Accidental exposure, p.24
Accidental Exposure, page 24
The words sting but their meaning is solid. You stare at your feet for a second, absorbing the heavy implications of the new information. Then you speak. “That’s good to know but it makes no difference to anything. I had already lost the ability to trust Brian. This doesn’t change much.”
You read and look over the photos and Will sits beside you doing the same. There’s nothing here, nothing new. You’re reading the same words and sentences and paragraphs, wasting time and getting nowhere.
You let out a long, defeated sigh and turn on your laptop.
“Now what are you doing?” Will asks.
“Looking up my phone records.”
“Why?”
“Because the dodgy guys I do jobs for have called me in the past. If I can figure out which phone number is theirs, maybe I can call them back.”
“That sounds like a bad idea.”
“Look,” you turn to stare at Will, “You said you were going to help. Now I don’t know much about murdering and there seems to be a lot of it going on, so I think we should get in touch with people who do.”
Will nods and watches the screen over your shoulder.
You tap away at the keyboard, focused and dedicated. You log into your account with your mobile phone service provider.
“This seems fairly simple,” you say. “I don’t get many calls, so I guess I just go back to the right day, then try to remember the time and it should be obvious. ”
“Don’t people block their numbers these days?” Will asks.
“Some people do but it’s worth a shot. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” As you drop this comment, your eyes roll over an unfamiliar collection of digits.
“What’s this one? Do you know this number?” you ask.
“No, doesn’t ring a bell.”
You look at the details of the mysterious number, checking the time and date. You glance at Will and he shrugs. You dial the number and Will moves his ear closer to eaves drop.
The phone on the other end rings only once before someone picks up. They say nothing.
“Hello?” you ask.
“Yes?”
“Who is this?”
“You know who this is, or at least who I represent. What do you want Mrs Crown?” the voice replies.
“Something’s happened, I need to meet with-”
“Be at the pub where you had the first meeting in one hour. Ask for Alex and don’t be late,” the voice orders then promptly hangs up. You sit stunned for a second before you hang up your end.
“Did you hear that?” you ask.
“Yeah, you better get moving. I’ll wait for you here. I’m not getting too closely involved with those people.”
“Good idea.”
“Wait, Annette.”
“Yeah.”
“What are you taking with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, do you have a gun?”
“Are you serious? No, of course not.”
“Well, maybe you should get one.”
You think for a moment and say, “I don’t think that would help. I don’t have time to organise anything and I wouldn’t even know how. I need to go now.”
“Good luck.”
Chapter 58: Good Luck
You arrive at your meeting place and announce, “I’m looking for Alex?” to the young woman behind the bar.
“Yeah, he’ll be here soon,” she says with a forced smile as she hands you a couple of menus. She points towards the furthest table from the entrance. It sits alone behind a narrow empty doorframe in a separate room. Anyone else at the bar can see through the hole in the wall and know that it’s occupied, but they can’t hear what’s being said in there.
You sit on a chair with your back against the wall. You notice a couple of fairly rough looking men sitting at the tables in the other section and remember how half the people in the area had been employed by Barrows when you first met. You’re more nervous now. You could have broken protocol by calling them and if you have, what is the punishment?
Before long, you watch Barrows enter with Rugs. Last time they came separately. Rugs looks exactly the same as he always does with the same fed up grimace slapped across his arrogant gob; you even wonder if he’s wearing the same big puffy clothes. Barrows is still smiling his big threatening grin and he nods to you as he approaches and your eyes meet. There’s another two unidentified men with them and they’re looking to all corners of the room, watching for something.
Rugs flops down on a stool next to you and shuffles in as close as possible. You can feel his warm breath on your chin as he glares at you. Barrows sits opposite with the bodyguards keeping watch beside him, facing outwards. You’re trapped. A wash of dread and vulnerability bathe you in regret.
“Good morning Annette,” Barrows says, dropping his head slightly like a bowing Japanese soldier.
Before you can respond, Rugs growls, “If anyone else is aware of this meeting you’ll die in that seat. Do you understand? If anyone else arrives expecting to join us or break up this meeting I’ll kill you before you stand. Do you get it?”
“OK, don’t worry, they won’t. It’s just me. I need to talk.”
“Fine,” Barrows begins, “Then talk. ”
“First of all, I apologise for ringing you; I don’t know if that’s the way you usually operate.”
Barrows raises his palm to halt you.
“Don’t worry. We deliberately leave that number traceable. If we simply handed you our contact details you might call us for truly trivial matters. Only desperate people go looking for our telephone number, find it and use it. So please Annette, tell us what troubles you.”
“Brian, my husband. He’s alive,” you say, expecting a reaction. The other men just nod to show they heard you.
“You don’t seem surprised,” you add.
“Please Annette, I am not the Lord. It wasn’t me who brought him back. We gave you a lot of good information which you seem to have done nothing with,” Barrows replies with a sprinkle of disappointment.
“It’s not exactly useable information. There’s nothing I can do with it.”
“What do you want? A map to a place where your issues don’t exist? You asked about a woman, a man and your child. Now you know about two of those things. We are working to find your son. Don’t worry; we are close.” Barrow’s smile has faded a little and he even looks insulted.
“Yeah well I met Byrn too,” You add casually, expecting there to be no more than a mild flicker of interest.
“What?” Rugs perks up and, at that exact moment, Barrows asks, “Pardon?”
“Joyce Byrn, the Irish thug my husband was mixed up with ages ago. She’s still here. She came to my house with a knife a couple of hours after I saw Brian and she tried to stuff me into her van.”
Rugs and Barrows shoot a suspiciously concerned look at each other before Barrows speaks again.
“This matter is not to be taken lightly, Annette. Tell us everything that has happened to you, leave out absolutely nothing.”
So you do. You re-create the entire day, night and morning in vivid detail for the men, answering any and all questions they have. When you’ve finished, Barrows says, “This is concerning.”
He isn’t smiling anymore; there are just thick wrinkle lines scratched across his face where his grin once sat.
“What do you think about this Byrn menace?” Barrows asks.
“She’s obviously a serious danger but I don’t ‘think’ anything really about her yet. I just want to figure out what she’s doing around Brian and why he won’t talk to me.”
“Do you have the reports with you? Give em to me,” Rugs orders.
“You won’t find anything,” you insist as you hand over the papers.
“You don’t know what you’re looking for, college girl,” Rugs replies and he begins to read over the information as Barrows continues your conversation.
“People like Byrn are not to be trusted. You tell me your husband is alive; I think you’re a bad wife. No one cares. You tell me Byrn came to your house with a knife; I think you’re in danger. Now we have a problem,” Barrows says. He’s smiling again, but it seems more like a habitual reflex than a reaction to actual enjoyment.
“People who kill for pleasure will only ever have selfish motivation and so, sooner or later, they become dangerous to everyone. Even their friends.”
“So you think Brian is in danger too? Do you think Byrn has captured him or something?” you ask.
“I doubt Brian is being forced to do anything but I am certain he has been in danger for longer than you would care to believe.”
“Here it is,” Rugs blurts out, pointing to a section of the police report.
“Here is what?” you ask, only to be answered by Barrows.
“My associate has had an extensive career dealing with the less reputable part of our society. He knows the habits of the people who occupy this niche so you should trust his judgment. He has found an oddity in the report. ”
“What did you find?”
“What did you say Joyce Byrn’s old fake identity was? What name did she say at your house?” Rugs asks.
“Adriana, Adriana Anderson.”
“OK, well that was the name of the other driver,” Rugs says triumphantly.
“What? What do you mean?”
“Adriana Anderson was driving the car which your husband swerved to avoid. She swerved off the bridge and the rest is history,” Rugs continues.
“That’s crazy. It couldn’t be Byrn; the police would check her license. They would run the registration of her car and realise if it was a fake name. Or maybe that’s the real Adriana Anderson?”
“Nope,” Rugs begins, “It’s too big of a coincidence for it to be the real Anderson. It must have been Byrn using her fake identity. I could set up a falsified driver’s license linked to a car rego for a little under a grand if you wanted to be cheap. For fifteen hundred bucks I could do you the same job and it would look legit, even if it was subjected to investigation. I’m sure she could get the same deal from one of our enemies.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It means Byrn wanted to hurt the people in your car and since she already knew Brian, she’d probably planned it for some time,” Barrows adds.
“I’ll bet you any money you like that lovely husband of yours did something foul to Byrn and she came for him. That would explain Brian faking his death.”
“No, he wouldn’t give up on Andy like that and what about me?”
“Too bad Annette, get over the denial. This makes sense. Brian upset the woman he was cheating on you with and she tried to get him back. And now he’s trying to hide from her. That’s why Byrn is trying to kill you too.”
Barrows stands to leave and Rugs follows with the bodyguards.
“But why would Brian run from me? Why did he run in the first place?” You ask and Barrows answers .
“Annette, I’ve seen the photos. You looked as though you were dead when they pulled you from the water. Brian must have thought you were gone and he must have been afraid to keep Andy around if Byrn was still threatening him. Maybe Brian made what appeared to be a responsible decision. Is that the kind of information you have been expecting?”
As they all begin to walk towards the exit you think about what Will has told you. ‘When a problem presents itself to Brian, he finds a solution and that solution is often extreme.’
After a few steps, Rugs turns to suggest one final explanation. “You’re a lawyer. Criminals hate the people who put them in prison. Maybe you were Byrn’s target all along. She screwed a lawyer’s husband and destroyed a lawyer’s family. You need to be very, very careful.”
Chapter 59: Fear
“You’re back!” Will shouts with excitement as you return to the apartment. He stands just inside the doorway, bursting with relief. He must have been considering the possibility that you’d never return, how unsettling.
“How did it go?” he asks before you have a chance to say hello.
“Good, I guess.”
You close the door behind yourself and once you’re within the apartment, an exhausting shroud washes over you. Maybe it’s just the most relaxed you’ve been for a while. It’s only two o’clock in the afternoon, but the stress is draining you like the batteries in an old mobile phone. You sit on the couch and close your eyes to rest for a minute.
“So, what did they say?”
“I told them what had happened and they looked over the information they’d already given me.”
“All right, go on.”
“They think Byrn was driving the car that Brian swerved to avoid and they think Byrn was trying to hit us deliberately.”
“That’s a bit out there isn’t it? But the cops would have identified her and you would have known sooner,” Will says.
“We went over all that. Trust me; it’s possible and it is likely that Byrn is behind all of this. Actually, I’m almost convinced.”
You close your eyes again. You’re tired, so damn tired you can feel your breathing slowing and your muscles drooping.
“I’m taking a nap,” you announce. “Feel free to join me. I haven’t had a lot of time to rest the last few days. I need some sleep.”
You grin to yourself, enjoying the pleasant little decision and looking forward to the peace that’s coming.
You stroll to the bedroom, patting Yeeha on the head as she lazily opens one eye to welcome you home. Will is still considering the offer in the living room, so you change into a loose shirt and pyjama pants, wincing as you stretch your stitches. You slip in between the sheets and lay on your side, shivering a little in the crisp fabric and facing away from the door. You wonder if Will is coming.
A minute passes with no company so you wriggle, sigh and try to dream.
You hear footsteps approaching. Then the soft sound of a t-shirt being discarded fills your ears. Will gets in bed without saying a word.
He lays on his back on the mattress without touching you in silence but then breaks the peace.
“I think you, or we, should put the focus back on Andy, though. It’s too dangerous to get side tracked with these people.”
“Yeah, but now I’m thinking about Brian as well. Before Andy was all I had, now I could have a whole family again.”
“Don’t get your hopes up. You know there’s something going on with Brian and until you find out what it is he can be a pretty big threat. You still don’t even have a plan as to what you’re going to do when you actually see Andy.”
You can feel your skin sinking into the bed. Your muscles are slowly drifting away as you take long, rhythmic breaths. You listen to the air pass in and out of Will’s body like music.
You wake to find yourself holding Will. In your sleep, you both shifted so that your cheek is now nestled snugly against Will’s chest and his hand has wandered to your hip. It’s an awkward surprise, but it’s comforting.
“What time is it?” you ask each other simultaneously. Neither of you answer.
It’s midnight, but you’re both well rested and hungry, so you throw some dry pasta into a pot of boiling water. You sit and eat the plain, buttery pasta with a little quiet banter, then move to the couch to watch boring late night TV. These activities are dull, but dull right now comes as a rare delight.
Before too long you’re asleep again and the next morning Will suggests you check into a hotel. Byrn will come looking for you soon .
“Why don’t we go somewhere nice? I’ve still got a little money,” you suggest.
“We just need somewhere we can get away from easily.”
You choose a little motel where the individual rooms open directly onto the car park. No elevators and no lobby, just a door between you and the outside world. You pay for a week and ask the office attendant not to bother having someone clean the room, promising you’ll be tidy.
The room itself is small with one king sized bed. It’s clean and cosy, although not a lot more. The walls are faded orange, but it looks as though someone had once painted them red. A single deep armchair is stuffed in the corner and appears to be the only expensive piece of furniture. The bathroom is tiny, but the fact that you feel perfectly safe for the first time in a while assures you that this was a great idea.
As you unpack your bag into the closet, you ask Will what his plans are.
“I’m staying, it’s already organised. My patients have been transferred to an associate for the next week.”
A few days pass without event. At first, you peer out the front window constantly, afraid that someone has followed you here. Before long, you only occasionally glance at the car park, then eventually not at all. The two of you eat junk food and watch TV on the soft, lumpy bed. Sometimes you sit close to one another, sometimes you don’t. It doesn’t matter. There are no boundaries or rules and you wouldn’t want there to be. There’s a feeling of excitement coupled with the nervous anticipation of what will happen next. Somehow, with this move, you know that all your turmoil is coming to an end.
Soon you will find Andy, or soon you will be dead.
But first, the world finds you and you hear a firm knock on the front door.
Chapter 60: The Beginning of the End
The knock comes again without hesitation.
“Yeah? Who is it?” you ask. There’s no reply. Will picks up the only thing he can find that resembles a weapon, the lamp, and moves to stand beside the door. He’s ready to clobber just about anyone on the other side who isn’t in uniform.
You hold the doorknob firmly and wait a moment in case the visitor has something to say. Still no sound from outside. You twist the copper fitting and jerk open the entrance to the room.
It’s Rugs, standing with another of his derelict associates.
Will, having never met Rugs, panics at the sight of two threatening looking strangers and throws the lamp as hard as he can towards the guests. Neither of them flinches as the ceramic vessel slides between both of their heads without even grazing a little skin and explodes as it hits the bitumen of the car park.
