Chapter 19 Savi #2
The wide, shallow drawers laid out the contents for her view. The top-left one was filled with a myriad of stationery items. A small set of typewriter cleaning brushes, typing and carbon paper, blank invoices, a letter opener, and on and on. Savi closed it and proceeded to the second drawer.
A nostalgic pang chimed through her at the sight of a pile of medical journals, much like her mother used to have in her office. Savi thrusted it shut, ready to move onto the next drawer—until she heard the unexpected sound of metal sliding against wood.
In a drawer full of paper?
She did it again. Definitely metal against wood.
Was there something stuck at the back of the drawer?
She pulled it out as far as she dared, peeking through at the plain wood looking back at her.
She was about to ask Alex to open and close his drawer full of foolscap wallets when her touch shifted her drawer’s underside, feeling a section that was entirely separate from the rest.
Savi dropped to her knees, craning her head down to look beneath the drawer, uncaring about her long black hair trailing on the ground.
“What are you doing?”
“Look.” Her voice was little more than a whisper as she ran her hand along a hidden drawer beneath, perpendicular to the rest and as wide as the drawer was long. “This drawer isn’t as deep as it should be.”
Alex bent down behind her. “How the deuce did you find that?”
“I pulled it all the way out to see if there was something metal stuck at the back, but you wouldn’t find it unless you pulled it all the way out.” The hidden drawer had no handle, but there was a slight lip beneath it, allowing her to slide it out smoothly—and reveal what was inside.
Savi recoiled. “Alex,” she choked. “I thought it would be keys.”
Instead, the low drawer was filled with tins of condoms, thick metal hooks, and heavy iron handcuffs.
Whilst she stared in horror, Alex closed the drawers, his face full of revulsion. “Sit down, love.” His jaw was tight as he returned Franklin’s desk to the state in which they’d found it, finally coming to sit beside her.
“How long has he worked for you?” she asked quietly.
“Since the sanatorium opened.”
Savi covered her hand with her mouth, not wanting to contemplate the awful possibility. “Is there…is there any legitimate reason the handcuffs would be used here?”
Alex didn’t answer, the words she dreaded locked in his throat.
“Please.”
Alex’s chest heaved on a rough inhale. “This isn’t an asylum. It’s for convalescence. No one gets restrained here.”
“Who do you think—?”
“Savi.” Alex stopped her question in its tracks. “Don’t torture yourself with the unknown. When he gets here, I’ll drag the answers from him one way or another. I promise.”
She tried, but the unknown kept creeping in whenever she looked away, like a revenant doomed to haunt her for all eternity. Alex stayed by her side, his comforting touch never leaving hers.
It had been bad enough to think Ma had simply been imprisoned against her will, but Savi had never considered what other depravities she might have been subjected to—if she was here at all.
Before opening that drawer, Savi had been pinning her hopes on Ma being alive. But now? Perhaps death was a better alternative than that. A mantel clock on the bookcase ticked as the minutes went by, Savi’s mind unable to stop turning no matter how much she tried.
She flinched when the door finally opened behind her.
Alex immediately climbed to his feet. “Dr Franklin.” Somehow, neither his voice nor his expression carried any trace of animosity, a skill that had no doubt been drilled into him from a young age.
“Lord Lakenheath.” Franklin’s upbeat, jovial voice was like nails on a chalkboard, but his appearance was anything but.
He looked to be of an age with her father, although his chiselled jaw and salt-and-pepper hair gave him a handsome, rakish appearance.
There was a faint rustle of fabric in the air as he shook Alex’s hand, a charismatic smile on his face.
“I hadn’t thought to see you in this neck of the woods. And you’ve brought company.”
“Indeed. Allow me to introduce my wonderful wife, Lady Lakenheath.” Alex stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders.
There was an odd flicker in his eyes as he beheld her, but Franklin nonetheless bowed his head in an outdated gesture of chivalry, a ring of keys on his belt tinkling. “My dear, it is a blessing to have you here. I’m sorry to have missed your wedding.”
Savi blinked. “My wedding?”
“Quite.” The crisp lilt to his voice spoke of a privileged upbringing. “I was a speaker at a medical conference in Zurich. Couldn’t get out of the blasted thing. I’m sure your father passed along my regrets.”
Alex gently squeezed her shoulders, his thumbs whirling over her skin.
Her attempt at a polite expression no doubt resembled a corpse in the advanced stages of rigor mortis, her lips stretched over her teeth. “I didn’t know you knew each other.”
“Yes, yes.” Franklin arranged his white coat as he sat behind his desk. “We worked together, oh, donkeys’ years ago.” He cleared his throat, leaning forward. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Alex’s comforting touch disappeared, and Savi mourned its loss. She heard the rustle of fabric as he fetched the invoice from his inside jacket pocket, followed by the distinct sliding of paper.
In the corner of her vision, she saw him opening the Room EC1 invoice, saying nothing as he leaned over her and placed it on Franklin’s desk, twisting it to face him. Alex remained on his feet, standing at her side like a sentinel, his hand resting on her shoulder.
The lines on Franklin’s forehead deepened as he scooped up the invoice. His startlingly blue gaze scanned the invoice in polite confusion.
Until the blood drained from his face, the whites of his eyes on full display. Franklin’s focus jumped between them like a cornered animal seeking an escape, his shoulders tensing.
He moved in a blur of motion, springing to his feet as his chair toppled backwards in a clatter of wood. Shoving the desk towards them, he darted around it, heading for the door.
Alex lunged at him, angling a sharp shoulder directly into Franklin’s chest.
Franklin flew backwards into the wall with a pained grunt, narrowly missing the sharp edge of the wooden filing cabinet. Instead of coming towards them again, however, he ignored them completely, reaching out for the large golden bell hanging on the wall next to it.
Dread sliced into her from all directions as she realised in an instant that it wasn’t a bell at all.
Savi moved, but Alex was there first, wrenching Franklin away from the alarm button. His arm went around Franklin’s throat, yanking him backwards, but Franklin bucked, bracing his weight against the wall with his legs, desperately trying to sound the alarm.
With a sharp twist, Alex threw Franklin onto the floor in a single movement, pinning him down with a hand at his neck and a knee over his tailbone.
Even then, Franklin refused to admit defeat, desperately reaching for the football paperweight that had been knocked off the desk, swearing in frustration when Alex plucked it out of his reach.
“Let’s be sensible now,” Alex panted, grim determination painted into his gaze. He angled Franklin’s head to the side. “Where is Sarala Dey?”
Franklin writhed in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat Alex, his legs kicking uselessly. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Then why did you try to sound the alarm?”
The only answer Franklin gave was a rough exhale.
Alex’s free hand went to Franklin’s belt, tugging off the ring of keys Savi had noticed earlier. “The police know we’re here. What I’d like to tell them is that you complied with our requests to free Sarala from her unlawful confinement. Where is she?”
“If the police knew you were here, then why are you alone?”
Alex leant in, his voice lowering to a dangerous rasp. “Because then they aren’t here to witness what I’ll do to you if you don’t tell me.”
Franklin gave a low, one-noted laugh, still prostrate on the floor. “Forgive me if that threat doesn’t strike fear into my heart. Your wartime service was sitting at a desk job whilst other men risked their lives.”
“Is she dead?” Savi interrupted, her snarl quivering with equal parts emotion and fury. It felt like she had waited a lifetime for answers, her nerves raw and exposed. Tears blurred her vision.
Franklin’s expression hardened. “If anything happens to me, she will be.”
Icy shock bound her to the spot before the avalanche of bone-deep relief rushed in, almost knocking her off her feet. She clung to the back of her chair, feeling light enough to float away. Her eyes found Alex’s immediately, her bottom lip trembling. She’s alive.
Alex gave her a resolute nod, one that told her that everything truly would be okay—because he would make it so. All softness vanished as he looked back down at Franklin. “Where is Sarala Dey?”
“Fuck her, and fuck you.”
Alex’s jacket tightened as his shoulders shifted. Out of Franklin’s range of view, he lifted the heavy iron paperweight in his free hand, the movement silent and slow. “Last chance. Where. Is. She.”
“Where a woman like her deserves to be,” Franklin panted, doing his best to glare up at them.
The ice holding her prisoner melted in her fiery rage, and she advanced.
Alex’s face twisted into a snarl—but he was too slow.
Savi got there first, stamping her heel onto Franklin’s hand as hard as she possibly could.
Franklin’s blood-curdling shriek of agony filled the room for a split second before it was dimmed as Alex shoved the man’s white coat over his mouth to muffle his screams.
She held her heel down, feeling a sickening splinter of bone before she heard it—but even that wasn’t enough to make her lift her foot. “Where,” she snarled, leaning down, “is Sarala fucking Dey?”