The Millionaire Falls Hard (5 page)

As the flight returned her to Scotland and closer to her current reality, she felt herself tense. All the stress of the last couple of months flooded back to her. Oh, how she wished she could have just stayed at her friends' house until all this was over.

The moment she walked in the door, she sensed something had happened. It was the same feeling she'd had when she'd spoken with Moira, who'd looked after Charlie, at the weekend. Moira came out of the kitchen with a look of apprehension in her eyes that she didn't quite hide before Carrie saw it. Moira seemed over bright as she made Carrie a cup of tea.

Moira wasn't sure which bit she was more nervous telling Carrie about, the fact that Charlie had spent time with Jake Calderwood or her misinterpretation of his telephone call. She recalled that phone call vividly.

'Hello, I've got Charlie here.' She may not have reacted quite so strongly if he'd said his name, but he must have made an assumption that she knew who he was, the arrogant swine!

She closed her eyes now at the horror of her thoughts. She remembered screaming and Steve, Charlie's protection officer, running towards her and taking the phone from her. She'd felt so stupid once she'd realised it was a completely innocent call but it made her realise just how easy it might be for someone to snatch Charlie, even with protection.

She took a deep breath and filled Carrie in on the weekend's excitement.

As she listened to Moira, Carrie felt guilty for having enjoyed such a stress free weekend. How could she have left Charlie at a time like this and thought he'd be safe.

'How did he end up at the manor house? Did Jake take him there? Did he harm him in any way?' Carrie rushed out her questions not waiting for an answer. She just felt bereft and helpless at what she was hearing.

She listened again as Moira explained how Charlie had spotted the puppies and without thinking had just taken off after the landrover on his bike. Apparently Jake had been very good with Charlie, showing him how to handle the pups, stroke them and feed them. Charlie had decided that as they looked like two of his teddy bears, they should be called Skippy and Pongo. On hearing this Carrie snorted at the idea that Jake would entertain such names for his dogs, particularly coming from a child he didn't like.

Moira finally reassured Carrie that Charlie had been fine, and had come back raving about Jake as well as the dogs. It didn't make Carrie feel any better about the man but she did feel slightly less guilty for her own weekend.

*

Jake turned off his computer, stood up and gave his body a long stretch. He'd been intensely studying some key documents that Phil had sent him earlier on in the day and it was later than he realised when he'd made the last of his notes for the negotiations the next day. His body felt stiff having been hunched up for nearly four hours. He decided to go to the kitchen where he'd left the puppies and spend a bit of time winding down with them before bed. They seemed to have settled in brilliantly and he was pleased with his decision to get two. They were already showing their personalities - one more courageous and dominant than the other.

As he played with the pups his thoughts returned to the peculiar events of yesterday. He'd been surprised when Carrie's son had come up behind him while he took the puppies from his vehicle. He'd recognised him immediately and was surprised by the boy's friendliness, especially as he'd done a spectacular job of frightening him that day at the loch. An action he'd since regretted but hadn't yet found the chance to apologise for. Obviously the lure of puppies was too great for Charlie to be nervous about being in his company.

Jake smiled as he recalled Charlie's first sentence. 'Hello, I'm Charlie Gillespie, and you're the man with ideas above his station. Can I see your station after I've seen the puppies please?' Jake had been quite taken aback by that, but it gave him more of an insight into his mother's thoughts about him.

He was surprised at how much he'd enjoyed Charlie's company, he was a bright, amusing child who was clearly being brought up to respect his elders. A rarity today, Jake thought, if news headlines were to be believed. Charlie had been helping him with the pups, who now had the names of Skippy and Pongo, for half an hour when Jake discovered that no-one knew he was with him.

That phone call had been one of the strangest things about yesterday, he recalled. Why would a woman scream when he said Charlie was with him? Maybe she was frightened by what Carrie's reaction would be if she found out that she hadn't been looking after him properly. Jake found himself getting angry at Carrie for seemingly having so little regard for her son. What kind of mother was she, leaving him with someone who found it so easy to let him out of her sight like that. Part of him hoped she was a brilliant one, but he pushed that away. Being a careless mother fit better somehow with Gemmell's description of her.

The other strange, well, unsettling, if he was being honest with himself, thing about yesterday had been the man who came on the line and then came to collect Charlie. This one was younger than the one who had been with Carrie at the airport, but he still didn't seem right for Carrie. He'd offered no explanation as to who he was, merely thanked Jake for looking after Charlie. The boy had seemed happy enough to go with him, so he clearly knew him quite well. How many men did Carrie have in her life and what was her relationship with them, he wondered. Not that it should matter to him, but somehow it did.

He didn't like this attraction he felt towards Carrie especially given what he thought he knew about her, but he couldn't deny it was there. His body stirred as an image of Carrie with her flaming hair spread across his pillow and her green eyes smouldering up at him flashed into his head. His erection hardened and throbbed painfully as he vividly saw himself slamming into her until they both went over the edge. As Jake came out of his reverie, he realised he was breathing hard and fast. He didn't know how he was going to get Carrie into his bed but it was definitely going to have to happen, and soon.

*

Carrie had had a busy week and put the events of the previous weekend behind her. There hadn't been any more threats and they were all beginning to relax a little. This was a break in the pattern as up 'til now, they'd been very regular. Perhaps it was just a crackpot and he or she had got fed up playing their little game. Because there had been no more threats Carrie and the police had decided not to replace Charlie's protection officer while he was on holiday. Although Steve was good company and Charlie was clearly taken with him, life felt as if it had a sense of normality about it without Charlie's 'shadow'. She hoped Steve was enjoying his holiday and not in any rush to return.

Charlie was playing with Lynne's son, Josh, in the garden and Carrie was catching up with writing on her latest novel. It was friday afternoon and she was looking forward to a weekend of doing very little, just spending quality time with Charlie. He had been on at her all week to see the puppies again but Carrie just couldn't bring herself to ask Jake. She'd discovered from Charlie how great Jake had been with him and every other sentence seemed to begin with 'Jake this' or 'Jake that'.

Carrie was jolted out of her reverie by the sound of a child screaming. She looked up to see Josh running towards the house. She realised that Charlie wasn't with him and panic set in. Josh was hysterical and she couldn't get him to explain what had happened. Fearing the worst, she put in a shaky call to Alan and then to Lynne.

Within fifteen minutes, Alan, Moira and Lynne had appeared and Josh had calmed down enough to explain that he and Charlie had been playing hide and seek when Charlie had just disappeared. He'd been looking for him for ages before he'd got scared in the woods and given up.

'The woods! What do you mean the woods? You were supposed to stay in the garden,' screamed Carrie, herself now hysterical.

'Charlie's been kidnapped, I know he has. Oh God, how could we have ever thought the danger was passed?' Carrie sat down heavily at the kitchen table and put her head in her hands.

Whilst Moira tried to calm Carrie and Lynne took care of Josh, Alan put in a call to the station to organise a search.

If Charlie had been kidnapped, it was a waiting game but in the meantime it was eminently sensible to organise a search of the Estate. The police kept it low key, a few of them assigned to the woods where Josh had last seen him, whilst others went to search the other properties on the Estate.

*

Jake finished up at the office, relieved to be heading home with a free weekend ahead of him. As usual this week, he was the last to leave. He was looking forward to seeing his dogs and putting his feet up with a beer. His week had been one of the toughest yet. Perhaps he was getting too old for the cut and thrust of international negotiations. He'd almost met his match this time, but he'd pulled it off at the eleventh hour.

With the negotiations having been protracted he'd not had as much time as he would have liked to prepare for the political TV programme and had faced some difficult characters in the studio audience last night. He felt bone weary, which was most unlike him, and desperate to chill out.

Part of his tiredness could be because a certain flame haired beauty disturbed his sleep every night. He really was going to have to engineer a meeting soon. Perhaps he could invite Charlie up to see the pups again. Yes, that sounded like a natural way to see her. He felt a little less tired as he decided that was his best course of action.

Just as he came out of the shower he heard banging at his front door. He quickly threw some clothes on, irritated at the intrusion to his solitude. He was surprised to see two policemen at the door asking if they could search the place.

He was so dumbfounded he let them in and then felt his anger rise when they started searching all his rooms with no further explanation. All he could get out of them was that Charlie was missing.

Whilst they were searching, they started to ask him questions about how well he knew Charlie, how many times had he seen Charlie, where had he been that afternoon and many more. Jake tried to keep a lid on his temper and answered them as best he could. It seemed an interminable amount of time by the time they took their leave, seemingly satisfied that Jake didn't have the boy holed up somewhere. By this time Jake was seething with anger, at the accusations that he'd heard in their voice and the complete ruination of his evening.

Without thinking he stormed down to Carrie's house to give her a piece of his mind.

Unusually for him, he was blinded with rage and all he could think of was telling her what he thought of her as a mother. He didn't notice the extra activity at her house or the tears streaming down her face.

'You seem rather careless with that child of yours. First last weekend and now this. I do not appreciate having police banging at my door insinuating that I'm a common criminal. If you weren't so busy with your boyfriends, maybe you'd have time to keep an eye on your son.' Having laid vent to his emotions, Jake turned and stormed back the way he'd come. Why this woman brought out a side in him that no-one else ever saw completely dumbfounded him.

On his way back to his place he thought he should feel a whole lot better for having vented his emotions but strangely he only felt worse and couldn't figure out why.

*

'We've found him,' Alan called out to Carrie.

She was still in a complete state of shock over the way Jake had addressed her on the doorstep and didn't manage to take in what Alan was telling her. At that moment she hated Jake Calderwood as she had never hated anyone in her life.

'Carrie, we've found him. He fell into a disused animal pit in the woods and couldn't get out. He's scared and hurt his ankle but otherwise he seems OK. I've phoned for the doctor and he's on his way.' Still Carrie just stood there. Moira put her arm round her shoulder and at her touch, Carrie collapsed against her and sobbed with relief.

The weekend hadn't turned out to be anything like she'd expected, but at least Charlie seemed recovered from his ordeal. In fact he was chatting away about it to anyone who would listen as if it had just been one huge adventure that any child might have made up and acted out in the comfort of their bedroom.

As time distanced itself from friday evening Carrie became enraged at the way Jake had spoken to her, without firstly knowing any of the facts. Not being able to face a confrontation with him was all that stopped her from marching up to his property with a piece of her own mind. She just resolved to avoid him like the plague in future. She only hoped that would be possible when it looked like Lynne's relationship with his finance director was getting serious.

When she'd told Lynne about his behaviour, she'd sounded surprised. Lynne had found him to be good company and generous when she'd finally met him. It was clear, she'd said, that Phil thought the world of him.

Carrie didn't think her thoughts could get any more confusing and turned her attention back to Charlie.

Chapter 4

Carrie jumped out of her skin when the doorbell rang. It was nine o'clock on a Friday evening and she wasn't expecting visitors.

Damn those threats she thought, I'm becoming frightened of my own shadow. There had been another letter today and she hadn't been able to tell anyone - Alan and Moira were away for the weekend and when she'd tried to speak to Lynne, she'd just blanked her.