WILL TIME WAIT: Boxed set of 3 bestselling 'ticking clock' thrillers (71 page)

Thank goodness.  He’s seen it. 

His car started sliding to a stop, but the bloodied, torn-up
body zoomed ahead full speed.  It sailed under Brian’s car and the back
tyre juddered over it.

NICOLA

N
icola
paced circles in Christa’s kitchen, crushing a piece of paper in her hand; a
paper she had unsuccessfully tried to slip to Christa off camera, and away from
Sarah, all afternoon, telling her what they were up against. 

Sarah breathed out and rubbed her belly.  “I’m
stuffed!” 

“The film was great,” Christa said, washing up the popcorn
bowl and glasses in the sink.  She faced Nicola.  “Did you manage to
get all your bills paid?”

“Not quite,” Nicola said, biting her bottom lip.  “I
kinda got distracted.”

“Easily done.”

“I’m gonna listen to some music in my room, mum,” Sarah
said, racing out of the kitchen with a drink of juice.

“Not too loud, sweetheart,” Christa shouted back.

Now that Sarah had shot up to her room, and music was
blasting through the door, it seemed the perfect time to make another attempt
at slipping Christa the note.  Nicola swallowed, took a stride
forward.  “Christa, I need to show you something.  Let’s go outside a
minute and... um... it’s the roof tiles you see...” 

“Not another one?”  Christa sighed.  “Look, I
didn’t want to say anything in front of Sarah, but can you believe that text
Claire sent me?”

“She’s playing dirty.  Ignore it.”

“I sent Brian a text to let him know what she wrote. 
Still waiting for a reply.  I think he’s in a meeting this
afternoon.”  She dried her hands on a towel and squinted up at the
ceiling.  “What right-minded person would send a message like that? 
She doesn’t love him.  She’s obsessed by him.”

“So, Christa... outside?”

The doorbell rang.

“I wonder who that is.  Sorry, Nicola.  Tell me in
a minute.”  Christa dumped the towel and dashed into the hall while Nicola
sighed in annoyance.  A moment later, Christa called for Nicola to join
her in the living room, in a stiff, urgent voice.

Nicola had barely swallowed the shock of seeing Christa
sitting on the sofa in front of two police officers - one well-built with
smooth black skin, the other a little shorter, pale and chubby in the face -
when they broke shocking news. 
Is this for real?

“Dead?” Christa repeated, cupping her floored jaw.  “So
you’re not here about...”

Tension ripened in Nicola and she wished she’d never entered
the room.

The officers handed Christa a photograph.

Nicola stiffened in front of the TV, chewing her
fingernails.  Afraid to speak, afraid to even move.  Heavy thoughts
darkened her already frayed mind as the officer’s words sent a thick fog
sweeping through it.  It was like the hangover from hell.  She craved
a deep swirl of nicotine in her lungs, and a stiff, throat-burning drink with a
shut-eye chaser.

“We’re sorry for your loss,” the chubbier officer said.

“You’re sure it’s my husband?” Christa asked.  “I mean,
this is definitely the tattoo on his leg, but...  he got it to cover up a
burn.  A pan of boiling water tipped on him when he was a kid.”  She
waved the photo.  “But you’re sure it’s him you found and not—”

“Yes. We’re sure,” he confirmed.  “He’s been
killed.  Like we said, he was strapped to a sledge and pulled along the
street.”

Nicola’s mouth gaped.

“Why a sledge?”  Christa buried her face in her hands
then glanced up.  “It makes no sense.”

“And the condition of the body indicates he was killed last
night.”

“No way!  Last night?”  Christa gaped, staring at
the officers in disbelief. 

“Do you have any idea of his whereabouts last night?”

Christa glanced at Nicola.  “He was here.”

Both officers turned to face her.  “What time was
this?”

Nicola gulped and shook.  Several seconds passed in an
awkward hush.  Oh, fuck.  How would she get around this?  “Oh,
about er... eight or nine,” she replied, forcing the words out of her throat as
the officers’ eyes remained fixed on her, as though probing around in her
thoughts.  “I’m not exactly sure.  He wanted to speak to Sarah, to
umm... Christa.  He was here for barely five minutes, then left.” 
She glanced away, and fiddled with her hair. 
Please stop staring at
me.

“I see.  And what did he want to speak to Christa
about?”

Nicola held herself stiffly to control her shakes,
struggling to stop her bottom lip quivering as she spoke.  “He didn’t say,
j-just said he’d catch up with her another time.  I-it didn’t seem
urgent.”

“Did he drive?”

Nicola nodded.  “In his car.” 
Stupid answer.
 “O-oh,
and he wanted to collect his motorbike.”  Oh, shit. 
That’s even
worse.
  The bike was still in the shed.

“And how did he appear to you?”

Nicola held her hands behind her back, tugging her fingers
through nerves.  “Fine.  Just his usual self.”

“Did he say where he was going?” the tall black officer
asked.

Nicola shook her head, and forced herself to engage his
probing brown eyes.  “He didn’t say much at all.”

After several more questions which left Nicola in a hot
sweat, the officers frowned, broke their gazes and one scribbled in a notepad.

While Nicola held herself stock still, wincing, Christa
cleared her throat and looked at the Officers.  “So... so you’re s-saying
it was Brian’s car he was strapped to?  My daughter’s Uncle?”

“Yes.”  He nodded, while Christa glanced toward the
door.  Thankfully Sarah was still upstairs, listening to music and mustn’t
have spotted the police turning up.  “He’s been helping us with our
enquiries at the station.”

“Where is he now?” Christa asked.

“Still being questioned and his car examined for
evidence.”  There was a ring of uncertainty in the officer’s voice.

Christa must have picked up on it too.  She glanced up
from the photo.  “Y-you don’t think Brian has anything to–“

“We’re still making enquiries at this stage.  His
girlfriend’s waiting to drive him home from the station.”

Her wet eyes widened.  “
C-Claire’s
with him?”

“Yes.  She spotted the sledge attached to his car and
tried to signal him to stop.”

Tears spotted Christa’s jeans while she stared blankly ahead
at the lovely Victorian fireplace they had repainted together only
yesterday.  Life had basically dropped off a cliff since then. 
Nicola wanted to sit on the sofa next to Christa and hug her.  Hell! She
needed more than a few hugs herself.  Did the police think that Brian had
something to do with this?  No.  Not possible.  But why, of all
the cars in the world, would John be strapped to Brian’s?  And why would
anyone do something so horrific with his body at all?

Nicola normally melted at men in uniform.  Today, she
barely dared raise her eyes above the dark fabric of their knees.  She
struggled to place one foot in front of the other across the carpet without
tripping up.  She grabbed the tissue box off the book shelf.  She
handed one to Christa, then took one herself and dabbed her eyes while Christa
explained to the police the last time she’d seen John, and that they were in
the midst of a divorce and only talked by phone recently.

The officers didn’t need Christa to identify his body in
person.  “Too damaged to be formally identified,” the tall officer said.

Nicola reckoned he was trying to put it in a delicate way –
a tough task. 

But John would have looked anything but delicate. 
Being dragged along the road had probably ripped the skin right off his
face.  According to the police, Brian had already told them that he
suspected it was John on the sledge from his signature red trainers. 

“Dental records have been confirmed,” the tall Officer said
- and the unique tattoo on the marbled skin of his burned calf also left no
doubt.

Nicola walked to the rear of Christa’s sofa, no longer able
to absorb the officers’ words.  She needed space.  Air.  Found
it hard to focus.  It was all a jumble, noise in her thumping head. 
With tears spilling, she rubbed Christa’s shoulder from behind, while Christa
fanned her face with a magazine.  Thankfully, Sarah was being spared this
horror - still upstairs blasting Bieber tunes at the back of the house.  “I’m
so sorry.  This is... awful.”  Nicola wobbled away to the window and
stared out to get her head straight.  She tugged the neck of her sweater
up higher to her chin while a ribbon of worry wound around her throat. 
Her breath caught.  Would the police notice her swollen jaw or makeup
covered bruises peeking out of her neckline from last night’s attack?  Or
would they sniff the bleach that still lingered and start asking about it?

But then, perhaps their presence was a sign; the moment to
tell them what happened.  The police were right here, right now, and could
protect her from those thugs storming back in once she blurted the truth. 

Nicola wiped her eyes, spun on her heels and stepped
forward, summoning a dose of courage.  “I...  er...“ 

“There was a message on the body,” the officer said. 
“The words ‘my duty,’ were inked into his back.”

Christa straightened on the sofa.  “Inked?”

“Yes, with a knife or razor of some sort.  Barely hours
old.  Not a professional job.  Do you have any idea what that could
mean?”

Christa’s breath juddered.  “My duty?” she squeaked
out.

“Yes.”

Christa lowered her gaze and blew her nose. 
“N-no.  I-I don’t know what it means.  Poor John.”

Nicola’s knees weakened and she stopped dead, grabbed the
back of a chair to steady herself.  A shot of curiosity poured through
her.  Something about the way Christa had said that didn’t ring
true.  Why?  Is she hiding something?

Nicola drew a breath of composure. 
Get on with it
.
 “I... er... I need to say something about–”  Nervous as hell, her
eyes swept the corners of the room where the ornate scrolls and swirl patterns
of Victorian-style wallpaper met the moulded cornice they had lovingly restored
a few months ago.

The cameras! 

Oh, crap.  She felt a stab of panic.

Those photos and the knife!

Double crap.

That’s why the words refused to pass her lips.

If she let everything unravel, here and now, what would
happen?

An all-consuming panic constricted her breathing. 
Conscious that the cameras would capture the reaction in the room if she spoke
out, heat rushed to her cheeks and she withdrew.  The men would surely
storm straight round and kill everyone. 

Yes.  These men were police officers.  But that
didn’t mean they weren’t normal people with a family who loved them; people who
had no idea they’d just entered the glass house of hell.

“Have you thought of something?” The officer raised a brow
in question.

Oh, crap.
 
Can’t risk it.
 It was
not paranoia.  Those men were watching.  She just knew. 
“N-no.  I.. So you don’t think it was an accident?”  Stupid, stupid
question!  There were words tattooed into his back for God’s sake!

“This is a murder enquiry,” the officer stated.  “We’ll
know more once the forensic pathologist does a full exam.”

Nicola didn’t know exactly where it was hidden, but a camera
was here in the living room.  Somewhere.  Her skin crawled like ants
were all over her.  She lowered her gaze.

Those men had to have known that doing such a stunt would
mean that the police would pay a visit to Christa, his wife.  Nicola
gulped.  Of course those monsters were watching her right now. 
Probably drinking up the whole damn scene.

Concern for everyone’s safety fuzzed her brain.  Could
the police protect them if she didn’t know who these men were?  Yes. 
But what about her loved ones?  Who was protecting them at this
moment?  No one.  And what about tomorrow and the day after
that?  What would happen when they left the house and Sarah went to
school?

She tried to picture details about her attackers.  Did
one have a tattoo on his knuckles?  Another a limp?  No, that was an
injury from the fight, he was probably walking fine by now.  If she could
just give the cops something to go on to speed up the search, then they could
arrest the men before they hurt any of her family.  No unique details came
to mind, and besides, they’d all worn masks.  Hell, even one of the police
officers fit the vague descriptions in her memory, chubby, broad-shouldered,
bit rough looking – for all she knew it could have been him.  She’d never
pick those men out in a line-up.

It was no good. 

Hopeless mess!

Details were grainy and jumbled at best within the dark void
of her reeling brain.  Their accents were nondescript in her memory, and
although she’d seen one man’s face, it was a blur, and she’d never be able to
describe them as anything other than frightening men in masks. 

Last night, Nicola had searched every inch of the house for
a clue as to who they were or where they came from before slumber overtook
her.  She came up empty.  If only they hadn’t located the tablet computer
in the coat cupboard, that might’ve offered a lead.  And if she hadn’t
been too scared witless to leave the house for fear of the men thinking she was
doing a runner, she could have gone to see if that abandoned car was still on
the street, and written down the number plate.  Too late now.  The
car would be long gone seeing as the guy knew she recognised him from the
crash.

“I hope Brian’s okay,” Christa muttered into her hands.

Cursing her attackers’ thoroughness, Nicola pondered what to
do while the police continued talking to Christa. 

One monstrous question plunged into her brain.  Why
would those men do anything to cause the police to come to the real scene of
John’s murder?  They had made it perfectly clear that they didn’t want any
cops sniffing around.  Perhaps it wasn’t even those men.  Who was
it?  Joyriders found the body and decided to... No.  Of course it was
them.  Who else would have done such weird shit to a corpse?  And
selecting Brian was not random.