Up until now, I hadn’t been all that involved in the whole Lionel case. I didn’t really know that much background on him, other than what Adam had told me. Since my job was basically just to spy on him and report back, reading up on his alleged past offences didn’t seem that important, and to be honest I hadn’t really wanted to know what he was capable of.
Now, though, the situation necessitated it.
When I stepped into the dimly lit café, it took my eyes a few seconds to adjust even though it was a gloomy wet day outside. After blinking a few times, I scanned the room. When I spotted Sheila I exhaled a breath I hadn’t realised I was holding.
She smiled when I approached her and gestured to my Quokka Shocker bag resting under the table. “I thought I looked ridiculous lugging that thing around with me, but now that I see you I feel much better.”
She had a point. I hadn’t looked in a mirror, but I’d gone to bed with my hair wet and I was still wearing pyjamas and no shoes. Plus I’d just been rained on and had walked over enough wet concrete to leave black, muddy footprints wherever I stepped. (There were sneakers in my bag, but my feet were already beyond saving – no point putting them on now and ruining a nice pair of shoes.) Several people on the street outside as well as in the café had turned their heads as I walked by, and I suspected it was not in a good way, but I chose to believe it was just that C’s PJs made me look hot.
“I don’t think either of us should go home,” I said. “Lionel could be waiting for us.”
“Lionel?” She frowned, confused. “Who’s that?”
“He’s a club owner. Your accountant – the guy who turned up dead – also worked for him.”
“Why would he be after me?”
“I don’t know, but seeing as he trashed your yard, I’d say he’s got something against you.”
“And why is he after you?”
“Because I’ve been spying on him for Adam.”
“Right. And you think he knows where we both live?”
“I think there’s a definite chance.” It was lucky Sheila had managed to escape my room before he showed up looking for me. I was sure he’d try my house next, so it wasn’t a good idea to –
Oh shit.
Lea.
I rifled through the Quokka Shocker bag in a frenzy, searching for my phone. Eventually my fingers slid over the smooth screen and I yanked it out, calling Lea.
“Where are you?” I demanded the second she answered.
“At my parents’ house,” she replied. “I’m celebrating, because – drumroll – I have a job interview tomorrow!”
“Lea, that’s awesome, but I can’t really talk right now. Can you stay with your parents tonight? Don’t go back to the house, OK?”
“Sure. Why? Have you got a boy over?” she asked, before starting to cackle like an aged witch. Oh, sure, it was a big joke. As if Charlie would ever have a boy over. Well, actually I’d slept with two different boys in the last two days (sort of) so –
Right, back to the matter at hand.
“Just stay away from the house, OK?”
“OK,” she said, no longer laughing. “Are you alright?”
“I will be.”
Probably.
Maybe.
We’d see.
I hung up and turned back to Sheila. “Do you have anyone in town you can stay with?” I asked. “If you haven’t met Lionel then maybe he isn’t after you. It could be your husband instead.”
She groaned. “That’d be right. He’s probably racked up some massive gambling debt and now the gangster’s coming after my business.” She exhaled, eyes narrowed as she thought about her soon-to-be ex. “I have friends I can stay with.”
“You should head there now.” Maybe Lionel wasn’t after her yet, but if he saw us together then he would be.
Once she left, I ordered a soy latte (coffee’s not my favourite beverage, but I was tired and I figured I could use the extra adrenalin surging through my veins), and picked up my phone. Normally I would have called Tim, but he wasn’t in town and his phone was turned off, so I went for the next best option – I called Baxter & Co.
I wasn’t game to go there in person, since I knew Lionel would be able to find me too easily. The voice that answered the phone was someone I didn’t know.
“Baxter & Co.”
“Hey, it’s Charlie.” Silence. “From reception.”
“Aren’t you off sick?”
“Yes, I am, but I just wondered if I could talk to someone.”
More silence.
“I guess. Who?”
“Panther.”
Panther wasn’t a talkative kind of guy, but he usually trained me a couple of times a week and I felt like we’d bonded. Maybe that was a one-sided thing, I don’t know, but I was pretty sure he’d help me out if I needed it.
“Hello?” said a voice on the other end of the line.
“Panther! Thank god!”
There was a pause. “Charlie?”
“Yes, oh man, you have no idea how much I need you right now.”
Another pause. “You will have to take me out to dinner first.”
I snorted. English wasn’t Panther’s first language, so his speech was a little stilted, but it wasn’t often Panther made jokes. I owed him a high five. “I need you to email me everything you can on Ruslan Volkov.”
“Spell it?”
I did as he asked and listened to him typing away on the other end of the line.
“This is going to be a big file,” Panther commented.
I gulped. Great.
“You’d better send me anything you’ve got on Lonny Lionel, too.” Maybe he owned some properties around town where I could start looking.
“You need some help, Charlie? What is wrong?”
“I’m on the run.”
“From who? Adam?”
Panther was on fire today.
“No,” I answered. “From the guy who has Adam.”
“Has Adam? Adam has been taken by somebody?”
“Yes.”
I heard murmuring on the other end of the line. Panther was talking to someone.
“Charlie?” said another voice. Panther must have put me on speaker. “It’s Harry. I need you to tell me exactly what’s going on.”
Harry Baxter was back in the country?
Excellent. Now we had a chance.
“How much do you know already?”
“About your involvement with Lonny Lionel? Nothing,” he said. “It seems Adam decided not to brief me on this particular operation.”
Oh dear. Adam was going to be in trouble from his daddy when he escaped from the convicted murderer.
I filled them in on everything that had transpired over the past few days (leaving out the bits where Adam was shirtless, of course, because going into detail about that would be weird considering Harry was his father).
“It was a good call to not involve Harcourt,” said Harry. “I don’t trust him.”
See? I told you Harcourt was a dishonest scumbag. Harry Baxter said so himself. (I know you were silently judging me for not involving the police. In your face.)
“Stay where you are, Charlie,” said Harry. “We’ll be there to get you soon.”
My phone pinged shortly after I hung up with the files from Panther, so I read through them while I waited. Past victims of Volkov/Lionel – I was no longer in any doubt about whether they were the same person – were usually shot, execution style. There had been a couple of cases where he’d drowned them by leaving them lashed to a pier and waiting for the tide to come in. It was lucky we lived in an inland city, because I didn’t want any of my friends going through that.
He’d also done some other pretty awful stuff while trying to extract information from people – pulling their teeth, burning them with a blowtorch, tying them to a chair and beating them with a baseball bat. You get the picture. Speaking of pictures, there were crime scene photos of some of his victims in the email that were making my soy latte not sit quite right. I soldiered on through it, though, ever the martyr.
OK. Now I knew what I was up against.
I opened the Lonny Lionel file, which was significantly shorter. Nothing really in there until recently, not that I was interested in anything earlier than the past couple of years, since it was all fake. I looked at his list of properties. Obviously Rift was on there, a couple of houses – then one address caught my eye.
Lionel/Volkov owned a plot of land along the same strip as Sheila’s construction site. Interesting.
Harry, a tall, greying and slightly rotund man, walked into the café and made his way to where I was sitting, stopping by the counter to order something first. He handed over the money and I watched him put his change in the tip jar before he continued towards me.
“I just asked them to bring you another of whatever you were drinking. I hope that’s OK.”
It confused me how a guy as nice as Harry had spawned a creature like Adam. All Adam’s goodness was on the outside. Well, almost all of it.
“Thank you.”
He took a seat across from me. “You must be worried.”
He was unbelievably calm considering the state of things. Completely unruffled even though everything was falling down around us. At least, that’s what it felt like to me.
“You must be worried, too,” I answered. His son had been taken by a violent racketeer. He certainly had reason to be concerned.
He smiled and shrugged. “Adam’s quite good in a crisis. I’m sure James will be OK as well – he strikes me as someone who can look after himself.” I wasn’t so sure about that, but I held my tongue. “Your other friend, though – Celia? – Yes, she might have a harder time. Can you tell me anything more about her? Anything you might have seen in her room that could give us a clue?”
I shook my head. “The room was messy, like there’d been a struggle, but nothing really stood out to me.”
He nodded. “When did you last see her?”
“Um…” My stomach plummeted. “Last night.”
Oh no. She hadn’t answered her door the evening before when I’d gone back to her room. I’d thought she’d fallen asleep, but now it seemed more likely that she’d already been taken. What did they want with Celia? She wasn’t even involved. Maybe it had something to do with the marketing work she was doing for Lionel/Volkov – that was how Stacey said they’d reconnected.
“OK, so she’s been gone for the longest. I think we should focus on finding her first, although if she’s been gone since last night…”
He didn’t have to finish his sentence. I knew what he meant. Chances weren’t good. Of course Celia had to go and get murdered right after we became friends again. Just my luck.
“Where do we start?” I asked.
“Why don’t you tell me if you spotted anything in those files?” he suggested as a waiter set our coffees down in front of us. A long black for Harry, another latte for me. Harry thanked him.
I picked up four sachets of sugar and added them to my drink. “Thank you,” I said to the waiter before turning back to Harry. “There was one thing, actually. When I was looking through the list of Lionel’s properties, I came across one that was near the site where we found the dead body a couple of days ago.”
He nodded. “Any reason you think we should look there?”
Shrugging, I answered, “Not really. Just seemed like it could mean something. Maybe there will be some clue there.”
“Why do you think he took your friend?”
“I don’t know. She was doing some work for him. Maybe she overheard something.”
“And that construction site was where his other employee’s body was found?”
I nodded.
“Sounds like something we should check out.”
He picked up his coffee cup and stood.
“Um, I don’t think you’re meant to take the glassware with you,” I said.
He pulled a fifty from his wallet and strode over to the counter.
“This should cover the cups we’re taking,” he said, handing the note to the confused-looking person at the register. I picked up my cup and bag and hurried out after him, thanking the lady at the counter on my way.
On second thoughts, maybe I could see some similarities between Harry and his son.