Sarah Cox—Tuesday, February 3 (yesterday)
Breathe, that’s what she needed to think about now. It was all going to be okay.
Black was stupid, no question about that, but he also had an awful lot to lose, and he’d shown his hand way too early. If he could’ve just kept his dumb mouth shut and ridden this out, they’d have been fine, though she’d rather he’d managed to kill himself, that would’ve been neater.
There was another problem, though, not insurmountable, but that had to be dealt with.
Cox leaned back in her car, fished out her pay-as-you-go phone from beneath the driver’s seat, and dialed the number.
“Please don’t call me again.”
Cox smiled at the greeting.
“Don’t hang up,” she said, her voice very calm. “I haven’t told anyone that you’re not on rugby tour. I haven’t asked anyone to check the signal. I’m pretty certain I’m the only one who knows what you’re doing. Goodness knows, if Sam found out you were shacked up with your ex-wife again, she’d shop you in a heartbeat. I think you broke her heart, you know.”
He was silent for a while, but he hadn’t hung up.
“Look, I’m not with Sam, and I’m not ‘shacked up’ with anyone. I’m spending time with my little girl, because she’s staying at my mum’s for a week, and you know full well why I have to do it.”
“It is a little bit sad, Mark, you have to admit it. Running out of leave and having to lie your way to spending time with your daughter without her mummy’s knowledge. I mean, it’s gloriously heartbreaking that a father would take the risk just to see his daughter, but still, just go to court, for God’s sake, and get it sorted legally.”
This time he was silent for longer, and Sarah knew he wouldn’t speak unless she did.
“I’d help you. My uncle—”
“I’m not doing what you want me to do to pay for your help. You’re a fucking freak, you hold your uncle over me like I’ll go to prison if I tell anyone, but you know full well that you’d be in the shit, too, just for asking.”
Sarah held the phone away from her ear and looked at it.
Coker was such a granny.
She’d really thought he’d had potential, seemed like a bit of a playboy when she first heard about him, and women definitely liked him, but all she’d suggested, after months of contact involving long and tedious talks about sports training and conditioning, was that he videotape himself screwing the loud, slutty one from the junior rates’ mess.
It’d have been a start, something to get a small, initial hook into him with, something to build on and develop.
She’d seen him on the rugby field, seen him working out in the gym; small, but powerful, driven, and aggressive; he could fuck women for her with the right motivation, just like he could come to see her now with the right motivation.
“What do you want?” Mark said after a long pause.
“I want to talk, not for long.”
“What about?”
“Tash contacted me. She’s frightened, she’s been up home for some reason and it didn’t go well. She wants to come back, but she’s worried about going to the commanding officer’s table. She’s coming here. I said I’d call you and get you to come here and talk to her before she goes.”
“Okay,” said Mark, without hesitation.
“But, Mark, you must tell no one, okay? We’ll wait for you.”
“Put her on the phone,” he said, pausing, then adding, “please.”
“I can’t, but she’ll be here any minute and then you can speak to her face-to-face.”
“Okay, I’m on my way,” he said. “I’ll only be a few minutes.”
“Thank you. Tash really needs you,” she said, “and park up the side, out of sight, in case anyone from the ship sees your bike; I’ll keep your secret for you.”
Sarah ended the call and grabbed her bag. She stepped out of the car onto the gravel drive and headed for the side of the house. She had to, because the bloody, stupid front door stuck so badly it was impossible to open these days. She’d asked her dad to have it changed, or at least fixed, but he wouldn’t even hear of it, told her to “improvise, adapt, and overcome,” to “spend more time on isometrics and swinging clubs to build up that strength.” Instead, she’d just started using the side gate and back door. She’d asked for a light to go up there, too, but the response to that had been something about keeping bridge watches in the darkest of nights, in the middle of the ocean, under thick clouds where the light simply didn’t reach, or some such bollocks.
She walked along the side and reached for her keys, the padlock falling away in her hand as soon as she grasped it.
Sarah’s heart missed a beat.
Her hands began to shake and she thought about running, right now, but it could be nothing, an attempted break-in. No one knew, and even if Black had recovered enough to open his mouth, there’d be police everywhere.
The gate pushed open quietly and Cox stepped through. She was wary, listening, walking slowly, trying not to make a sound as she approached the back of the house and scanned the garden.
Nothing.
She moved to the back door, instantly knew it’d been opened by force.
No way would the police do this. No way would they break in, put a padlock back again, force a door, and try to reset it so it looked normal.
She lowered her bag to the floor and looked in through the kitchen window.
The room was empty.
She pushed the door open and stepped inside, placing her foot down slowly, walking to the countertop area and pulling a large knife out of the block. Then she headed up the stairs.
Her mind was changing now. Was it possible that someone hadn’t broken in, but had instead broken out?
If so, she’d need to move fast, to run, but first she needed to know for sure.
She reached the landing and saw the door to Natasha’s room, the broken frame from where it had been kicked open from the outside. She ran toward the door, pushing it open and looking to the bed, the empty bed.
“Shit, fuck!” She spat the words out as a wave of rage washed over her, as she tried to process what was going on.
Natasha was gone. Escaped. But if it was escape, how did she get out, free herself? How could she have cut the padlock, forced the back door? Her bedroom door had been kicked in from the outside. No, not escaped—been freed.
“Fucking Black!” she shrieked, clenching her hands and biting so hard that she drew blood from her lower lip.
“No, no, no.”
It couldn’t be Black. He might have figured she was here, but he was in custody, no way he was getting out of there. Then who?
She turned in circles for a moment, looked up at the ceiling and then down at the floor.
“Who?” she said, the word seething out from her.
She walked into her bedroom, next to Natasha’s, and stopped.
Her bedding was white, with small flowers around the trim, and in the center of it, laid in a small pool of dark, crusty red, was a human finger.
Sarah stopped now, her heart pumping.
No one, but no one, escapes and then cuts off their finger to leave as a calling card. She grabbed it, recognized the two engagement rings, each cheap and worthless, then hurled the finger against the wall.
She heard it drop behind the dresser, and then she heard a voice in the downstairs hallway.
She spun, walked toward the door, the thick carpets masking any sound, and waited.
“Tash? Sarah?”
“Up here,” she called, listening to his muffled footsteps as he bounded up the stairs.
She watched him through the crack in the door as he stepped onto the landing and saw the broken door to his current love’s bedroom.
“What the fuck?” he said, looking around.
“Tash! Sarah!” he shouted now, his voice louder, more urgent.
She saw the panic in his face; he really was one of the good guys, she’d misjudged him.
He acted loud, but he was all talk and no trousers, acted like a player but was just a little boy, idealistic and naive, in love, a waste of a great body; corrupting him slowly would have been a lot of fun, and those muscles of his could’ve done some serious damage to a handpicked partner.
Here and now, though, she smiled at the panic in his voice.
She stepped out from behind the door and smiled, the knife behind her back.
“I’m okay,” she said, a sniff and a sob breaking through as she let her shoulders fall and stepped toward him. “Tash isn’t here yet, but I’ve been burgled.”
He hesitated when he should have just embraced her, that’s what a good guy would’ve done, but the discomfort was evident in his eyes.
She hunched down and tried to shrink into him, as though she were not bigger, broader, as though she was a little woman, frail and in need of protection.
He did eventually reach out, wrapping his arms hesitantly around her oversized frame; he obviously didn’t feel comfortable with girls as big as her, while he’d been completely natural with Natasha’s petite frame.
She leaned her head on his shoulder and slipped her arm around him. Then she drove the knife up, under his ribs, and into his lung.
He shuddered and gasped, and Sarah pulled back so she could see his face as his mouth dropped open.
Her stomach tingled the way it had the first time William had touched her, the first time he’d gently pushed her away, not interested in more after what she’d watched him do.
It was so much nicer when you could really see what was happening, see the pain and pleasure mix in his eyes.
“Don’t bleed on my carpet,” she whispered as she laid him down on his stomach and ran to get towels.
She stemmed the flow and then dragged him into the bathroom, where the tiles would be easier to clean. Then she stood up and looked around.
What was she doing?
Someone had come for Natasha.
Someone had taken Natasha.
Someone knew.
There were no police here; Black was locked up; Coker was whimpering out his last breaths at her feet; and Natasha was gone.
She looked down at Mark Coker and then leaned over the toilet and vomited.
The plan was shot. Making him vanish and become the main suspect in Natasha’s disappearance was no longer viable.
Someone knew, they’d been here, and that meant that more would soon know.
She wiped her mouth and looked at Coker again as though seeing him for the first time.
He was dead, she’d killed him, in her own house.
“Stupid bitch!” she cursed.
She vomited again, then took a deep breath.
It wasn’t the fact that she’d killed him—that’d been the plan all along—but here and now, after what had happened? This was bad, a big mistake. She needed to get rid of this body, and she needed to run.