Chapter 33
Callan
The decoy car, a silver Audi rental, sits two cars back from Jack. He fucked up.
“Or he didn’t, and you are now tracking him like he wants you to,” I mutter, but staying where I am, exactly two cars behind. He turns right, and I get stopped by oncoming traffic. Good. That’s fine. Makes this plausible.
My gaze keeps shooting to the white unmarked van as it trundles down the road without a care in the world. Whatever Jack wanted, he got.
My phone buzzes in the holder, and I lean over to swipe the screen. “Where are you?” Aidan barks down the line.
“Kind of trailing Jack after he came out of the library. Where are you?”
Silence.
I smirk. It’s not often I get the jump on Aidan. I relish it when I do.
Then he says, “What?”
“I saw him leave the library, and now I’m following him.” I curse as the van goes out of sight, and I cut up a black Merc who blares his horn at me. I give him the finger and keep going. If Jack saw that, I’m fucked.
“What was that?” Aidan asks.
“Never mind that. Is Annabelle okay?”
“She’s fine. Shaken that Jack was so close, but fine. Truth be told, holding up better than I expected she would.”
“He’s done this before. He’s been near her before.”
“Yeah, I think so as well. We don’t tell her that,” he grits out.
“Wasn’t going to.”
“Good, where exactly are you?”
“Heading towards the West ring road,” I say, taking the next turn a beat later than I would if I were trying to stay tight on him. “He’s in a white van. Plain, no markings.”
“Don’t lose him.”
“Trying not to.”
The van appears again three cars ahead at a set of lights. Relief hits. Jack sits in the driver’s seat with one arm resting in the open window.
“What did he do?” I murmur.
“Pretended to the air con guy, cut the power and tested our responses.”
“Whose responses?”
“Annabelle’s, firstly, mainly, probably. And then ours, to see if we were watching, how long it would take one of us to show up.”
“And we gave him everything he needs to know.”
“Yep.”
“Yay us.”
“No, you prick, fucking boo us. Stay with him.”
The lights change. Traffic rolls. I keep two cars between us and take the ring road exit after the van. My hand is steady on the wheel. Everything else in me is not.
“I’ll call if he stops,” I say.
“You do that. And Callan?”
“What?”
“Don’t do anything stupid on your own.”
I end the call without answering.
The van keeps moving, unhurried, heading away from the centre. He knows how to do this. Never too fast. Never too careful. Ordinary from a distance. That is how monsters survive. They learn how to wear the skin of routine.
I stay off his arse and let a red hatchback slide between us. Better. Safer. Less obvious. My pulse still beats too hard every time I think I might lose sight of him.
He comes off the ring road without indicating, slips down a narrower carriageway lined with trade units and fenced storage yards. An industrial estate.
I ease off and let a delivery lorry take the space between us. The van passes a tyre place, a shuttered café, and a plumbing merchant. Then Jack turns into a yard with a battered sign for refrigeration services.
I drive straight past.
Every instinct in me wants to swing in after him and put a blade in his throat before he can open his door. Instead, I keep going another fifty yards, take the next left, then pull up along the kerb beside a skip full of plasterboard.
I kill the engine and look in the mirror.
Nothing obvious. No one pulls out after me. No white van reappears at the junction.
My phone is already in my hand.
Ethan answers at once. “Callan.”
“I’ve got him at an industrial yard off the West ring road. The sign says refrigeration services. Could be a front, or could be nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” Ethan says.
“No. It isn’t.” I keep my eyes on the road behind me. “He turned in like he knows the place.”
“Location?”
I send it over. “If he sees me sitting here, it’s over.”
“Then don’t sit there. Circle it once and keep moving.”
A beat passes before I say, “I want to go in.”
“I know.”
“That isn’t a no.”
“It is a no. You’re alone.”
“I’m always alone, Eth.”
A beat of silence opens up on the line.
“Even if you felt that way before, you’ve got something now, Cal. Don’t leave her.”
“Bastard,” I mutter.
“Correct bastard,” he replies and hangs up.
He is correct. Arsehole.
It doesn’t stop me from debating whether to sit here, go in, or drive away. No outcome will help Annabelle. That’s the fucking problem. Even if I go in, he probably won’t go down without a fight. Okay, he definitely won’t go down without a fight.
Regardless of the big words, I’m not sure I can take him alone. My left hand drops my phone and picks up the knife on the console. A deadly weapon with a jagged blade that curves around into a fork. This goes in, it comes out of a dead man.
“Fuck,” I mutter and throw it back down. I squeal away from the kerb and merge into traffic at the end of the road, fuming.
I take the roundabout and head back towards the library, dialling Ethan again.
“What did you decide?” he says by way of an answer, knowing me too well.
“I’m coming back to the library.”
“Good choice.”
He hangs up, and I clench my jaw so tightly it gives me a headache.
Good choice. The right choice. The only choice.
Hopefully Annabelle agrees. Will she be disappointed I didn’t go in?
By the time I pull up outside the library, my temper has its own weather system.
I spot Ethan’s Porsche first. Then Aidan’s car farther up.
I park badly, kill the engine, and sit for half a second with both hands on the wheel, breathing through the urge to smash something. Jack is in a yard with a fake business sign, probably laughing his head off while we scramble around after him like good little sons.
My phone buzzes before I get out.
Aidan.
I answer as I slam the door. “What?”
“Pleasant,” he says. “Where are you?”
“Outside.”
“I’m coming out.”
Aidan pushes open the door and steps out. He takes one look at me and says, “You look murderous.”
“I am murderous.”
“That tracks.”
“Does Annabelle know I followed him?”
“No, not yet. She is working. We are trying to lay low and not worry her too much.”
“Bit late for that, wouldn’t you say?”
He gives a short nod, accepting that for what it is. We stand in the heat with traffic passing in front of us and the library doors at our backs, and all I can think about is how close Jack got to her. How easy it was. A hi-vis vest, a toolbox, a polite voice. That was all it took.
“Did he speak to her?” I ask.
Aidan shakes his head. “Not that we know of. She only saw what she thought was the engineer. Then the power cut.”
My jaw tightens again. “He wanted to feel her panic.”
“He got it.”
I look at the library doors. “I want him dead.”
“So do I.”
The door opens again, and Ethan and Annabelle walk out.
“We’re going to lunch,” he states. “All of us. Cafe down the block.”
“Is this a good idea?” I ask, falling into step with them as Aidan goes to the other side.
“No,” Annabelle mutters.
“Jack is not here. He is halfway across town,” Ethan says.
“You don’t know that,” Annabelle says.
“I do,” I say. “I followed him. He is in an old business on an industrial estate.”
She stops dead, hard enough to jerk Ethan—who has hold of her hand—to a halt. “Excuse me? You followed him?”
Ethan’s eyes cut to me, warning clear as a blade.
Too late.
Annabelle yanks her hand out of his.
“I saw him leave,” I say. “I was in the decoy car and stayed on him.”
Her face drains. Fear first. Then anger. The anger is better. Anger keeps her upright.
“And you’re only just telling me now?” she snaps.
“We were about to,” Aidan says.
She rounds on him. “Don’t do that. Don’t do the ‘we’ thing, like that makes it less insane.”
“It was the right call,” Ethan says, calm as ever.
“Was it?” she fires back. “Because from where I’m standing, it sounds like your psychopath father walked into my workplace, cut the power, and then one of you went off chasing him while I was left not knowing any of it.”
I take that one because it belongs to me. “I did what I had to.”
“He could’ve seen you. He could’ve…” she drops her voice to a whisper, “…killed you.”
“He didn’t, and he didn’t. I didn’t go in, I came back here. To you.”
The words hang there. No one says a word. Aidan and Ethan look away, in case this turns into a car crash.
Annabelle swallows and moves forward, close enough to enter my personal space but not close enough that she touches me. “I can’t lose you,” she says. “None of you. I don’t know what that says about me… It’s dark and fucked up. Please don’t put yourself in danger like that again.”
I close the distance between us, and Aidan’s gaze shoots to me. I sense it rather than see it as I grip the back of Annabelle’s neck and pull her to me, so she is flush against my body. Her hands come up, hover for a second and then land flat on my chest.
I take a sharp breath, but the world doesn’t end. If anything, it gets warmer. Brighter. More liveable. “I won’t. I promise,” I say, my lips brushing hers.
She increases the pressure a fraction before she steps back, giving me space, giving herself space.
“Food,” Ethan says, after a beat.
Annabelle nods and steps out into the middle of the pavement. A man moves out of her way, catching my attention for a second, before another man bumps into her with his shoulder, deliberately. I move before thought catches up.
My hand clamps around the back of the man’s neck, and I drive him forward into the brick wall beside the café window. The impact cracks through the street. People gasp. Annabelle sucks in a breath behind me.
“Touch her again,” I say into his ear, very calm, “and I’ll make sure you don’t get back up when I put you down.”
He lets out a choked noise. His hands fly up. “She stepped out. Fucking hell.”
“Callan,” Ethan says, low and sharp.
I keep the man pinned another second, then release him with enough force that he stumbles. He turns, takes one look at the four of us, and decides against being brave. Good choice. He disappears into the foot traffic, muttering.
My pulse is hammering. My skin feels wrong. Too tight. Too alive.
“Callan.” My name comes out of her mouth.
I turn. Her face is pale again, blue eyes wide. “I’m okay.”
“No one hurts you.”
“I’m okay,” she says again. “It was an accident.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Aidan says, tugging on her bag. “Give it to me.”
“What? Why?” she asks, surrendering her bag to Aidan.
“He planted a tracker or something on you,” I say.
The blood drains from Annabelle’s face as she steps closer to me. I invite it, pulling her against me. “A tracker? He’s working for your father?”
“More than that,” Ethan says, scrolling through his phone. “He’s covering up for him.” He holds his phone out, and I snatch it from him. On the screen is a photo of a Detective Inspector that matches the guy who just barrelled into Annabelle.
“You are fucking joking?” I hiss.
Ethan shakes his head and takes his phone back. “I knew I recognised him. DI Tony Briggs.”
For one second, the street goes silent in my head.
Then everything sharpens.
I scan the pavement, the road, the café windows, every face that passes. Briggs is gone.
“What did he put on her?” I ask.
Aidan is already opening her bag. “I’m checking.”
“No.” Ethan reaches for it. “Not here.”
Annabelle flinches. “What do you mean, not here?”
“It means if there is something in the bag, we don’t stand in the middle of the fucking street waving it around,” Ethan says.
She nods.
I take her hand. “We’re moving inside. Now.”
“To the café?” she asks.
“Yes.”
I steer her through the café door with Ethan at her back and Aidan carrying the bag, like it might explode. The bell above the entrance gives a cheerful little ring that does not belong in this moment.
The café is cooler than outside, dim enough that my eyes need half a second to adjust. A few people look up as we come in. They look away just as quickly when they see our faces.
“Back corner,” Ethan says.
“Sit,” I say.
Annabelle slides into the booth first. I go in beside her before my brothers can. Ethan takes the opposite side. Aidan stays standing for a second, eyes on the front windows, then joins Ethan with the bag on the table between them.
Annabelle looks at it as if it has fangs. “Open it.”
Ethan shakes his head once. “Aidan.”
Aidan unzips it carefully. He goes through the contents piece by piece. Cardigan. Purse. Lip balm. Tampons. Phone charger. Notebook. Pen. He checks the seams, inside and out and the strap. “Nothing,” he says eventually.
“Nothing?” Annabelle croaks. “So, it was an accident.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “It was deliberate, but why, we don’t know yet.”
“Yet,” she mutters and reaches for my hand. I take it, giving it a squeeze.
“We will find out,” I promise. “And then he dies next to Jack.”