Yield (36 page)

“Oh?” He smiled suspiciously. “And that’s you too, I suppose?”

“No.” I shook my head while checking out the rug at his feet. Then I looked directly at Glass. “No. My morals aren’t so good, but I’m an accountant. I like things tidy. I’m evening out the balance of good and evil in the world...for once.”

“Uh-huh. If you’d said you were an angel I’d have beaten you before I let you out of here. I know what you did to Wren.”

“I’m sorry, man. I didn’t know who she was, or why she was there.”

The silence stretched like a rusty strangling wire.

“Okay.” He sniffed and made a face like something smelled bad to him. “Help me find her and I’d even forgive you if you were a fan of that Bieber kid. Take a seat. Wait, before you do, is there another button on this that turns off your fuck-’em-all-dead squad?”

I chuckled. “Give me my phone and I’ll get them to stand down.”

He tossed it to me. “Type good and fast. My trigger finger has mayonnaise on it and might slip.”

“I’ll show you the message before I hit send.”

Chalk up one slightly wonky Good Samaritan point.

Wren

Climbing up the ladder happened, step by wet step. My feet, I had to tell them what to do, on every single rung, or they forgot. How much blood had I lost?

I found myself face first on the cold tiles and my knees slipped as I scrambled to all fours. Somehow, I’d scaled the railing. Under me was a puddle of red and pink water.
Jesus.
It always looked worse when you added water.

The knife was beside my hand. I stared, gathering energy, then fumbled to pick it up. I rose to my feet, by stages, like an old woman, breathing hard.

Where was he? The pool? This was what I had to do.

I padded onward. The one time I looked behind me, I saw a trail of pink footprints.

Water makes blood look worse. I’m fine. Maybe a little dehydrated.

I’d had a whole pool of water and I’d not drunk any. Typical me.

I found him on the patio, kneeling, staring out at the pool. His strong shoulders and the bulk of his arms daunted me but I reminded myself of my purpose and banished my fear. He wore black drawstring pants only, and seemed to be meditating – not something I’d ever seen him do before.

Fatigue made my eyes feel scratchy. My brain swam. All my pains came and pounded at me at once. My whole body throbbed, even my feet. Yup. I was fine.

Not the time to make a mistake. Be careful.

I swallowed and walked onward, my feet squeaking on the tiles despite my caution, until I stood over him, poised, the knife held in the right way for slipping between his ribs. If I miscalculated, he’d beat me, or kill me.

Shit happens. I was done with being his victim.

My breathing rasped so loud.

“You know I’m here.”

“Yes.” His tone shocked me; it was bitterly hard.

“Why?”

“Because...this way, I know. All or nothing. I want you, all or nothing.” He laughed, and again it was harsh. “I brought you to this. You’ve got the knife. Decide. I predicted you’d get this far but you’re bleeding more than I expected. I need to fix that.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said, bemused, wanting to disconnect. I didn’t want his pity or his care. Why had I spoken? The more he said the harder this was to do.

Over his shoulder, I saw a tablet lying before him, and on the screen were four squares of camera footage. One showed the viewing room, others the trail of my footprints.

Moghul waiting passively, for me to strike? What was the trick?

Kill, or be his.

Glass was waiting for me.

I had to do this.

If he let me. My grip on the knife crunched in.

He wants me all or nothing.

Then it was fucking nothing. My stomach rebelled as I swung. I knew my anatomy facts and the lie of the ribs, I thrust the knife into him side-on and prayed.

It slipped in with a
thunk
at the end, like carving a roast that breathed...and was human. He jerked forward, scrabbling at the knife and plucking it out, releasing a gout of blood.

“Wren!”

He folded forward, the knife dropping from his fingers, blood pouring down his back. Before I released it, the hilt had shuddered in time with his heartbeat, like the needle in a cardiac injection. I knew the feel.
Christ.

This is wrong.

I’d buried the blade in exactly the right place.

I staggered away, mortified by the result. I tripped over my feet to fall in a heap, dizzy, gulping down bile. For a killer, I was bad at following through.

“God! Damn!” He half-coughed and groaned out the words.

With my palms on the tiles to steady myself, I raised my head.

Was it a triumph, the pinnacle of my achievements, to see him die, sprawled out on the tiles gasping? No. I was horrified. This man had been such a force in my life for so long, and I’d brought him low. It sickened me. A single blade in the heart had done it.

It didn’t seem possible, or right.

He’d almost told me to kill him. No. Still not right.

I’d retreated backward in fear but now I sneaked forward on my knees, watching the last of his breaths. A building storm of grief behind my eyes made me feel as if my head was about to explode.

His mouth opened and he stared, unfocused, but I think he knew I was there.

I inched forward, still on my knees with tears slipping down my face. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry it came to this. I didn’t...”

I couldn’t say I didn’t mean to kill him, because I had.

“I didn’t want to do this.” I closed my eyes. “I just wanted you gone.”

I leaned on my hands again but found my arms wobbling. Even my legs felt like they weren’t part of me. A thin sound echoed in my head.

Moghul coughed and I looked at him, through a gathering smear of light.

“Don’t blame yourself. It was me. Now I know. You always were good with a knife.”

Then he smiled, and took a half breath, and stopped. Just stopped, and breathed no more. I was free, finally.

I lay my cheek on the tiles because my head had become too heavy to hold up and the world slowly toppled off its axis and teetered away into the blackness of space.

Glass

According to Chris, this man Moghul kept to himself. Whatever empire of evil he commanded, he separated it from what happened at home. The chances of us meeting anyone except him or Wren should be tiny. Didn’t matter a lot. We took no chances.

The small charge blew in the locks and we entered via the front door and a high window after tossing in flash bangs. The neighbors were a quarter of a mile away and his driveway long and concealed. We should be fine unless he’d connected his alarm system to the police station. Which wasn’t at all likely.

We swept through the house as fast as we could, but the place was a fucking maze. The one house plan had come from Chris, if reluctantly. But he’d googled it. This mansion had been a local celebrity while it was erected. If only we’d thought that through, with details from Wren, we could’ve tracked down where this house was located. No need for Chris. Parts of it were unique, especially the huge louvre system above his two-story garden.

The cops would’ve figured that out eventually. We just hadn’t had the time. For a perfectionist, like Chris thought this man was, he still made mistakes. Maybe Wren had knocked the poor man off kilter.

I nudged open a timber-and-glass door that led out to that very pool area. Two bodies lay at the very edge of the roofed area. Even from the doorway, I could tell one was Wren, one a man.

“Wren!” I took off at a run, accelerating, wishing I had wings despite my legs going like pistons.

She lay on her side on the sandstone, naked. Still and white, and a yard away from a man who was clearly dead. A large pool of blood colored the tiles beneath him. From the glance I spared him, and Chris’s description, the corpse was Moghul. Someone had killed him. Could Wren have done it? The fucker was big and fit.

I prayed my men were clearing the area, because I didn’t have time. I went to one knee beside her, unsure at first how much of the blood was hers and how much was his.

Her foot rested in the bigger pool, which came from a wound in his back. The rest of the blood seemed hers and under her shoulder.

“Wren? Baby?”

I knew basic medic training and checked her carotid pulse, her breathing. She was alive and stirred as I talked to her. Pale, and that could be from shock or blood loss. The few wounds on her back weren’t enough to kill her, surely. One of them, a deep L-shaped tear, was still leaking blood – a little arteriole squirted tiny but strong geysers of blood. I put pressure on it and checked under her again. Not a lot of volume. Freaky, but I could stop this easily.

Her pulse was fast but had good strength, as far as I could tell.

Pieter arrived and squatted next to me. “We’re good. No one else is here. How is she?”

“Lost some blood. Give her a drink if she’s conscious enough to swallow. Wren?”

We managed to get her to sit up enough to swallow some water from a canteen safely, then I let her rest her head on me and pulled out my throwaway phone.

I shut my eyes for a second, only. Safe. I had her back. The unease at seeing her semiconscious prodded me.

“I have to get an ambulance here, Pieter. Double check the house on the way out. I’ll stay until the last moment. Leave me the Veedub Golf.”

We had two vehicles.

He nodded, gave Wren and the dead guy a once over, surveyed the pool area. “Okay. I guess you’ll be right without us. You meeting us back in PNG or up north?”

I held up a finger to silence him as I contacted the emergency services and told them there was a woman screaming about a bad accident at a house. Gave the address, hung up.

I crouched over her and she blinked up at me then gave a small smile. “Hey there. I have to go soon, Wren, but I’ll stay until the ambulance arrives. I’ll find you and visit you as soon as I can. Okay?” Her eyes closed again. Had she heard? An ache started up in my chest. “Fuck. I hope that’s enough. I can’t stay, Pieter. Not to go with her to the hospital. They’d jail me. I’m going to do my disappearing act here, then figure out how to see her after. You –” I nodded, looked at him. “I think you’re all fine to go home. We’re done here. That bastard is dead.”

“Yeah, he is. Wren knifed him from the looks of it.” He stood, gestured at a knife lying a few feet away. “He must’ve let his guard down. Take care, man. Keep us advised. Ja?”

“Sure. Ja. Go. Now. I don’t want you all in trouble with the law. Here.” I handed him my Steyr assault rifle. Take it back with you. I’ll just keep my pistol. In case.” He walked away. “Oh! Rig the door so I hear it if anyone comes in!”

“Okay, boss.”

I watched him file out with Sam, Jurgen, and two other of my men then I cradled Wren until I heard distant sirens. Thank heaven for ambulances and their warnings, though I would’ve scaled the wall if I had to.

They took her to the mainland hospital, flew her over by chopper. I watched it go overhead. By then I was on my way back to the mainland anyway. Wouldn’t have been wise to be stuck on the island with the cops going crazy.

Within a few days, they declared her kidnapper had been found. Two days after that, her police guard at the hospital was replaced by security sent by the board of trustees set up for Wren’s finances. They switched her to a posher hospital even. Her father had thought of everything, almost, except how not to die, and how not to behave like a prick. The new head of her security, Jon, was a protégée of Hugh’s and I’d met him before. We got on well and it was a simple matter to sneak into her private hospital room.

Anyone else would’ve been sent home by now and she was due out tomorrow. I needed to see her before she flew south, to Sydney, or went back to university.

She was asleep. The blue curtains let in a muted morning light and made her look like the angel I knew she was. Her wounds were clean, healing, and stitched, but something had happened last night that Jon said they’d not told her about and that she was sedated but coming out of it. The doctor was due to inform her today.