may know something, even if you’re not sure yourself,’ Griffin pressured him. ‘Could Sheila have been unhappy in her life, decided that she would skip town maybe, and then decided that she would arrange an abduction situation to extort you for money?’

McKenzie shook his head.

‘No, it doesn’t make sense, she wasn’t unhappy. We were due to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary, she was making plans. Everything was fine.’

‘Can you define
fine
for me, Mr McKenzie?’ Griffin asked.

‘Scott,’ Maietta said, ‘that’s enough.’

‘Jesus, you really want to pin this on me don’t you?’ the pilot asked in horror. ‘Is that why you’re here?’

‘I’m here,’ Griffin said, ignoring his partner, ‘because I cannot fathom why anybody who was planning an abduction or extortion would have targeted you or your family. If I were an abductor I’d target somebody wealthy, famous and ideally stupid and neither you nor your wife fit that category.’

At once both insulted and complimented, McKenzie wasn’t sure how to react. He settled for glancing at his watch.

‘I have to go,’ he uttered.

Griffin watched the pilot walk away as Maietta turned to him. ‘What the hell was that?’

‘That was my job,’ Griffin replied with a shrug.

‘You were interrogating our victim,’ Maietta snapped. ‘Not exactly the caring and sharing policy Olsen likes us to project onto the community, Scott.’

‘I don’t care about the damned policies,’ Griffin shot back. ‘I care about finding that man’s wife as soon as possible, and right now I don’t have a damned clue how to go about it.’

Maietta watched Griffin for a long moment before she replied. ‘What’s eating at you?’

‘Nothing,’ Griffin snapped in reply.

‘Well, take a hint,’ Maietta replied, ‘poking Dale McKenzie in the eyes isn’t the way. You’re on thin ice right now, Scott.’

Griffin offered his partner a tight smile as he checked his watch. ‘It’ll be a lot damned thinner if we don’t find Sheila.’

***

18

Kathryn awoke earlier than usual.

Maybe it was the buzz in her heart, the first flush of true excitement over her new and bold undertaking that aroused her from a deep and dreamless sleep. Stephen had spent the night facing away from her, his legs curled up in a foetal position that she had once found rather endearing. Now, she wondered if the experiences of their previous night’s escapades had shrivelled his masculinity and left him huddled protectively around what was left of it. Whatever.

Stephen had awoken early and left before dawn, leaving her to enjoy the luxury of their bed on her own. Sunlight streamed into the room between the blinds. Christ, for once it wasn’t
bloody
raining, as Ally would say, her British obsession with the weather remaining fully intact. There were, it seemed, suddenly no end to the wonders blessing Kathryn with every passing day.

Kathryn got out of bed and walked to the bathroom. She turned on the shower until steam puffed around her in clouds and stepped in, luxuriating in the heat. It was bizarre, ridiculous and certainly not real, not in a
real
sense, but she had not felt so alive in what felt like years. Decades, perhaps, even. Her skin tingled with delight and she lathered herself from head to foot, humming tunes to herself.

When they had returned home from the restaurant the previous night, Kathryn glowing with delight and looking constantly at the ring she had bought for herself the day before, Stephen subdued and troubled, she had taken it upon herself to soothe his suffering. Magnanimous in victory and revelling in her new found power over him, she had decided that he should endure no longer. Or not exactly
suffer
, anyway. Even lying, cheating bastards needed a break sometimes, and her grand design required a certain degree of finesse to play out the way she wanted.

Despite his protestations, she had pinned him against the wall of their bedroom and unzipped him before sinking to her knees and giving him precisely the kind of attention no man would be able to ignore for long. She had undressed herself at the same time, tossing her lingerie to one side as she yanked his pants off and then stood up and shoved Stephen toward their bed. And then she had ridden him as though he were the last man alive on Earth, bouncing up and down as though she were a teenager until he climaxed inside her.

Exhausted and quite probably stunned into a disbelieving silence, Stephen had promptly fallen asleep, which suited Kathryn fine. The quieter he was, the better she felt about things.

Kathryn stepped out of the shower and towelled herself down. She was halfway back to the bedroom to fetch her clothes when she heard the front door of the apartment open and close and Stephen walked into the bedroom.

‘You’re back?’ she asked, surprised.

‘Sorry,’ he replied as he lifted a bag filled with food. ‘Thought you might want some breakfast?’

Kathryn blinked in surprise once more, and smiled as she took the bag from him. ‘Sounds good to me.’

She turned and made her way into the kitchen and prepared breakfast. Bacon and eggs, sausages, mushrooms, coffee and orange juice – the whole nine yards.

The aroma of food had the desired effect, and she heard Stephen plod his way into the shower and the hiss of the water as he splashed himself out of his torpor. As much a man as he ever was, he appeared in the kitchen just minutes later as though carried aloft by the scent of food.

Kathryn breezed by him and reached up on tip–toe to kiss him on the cheek. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Like the dead.’

Don’t tempt me.
Kathryn gestured at him with the flickering blade of a bread knife. ‘Sit.’

Stephen plonked obediently down into a chair and stared at the splendid array of food before him. ‘I feel like I’m living in a dream.’

‘Glad you approve,’ Kathryn said as she sat down opposite him and nibbled a piece of toast. She reached out for a brochure and began flipping the pages.

Stephen tucked into his breakfast and coffee, but it took him only moments to notice the brochure.

‘What’s that?’

Kathryn leafed casually through the pages without looking at him as she replied. ‘Baby clothes. I picked it up the other day in town.’

‘Baby clothes?’

‘They do wear clothes you know,’ she replied. ‘Little ones.’

‘Yeah, I know, but we don’t have one.’

‘Not yet we don’t,’ she winked and smiled in reply. ‘If I were you though, I’d brace myself.’

Stephen stared at her, a dribble of egg yolk heading south for his chin. ‘We only…’

‘Last night?’ she cut across him, and then leafed through another page of the magazine. ‘I know, first time in about a month wasn’t it. The thing is, we were having sex so rarely that I came off the pill a while back.’

Stephen coughed. One hand flew to his mouth to keep his food inside it as he swallowed. His eyes glistened with tears from the strain. ‘You’re not taking any contraception?’ he wheezed.

‘No,’ she said, still munching happily on her toast. ‘Were you?’

Stephen appeared stunned once again. ‘Were you planning on telling me this sooner?’

Kathryn searched the air above her head for a moment as though looking for an answer. ‘No, not really.’ She grinned mischievously. ‘Last night changed everything.’

Stephen looked as though he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

‘Kathryn, we only just got engaged.’

‘
Engaged
,’ she echoed in a delighted whisper. ‘Don’t you just
love
how that sounds?’

‘It sounds expensive,’ Stephen muttered as he cut into a sausage.

‘Oh you’re so romantic sometimes,’ she chided. ‘Look, we’ve only got one life and I’m damned if I’m going to sit around waiting for the things that I want to happen to just fall into my lap. I want to get married, Stephen. I want us to have children. Hell, I might even buy a little dog.’

‘The hell you will.’

‘It’s my money, remember?’ Kathryn said. ‘I earn my own salary now and I can spend it on what I want.’

‘And me?’ Stephen asked around a mouthful of sausage and egg. ‘What about my money? Apparently you’ve spent about half a million for us already, what with your new house, children, dog and what not. You going to cover all of that?’

Kathryn flashed him a devil’s smile. ‘That’s why it’s called marriage, darling. Husband
and
wife.’ She held the smile for a moment, the bread knife still close by. ‘Til
death
do us part.’

‘Now who’s being romantic?’

‘It’s not just children we need to think about,’ Kathryn said as she switched to another brochure. ‘Life’s not been easy for us this past year, and when the children arrive it’ll be tough for us to get away. I thought that we should book a vacation while we still can. I thought that maybe we could combine our wedding with your idea of the Bahamas and get married out there.’

‘Get married,’ Stephen replied, ‘in the Bahamas, before we have children and get a giant new house in the city. Is this before or after we buy Montana?’

Kathryn chuckled and then pulled an excited face. ‘Oooh, that reminds me, there’s a travel company doing big discounts at the moment. I’m not sure which one it was, hang on a moment…’

Kathryn turned to her handbag and yanked out a thick wedge of brochures. She flipped through several of them before finding the right one.

‘Ah, here it is. Great Escapes. Have you heard of them?’

Stephen shook his head, one hand holding his fork close to his mouth, the other gripping his knife.

‘Maybe we could head over there this afternoon and chat to their staff, they’re headquartered on the other side of the city.’

Stephen, his mouth full of food, shook his head vigorously.

‘What?’ Kathryn asked. ‘It could be a real bonus if we could get a deal on travel and accommodation through them. It can’t be every day that customers walk through their doors and besides, after our triumphs of last night, maybe we’ll get even luckier?’

Stephen shook his head again and swallowed his food with some effort.

‘Don’t you think you’re trying to do everything just a little too quickly?’

‘Look, right now we’re at least free of any other obligations, right?’ Kathryn said. ‘In future years, we’ll have a mortgage, kids and everything that goes with having a family. My thinking is that right now is the time to have a little fun before it’s too late for both of us.’

‘I think that we should take our time a little, think about all of this.’

Kathryn shrugged and closed the airline brochure. Then she waved airline tickets in the air with one hand. ‘So what do you want me to do with these then?’

Stephen looked at the tickets and his eyes flew wide. ‘Jesus, you haven’t?!’

Kathryn grinned. ‘I have.’

Stephen’s shoulders slumped. ‘Kathryn, we can’t just take off on holiday!’

‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Why not just say “to hell with it all”?’

‘Because then my boss will say “to hell with him” and we’ll be even more broke than we are now!’ Stephen sighed. ‘Look, I know you’re trying to do the right thing for us, but that’s too much Kathryn, really.’

Kathryn dropped the tickets back into the brochure and set it aside. ‘Okay, okay, I’ll get a refund.’ She switched back to the images of babies for a moment. ‘Would you prefer a boy or a girl?’

‘Kathryn, I don’t know that….’

‘Twins!’ Kathryn gushed. ‘Imagine that, if we had one of each right off the bat!’

Stephen sighed. ‘I’d prefer some time to think about it.’

‘You didn’t need much time to think about having sex last night.’

‘That’s because you were…!’ Kathryn raised an eyebrow. ‘… encouraging me. Anyway, it takes two to tango.’

‘Just as I was saying,’ Kathryn agreed cheerfully. ‘Make sure you get plenty of that breakfast down you. I’ve got to get to work.’

Stephen frowned as he munched on his bacon. ‘Why so early?’

Kathryn drained the last of her orange juice and stood up. Her gown dropped away from her shoulders to reveal the slenderest of thongs and a matching bra that she had slipped on after her shower. She turned away from the table and sauntered back toward the bedroom.

‘My client needs me,’ she said, and then looked over her shoulder at him. ‘What about you, darling?’

19

Sheila squirmed on her seat, lost in a desperate delirium of blackness and solitude.

Her wrists were sore, as were her ankles, rubbed raw by the tight fabric pinning them in place. Her eyes itched beneath her blindfold and a dull headache throbbed behind them, a mixture of dehydration and tension fuelled by the grinding terror of not knowing her fate at the hands of a murderous stranger.

The faint sounds beyond her prison had alerted her to the fact that it was probably morning again, but beyond that she had lost all track of time. Visits by her captor were unpredictable, something that she dimly recalled reading was often a deliberate tactic used by military troops against prisoners of war: a captive’s resistance was dramatically reduced when denied knowledge of the passing of time. All that she had were the senses that no captor could supress. In her world of absolute darkness and silence, endured for so many long hours, Sheila McKenzie’s sense of touch and smell had become almost supercharged.

With nothing else to occupy a mind starved of stimuli, and afraid of the bizarre and vivid visions that flashed into existence like living dreams in her mind’s eye, Sheila had focused on the vibrations from whatever was going on outside her tiny prison.