Border Lines (Reachers Book 2) Page 14

  “She'll understand. Or she'll give us the silent treatment for a month.”

  “Either way it's a win,” John said with a sly smirk. He tipped his head. Rachel was coming up the pavement. “Do you think she enjoyed it there?”

  “You worried she's going to ditch us?” Charlie replied.

  John didn't answer. He was. They both were.

  Rachel flung open the back door and jumped in. The look on her face was enough to put them at ease. John started the car unusually pleased.

  “Good day?” Charlie asked as they hit the road.

  “Good day? Good day! Do you know what they want me to do in that hospital? Care for the sick? Is that what you think? No. Doctors are only there to spoon feed the patients and, when they've finished eating, jerk them off.”

  John nearly crashed the car. Charlie lashed around in his seat. “They do what?”

  “I go in. Ask how they're doing. Explain to them that I'm not putting anything in my mouth – or my hand! Ask them to put their dicks back in their pyjamas. Then move on to the next one. Most of the bloody patients in there don't even need treatment. I think they just go there for the bad sex.”

  “Did you make any progress?” Charlie asked.

  “Roxy's been asking around about Dr Curtis, nothing useful yet but we've got a few leads. I made contact with Curtis today. I don't think he likes me, but I don't think he likes anyone. I'm under strict orders to not return until my next shift – can you believe that? When I was at St Mary's we used to work triple shifts just to get the ER clear. Apparently that's not good enough for the patients at Great General, they require all their doctors to be fresh faced for morning blow jobs and medicom polishing.”

  Charlie glanced at his brother trying to fight his relief. There was no chance she was going to run back to her medical career now.

  “Hey what's in the boxes?” she asked, suddenly distracted by the aroma steaming up the windows.

  “Pizza,” John told her.

  “Oh my god, I love you guys. I really love you guys.”

  No chance at all, Charlie thought to himself.

  “So what have you been doing?”

  Charlie's phone went off before he could answer. He read the text and felt a burning colour rush to his cheeks. He was a grown man but his body still behaved like he was a teenager sometimes. He tried to surreptitiously slip his phone back in his pocket but it was too late.

  “From anyone interesting?” Rachel asked, the insinuation rich in her tone.

  Charlie swallowed. He could be honest and take the mocking, or he could lie and take even more mocking. Trying to play it cool he replied, “It's Jess. She wants to meet up.”

  “You mean Mrs O'Connor,” John corrected.

  “And I bet she wants to meet up for a lot more than drinks,” Rachel added.

  “That's just what we need,” John grumbled.

  “Hey, it might do him some good. Stop him being all cranky and bad tempered all of the time.” She poked Charlie's shoulder playfully.

  “It won't,” John stated from experience. “He'll get infatuated and melodramatic. He always does.”

  “Fuck you,” Charlie snapped. “And you,” he said to Rachel. If he was going to get grief from them both he might as well do something to justify it. “Pull up.”

  “You're seriously going?”

  “John, just pull up the car. She might have information on her husband.”

  “And you don't see a problem with that?” John asked.

  “They're separated.”

  “She's part of a job. Even Roxy doesn't fuck with the merchandise.”

  “Just everything else,” Rachel said.

  Charlie unbuckled his seatbelt. “Don't wait up.”

  Pinks and oranges streaked the sky. The humidity had dropped but the air was still hot – too hot for anyone to be really comfortable. The commuting traffic had cleared the streets and for the briefest moment London was quiet – almost peaceful. This was the hour for the elite – those with nowhere to go and nothing to do. They could stroll along the rows of coffee shops and wine bars, idling away the twilight before the night party erupted. Boutiques and specialist shops were still open, welcoming thick wallets and bad taste with continental kisses and pantomime. This was what London boasted to the world – the one flower in the manure heap.

  It didn't matter that Charlie was wearing a second hand shirt and unlabelled jeans. It didn't matter that he hadn't shaved or had his hair styled. He was marching with purpose, and to the yuppies of upper London he was just another eccentric one of them. He liked the effortlessness of belonging.

  The coffee shop he'd agreed to meet Jess at was a small but fashionable basement cafe. Whether it was the risk of bombings or just the lingering smog on the pavements, the in–thing was to go underground. Charlie entered the cafe and reminded himself that it was not a date. Sure his libido had returned since he sobered up, but he wasn't like Roxy, he didn't need to pursue every potential sexual conquest that presented itself. At least he thought he didn't. Then he saw Jess.

  She was stunning. Not just pretty, or cute, or even beautiful. She had a drop dead gorgeousness to her and she was working it from every angle. This was a beauty she had cultivated. The right touches of makeup, the right amount of clothing clinging to all the right parts of her. Jess had perfected herself and the results were phenomenal.

  He pushed himself towards her table. Just business, he reminded himself, but the thought was growing fainter with each footstep.

  Jess sipped at her espresso cup. Her blue eyes sparkled ferociously. She knew what she did to men and she loved watching it happen.

  “I wasn't sure you'd come, not after I attacked you,” she said, a playful smile touching her lips – she knew he'd come.

  “I guess that knock to the head was more serious than I thought.” He sat beside her, drawing envy from every other man around him. It only fuelled his confidence. “I wasn't sure you'd call, given I broke into your home and everything.”

  “You broke into Harvey's home,” she replied. “He moved out of our real house a few weeks after we were married.” She didn't seem upset about it. “I'm sorry about yesterday. I was a mess.”

  “You were scared.”

  She glanced into her coffee, lost in a thought. When she looked up at him she smiled uncertainly. “You're looking for things about Harvey right? Is that what you do?”

  “You could say that.” See, he thought, just business.

  “So people hire you and you find things, like a private detective or something?”

  “I guess.”

  She leaned in closer. The smell of her was intoxicating. “What if I hired you?”

  “Well I'm already trying to find your husband.”

  “Not to find Harvey. To find the killer. Could you do it?”

  It wasn't that he didn't want to, or that he couldn't, but there was the job and his daughter to think about. He couldn't waste unnecessary time, not for anyone. But Jess was a direct line to Harvey O'Connor – could he afford to disappoint her? Just business.

  “Maybe,” he said. “If I had some leads.”

  “I have all of Harvey's files. I sneaked them back to my place. Will you take a look?”

  “Jess I'd love to help but I'm in the middle of another job and after that…”

  “Just for tonight. You could take tonight off. Maybe you could point me in the right direction. Charlie, this guy killed Harvey and if he's not stopped, he'll come for me. I know he will. Please Charlie. I don't want to die.” There was something in that needy, vulnerable plea – he couldn't resist.

  “Okay, but I'm just going to have a look, that's it. I can't promise anything else.”

  A playful smile touched her lips.

  “I meant the files,” Charlie replied. “I'm just going to have a look at the files.”

  Slowly she placed her cup to her painted lips. “Shame,” she murmured.

  The new minister for housing had a vendetta agains
t heritage. Wherever there was a cluster of London history he felt the overwhelming urge to knock it down and build shiny metal homes that looked as though they had been ripped up from the ground. They were sold as economic houses of the future, but the reality was just a disjointed collection of artistic lunacy and homeowners who should have known better.

  Jess and Harvey had picked their house together. It was made of red steel, shaped into some kind of explosion on the outside but on the inside the rooms were spherical and misplaced. The house expanded back, each room either raised or lowered from the adjoining room. Escher couldn't have created a more ridiculous living space.

  The furniture designers of the world either hadn't caught up with London's new cutting edge travesty, or it had already condemned it. Either way there wasn't a single piece of furniture that fitted the rooms' sleek, modern irregularities. Everything looked out of place, even Jess as she kicked off her high heels across what sufficed as a lounge.

  “This place is,” he searched for the right word, “unusual.”

  “Yeah, something like that. Harvey liked off the wall, so we got this. A house you can't even hang pictures up in. Have a seat.”

  She gestured to a large oval disc in the centre of the room. It was big enough to be a bed, but as he sat down it seemed to move with his weight and create a seat. When she sat beside him it changed again.

  “When I started out on the streets it was rough. Every gangster had his own group of girls and you stayed loyal to them if you wanted your face clear enough to make money. It was a hard life and I didn't make a lot of friends. But I made one. Her name was Clare, Clare Trent. She was older than me, we walked the same beat and she looked out for me. Wait here.”

  She skipped quickly to the next room and returned with a box full of files and papers. The picture she wanted was on the top. She passed it to Charlie. Jess was a lot younger in the photo, her hair was coloured at the tips and her makeup was bold and gaudy. She was still a good looking girl, but probably no more than sixteen. The woman beside her was older, her eyes betrayed a sad wisdom all street girls eventually get. They were both happy though, holding each other and laughing.

  Jess took it back and traced her finger over Clare's face.

  “Was she a good friend?” Charlie asked.

  Jess stared at him. “Nobody has ever bothered to ask that. Not even Harvey. They just think that she was a whore.”

  “The job doesn't make the person.”

  She sighed. “No, it doesn't. She was the best. Timid and caring and not at all cut out for the streets. She used to keep me out of trouble. You might not believe it, but I can get into trouble.”

  He could believe it.

  “Then I left that life. I found a way out and I took it. I never even said goodbye. I didn't deserve to get out, not really, but she did. Clare should have been the one to make it you know. Not me.”

  Before he realised what he was doing he was putting his arm around her. It was just to console her, but she leaned into him and it became something more.

  “I asked Harvey to help find out what happened. He just wanted a sensational story and I went along with it for answers. I figured what did it matter as long as we caught the bastard.” She put the photo down and forced a smile, her blue eyes close to bursting with sadness. “I know what we need.”

  She disappeared, but before Charlie could even delve into the papers she was back with a bottle and two glasses. The vodka bottle matched the one from Harvey's apartment, only this one had less in it.

  “I figured this is our thing right,” she said holding him out a glass filled with blue ice.

  “I thought we just drank it straight out of the bottle.”

  She sidled up closer to him, the heat from her body rising. “I like you Charlie. Most men just go to pieces around me.”

  “They have good reason.”

  “But you keep your head. And you know about the streets don't you. I can see it in your eyes. You're like me. I knew as soon as you woke up, you were one of the good guys.”

  “I probably wouldn't go that far.”

  She leaned in and he could feel the curve of her breasts press into him. The smell of her mingled with the vodka, he breathed her in deeply. Her lips parted to kiss him and any sensible thought he had ever relied on was gone. He opened his mouth, savouring the soft and sweet taste of her, growing hungry for more. His hands cupped her face while her hands became more adventurous. He could feel himself getting lost. This was dangerous. He was crossing a line. He had to stop.

  It was hard but he pulled himself away. “You know this all probably has some kind of psychological explanation,” he said quickly. “You're just seeking comfort in me because you think your husband is gone.”

  “I know.” She was breathless, her cheeks flush.

  “And this is probably a very bad idea, one that you'll live to regret.”

  “Life is far too short for regrets. Besides, I'll only regret it if I don't enjoy myself.” Her hands started wandering over his legs, awakening areas of his body he had totally forgotten about.

  “And what about you Charlie? Are you not just seeking comfort in me because you're lonely? Does it even matter why we do it?”

  “I think it probably does.”

  “You need to relax.” She slipped away from him and poured vodka into his glass. “Here, it's your night off remember.”

  They toasted and she tipped the entire drink back. Charlie did the same. He suddenly felt giddy and strange. Jess was on top of him, she poured another drink. Charlie realised then that the blue ice had gone. His vision was starting to sparkle.

  “What was that?” he asked the question in a daze. The light headedness was taking over.

  She ran her finger over the rim of his glass and pressed it to his lips. There was something there. Something sweet and crunchy, like sugar cane rubbing against his teeth. He watched more closely, feeling a wave of euphoria coming over him.

  “What is it?” he asked again, knowing he should be alarmed he was high, and not having any desire to worry about it at all.

  “Sapphire,” she started to laugh, she was as far gone as he was. “You didn't know? Sorry, I figured you would. Don't worry it's amazing. It's going to make you feel amazing. And it's going to make what I'm going to do to you totally blow your mind.”

  This wasn't him intentionally using. This wasn't even painkillers. He could still be in control. And as Jess lifted her dress over her head, unveiling her perfect naked body, he stopped caring that he wasn't in control at all.

  28

  Roxy opened his eyes and grimaced at the useless nurse. She'd been jerking him off for what seemed like forever and if it wasn't so painful he would have started laughing. She'd offered her mouth – apparently that was where her talents were – but, as tempting as cutting out the sound of her shrill voice was, he needed her to talk. Up, down, up, down, chafe, chafe, chafe. All the time talking about her weird boss, Dr Curtis, who hates the hospital staff and does nothing for Roxy's arousal. He was a Christian, she told him in a way that seemed to have a hundred connotations. London was probably one of the most godless places on Earth. It couldn't balance multiculturalism peacefully so it compromised and scrapped everything. It could be a cross, a star, a moon – it was all voodoo nonsense as far as the average Cockney was concerned.

  Still as he lay there, wincing with each upward thrust, Roxy found himself praying to some higher being that she would either drop the payload of information, or suffer some kind of fatal repetitive strain injury.

  “And he doesn't let people go into his office. Not even the cleaners. His secretary is a friend of mine. He won't even let her go in without him. If she wants something from there she has to call him back for the key. Although,” she whispered, and for a merciful second her hand stopped moving, “I know one of the cleaners smelt something bad on the inside and decided to break in, you know in case it was a body or something.”

  Payload, Roxy thought to himself, oh Go
d yes! “What did they find?”

  “A mouldy chicken sandwich in the bin.”

  Roxy flopped back into his pillows in despair. He looked back up when there was a knock on his door. Unable to even master the art of subtlety, Nurse Missy withdrew her hand and rose. Roxy muttered a prayer of thanks and smiled broadly at the demi–goddess Riva Morris as she stepped inside.

  “There seems to be a man dying in the room down there,” Riva suggested.

  “I'll, eh, leave you to it.” Missy skipped out, rubbing her wrist as she went.

  Riva took her place beside the bed.

  “There really someone dying?”

  “Seems to be. Aren't these machines supposed to stop that?” The question briefly distracted him from her hand reaching for the hand lotion at the side of the bed and snaking it under the covers, instantly improving Missy's work.

  Roxy tried his best to stay cool, but damn him if this wasn't a great way to spend an evening.

  “So what brings you over the border after visiting hours?”

  “I heard you got shot.”

  His breath hitched slightly. “Well, eh, last week I stubbed my toe, there was no sign of you then.”

  “The Smith brothers shot you.”

  “One Smith brother shot me. While the other brother and the new little Smith sister sat back and watched.” There was no surprise in her face. “Of course you knew that because you hired them.”

  “You're too sharp for your own health. One of these days that's going to get you in trouble, Roxy.”

  He laughed, struggling to maintain his composure. “So I take it this social call isn't to satisfy a long standing, previously suppressed attraction you've had for me. Oh God, that's good.”

  “You worked for me before, Roxy.”

  “I'd prefer to say I made a deal with you.”

  “When the job is over I need to speak to Rachel, preferably without the other two. I'd appreciate your help with that.”

  “Well I have to say your methods of persuasion far outweigh your late husband's.”