Heller's Regret (43 page)

I searched for more mentions of that
religion, but there were no other hits. It had been very effective
at removing all traces of itself. Wanting to scrub all remnants of
Malefic from my life, I shut down my computer, deciding it would be
a better use of my time to visit Mum again.

I was just heading out when Daniel delivered
a letter addressed to me in careful childish writing.

Dear Tilly

I’ve started at the academy and it seems
okay. The teachers are very nice and I’m getting lots of practice.
Mother and I are living in a small flat near the academy and Daddy
visits us there.

I’m really sorry we didn’t go to the zoo,
but I play with my dinosaurs every chance I can.

Agatha

I suppose I should be grateful Mrs Namoy had
new interests to pursue in her life, not following up on her
complaint to Clive. But I deeply regretted that Agatha and I hadn’t
had that day of fun together. It wouldn’t surprise me if her ‘lots
of practice’ equalled long days of piano playing. I put the letter
to one side so I could answer it later.

I took Mum shopping and we spent a pleasant
afternoon working in her garden, followed by a comfortable evening
in front of the TV, Puddles nestled on Mum’s lap. She seemed more
resigned to living without Dad, telling me her friends were keeping
her busy with social engagements.

At nine-thirty seeing her hiding a yawn, I
realised I’d overstayed my welcome, letting myself out.

At my car, I fumbled my keys, dropping them
on the ground. Berating myself for my butter fingers, I reached
down to search for them in the dark. I froze when something hard
dug into my back.

A smooth voice said lowly, “Nice and easy. No
sudden moves.”

“Who are you? What do you want?” I asked,
trying to keep the tremor from my voice. If it was a mugger, I’d
give him my handbag. If it was someone worse . . . I tried to
calculate how fast I could retrieve my capsicum spray.

“We’ll ask the questions. Now, slowly,
slowly, we’re going to walk down the road to that car.”

“And if I refuse?”

The hardness dug into my back more. “This
isn’t a toy and I’m not a patient man. If you cause us any trouble,
I will kill you and I won’t even blink while I’m doing it. If you
do what we ask, no harm will come to you. We just want to
talk.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s no concern of mine if you do or don’t.
Move down the road now. And don’t try anything stupid like
screaming. You don’t want your recently widowed mother to find your
bullet-ridden body in front of her house, do you?”

Whoever he was, I hated him for saying that.
One thing I knew was that I wasn’t getting into that car with him.
Heller had drilled into my brain the importance of never getting in
the car. At that point, he stressed over and over, a person often
lost any control of the situation. Those poor teens had been a
prime example of that in action.

Despite what the man threatened, I struggled
at the door of the car, resisting his efforts to force me in. He
didn’t bother arguing with me, but socked me one in the face. That
shut me up real fast. His big meaty fist caught my nose, lips and
chin, leaving all bloodied and bruised.

Little groans of pain escaped from between my
split lips, blood dripping onto my clean shirt.

“Get in,” the man said, roughly pushing me
into the backseat. I fell hard on the upholstery, probably smearing
some blood on it. He shoved me over, climbing in next to me. I had
my first glance at him, but there’d be nothing I’d be able to tell
Clive about him or the driver and front seat passenger – they all
wore balaclavas.

“Go,” he instructed the driver.

That was it for me. I’d lost control of the
situation and would have to rely on sheer dumb luck to help me
out.

We drove for five confusing minutes, the
driver circling and u-turning in his track. I wasn’t sure if that
was to throw off any non-existent tail or to make it impossible for
me to replicate the path we’d gone.

“What do you want with me?” I asked, my voice
muffled through the hand I used to stem the blood flow.

“We’re not interested in you. We’re
interested in your boyfriend, the mysterious Heller.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I instinctively
lied. Lie, fabricate, deny, Heller had advised if ever being pumped
for information I didn’t want to share. If necessary, he told me,
even deny who you were. He should know about that trick – he’d been
doing it for years.

“Don’t give us the runaround,” the guy said
with weary menace. “We’ve heard it all before. We’ve done our own
research and we know everything about you, including your stirring
romance with that shit, Heller.”

I knew Heller ran comprehensive checks on
people, but it was disconcerting to find that others did the same,
especially when it was on me.

“We have a simple message we want you to
deliver to him for us.”

“Deliver your own message.”

He grabbed my jaw in a vicious grip, crushing
my already painful chin. “Listen, girlie. A simple message to
deliver or your life. It’s your choice. What’s it to be?”

“The message,” I whispered, hating myself for
giving in.

He released me. “Good. I like it when people
see sense without me having to kneecap it into them. No point in
dying over a message, is there?”

“What’s the message?”

“Tell him to leave us alone or we’ll kill
you. Got it?”

“Yes. I’m hardly likely to forget that, am
I?”

“Repeat it back to me.”

“I have to tell him to leave you alone or
you’ll kill me.”

“Good girl.”

“Will he know who you are?”

He laughed, sounding amused. “Oh yeah, he’ll
know.”

The car turned into a street and I realised
that it was the street I lived on, but because we came from a
direction I never travelled, I hadn’t recognised it.

The car idled, while the man in the back with
me pushed me out of the door onto the road, throwing my handbag out
after me. It hit me in the head, knocking me backwards to the road
again. The car zoomed off, leaving me choking on its exhaust
fumes.

Grazed and bleeding, I made it to shaky legs,
staggering the short distance to the front door. As I opened it,
Clive barged out of the security section, followed by a group of
men, Sid storming down the stairs.

“Shit, Tilly, I saw it on the security
camera,” he said.

Clive came up to me and I collapsed against
him, no longer able to support myself. “They said they’d kill me,”
I whispered into his shirt, smearing my blood all over him.

He and Sid led me up the stairs, which I
could barely manage, my legs trembling so much. I couldn’t stop
shaking, unsure if it was the particular menace of that man
responsible for it, or a build up of everything that had happened
to me recently.

Sid went to the kitchen and bathroom,
bringing back an icepack for my nose and a damp washcloth to wipe
away the blood.

Clive crouched in front of me, taking my
hands in his. “Who were they, Tilly? Sid rang and told me a car
stopped outside and threw you out onto the road.”

“I don’t know who they were. A man jammed a
gun into my back and told me to get in their car or he’d shoot me
dead in the street.” I pulled my hands from Clive’s to cover my
eyes. “And I believed him. I really did. He meant it.”

“It’s okay, Tilly. You did the right thing if
you felt threatened.”

“No, I didn’t! I got in the car. You’re
never
supposed to get in the car. I tried to escape from
him, but he punched me in the face and shoved me in the
backseat.”

“Bastard. What did they want?” asked Sid.

“They wanted me to deliver a message to
Heller. They want him to leave them alone or they’ll kill me. They
knew stuff about me. They knew I was at my mother’s house. They
knew Heller is my boyfriend.” They exchanged a meaningful glance
over the top of my head that I noticed.

“Could it be Kirnin or any of his men?” asked
Clive.

“It didn’t look like Select Security.
Kirnin’s not usually very subtle in his attacks.”

“What can you remember about them?”

“Nothing much. I didn’t see the car properly
because it was parked in a dark spot between streetlights. And the
men all wore balaclavas. I didn’t see their faces at all.”

“Accents?”

“No, though I only heard the guy with the gun
speak.”

“Any distinguishing features?”

“No, I barely saw them and it was dark.”

“Do you want us to call the doctor?”

“No. I’m not bothering him again. The
bleeding’s stopped now. I’ll take a painkiller and go to bed.” I
stopped them before they reached my door. “Oh, can you send someone
to bring my car home? It’s parked in front of my mother’s house.
She’ll freak out if she wakes up tomorrow and finds it still
there.”

“Will do,” Clive promised.

I tossed and turned for a while, the menace
of that man’s simple words keeping me awake long past the demands
of my tiredness levels.

Abandoning sleep, I made myself some warm
milk and drank it at my small dining table without any enthusiasm.
My jaw hurt and my lips were puffy and sore. Every mouthful was a
trial.

I stared at the door as it rattled before
opening. Only one person entered my flat without knocking, uncaring
of what state of undress they might find me in.

Heller.

He looked wonderful, though tired, his
clothes rumpled, his blond hair uncharacteristically tousled, as if
he’d driven all night through. His eyes cut through a tan darker
than normal with such startling blueness it seemed there couldn’t
be a colour in the universe so bright. He’d been hurt in his recent
adventures, older scars now healed, fresher ones still red.

He was so beautiful, but so distant.

Neither of us moved, staying in place as we
eyed each other. I wondered what he saw when he gazed at me. I
couldn’t possibly look as good to him as he looked to me,
especially in my current state.

I broke the stalemate by carefully pushing
back my chair and standing, leaning a hip against my dining table
and crossing my arms. He closed the door and stood in front of it,
on his face an expression of . . . intense longing?

“Matilda,” he said.

“You’ve been gone a long time.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” ‘Sorry’ just didn’t cut
it for me. Not this time. “Aren’t you pleased to see me?”

“I would have been pleased to see you when I
was sick, or when my father died, or when I was arrested and spent
the night in the watch house, or when a man I don’t know punched me
and forced me in his car,” I said, my voice rising in anger.

“I didn’t know about these things,
Matilda.”

“I don’t believe you. You speak to Clive
while you’re away, don’t you?” No response. “But you couldn’t even
pick up the phone when I was at my lowest, my saddest, my sickest
points in my life.”

“I’m sorry, my sweet.”

“You weren’t there for me. You’re never there
for me.”

“I –”

“Do you know who was there for me during this
awful time? Danny was there. Farrell was there. Corby was there.
Sid and Clive were there.”

“Matilda –”

“But not you.”

“I’m sorry.” He stepped closer to me, but I
didn’t move towards him. “You look so pale and thin still. I’d
hoped to find you well again.”

“Like some magical cure you didn’t have to
witness? Poor sick woman becomes fuckable again? Sorry, but this
pathetic excuse for a woman I am now is how life has left me
lately.”

“Matilda.”

I pointed to the bruising on my nose and chin
and the split in my lips. “This is a message to you from some of
your friends. It seems you’ve annoyed them. If you ignore their
message, the next time they said they’d kill me. Perhaps that might
make their message a little clearer for you.”

His fists clenched, but his voice remained
calm. “Matilda, you’re angry. I understand that. We need to talk
about things.”

“No, we don’t. I’m done with talking. I’m
done with thinking. In fact, I’m done with this relationship.”

“No, you don’t mean that.”

“Don’t make me beat myself up and throw
myself out of a car to deliver
my
message. I’m done with
you. You and me are no more.”

“No. You’re tired and over-emotional. I
understand that. We will talk about this in the morning when we’re
both refreshed.”

“I’m not over-emotional and there’s nothing
to talk about, whether it’s tonight or tomorrow morning or next
Tuesday. We’re finished, Heller.”

“We’ll talk tomorrow.”

He slipped through the door, closing it
quietly behind him. Frustrated at what an arrogant prick he was, I
threw my mug, wishing it was shattering on his face, not on my
door.

Chapter 32

The next morning didn’t start very well. I’d
wanted to be up and safely down in the security section, surrounded
and protected by men so he couldn’t talk to me. It didn’t quite
work that way.

He stepped through my front door as I stood
at my dresser, looking in the mirror while I tied my hair back in a
ponytail. He came into my bedroom as though he belonged there,
dressed in his
Heller’s
uniform.

“We need to talk.”

“I don’t want to. I have nothing further to
say on the matter.” I didn’t glance at him, worried my resolve
would otherwise waver.

He didn’t give me that option, gently cupping
my chin in his hand, mindful of my bruising, forcing me to meet his
eyes. “We can talk this through, my sweet. I’m not letting you go
over something like this.”

“It’s not just about you, Heller. I have a
say in this relationship too.”

“Look into my eyes and tell me you don’t love
me anymore.” I twisted my head away, trying to escape him, but he
wouldn’t let me go. “Say it to me, Matilda.”