Джеймс Паттерсон - Revenge

Thank God for Sergei, insisting that he concentrate on reassuring the other girls that things were fine while the clean-up operation took place.

And then there was Karen. She had a gammy arm, but even so, you wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating toast. She seemed to quite like Jason as well. She often spent time with him in the office during her visits, just chewing the fat. They shared an unlikely passion for Downton Abbey .

It helped that she wasn’t Russian herself, of course; she had an English accent. But as far as Jason could tell—you weren’t exactly encouraged to ask questions—she was married to one of the Russians, a guy higher up the tree than Sergei. It also helped that the girls never warmed to her, nor she to them. That suited Jason down to the ground.

But Karen had taken a particular interest in Faye from the start. “What’s her name? Jace?” she’d asked on one of her visits. Jason had to admit that he was quite fond of the way Karen called him “Jace.”

“It’s a new girl. Well, been here a couple of weeks. Gorgeous, ain’t she?”

Karen was staring at the screen, staring intently at Faye, who was currently between punters, fixing her makeup, primping the bed, oblivious to the fact that she was being scrutinized.

“How did she get here?”

“One of the other girls brought her in. Precious, I think it was.”

“Is she using?”

Jason had nodded yes to that one. Girls tended to arrive at Foxy Kittenz after a journey whose stops along the way included abusive parents, violent partners, and drug addiction. All three, if they were really unlucky. Every single one of those girls was living proof that good looks and a firm young body weren’t necessarily a passport to getting ahead in this world. Fortune’s smile and parents who weren’t fuck-ups, those things were important, too.

“Faye,” Karen had said, repeating the word like a mantra. “I bet that ain’t her real name, though, is it?”

Jason had shrugged. All the girls used assumed names. More fool them if they didn’t.

“And I bet you could find out her real name for me, couldn’t you?” Fingers with red-painted nails found their way to his leg.

“How could I do that?”

Karen had a strange smile. It lifted her top lip to reveal a slightly crooked tooth below. Even so, despite that—actually, on second thoughts, maybe because of it—it was cute. And it did the job on Jason.

Moments later he was in Faye’s room. “Fancy a quick toilet break? I’ve got to adjust the cam,” he said, knowing Faye would jump at the chance—and do more in the toilet than just a wee.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” she said, smiling at him, and he thought, not for the first time, how much he liked Faye. He hoped he wasn’t helping get her into trouble with Karen.

Anyway, on with the job. Aware of Karen, in the office watching, he found Faye’s handbag, rifled through it, and in seconds flat had discovered her real name. Letting himself out, he returned to the office.

“Well?”

“Her real name is Emma—Emma Drake,” Jason told Karen, and watched closely for her reaction, which was a slow nod, the name evidently coming as no surprise to her. “You know her,” he pressed.

“Yeah,” Karen said. “You might say that. You might well say that, Jace.”

A couple of days later Faye killed herself, and for Jason the days of wine and roses were over. Not only did he have the trauma of that to deal with, but the studio had been shut down. And now he was out of a job.

So what did he do? As before, he sat around, smoked weed, and watched porn, only now he wasn’t getting paid for it. It was what he was doing when the buzzer went.

He crossed his small flat to the intercom. Thumbed the button. “Yeah? Who is it?”

“Jace, it’s Karen, sweetheart. I’ve got some wages for you. Well, not just wages. A little thank-you, you might say, for all your hard work and discretion.”

That’s more like it , he thought. He’d been feeling a little bit taken for granted. He’d briefly considered getting in touch with Karen and dropping a hint: Wouldn’t it be awful if the police found out about Faye? But then he’d had second thoughts.

He buzzed her up, waited until he heard her tap at the door, and then went to open it.

“Oh,” he said, because it wasn’t just Karen. With her was a tall guy wearing a leather bomber jacket.

“Oh, don’t mind him,” Karen tried to reassure Jason. “Just Dmitry getting jittery. Thinks I shouldn’t go anywhere alone.”

Jason kind of hoped she might just give him his wages at the door, but she made to come inside and he had little choice but to admit her.

“Nice place you’ve got here.” She smiled and he was 99 percent certain she was taking the piss, but what the hell? This was Karen after all, and he liked Karen, in all the ways.

He wondered if he should offer them tea, but then remembered he didn’t have any tea to offer. Besides, he really just wanted to get back to his weed and porn.

Karen stood there looking a bit like a secret agent. Black coat belted tight at the waist. Black leather gloves. “So you haven’t managed to find any other work yet?” she said.

“I’m considering my options,” he replied, dropping into the sofa as if to watch the TV, even though it was switched off.

“I’m sorry about the studio shutting,” she said. “It was this business with Faye.” He looked across at her and tried to work out what she was thinking. Jason wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box but he wasn’t entirely dim either, and he knew better than to ask Karen straight out whether she’d been involved in Faye’s death. For a moment the curiosity almost got the better of him, but then his eyes slid to the bodyguard guy, and he thought better of it.

“I hope that you’ve been discreet, Jace,” she said, smiling, but with a scrutinizing look on her face.

Sunk into the sofa, Jason suddenly felt vulnerable as Karen loomed over him. She moved forward a little and put one hand in her pocket. He swallowed. “What do you mean?” he said, knowing precisely what she meant but figuring it was best to play dumb. The bodyguard guy hadn’t moved from the front door.

“What I say,” she said sweetly. “You ain’t said anything to anybody about any of the goings-on at Foxy Kittenz, have you?”

“What? No, of course I haven’t. This is pretty much my social circle right here.”

“Good,” she said. She pulled a black-gloved hand from her pocket and swiped across his neck.

Jason saw the blood that sheeted down his front a second before he saw the Stanley knife in Karen’s hand. He flailed around uselessly for a few seconds on the sofa now saturated with his blood before unconsciousness quickly faded his world to black.

CHAPTER 23

“I’M REALLY NOT sure how I feel,” she told him.

Shelley looked at her. “Come again, Luce?”

“I said I’m really not at all sure how I feel about you going off to work for the Drakes under the circumstances.”

“Um, right,” he said. “Did I ask how you felt, then?”

Her lips pressed together. “No. You didn’t ask, actually. But you were about to ask. Or you should have asked. And just so we don’t get to the point where I get mad at you for failing to ask, I’m giving you my opinion anyway.”

There were times that Shelley suspected he was more at home in the field than he was in his own house. This was one of those times. “Uh, right. Sorry, Luce. I should have asked. Of course. We’re in this together.” Deep breath. Let’s start again . “Okay, how do you feel about me going?”

“I just said.”

“Yeah, but . . .”

“I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel.”