Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
THE TASKMASTER
For a policeman’s daughter, you’d think she’d have better security in her building.
But no. There was no CCTV, and the locks on the main door were fucking child’s play to pick.
Once I made it through into the foyer, I walked over to the post boxes, and sure enough, there was her name written on the box for flat number twelve.
Abigail Walters.
She was making this shit too easy.
Was she actively rebelling against her father and making herself a target? The walk home. The shit security. And now there was a fucking red sign pointing right at her, saying ‘pick me’.
I took the stairs to the second floor, then turned left, following the numbers of the flats until I came to number twelve.
I stopped outside and glanced up and down the corridor before I put my ear to the door to listen for any sounds coming from inside.
I couldn’t hear anything, so I stepped back, let my tools work their magic on her lock, and then turned the handle and opened her door slowly, quietly, impressed that it made no noise to announce my arrival.
Abigail Walters, you are the perfect victim.
It made me feel a little cheated that I wasn’t working harder to get to her. But then, I’d worked fucking hard on setting up that game tonight, and she’d ruined it. She needed to know how that made me feel. And she would. Tonight.
I stepped straight into her living room and closed the front door behind me.
Her apartment was tiny, but there was a gentle hint of vanilla in the air that made me pause and inhale to savour it.
No doubt, it was a scent meant to calm and soothe.
Something rich women had in their apartments to mask the stench of reality. It wouldn’t help her tonight, though.
The living room comprised of a sofa, a TV, a small coffee table and a bookcase.
There was one small window overlooking the street outside.
The streetlights helped to light up the room I was standing in.
Cream walls, beige carpet, old wooden furniture.
At first glance, there was nothing here that told me what kind of woman Abigail Walters was.
But as I took another step into the room, I saw the bookcase lined with romance books, some horror, and some titles which made me think she had a darker side.
One of the shelves of her bookcase was reserved for framed photographs.
Some with friends, but a lot with her parents, especially her father.
She was a daddy’s girl, that was clear. He always had his arm around her, and she rested her head on his shoulder or his chest, depending on where they were.
Fishing together, on the beach, lazing on a boat.
They obviously did a lot together, and instinctively I felt my jaw clench.
She’d had the sort of childhood that, for me, was idyllic.
Heaven, even. To her, it’d be normal. If she knew what my normal looked like, she wouldn’t fucking cope. No one would.
I saw a photo tucked in the front of a frame of her family.
An extra photo of her with her dad at a restaurant, sitting at a table, smiling.
I picked it up, studying the way their eyes shone without a care in the world; the laughter lines around her father’s face as he grinned for the camera, and her easy smile.
They didn’t have a fucking clue what the real world was like.
Well, maybe he did, but he obviously faked it well.
I pushed the photo into my back pocket and turned to face the room. On the coffee table was a pile of opened envelopes.
Her post.
Interesting.
You could tell a lot about a person by the sort of post they received.
I picked up the pile and started to rifle through it.
There were a few fliers, selling clothes and furniture.
A bank statement that showed she was very overdrawn.
Ridiculously, in fact, and the things listed on her statement were payments to multiple credit cards and finance companies.
She’d walked home to save her pennies, but she needed a lot more than pennies to get herself out of this mess.
I put the bank statement in my pocket, along with the photo, and moved to the kitchen.
If you could call it that. It was tiny, with a fridge, a sink, a few cupboards and not much else.
I opened the fridge, making sure to be quiet, and wasn’t surprised in the slightest to find that it was virtually empty.
There was half a carton of milk, a half-drunk bottle of white wine, a packet of sliced ham that was a week out of date, and a jar of something even I wouldn’t eat.
This girl wasn’t living the perfect life that she portrayed in her photos online.
And things were about to get a whole lot worse for her.
I moved back into the living room and turned to face the door across the room. The door that’d lead to her bedroom. That’d lead to a whole night of fun for me.
I took slow, measured steps towards it, my breath catching in my throat as I revelled in the feeling of anticipation and expectation for what could happen. I loved the thrill of power, knowing I held it all and they had none.
I wrapped my fingers around the cool metal of her bedroom door handle and twisted it slowly, pushing the door open as my heart beat faster, racing like my mind. Wondering what lay behind this door.
The room was dark and silent, but that vanilla scent was stronger in here. Was that her natural scent?
I sidestepped into the room, making sure to close the door behind me, so the hazy light from the living room wouldn’t disturb the stillness of her sanctuary.
There was a simple dressing table with a stool and a mirror.
Makeup and other products lined up neatly on each side.
A small wardrobe was beside it, and in the middle of the room was her bed, a double bed, with her curled up asleep right in the middle of it.
I stood still and watched her for a while.
Noticing the delicate way she breathed as she lay on her side.
The covers had fallen to her waist, and she was wearing a silky nightdress with thin straps.
Her breasts rose and fell underneath the lace trimming, and she gave a soft sigh and shifted slightly under the covers, making me feel something I didn’t expect to feel when I walked in here.
I wanted to run my fingers under those straps, slide them down her smooth skin and see what lay underneath that nightdress. I wanted to see, touch, taste. The thought of it overrode everything else in my brain, and I cursed myself for it. That wasn’t what I was here for.
Or maybe it was?
Wasn’t I allowed to have a bit of fun too?
I stood at the side of her bed, watching her sleep, wanting to claim her like I’ve never wanted before.
My throat was dry, and I swallowed, running my tongue along my bottom lip as I imagined what I would do with her.
What I could do with her. The thoughts in my head raged a war and even I didn’t know which way this was going to go. I hadn’t been this conflicted before.
She gave another sigh and turned, lying on her back, her face a picture of serenity. And I put my hand in my pocket, feeling for the needle I had ready to use if she woke and I needed to sedate her. I also felt the steel handle of the knife I had too.
Seeing her dark brown curls cascading over her pillow made me reach down and run my fingers along a curl. It was so soft, so silky, I wanted more, and I watched as her eyelids flickered, her mouth open slightly, as soft delicate breaths came in shallow pants in response to my touch and my nearness.
She’d wake up soon. And then the moment would be broken.
I didn’t want to break it. I’d never been this close to a woman before, and I was in a trance.
Stirrings of desire made me question everything.
I didn’t want to question myself. But I took another moment to savour how I felt.
How my spine tingled as she made noises I’d never heard before.
Light, tender, even satisfied. How she looked so fucking peaceful.
What was it like to feel like that? To sleep so deeply you didn’t even stir when six-foot-two inches of death was looming over you.
I reached out again, touching her cheek, stroking my finger gently down her skin, skin that didn’t even feel real, it was like touching someone from another world. A gentle, silken world where I didn’t belong.
I really didn’t.
And so I took the knife out of my pocket, leaned forward, and...