Stone Cold (28 page)

Kathryn shivered. ‘Why?’

Dale stared at her for several long seconds, and then Kathryn flinched as he suddenly burst out laughing. The confined storage unit amplified his deep laughs and made them shockingly loud, even above the drumming of the rain.

‘Why?’ Dale echoed, and then his voice turned cruel, and in a blink of an eye Kathryn realised that Stephen was gone forever. ‘Why the
fuck
not?! Two lives, the chance to live any way I wish. To leave either of them at any time I please. To pick the best and make it my own. You really think I need a reason, or permission, to use my dead brother’s identity to have a little fun of my own?’

Beside Kathryn, Sheila seemed to coil up like a cobra in her chair as she screeched at him. ‘You adulterous bastard!’

Kathryn tried to keep calm as she spoke, but her eyes kept flicking down to the pistol Dale held close to his thigh.

‘Your fun ruins people’s lives,’ she managed to utter.

‘What
lives
?’ Dale spat, and looked her up and down as though she had crawled from under a rock. ‘You don’t
have
a life Kathryn.’

It was as though he had shot her already. Kathryn felt a dense pall of shame and grief descend around her as she realised that everything she had done had been for nothing. All of the months of study, all of the money she had scrimped and saved, all of the times she had consoled “Stephen” on his misfortunes at work, all of the long nights and the long days and the charade and deceptions that she had planned and the misery of modern life, all of it and so much more, all for a lie, for a man who did not exist, for a liar, a cheat and a polygamous, murderous bastard.

The rage came all of its own accord.

Kathryn launched herself at Dale McKenzie with a shriek of hatred. She saw the briefest glimmer of surprise and panic flicker behind his eyes just as she plunged her hands into them and raked her nails with insane fury down his face.

Dale screamed and swung one hard forearm up and into her. Kathryn felt the world spin and the breath rush from her lungs as the blow connected with her belly. Dale swung her round as she clung to his face and she felt him hurl her backwards. The metal wall of the storage unit slammed into the back of her head and her vision starred as her legs crumpled beneath her.

Dale loomed up and something whipped past in front of Kathryn’s face.

The hand smacked across her lips and Kathryn slumped sideways out of the storage unit into the rain as pain ripped across her lips and cheek and throbbed through her skull. She tried to haul herself further out of the storage unit, to make herself visible to anybody outside, but strong hands gripped her ankles and hauled her back inside.

Dale strode past her and pressed a button on the wall of the unit. Instantly, the electric shutter doors rattled down until they closed and Dale hit a switch on the wall, illuminating a small light bulb at the back of the unit. Kathryn struggled to pull herself up onto her knees and she heard Dale’s voice frighteningly close behind her.

‘You never did get it, did you Kathryn?’ he growled. ‘You couldn’t quite understand it, despite everything you’ve done since. All those little games you’ve played, but not once did you stop to consider the fact that you were never
my
main play.’

Kathryn struggled to think straight, her voice strangled and poisoned with rage. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Poor little Kathryn Stone,’ Dale snapped, ‘all alone in the world, acting as though everybody in life owes you a favour. Just like all the rest, you figured that you were the most important one. Hell, you probably haven’t even realised that you were not the
only
one.’

Kathryn was about to reply, but it was Sheila’s voice that broke through.

‘Dale, what the hell are you talking about?’

Dale was still towering over Kathryn, but now he seemed to remember that Sheila was there. He stepped back and turned to look at his wife, still strapped to the chair.

‘Don’t play dumb with me,’ Dale snapped. ‘You, you’re the other way around. You had a chance in life. You earned a fortune. Yet you still spend it wallowing and bitching about how the world has dealt you a bad hand. Look at you. Even now you’re wearing clothes that Kathryn here couldn’t afford with an entire month’s salary.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Sheila complained.

‘No, I know you don’t Sheila,’ Dale agreed, stalking toward her. ‘That’s because you’ve never understood. I can’t stand you, Sheila. I can’t stand either of you. You’re both upstanding examples of how not to live a life: one crawling through the dirt just to make ends meet, the other drowning in money and doing nothing but complain about it.’

Dale stood back and looked at them both, as though satisfied with his assessment. Kathryn squinted at him.

‘You’ve done this before,’ she said finally.

‘Many, many times,’ Dale replied. There was pride in his voice, as though he were relating courageous military service or the glory days of his youth. ‘You see, there’s one thing that all three of us have in common, one thing that we share. We’re all orphans. I know how it feels to face the world alone, and I know how to turn that to my advantage.’

Kathryn, her throat still dry, coughed bitterly. ‘You target orphans.’

‘No family to defend them,’ Dale sneered, ‘no other relations to inherit their money, a natural fear of the big bad world around them.’ He chuckled. ‘You should have found yourself a nice man to marry, Kathryn. You’d have been a lot safer.’

Kathryn stared at Dale for a long moment.

‘I did find a nice man,’ she snarled. ‘But it turns out he died a long time ago and I ended up with his heartless bastard brother. Too bad it was Stephen who passed away and not you.’

Dale’s face twisted upon itself as he stormed across to her.

‘Dale!’ The shout was loud enough to freeze Dale in his tracks. Sheila glowered at him from her seat. ‘Stop this right now!’ Dale peered over his shoulder at his wife as Kathryn watched. ‘Untie me this instant!’

Dale backed away from Kathryn and straightened as he looked down at Sheila.

‘Now, why would I do that?’

There was genuine hurt on Sheila’s face. ‘Why wouldn’t you?’

Dale chuckled again as he looked at the pistol he held in his hand. ‘Do you really think I’d bring this with me if I had any intention at all of letting either of you go?’

Sheila’s face collapsed into panic. ‘Dale, this is ridiculous! You haven’t hurt anybody yet. There is still a way out of this for you, right? You can walk away, Dale. I won’t press charges.’

Dale raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Against whom?’

‘Anybody!’ Sheila yelped. ‘I just want this to be over with!’

‘So do I, Sheila,’ Dale said calmly.

‘I haven’t done anything!’ Sheila screamed. ‘I’ve been abducted and now you’re threatening to kill me!’

‘I haven’t abducted anybody,’ Dale replied calmly. ‘You have Kathryn here to thank for that.’

Sheila blustered a fearful laugh. ‘You really think that I’m going to buy that, now?’

Dale shook his head as he strolled over to his trapped wife and replied.

‘Oh Sheila, you’re right. That’s what makes this whole thing so tragic, but I can assure you that Kathryn here has not been in league with me at all.’

‘Tragic how?’ Sheila gasped in horror.

‘I wasn’t going to kill you,’ Dale said. ‘I would happily have just taken all of your money and disappeared. That was my plan, you see. That’s what I do. It’s only when somebody else interferes that things get messy. And now it’s Kathryn here who will kill you.’

Sheila’s panic mutated grotesquely into panic. ‘What the hell are you talking about?!’

‘I need Kathryn,’ Dale went on calmly. ‘You see, worthless piece of trash that she is, she is an essential part of my exit strategy.’

Sheila’s arm whipped out from the restraints and Kathryn saw something thin and nasty in her hand flash in the light. Dale flinched away, caught off guard, but he was not quick enough. The needle–sharp pin, clasped in Sheila’s enraged fist, punctured Dale’s eyeball and he screamed in agony as he spun away, his hands flying to his face.

‘Get me out of here!’ Sheila screamed at Kathryn.

***

39

Kathryn lurched to her feet and dashed toward Sheila. Dale, still screaming, whirled and swung the pistol in his hand at Kathryn’s face. The butt of the weapon hit her square across her temple and she reeled sideways into the metal wall of the unit and collapsed, her vision starring.

Kathryn turned, her face slumped against the cold metal wall as she tried to haul herself back up to her feet.

She looked over her shoulder in time to see a grimacing Dale, one hand covering his injured eye, lift his right boot and smash it down with all of his might onto the back of her left ankle.

White pain shrieked through her leg as she heard her ankle crunch as though she had stepped in deep gravel. Kathryn sucked in a lungful of air and screamed as agony pulsed through her and she slumped onto the cold, wet floor of the storage unit. Dale stood over her crumpled body. The rainwater on his face mixed with the bloody scratches she had gouged into his flesh and the blood spilling from his punctured eye, dripping from his chin in scarlet globules that stained her shirt as he aimed the pistol down at her.

Kathryn fought for something to say, anything to distract him further.

‘How did you know I was here?’ she asked.

‘You keep the finest company,’ Dale snarled with a cruel smile. ‘Or used to.’

Kathryn’s guts plunged inside her. ‘Ally,’ she gasped. ‘Where is she?’

‘She squealed like a pig,’ Dale replied, ‘sold you out in a matter of seconds. I don’t suppose she’ll survive long enough to learn about what’s happened to you.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Kathryn gasped, one hand raised as though she could somehow stop the bullet.

‘Me?’ Dale asked rhetorically, his teeth gritted against his pain. ‘I’m not going to do anything, Kathryn. You are.’

Dale knelt down on one knee alongside her. Kathryn recoiled from him and a fresh bolt of agony surged through her leg.

‘Best you don’t move,’ Dale grinned coldly. ‘In fact, let me help you with that.’

He moved far too quickly for Kathryn to stop him. She barely had time to register the syringe he pulled from his pocket before it plunged into her neck. She gasped and squirmed as a bitterly cold fluid was injected into her, and the words
Pancuronium bromide
flashed through her mind.

Dale yanked the syringe out and stood up, towering over her. His wounded eye was weeping tears of blood like some bizarre and hellish vision of evil.

‘What have you done to her?’ Sheila asked.

Kathryn felt a new fear flood cold and clammy through her as she felt her hands and feet tingling. Despite the pain soaring through her leg she realised that she could no longer move it. Within moments she realised that her arms had fallen limp by her sides where she lay.

‘What have you done t….’

Kathryn’s voice trailed off as her head slowly sank onto the cold floor. She was conscious and could feel everything, but was utterly unable to even blink her eyes.

‘Pancuronium bromide,’ Dale said, his hand back over his bloodied eye again. ‘A sedative, strong enough to still every nerve and muscle in the body for an hour or two, not strong enough to stop the heart.’

Kathryn watched, trying to ignore her throbbing ankle as Dale squatted down alongside her once again. But this time, he cleaned the pistol on her blouse before turning it and placing in in her unresisting hand.

Sheila’s face blanched and she shook her head. ‘Please, no!’

Kathryn saw her yanking at her bonds, trying to escape the chair as Dale positioned himself behind Kathryn and lifted her hand in his, the gun clasped painfully within it.

‘Dale, please don’t!’

Kathryn saw Sheila’s tears spill down her cheeks, saw more fluids spill down her legs as she thrashed and tore at her bonds with her free hand. Dale looked at her, and for a brief moment Kathryn heard something of the man she had once known in his voice.

‘I’m sorry, Sheila,’ he said. ‘Really I am.’

Then Dale’s fingers squeezed Kathryn’s painfully hard.

The gunshot was deafening in the tiny storage unit. Kathryn smelled a whiff of smoke as her vision cleared and she saw Sheila slumped in the seat. Her long blonde hair was draped across her face, which hung sideways on her neck. In the centre of her chest was a dark red stain that spread slowly as it soaked into her blouse.

Kathryn, her body limp, felt tears trickle down her face as she lay on her side and stared at Sheila’s corpse, still strapped to the seat.

Behind her, she heard Dale stand up. He carefully took the pistol from her limp hands and dropped it into a plastic bag that he sealed. Then he walked across to Sheila’s side, and from his pocket he produced a small flick–knife. As Kathryn watched, Dale sliced a lock of Sheila’s hair from her head and slipped it into his pocket. Then, he returned to Kathryn’s side and squatted down before her.

The calm, quiet expression on his features did nothing to calm Kathryn’s nerves. If anything, she felt even more afraid.

‘Now, Kathryn,’ Dale said. ‘The police will be here soon. They will find Sheila’s body and they will immediately assume that you have killed her. Of course, I could leave you here with Sheila. It would be the perfect crime scene, wouldn’t it? I could use the same pistol to put a bullet in your head, stage your suicide. A woman on the edge, a cry for help, all that psychological crap that you enjoy so much.’ He shook his head. ‘But no. It would all be too perfect, too arranged, you know? Things need to look a little messier, a little more like you were totally deranged.’

Dale smiled. Kathryn felt her guts turn to slime within her.

Dale stood up and with a cloth carefully wiped the floor in front of her. It took her a few moments to realise that he was attempting to remove the gunpowder residue from the shot that had killed his wife. The low angle suggested by any residue might be considered suspect when firearms specialists examined the scene.