The Girls Club (23 page)

Chapter 12

“Yes. Yes. Uh-huh. Yes, I said yes! Just, just do it!”

Charlotte Toulouse had just spent eight hours ringing the whole world and his wife it seemed.  If Rochelle skipped town before Sarah was located than it might well be a burden placed at her door when she did show up.  She would have Rochelle lifted and put somewhere safe.  Karen she wasn’t sure what to do with.  She wasn’t happy sanctioning her silence.  Didn’t really think she had done anything to warrant such a harsh decision.  That was why Sarah was the senior.  She usually handled all the dirty deeds, she had the morality of a garter snake.

No word as of yet.  She had texted Sarah and left maybe half a dozen voice mails.  The cell was on, her messages all showed as ‘sent’.

She walked out of her office and turned left into the darkened hallway to go into Sarah’s office.  The scene presented itself as desperate. Had Karen been in on the whole affair she had been very clever.  If she had though it would have made zero sense not to have come into work today, that would have screamed of her guilt.  Besides.  She’d not been here three months.  Not enough time to gain the kind of alliance required to silence ‘psycho’ Steiger. 

She absently picked up the cigar box. 

“Shit dammit” she thumped it back down.

The firm was going to go down the pan.  When the demand came in, whatever it might be, it may well be to turn over their own client list, and it wouldn’t end there.  It had gone rather wrong.  She toyed with the idea of calling Skylar, seeing if she could tease something out of Heidi Huntington-Wolfe, it wasn’t inconceivable that she would know something, she was top ten after all.

Sarah’s being top ten meant she could rely on a certain amount of courtesy.  She wouldn’t be killed.  If she played her cards right.  She might well get sent back with her tits on backward but she had pretty much asked for that over the years.  Charlotte left the room, it felt crypt like.  And like all good lawyers she wondered when the shit would visit her door.  She had been in on the spying.  But not with what happened to Demi, Sarah had really gone OTT on that score, Charlotte presumed it was over zealous defence of her little sister.  That being said though Sarah Steiger had never needed a reason to open her can of whupass.  A loose cannon, full of loose screws.

Tomorrow Rochelle would be picked up and taken to the Holiday Inn at the airport.  The instructions were very clear, she was not to be harmed.  Just held.  Karen was to be subdued and then left, they could tie her up if necessary, but only if necessary.

If Karen could be made to understand that Rochelle couldn’t leave, well, not at least until this silliness was cleared up and Sarah back behind her desk where she should be then it should be relatively friction free.

Charlotte packed her briefcase with the files for the Huntington-Wolfe case, it would be started Monday and if she at least attended and made a tardy excuse for more time she’d have more chance of Sarah being back to deal with it.

She left her cell on loud ring all the way home, she would be ready to snatch it up the second it rang.  She told herself not to worry, surely she had to score points for making sure Rochelle didn’t clear off before Sarah had chance to say goodbye.  Charlotte knew about Denise.  That was her get out of jail free card.  Sarah had blurted it out over beer in the bar one night.

“Got her fucking clock cleaned. Fucking dyke, whore!” raising her voice and spilling beer, fading bruises on her cheeks from the licks she’d taken.

Weeks later when Sarah had asked Charlotte to take care of a piece of business relating to a certain drug dealer getting bailed Charlotte had put her foot down.  She had truly never agreed with that kind of thing.  If a drug dealer got caught they deserved whatever they got.

“You’ll do it because I can make your life a misery if you don’t”

“Sarah” her smile at its zenith, “Lets make a deal, I won’t tell anyone you had Denise silenced, in exchange for that secret we won’t be helping any more dealers out of the slam. You know I hate junk freaks”

Sarah’s face had dropped like a stone.  No one was ever supposed to call Sarah out, when she wanted something doing it got done, no question about it.  There was no recollection in her mind of telling Charlotte what she’d done.  No sense in denying it though.  She’d enjoyed it.

The deal had been struck.  The only thing she had ever gotten Sarah to agree to. 

Charlotte wasn’t worried at all.  The hours she had spent, applying careful planning, getting just the right people involved.  It was just for security’s sake that’s all.

She shut off lights as she left, there were a few left on, her own, the canteen, the reception.  In the reception area she came over goosebumps.  Like someone was watching.

“Come on” she whispered to the elevator.  Never before had the sound of the lift arriving sounded so much like heaven.  She leapt in and bashed the ground floor key, down the near pitch black corridor she could see the outline of a person, and it started to move!

“EH!” she slammed the keypad, a sob escaped her, she slunk against the back of the elevator as the doors slid shut.

“Ha,hahahaahaaha. HA! Yar bitch!” she high-fived the mirror wall of the lift.  It had been a close call.  How long had that person been in there?  And who was it?  She’d see the doorman on the way out.  She reached the ground floor and the door whooshed open.  A light tremble remained with her, she straightened her suit jacket and walked across to the front desk.  Looking back over her shoulder she saw the lift had been called back up.  Well, whoever it was, they were going to be in for shock, the night watchman had a gun. 

She arrived at the lobby desk and her face twitched.  The night man might well have already met her unknown visitor it seemed.  She didn’t know where the rest of him was, but the top half of his head was perched in front of the security monitors.  Someone had cut it from in between his upper and lower gums.  His hat was still on his head, his black skin grey from blood loss, a puddle of icor and gore on his signing in book.  She looked back over her shoulder and saw the lift had started to descend, she also noticed a large runner of gore that led around the corner at the bottom of the hall.

Charlotte lost all composure and ditched her briefcase,
Fuck Huntington-Wolfe,
Mondays case was no longer top priority, but saving her own skin was.  Her sensible flats saved her from a tumble, she skidded on the moist surface and just managed to keep her balance.  As she was at the door she heard the elevator
boing
its insanely normal tone but never spared it a look back.

The visitor watched her leave from behind a rubber mask fashioned like a vampire with sloping black hairline and porcelain skin tone. 

Charlotte wasn’t going to sleep very well tonight, maybe not ever again.

The visitor took the briefcase and looked through the contents.  Black leather gloves making rasping noises on the buff material.  The visitor lovingly traced a fingers through the blood around the night watchman’s severed head.  His gun tucked into the waistband of her pants, the shells from his drawer in her pocket.

“Heh”

Then the visitor emptied the case and left.  The work at the office done for the day.

When morning came for Rochelle she felt like she hadn’t slept enough.  But in her gut she knew today was going to be a very big day.  Important.  The percussions of which would be felt from the bottom of the Chain to the very top.  She wasn’t overly worried.  Rather sanguine.  Her place was with Karen.  There was no saving Sarah and her possessive behaviour had cost her one partner.  Forgiveness had been hard fought, Rochelle believed in loyalty and her heartbreak taken as a lesson to be learned.  There had been a day when she had thought she could help Sarah.  By being loving and supportive, always there, if not for Sarah’s sake than for anyone else who she would ever come into contact with.

She was a genius in the courtroom.  Flamboyant and gutsy she had won over 90% of all cases she had argued.  But the genius was tainted with something a great deal more sinister.  Her narcissistic side taking over, making her feel above the law, of men, the land, and the Chain.  The laws of men and the land hadn’t so far ensnared her, but it looked like the Chain was apt to.

When the hard thumps came at just after 7 am she felt calm.  She let her soul fill will clear blue water.  She could do this. Karen had told her so.

Through the peephole she saw three goons.  One she recognised and the other two, well, meat heads.  Rochelle mustered her courage, of which she had in abundance, and opened the door.

“Morning girls” she went back into the apartment and sipped her coffee. 

The lead meat head, a blonde with a neck wider than her head shook her head.

“No time for that”

“Oh. Right. Why exactly? Has Sarah been found? Does she want to see me?”

“No. But you do need to come with us”

The other two meat heads went round the corner into the bedroom.  They had instructions to subdue the other, the British lass.  They returned after 30 seconds and looked at the blonde, “Casey, she’s not there”

Rochelle looked at her coffee cup. 

“Whaddya mean she ain’t there? Look again, check the wardrobe and under the fucking bed! Do I have to do everything?”

The two women exchanged an ‘oh shit’ glance and went back through.

There were clattering sounds, stuff being knocked over, a banged door.

“Well?” meat head Casey called to them.

“Nothing, really nothing!” came the reply.

“Where is she?” she gripped Rochelle on the forearm.

“I don’t know. When I woke up she was gone. Just gone”

“Really?” she shook her arm a little.

“Really! Now get off! Sarah’ll get to hear about it if you hurt me.”

Casey lost her composure a little at this.  She didn’t want to upset Sarah Steiger, she’d heard what had happened to the last person who’d upset her.  Little itsy pieces.  Not a happy thought.

“You have to come with us” she crossed her arms, her buddies bringing up the rear.

“Fine. Just fine. I’m going to pack a bag”

“Why?” Casey the meat head asked.

“Well, I don’t know how long I’ll be wherever it is, so I might need some stuff”

“Go with her” she nodded to the goon on her left.

When Rochelle went to the bedroom to waste some minutes packing a change of clothes and a few hygiene essentials Casey took out her cell, she dialled Charlotte Toulouse’s number.

“Hello”

“Yeah. Its me.”

“What the fuck you ringing me for you steroid baited bitch?” panic in Charlotte’s voice.
“Listen, the Brit ain’t here”

“I don’t give a good God damn! Leave me out of it, whatever you have to do regarding the Brit, within reason!” and she rang off.  As if talking to someone in the process of an abduction would be irrevocably tattooed across her face for the whole world to see.

Casey squinched her eyes against the shrill tones from the lawyer.  She turned to her other colleague.

“There aren’t many places for this Brit to go. She’s not been here long. Start at the offices where she works in case she’s being fucking cute, then the office bar and from there I want the employee list from Tarkingtons because we’re going to go visiting.”

“Sure thing”

“And Sheila?”

“Yeah Case”

“Don’t, fuck, up! I want a call from you when you find her, do NOT take her alone”

They exchanged a solemn stare.

“Ok”

Rochelle came back with the third of the trio, a rucksack with some bits rammed into it.

It’s alright.  Karen has made you a promise.  To keep her head down.  To not play the hero.  Lets see how much she really does love you.

As Rochelle was being packed up against the Chain goon and driven to the chosen place where she was to be stashed, across town Karen was making a phone call.

“Answer dammit!” she told the mobile. It rang and rang and rang.

“Hi!” the exorbitant reply came.

“Sky?”

“Yeah. How’d it go?”

“Well they don’t know where I am. Just. Are you sure you wanna help me do this?”