Jessie Keane - Ruthless

‘And you locked the car when you left it?’

‘Yes. I did.’

‘You’re sure?’ asked Hunter.

‘Perfectly sure. This person who was in the blast,’ said Annie. ‘ You’ve no idea who he or she is?’

It couldn’t be Redmond. Could it?

Hunter stood up. ‘Not yet. We’ll be in touch, Mrs Carter.’

‘Only that might tell us something important, don’t you think?’ said Annie.

He paused. Seemed to count to ten. ‘Our first and most urgent priority will be to discover the identity of the person who died.’

‘That’s a damned good place to start.’

Hunter glared at her. ‘Don’t give me any trouble, Mrs Carter.’

‘Of course not,’ she said, standing up and moving around the desk as his DI got to her feet too.

Annie escorted them to the drawing-room door and across the hall to the front door. When she opened it, Bri turned and looked at her. She widened her eyes at him.

‘Thanks for coming, DCI Hunter,’ she said as the policeman and his cohort went off down the steps, bypassing Bri with suspicious glances.

‘We’ll be in touch,’ said Hunter, his eyes resting coolly on her face.

‘Look forward to it,’ she said, and went back inside to make a telephone call to the States.

Next day everything was quiet at the house. Annie phoned Layla to check that she was OK – which she was – and then spent the rest of the day on tenterhooks, thinking this is the calm before the storm.

Her mind was a whirl of anxiety after another sleepless night, and when daylight began to stream in through her window she was consumed with dread. Another day of waiting. Followed by another night when she would go to bed in the master suite and think of Orla dying in there. And all the while Redmond might be out there, waiting his chance to come and get her.

She sat alone watching TV late into the evening, putting off the evil hour when she would have to go upstairs. When Rosa tapped on the door, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

‘Señora,’ said Rosa, coming in, smiling.

Annie was clutching a hand to her chest. She had to swallow hard to get her breath. ‘Yeah, Rosa. What is it?’

‘It’s…’ started Rosa, then someone stepped past her.

‘It’s your worst nightmare,’ said Max Carter, coming inside, and closing the door behind him.

Annie felt her heart flip. Her chest was so tight it was a struggle to breathe. What had he just said? That he was her worst nightmare?

‘You’re not quite my worst nightmare,’ she said coldly, flicking off the TV. ‘You’re flattering yourself. As usual.’

Max came over to the big pair of Knole sofas. He sat down on the vacant one, opposite where Annie herself was sitting. Leaned back. Studied her for a moment. ‘Layla phoned me,’ he said, his dark blue eyes on her face. Annie kept her expression neutral.

She’d been expecting him to arrive ever since Layla had told her she’d been in touch with him, but the reality of it was still a shock. She found herself feeling… well, she didn’t know what she felt.

Up to this point, contact between them had been practically non-existent. Now here he was, and his physical impact on her was no less than it had ever been. He was still a stunning man, she had to admit that. Fit lean body, black hair, dark tan, hard dark blue eyes that gave him the flashy, dissolute air of a riverboat gambler. He was gorgeous. She could see that, could admit it to herself. And once, that might have made her weaken. But those days were long gone.

‘I know Layla phoned you,’ said Annie. ‘She told me.’

‘She said Orla Delaney broke in here.’

‘That’s right. She did.’

‘She said that she shot her.’

‘That’s right too.’

Max frowned. ‘But I thought Constantine finished Orla. And her brother, that fucker Redmond.’

‘I thought he did too.’

‘The plane crash, did that not take care of it? When was it… nineteen seventy?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But how the hell could that be? You’re certain it was Orla?’

Annie took a breath. ‘It was her. No question.’

‘And please explain to me how you allowed my daughter to get hold of a gun, to actually shoot someone.’

Annie bristled at his tone. It was accusatory, to say the least.

‘ Your daughter? Excuse me – she’s mine too. And it happened like this: I heard someone moving about, coming up the stairs. I got your old gun, the.45, and woke Layla. Orla knocked me flat on my arse as she came through the bedroom door. She had a knife. Layla panicked, snatched up the gun and shot her.’

‘I’m not happy at any of this,’ said Max. ‘What sort of crap security you got here? You even switch the house alarm on?’

‘Rosa did it, same as she does every night. Orla cut the wires before she got in through the basement window. And we haven’t needed “security”. Why would we?’

‘See you’ve got one of the boys on the door now.’

Annie nodded. ‘Steve put Bri on there.’

‘And Steve cleared up?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where’s Layla now?’

‘In a safe place, until we know what’s going on here. Did she tell you about the man in the park?’

Max nodded. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about that?’

‘I was away when it happened.’

‘Where?’

‘Does it bloody well matter?’

He shrugged.

‘I was in the States.’

‘Right.’

‘On business.’

‘Oh yeah. Business.’

Annie could feel her blood pressure starting to build. Eight years apart, and he could still drive her mental.

Why did he always do this to her? Right now she wished she’d never met him. She regretted ever climbing into bed with him, and marrying him that first time when she’d been young and stupid. The only good thing to come out of that was her one and only child, Layla. And to think she’d been such a fool as to shed tears when she’d thought him dead.

Then she’d met Constantine, who’d been so much better for her, and she’d married him, but for God’s sake she had to go and lose him too… and then Max had reappeared, by some miracle he had survived, and that should have been the happy ending she’d craved but it wasn’t. They’d remarried but he’d been too jealous of Annie’s relationship with Alberto, Constantine’s son, to even see that he was wrecking their lives all over again.

She stared at him, narrow-eyed.

‘And how is Golden Boy?’ he asked.

‘ Don’t call Alberto that.’

‘Might’ve known you’d leap to his defence.’

Annie released a pent-up breath. No. She wasn’t going to put up with this again. No way.

‘I’m not having this conversation with you,’ she told him flatly.

‘No?’

‘No.’

Max was half-smiling, but the smile was cruel, calculating. ‘So – why didn’t you tell me after you’d come back from the States?’

Because I didn’t want to speak to you or see you or even know you’re breathing, she thought. Because it hurts.

She wasn’t about to tell him that.

Aloud, she said: ‘By that time, Layla had already told me she’d been in touch with you. I knew you’d show up.’

‘And you’re delighted to see me, I can tell.’

‘Oh yeah. Ecstatic.’ Annie smiled sourly.

‘I took a ten-hour flight to get here.’

‘Yeah. In first class. With air hostesses dropping their phone numbers “accidentally” in your lap, I’ll bet. That must have been rough on you.’

‘Is there anything else I should know about?’