Chapter 8
The blood from Michelle’s head wound seemed to have stopped flowing, Abigail noticed as she was pushed down into a seated position on a wooden crate next to Jacob.
“Get that cop upright,” Clark said, “don’t need extra problems.”
Abigail and Jacob shared a glance. Why did this guy care if he killed a cop? He hardly seemed like the conscientious type.
“I don’t understand what you think we can give you,” Abigail said, her voice wobbling. Clark turned to glare at her, “I’m sorry, but I don’t—what do you think we can tell you?”
The snarl that seemed to be this man’s version of a smile spread across his face again as he approached.
“Tell me?” he repeated, “you can tell me where your daddy hid all his dirt on me and my friends. This one, though? He can’t tell me anything. All he’s supposed to do today is die.”
The words hit her like physical blows. If he didn’t want anything from Jacob then there was nothing to negotiate—he would just kill him regardless of what she said.
“What if I don’t tell you anything if you hurt him?”
Clark barked a laugh. “Oh, do drop the bravery act, Miss Clement.”
The way he said her name was mocking. Everything he said seemed to manage to make it clear that he was making light of the person he was talking to. In all her years as a professional CEO babysitter, making sure egotistical jerks didn’t put the whole company’s foot in his mouth, she had found that the ones with Clark’s attitude rarely did well long term. If it hadn’t happened when it happened, it wouldn’t have been long until his little empire had been toppled by someone else.
She needed to keep him talking—even if it was only prolonging the inevitable.
“Is that my gun?” she asked, nodding to the handgun at his side.
A ripple of emotion across his face told her she might have just made a mistake. She was pushing her luck with this lunatic, and thanks to her memory malfunctions, she didn’t know what she was fishing for—or even what bait and tackle she was using.
All she could do was hope it wasn’t dynamite.
“No…” he said, gritting his teeth, “it’s my gun. My gun that you stole from me. Just one more thing your daddy managed to hide from the feds. Can’t imagine he’d want you to be incriminated in what happened here.”
Stole from me, echoed around her mind as she tried to parse what she’d just heard.
“That I stole from you? Then you stole it… what, back from me? You were in my house!?”
A flicker of confusion crossed his expression and made Abigail think—if I wasn’t him or one of his lackeys, it must be a third party he didn’t want her to know about.
“Shut up,” he retorted, turning his face away from them to glare down the length of the warehouse.
“Why do you think I stole it?” she asked, preparing to play the memory loss card for all it was worth.
As he refocused on her, his expression turned hard. “What do you mean? I found you spying on my… business meeting, you burst out of there screaming and yelling, snatched my property, and ran off with it. Why are you asking like it’s news?”
Abigail stared at Clark. Had he totally lost his mind? There was absolutely no circumstance where she would voluntarily have put herself an inch closer to a psycho with a gun, let alone swipe said gun out of his hand. He was staring at her expectantly and she cleared her throat to try and answer.
“I… don’t remember what happened,” she admitted, dropping her face away from him as if ashamed, “whatever happened here, afterwards, I hit my head, I don’t remember a thing.”
“Amnesia!?” Clark cackled, “No way, no way—you’re lying! You’re stupid, delicate brain is the reason they never pinned that idiot’s murder on me!? Precious little girl couldn’t put the pieces back together again and Daddy so worried she’d get in trouble hid the murder weapon. That’s amazing!”
Irritation permeated her fear. She’d been mocked plenty by nasty folks along the way, but this guy wasn’t just some jealous coworker or overly competitive Mom—he was the cause. She could smell his breath as he leaned in close and smirked.
“You know, I searched for years to try and figure out who it was that had been tipping the Feds off about a few of my darker ventures,” he said, getting even closer, “all these years later, and I find out it was my damn accountant.”
“Screw you,” she said quietly.
She had wanted to say more but she was just so angry. It was either that or do something completely unhinged, like headbutt him, and she knew she would regret that immediately.
“How dare you,” Clark raised his hand above his head as he shouted at her but Jacob cut him off.
“Why are you doing this now? What could possibly have changed—I know the deal. Everything was on ice. They only had my testimony that you shot that guy, what was his name—Cavelli?”
“Marelli,” Clark corrected as he laughed, “Jeez, kid, get your facts right.”
“Yeah,” Jacob replied, “Marelli. I saw you shoot him, but it wasn’t enough to convict.”
“That’s where you come in,” he said, pointing at Abigail. “I know you got something—papers—that could put me in the clink. And you’re going to give them to me.”
Abigail widened her eyes and injected as much sincerity into her voice as she could, “Honestly, at this point, I’d give them to you—but I don’t have them.”
“What!?” Clark screamed and whirled to face her, pressing the cold metal of the gun under her chin, “You gave them over already!?”
“No! They were stolen!” Abigail replied, feeling tears run down her face. “I swear, I promise! I—”
“Leave her alone,” Jacob said, “any papers in her dad’s safe are gone—you’re right back where you started when there wasn’t enough evidence that you were involved in any of this stuff. The drugs, the weapons, the stolen car parts my mom’s boyfriend was into…”
Clark’s mouth snapped shut, and he pivoted to look at Jacob. “Don’t you say anything about your mother?”
The sudden change in the unstable little man gave Abigail pause. Major mood swings like that were rarely a good thing. She looked to Jacob, hoping he would see her trying to warn him off with her expression.
He didn’t move his eyes away from Clark for even a second.
“My mother was an unreliable, self-centered, cruel woman who thought absolutely nothing of committing her own infidelity while persecuting my father for his.”
“Shut up!” Clark yelled, leveling the gun at Jacob’s face and stepping towards him.
“That’s enough,” a female voice echoed down the large open space.
Jacob’s head snapped to where it had come from and Abigail followed his line of sight.
The empty, dark warehouse stared back. Nothing moved. The four large men, though, were starting to look nervous, and Clark had begun to stammer.
“I just—you heard—”
“I said enough,” the voice said, tickling something in Abigail’s mind.
Looking from Clark to Jacob, Abigail tried to get her heart rate under control and breathe deeply even though she could still feel the sharp pain where the gun had been pressed into her chin.
Jacob’s face was stone as he stared out into the darkness, but Abigail was almost certain that she saw his lip quiver for a split second before he clenched his jaw to still it.
“What—”
“Hello, Jakey,” the voice said, closer now.
The only person who called Jacob in that way was his mom. Abigail turned towards the voice and saw a woman approaching from the left side of the warehouse—the side completely hidden by shadow.
“That’s not fair,” Jacob said, “that’s... that’s BS!”
“No, no, that’s no way to speak to your mother,” she said, a small smile on her lips.