Chapter 14
FOURTEEN
Callum’s soles skidded on the grass as he barreled across the lawn.
The faint moonlight did nothing except confuse his eyesight.
He could make out a canopy of trees looming in front of him, a shed and the smooth surface of the pool inside an iron fence.
Slowing to a walk, he stepped through the trees.
Something moved, and then again when a motion light on the shed flipped on.
Suddenly a figure shot past him. Callum lunged, catching the man by the front of his shirt then in one brutal, fluid motion he hauled him off balance. He dragged him straight to the shed, then kicked the door in with a single, well-placed blow.
“What’re you doing, man?” the waiter barked, stumbling inside and throwing an arm up to shield his eyes from the harsh overhead light. “You’re messing up my uniform!”
“That’s the least of your problems.” Callum yelled, throwing him into a stack of pool chairs. Both crashed to the floor. “What the hell you running from, pal? I just want to talk.”
The man nodded at the gun holstered in Callum’s waistband. “You need that to talk?”
He pulled out the piece and pointed it at him. “No, but you might. Get up.”
The guy climbed up out of the pile of plastic chairs.
“So why don’t you tell me what you’re doing here. And what you want with Brielle Riley?”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Callum backhanded him, sending him to the floor in a heap. He pulled him up and shoved up his shirt sleeve to reveal his tattooed arm, for the first time getting a good look at the image. “Well, this looks very familiar,” Callum hissed. “What are you doing with a tattoo of Brielle on your arm?”
“Hey, I don’t know nothing about no girl.”
Callum thrust his gun to his forehead, the skin blanching under the pressure of the barrel. “You better start feeling chatty fast,” Callum seethed. “I want to know who you are and what you’re doing hanging around here.”
“Okay, fine.” The man held a shaky hand in the air. “The name’s Malcolm and I work here.”
“Doing what?”
The man shrugged. “I don’t know. Whatever I’m supposed to.”
Again Callum smacked him. “So why are you running away?” he barked.
“Because I know you’re after me! But I didn’t do nothing.”
“You like Brielle Riley, don’t you?”
“Having a crush ain’t no crime?”
“No, but you know what is? Threatening a girl and scaring her to death.” Callum lunged forward grabbing him by the shirt. “What the hell were you doing in the bar the other night, Malcolm? You want to see her? You want to talk to her?”
“I work there. I wash dishes just like I wash dishes at Vitalie.”
“And Brielle happened to walk in.”
“Look man, whatever you think I did, I didn’t do it.”
“I’m not buying it, Malcolm.”
“Okay so maybe I sent her a few letters, and visited you in the hotel, but I didn’t hurt nobody.”
Now they were getting somewhere. Cocking his head, Callum pulled him closer. “Who set you up?”
Malcolm looked at Callum. “Anston Vitalie came up to me one day and asked me if I would like to make some money under the table. I said okay and he offered me three grand to send that mail to Brielle Riley. He told me what to write and when to send it.” He shrugged as if it made perfect sense.
“I just got out of the state pen, man. I needed my job. Lots of things I can do with three grand.”
“And then what? Keep going because I know you’ve got more to tell me.”
“Then a few weeks later he tells me some guy is pushing him to fix a tennis match. He offers me another five grand to rough up Brielle Riley. I said I would but for ten, and he said he’d think about it, but I never heard back.
Next thing I know they’re peeling her off the locker room floor in Tampa. ”
“Vitalie?” Callum took a deep breath, his fingers clenching around the guy’s shirt. He released him.
“Then the other guy offered me money and a job if I kept quiet.”
“Wait a minute, what guy?”
“Big Frank. He hangs around in the Eager Beaver all the time. You know him?”
Callum nodded. “Yeah, I know him.”
“He came up to me one day at the court and hands me a bag of cash. He says he wants to thank me for my good work and offers to move me from the kitchen at the Beaver to a bartender gig if I pull some graffiti job at the Pelican.”
“And you did.”
Malcolm shrugged. “Like I said, I could use the money.”
It was all making sense. Like the pieces of the puzzle suddenly fit. He now knew for sure Frank was behind it all. The attack. The threats. However, he didn’t bargain for Vitalie to be in on it, too. “You telling me everything, man?”
Malcolm looked up while pulling down his shirt sleeve and buttoning his cuff. He was stalling. The bastard was still hiding something. “Spill it, buddy or I swear I’ll pop you.”
“Okay, okay.” The guy held his hands up in surrender. “There’s a tape?”
“A tape?” Callum’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of tape?”
“An old school, retro, audio tape,” he said, pointing to his ears. “Vitalie taped all the conversations he had with Frank about using Brielle. For insurance, I guess. He didn’t want to be the only one to go down if they were busted. Brielle’s on there, too, about throwing the tennis match.”
Callum thrust the gun in Malcolm’s face, denting his scared cheek. “Tell me where the tape is,” he sneered. “Tell me, and maybe I won’t kill you.”
Again Malcolm put his hands in the air. “Chill out, man.”
“Talk!”
“Okay, okay” he whined. “If I tell you, are we cool? I can go?”
Callum studied the guy carefully, liking the fear he put in his eyes. “Yeah, we’re cool.”
“It’s in his office, up in the house.” He nodded toward the mansion across the lawn. “I saw him tape it under his desk.”
The sound of gunfire echoed outside the door. Callum jumped to the small, shed window, his gun still poised at Malcolm. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“How would I know?”
Callum squinted, trying to see through the swaying branches of the trees. But the wind had picked up, throwing shadows and distorting the view. “I’ve got to get back to the house.”
“Are you letting me go?”
This was Callum’s one problem with undercover work. Hunting down sharks like Big Frank meant relying on smaller fish for information. “Get the hell out of here,” he said.
Callum waited for the door to close behind him before snapping off the pool house light. Outside, his tired eyes struggled to adjust to darkness, and the throbbing pain in his temples obscured his focus. Where was Brielle?
He held his breath, straining to hear anything coming from the direction of the house. But there was nothing. Just eerie quiet and the whistle of the wind in the trees.
He took off across the grass, stopping when he made it to the patio wall. He hoisted himself up on the ledge but paused when he heard a voice in the shadows.
“Anston, please! I don’t want to die!”
The terrace was empty and given the storm clouds above, it would stay that way. Brielle’s heels skidded on the wet stone as Anston pulled her around the house to a well-hidden part of the terrace. In his other hand he clutched an empty tumbler, its contents she could smell on his breath.
“Anston, you’re scaring me,” she told him. “How about we talk inside.”
“You must think I’m a very stupid man, don’t you?”
“Why would I think that?”
“Letting things go like this. Letting things happen like they have.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” She looked around for anyone else who could be outside. Nothing, just a few rogue mosquitoes and the chirp of crickets on the lawn below.
“Anston, please can we go inside.” she asked. “It’s really cold.”
“This is your new home, now, Brielle,” he said bitterly. The look he gave her scared her more. “I suppose it’s your wedding gift.”
This was a side of him she had never seen. In all the years he had coached her, he had never been anything but gentle. She tried to move toward the windows, hoping she could be seen if someone happened to look out.
“I’ve always treated you like a daughter, and this is how you repay my kindness? You knew all about this, didn’t you? Maybe this was all your idea?”
“What idea? I don’t what you are talking about.”
He leaned into her, his liquored breath burning her face. “You’re just your father’s little whore.”
She slapped him with a force that surprised her, and he tumbled back against the stone ledge. Seeing a chance for escape, she turned back for the house but the sound of the cocking gun stopped her cold.
His hand gripped her arm. “You’ve been a deceitful girl,” he hissed in her ear. “Someone needs to teach you a lesson.”
The gun went off. So loud and close her ears rang. She pulled her arm away. Her reflex was to drop to her knees as if she’s actually been struck. She wasn’t, but he was so close there was no way he’d miss her twice.
“Please,” she pleaded, backing away and lifting her hand in his direction. She moved herself the where the light didn’t shine, hoping to confuse his orientation.
“I loved you like my own! I gave you a home and a life your father never could and this is how you repay me?”
She lunged for the patio edge, where the ledge created a darkened shadow. She was sure the gunshot would draw people outside, but the blare of the music must have muted the sound. There was no one. No Callum or Leslie. No one to count on but herself.
“Do you think Geoffrey loves you, Brielle?” Vitalie taunted. “He's using you. You’re a pawn.”
The thin straps of her stilettos were fastened so tightly they were hard to release with her trembling hands. Finally she managed and chucked them off into the shadows. At least now, she could attempt a break for it.
“Are you hearing me, Brielle?”
He was only feet from her now. Too close to miss her again if he let off another shot.
“You can’t run from me Brielle!” he taunted. “I won’t let you.”
Again he fired. The bullet whizzed by her ear.
“He’s using you! He only wants you for your money.”