WILL TIME WAIT: Boxed set of 3 bestselling 'ticking clock' thrillers (69 page)

"The plan was good.  In theory."

"But it backfired!"

"It sure did.  James had the shock of his life
when Nicola opened the patio door.  He’s got one hell of a gash on his
head."

She punched his arm.  "This is about
me
,
idiot.  Not everything is about the website."

"Yeah, well, you certainly cocked up there.”

“I got the computer!”

“You said those two were glued at the hip.  Said she’d
follow like a puppy.”

“It’s not my fault Nicola... What exactly happened last
night?”

“Best you don’t know.”

“Really?”  She rolled her eyes. 
Bad then.
 

“Where is the computer?”

“Forget that now.  It’s safe.  Anyway, that’s not
what we’re talking about.”

“Then what?"

"Those things I said to cause us to argue, well it must
have made Brian realise he has feelings for her." 
Or loves
her.  The cow.

"Did he tell you that?"

"He didn't need to say it.  I just
knew."  More pieces of her heart broke away.  "It
hurts.  God, it hurts so bad.  Look what you've done."

"Whoa!  Don't blame me." 

She raised fiery eyes to his and practically growled,
"I pushed them together, and you're the one who made me do it.  All
for your stupid website."  She dropped down onto her leather sofa,
hugged a cushion to her chin and sobbed into it.  “And after what I’ve
just heard, I might never get him back.”

"That stupid website pays for your car, this house and
everything in it."  He pointed to her designer handbag, the massive
flat screen on the wall and her state-of-the-art sound system.  "I
got us into this for us... for you."  He rubbed his stubbly chin and
circled the room.  "But I need you to sort your head out, sis, or
you’re gonna start slipping up.  What the hell does Brian see in that
skinny bitch, anyway?"

"I'm way better," she muttered into the cushion.

"For sure," he said matter-of-factly. 
"From what I know, she's a small town single mother who falls short of the
mark on everything.  She struggles to pay her bills, failed marriage,
lousy bloody cook..."

She glanced up.  "Cook?"

He gave a little laugh.  "Burns stuff.  Even
water.  I’ve seen her do it."

Claire couldn't laugh even if she had wanted to. 
Misery flooded her entire body.  Although she did take small crumbs of
enjoyment from hearing Christa's faults being listed, she didn't know if she'd
be able to laugh, or even smile ever again.  Perhaps she should have stuck
with Harry and walked on by instead of stopping to chat to Brian that day he
rolled up on the street.  Harry wouldn't have dumped her for another
woman.  Never in a million.  He practically worshipped the air she
breathed.  Claire was the hottest pair of legs that had ever opened up for
him.  She loved how special Harry made her feel, but the thing was, when
she met Brian, something gripped her, something powerful that she'd never
experienced before.  Instantly, she craved more.

He cupped her face.  "I hate seeing you this
way.  I'm going to teach him a lesson he'll never forget.  You should
get some rest.  Take one of your pills."

"W-what?" Claire asked, wiping her face dry of
tears.  “What lesson?”

"No one dumps my sister for another woman and gets away
with it."

"I don't want you to hurt him.  But it gets
worse.”

“Tell me.”

“I just want him back and to get that bitch out of his life before
he realises that... he’s Sarah’s dad."

“Jeez!  How do you know that?”

As she explained, Claire balled her fist and slotted it
between her breasts, desperate to fill the agonizing hole where her shattered
heart had been ripped from.

"All I want is for you to be happy.  We need to
find a way to ensure that Brian stays out of Christa's life," he stated.

"Definitely.  If it weren't for her, he'd have
fallen in love with me."  Claire could picture herself happy and
settled with Brian.  He’d bring out her good side.  Hell, with him,
she could even picture herself enjoying becoming the homely type.  Perhaps
even quit working with her brother on the website and... get an honest
job.  Or at least give it a go, see what it felt like.  She took a
deep breath, then stood and paced the room.

He tugged her wrist, forced her to sit again and gathered
her into his arms.  "Leave it to me, sweets.  No one hurts my
sister like this.  No one.  Brian has just made the biggest mistake
of his life."  He stroked her hair.  "Mess with my sister,
and that means he’s messing with me."

"No.  Not Brian.  Make Christa pay. 
That bitch has ruined everything."

"We can't afford to throw more spotlights on that
house.  Nicola's barely holding it together.  I’ll come up with a
better idea.  Something that’ll cause Brian to keep his distance from
her
.”

“Like what?”

“Not sure yet.  But if he's as hooked on pussy as I
think he is then..."

Claire stared at her brother in wonder.  He generally
spared her the details of his white-hot violent ways, but still, Claire knew
his impulses caused him to go off fully-cocked and do terrible things.  In
essence, he was a rogue within a gang of thugs who were yet to experience just
how vicious and ruthless he could be.  Somehow, so far as she knew, her
brother had managed to curb his anger when around them.

"I think it's time that Brian showed he’s ready to do
his
duty
."

“I don’t understand.  How?”  Claire knew he was
referring to the Bible.  He often threw out little quotes he'd read during
his time in jail.  He'd found God while behind bars, but not in a good
way.

“Drive a wedge between them, right?” he said.

She forced herself to silently count to ten, hoping to
muster the strength to tell her brother not to make a move on Brian.  It
didn't work.  She reached the count of eight and gave in to her dark
side.  "Okay, mess his life up a little.  But don't hurt
him."

"I won't, well not physically.  Let the Lord
strike him down in that way.  By the time I've finished screwing with
Brian's life, he'll be crawling on his hands and knees, begging you to take him
back.  That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

She nodded.  “Yes, but... give me some time.  I’ll
text you to give you the go ahead.” 
Or not
, she thought, torn.

“What’s he doing today?"

“Going to his mum’s house, then home to change
clothes.  He’s got an important meeting for work this afternoon. 
Some big deal he’s desperate for which is why he’s pleased to have the courtesy
car.”

His eyebrows quirked.  “Really?  Perhaps I can
mess that up for him.”

NICOLA

N
icola
slipped the flash drive containing the webcam-activating software into her back
pocket, and nipped outside to the patio.  She lit a cigarette, her eyes
jerking, her body jittery as though drugs coursed through her veins.  Taking
a deep drag and swaying on her feet, she waited for the microwave to ding, for
Christa to leave the kitchen and start watching a film with Sarah. 

Despite snow still on the ground, it was a bright afternoon,
but in Nicola’s mind it was the dead of night.  She huddled into
herself. 

Like many a folk, Nicola watched the news on TV
regularly.  Plenty of sick, twisted people existed in the world, but she
never once thought that their paths would ever cross with hers.  The
photos of John and the bloody knife were no longer what put the fear of God
into her.  No.

The guy’s parting words from last night grated through her
mind;
do as we ask, or your local funeral director will be booked out for
weeks.  We know where all your family and friends live, where they work,
and where Sarah goes to school.

He’d lowered his face to hers at this point...

Scary bedtime stories will feel like a treat once we’re
done with her.  Try to signal someone, contact the cops, waver from your
routines by even an inch, or do a midnight flit and...

A wave of shudders moved through Nicola.  She pulled at
the high collar concealing her bruises.  Everything about her life was
suffocating.  Her predicament.  Her stupidity.  And now her
clothes. 

Life was tough enough before last night.  Pretending to
Christa that she was going to work each day, and struggling to make her cash
stretch, was enough of a headache.  But that paled against this.  And
now she regretted all those days she handed Christa's computer business flyers
out in town to secretly help her drum up business in the hope that Christa
might need an assistant.  Need Nicola.  But her covert marketing
would now result in even more unsuspecting customers having their private lives
made public.

Those guys had made it absolutely clear that they would hunt
her, and everyone she knew at anytime, anywhere.  Having seen their
website, it was perfectly reasonable to discern that they did indeed have eyes
everywhere.

Nicola hugged herself and puffed smoke rings into the crisp
air.  How the hell could she ever forget about the cameras and pretend
life was normal?  No.  There had to be a way out.  She would
have to put on a bloody good act to convince them she was being compliant while
thinking up a way to screw them over.  If only she could work out who they
were and where they operated from. 

The microwave dinged. 
At last.

“We’re going to put the film on now,” Christa told Nicola,
hugging a bowl of butter-scented, slightly charred popcorn to her chest, below
the pretty necklace Sarah had made her.  “The office is all yours. 
Join us when you’re done paying your bills and you can help us demolish that
box of chocolates.  Apart from the toffee ones, I’m saving those for
Brian.”

Lost in her dark, suffocating thoughts, Nicola gave a
strange mock salute.  "Try and stop me."

“I thought John would have phoned me by now, seeing as today
is the deadline.”  Christa pursed her lips.  “Strange, huh? 
Think he wants me to sweat it out?”

John's bloodied body returned to Nicola's mind, shooting
arrows of fear and repulsion to her core.  Christa’s feet were planted on
the very spot where John’s body had been.  She shuddered.  Lying to
Christa felt awful, but it was for her own good.  At least until Nicola
could figure a way out of this mess without getting them all stabbed and
mummified in cling film.

“Hurry up, mum,” Sarah shouted.  “The film’s starting.”

Christa grimaced at Nicola.  “You’re acting kinda weird
today.  You sure everything's all right with you?  You know you can
tell me anything, right?”

Nicola hummed a yes while clenching her teeth for fear of
blurting out the truth.  It almost felt as though Christa's words were
puckering the air, causing a shuddering ripple after ripple over her
skin.  She ached to confide in her best friend, even had a note in her
pocket which she intended to slip to Christa when the moment felt right. 
But it didn’t feel right.  Not yet. 

She couldn't risk endangering Christa or Sarah, not until
she'd got a grasp on what to do.  If Christa reacted badly to the note,
the guys would surely see, storm in and attack them. 

"And just so you know,” Christa said from the
kitchen.  “Sarah's grounded."

"Again?" Nicola asked, trying to sound normal.

"She went out after dark last night."

"She's a devious one."

"Yup.  But how does she sneak in and out of this
house?  That’s what I want to know.  I’ve asked her, but she says I’m
going deaf and mustn’t hear her, and says I forget when I say she can go out
because I’m always busy working  The other week, I sat waiting and
worrying because she was late coming home, and then she wandered downstairs
claiming she came back half an hour ago.  I know she didn’t, but I don’t
know how she snuck back in."  She frowned at the walls and
ceiling.  "Breathe in this place and a floorboard creaks, especially
on the stairs.  She can't climb in or out of her window because it's a
drop onto concrete.  I’m stumped."

Nicola's mood brightened.  She had no need to force out
a response, Christa had just unwittingly gifted her with the perfect excuse to
enter rooms she'd otherwise stay out of.  "Tell you what... I'll have
a nose around while you watch the film.  See if I can find how she sneaks
out."

"Thanks, love.  I’d appreciate it.  But I
suppose that’s the least of my worries now we’re gonna lose this house."

“S’pose.”

A phone beeped. 

“Oh, that’s mine, again,” Christa said.  “A text. 
It beeped earlier but I forgot.  Oh, heck.  What if it’s from
John?”  She picked the phone up off the worktop and glanced at the
screen.  “From Claire?  Oh, this won’t be good.  I’ll read it in
a minute.”

The second that Christa disappeared into the snug and the
door sucked closed, Nicola dropped her cigarette and rushed indoors. 

She crept upstairs, her battered body aching at every
movement.  She dragged a chair into Christa’s ensuite.  It was
extremely probable that one of those sick, voyeur monsters would be watching
her right now.  So, she turned the shower on hoping to act normal, but at
its hottest setting to create steam, while subtly scanning the walls and
ceiling.

Where the hell is the camera?

She slid her gaze to the blind on the window, the wall
cabinet, towel rail and...  Aha!  The air vent.  That had to be
it.  It seemed obvious now she’d thought about it.

Moments later, steam from the shower began misting the
bathroom.  Convinced that she would be beneath the camera’s viewing range,
she pushed the chair up to the wall directly beneath the vent and climbed
up.  With heat rising to her cheeks, she wiggled the plastic casing until
it came away from the wall.  There, in a dark little nook in the
brickwork, sat a camera no larger than a carton of cigarettes. 

Gotcha! 

After rummaging through Christa’s toiletry basket, Nicola
climbed back onto the chair and dabbed a scraping of vaseline onto the tiny
lens. 
That should do the trick, blurr the footage, look like steam had
gotten under the lens.
 

She jumped off the chair, turned and stuck two fingers up at
the camera. 
Bastards.

After putting everything back the way it was, she left the
room, relieved.  But her satisfaction that Sarah and Christa’s bathing
would no longer be broadcast over the internet, well perhaps blurry, soon got
nibbled into by worry.  If those monsters realised what she was up to,
would they do something about it? 

Despite how much it sickened her, so long as Nicola kept the
viewers sufficiently entertained, those monsters might not kick up a stink
about losing Sarah and Christa's saucy clips from the video feed. 
Hopefully they’d let it ride.

Mentally drained, Nicola moved onto the landing.  She
slumped against the wall and took a breather before sabotaging the camera in
Sarah’s bedroom with a dab of pearly nail polish.  She left Christa’s
bedroom and the other rooms untouched, worried that would be a step too far, then
collapsed to her knees for a moment.  It felt like her world was being
swung by the scraggy tail, and she wanted to jump off this nauseating
ride.