The Pact (A Sarah Roberts Thriller Book 17) (11 page)

She yanked out the R2D2 lunch bag. When would he ever use a lunch bag? It was cool, but useless. Then came the Mine Craft foam sword. This one he liked. At the bottom of the bag was a World of Warcraft giant Foam hammer.

“Love the hammer,” he said, already thinking about the toys and gimmicks people would make from his game.

Jessica giggled, then covered her mouth like she always did. As if letting out a small laugh was akin to farting. He had the sudden urge to ask her why she was the way she was. Who hurt her? Who raped her? Who stunted her growth?

As suddenly as the questions popped into his mind, he chased them away. Those questions had been asked before and all they did was make her withdraw into herself.

It’ll all be over soon, lovely.

He would kill Jessica. He would need to do it soon. It was the only way to draw out her brother. Then little Ben Wilson, the
nerd
who suffered abuse for years from the high and mighty homicide detective, could force Shawn Bryant to use his weapon on him. Death by cop. How fitting. Ben even had the toy gun that resembled a nickel-plated magnum that he would aim at Detective Bryant tucked away and ready for use when the time was right.

Jessy stepped back and studied him.

“Like what you see?” he asked.

That smile never left her small mouth. “Ben, you’re such a dork.”

“Always.” He placed a hand on the wall and leaned into it. “What’s up?”

The conversation was always inane with Jessy. It led nowhere and ended up somewhere.

“It’s my birthday.” She giggled, covered her mouth.

“I know. And?”

“Wanna do something?”

“Like what?”

She waved a finger back and forth in front of her. “I don’t know. You decide.”

“I’m busy.”

“It’s my birthday.” She started bouncing on her feet.

Next she’ll lose the smile. Then pout.

He had to get rid of her. What if Anton’s cell left the house? What if The Clock sent him a message? He needed to be on point with so much happening.

“Let’s celebrate another time,” he said.

She pouted.

Shit wave at a bingo. Such a predictable bitch.

“How about the vegan café?” he asked. Anton had five days left to kill a girl. Then Clara would die. He could wrap up most of what he was doing by then and be ready to die himself. “We’ll go next week. Next Tuesday? Seal it.”

He placed a hand out, palm facing up.

The pout disappeared and a smile as wide as her hips flashed across her face.

“Consider it sealed.” Jessy slapped his palm.

That had always been their personal handshake.

Jessica was twenty-eight-years old, two years younger than Ben, but it was easy to forget her age when she was around. She acted like she was still in grade nine. Whoever fucked her up did a real good job.

He would’ve wanted to meet the uncle or the father that destroyed the girl on the inside. He’d bring that person a gift on Ben’s birthday in Jessy’s honor. A long serrated blade to be inserted into the rectum. Maybe the man who ruined Jessy was her wonderful brother, Detective Bryant. If so, then Ben would be doing her a favor when he ruined Bryant’s life.

He
had
to kill Jessy, but that didn’t minimize the seriousness of what she had gone through, the pain she carried around inside her.

“You gonna go now?” he asked. “Gotta get back to work.”

Her hair shook out of place when she nodded. A quick skip and a hop and she turned to head back down the stairs. He followed her. He had to piss.

At the front door she stopped.

To reassure her, he said, “I’ll shower and change before we go out on Tuesday.”

“Seal it.” Her hand shot out.

He slapped it.

“Bye.”

Jessy slipped out his front door. He closed and locked it, then leaned on it.

“Poor Jessy, only a week to live. It won’t be messy, but you have to give.”

He let out a small giggle and covered his mouth to mimic her.

He deepened his voice and tried to emulate an actor whose name he couldn’t remember. “Your giggling days are numbered, little lady.”

After a few moments, he pushed off the door and headed to the toilet.

He had PAIN PACT business to play with Anton Olafson. And he wanted to check in with The Clock to see if he was keeping time with Clara.

The giggling and snickering at his own joke didn’t stop until he closed his mouth to chew on another Mars bar while he urinated.

People had always feared or envied him. That was why they hated him in school. Which fueled the idea to do what he was doing now.

It reminded him of his favorite movie from years ago, Evil Speak. Stanley Coopersmith, played by a young Clint Howard, was Ben’s hero. As a social outcast, Stanley found a way to summon demons using his computer. His tormentors paid the ultimate price.

It was time for people to fear Ben for something he had
actually
done instead of fearing him because of a perception.

Minutes later, back upstairs in the master bedroom, Ben typed on his keyboard like he was the Employee of the Month at Lucifer’s company where pain was served electronically to over a billion daily.

And he smiled while doing it.

Then ate more Mars bars.

“Shit wave, I forgot to get my house key back from her. Dammit.”

Chapter 13

Sarah had been strong for so many people over the years, but when it came to herself, her life and the people close to her, strength became dependent upon them needing her. To become nauseous, to vomit because she thought Aaron was dead, denoted a certain weakness she rarely felt. She realized that she loved Aaron so much, the thought of losing him made her physically sick.

Whatever the case may be, she was grounded again. Eyes dry, sinuses clear, breathing fine, no longer crying, and ready for answers.

In the parking garage of the Toronto airport, Daniel led her toward a rented minivan that sat in the back corner by itself. Only the front windshield wasn’t tinted. Inside the front seat, Alex’s white face stared out at them as they approached.

“Is Benjamin here?” she asked.

“No,” Daniel said. “He’s waiting in the hotel restaurant.”

“Good. One less person to witness what’s about to happen.”

Daniel slowed and turned to her. “What’s going to happen?” he asked.

“Aaron’s about to be killed for making me think he was dead.”

Daniel raised a hand in the air. “Now hold on Sarah. Wait until you hear the whole story.”

“You can tell me later. This is between Aaron and me.”

She pushed past Daniel and strode to the van.

“Sarah,” Daniel moaned behind her. “Be nice.”

“Fuck nice.”

She reached the van and tried the door. It was locked.

When she smacked the window beside Alex, he didn’t flinch.

“Open this door.” She smacked the window again. “Now.”

“Sarah.” Aaron’s voice came from the back of the van.

His tone weakened her resolve. She wanted to punch him and hug him at the same time.

“Sarah,” Aaron called. “You gonna play nice?”

“Open the damn door. Take your chances.”

Overwhelmed at hearing his voice,
knowing
now that he didn’t die, killed a lot of the anger at being duped. He had to have a good reason. It probably had everything to do with the letter Vivian sent him. If so, how could she be angry with him because he didn’t tell her he was going to fake his death beforehand? She didn’t tell him everything when she left the Vegas hotel and headed to Santa Rosa.

Tit for tat.

But fuck it, I’m still pissed.

The sliding door on the side of the van clicked and slid open.

She jumped sideways, grabbed Aaron’s collar as he leaned from the van, and yanked him out the rest of the way.

They embraced. After a moment of smelling him, touching him, she pulled away and punched him several times before he grabbed her flailing wrists and pulled her back into him. She knew he allowed those punches. He was too good. If he didn’t want to be punched, every lunge would be blocked.

They held each other for another moment longer.

“Aaron, I thought you were dead,” she said into his collar.

“I know, Sarah. But I’m not.”

“Why?” she asked, her words muffled by his shirt’s collar. “How?”

“I got a letter from Vivian. Explained everything.”

She pulled away and gazed at his face. “What everything?”

“Get in. I’ll tell you on the way.”

“Where are we going?”

Daniel walked around them and hopped in the van.

“To save a girl who has been kidnapped. Clara Olafson.”

“Olafson?” Sarah mumbled under her breath. “Olafson?” Sarah stared at the concrete floor of the parking garage while she tried to remember what Vivian said in her letter to her. “Oaf and his son.” She met Aaron’s eyes. “Vivian told me Oaf and a son. She might have a letter wrong or something. But it’s Olafson?”

He nodded. “Clara needs us. I don’t want to be late. Hurry.”

Emotionally numbed by the sequence of events, the sense of a cloud circling her head, Sarah climbed into the van. She touched Alex’s shoulder as a greeting and sat beside Aaron. Daniel was already in the driver’s seat.

He fired up the van and started away.

“I called when you were at your parents’ house. There was no time to tell you our plan. Rationally, no one thought you’d hear the news on the plane.”

She held his hand and remembered her mother on the phone while her dad made her a cup of tea. The tea she didn’t drink. Sarah had thought her mother had called Parkman.

“It’s not like you didn’t think I was dead over and over in the past few years. I guess you got one back on me.”

“That wasn’t the intention.” His face drooped and he looked at her with puppy-dog eyes. “I’d never intentionally hurt you, Sarah.”

Daniel slowed to pay for parking at the ticket booth. He slipped a ticket into the machine and the gate lifted.

“No money?” Sarah asked.

“Already paid. You pay on your way to the vehicle, then you have a certain amount of time to leave the parkade.”

“I didn’t see you pay. You were with me.”

“Alex did it when he saw us coming.”

But she didn’t see that either—although seeing Alex when he didn’t want to be seen was almost impossible.

“Tell me what’s going on,” Sarah said. “Vivian’s not talking to me herself right now until I enter into a pact with her. So these letters are supposed to be her substitute. Fill me in. I’m feeling quite lost.”

She turned to Aaron, still coping with the fact that he wasn’t dead. She had gone through a lot to save his life when he was kidnapped by the Enzo Cartel in Mexico. She couldn’t save his missing finger, the one they delivered to her in Greece, but after getting him out alive, and herself, losing him to a terrorist bombing in Toronto had been unbearable. That pressure on her shoulders was already lifting.

Aaron twisted in his seat toward her. “Vivian’s letter told me it would be The Clock who destroyed the dojo. She said it would be at ten in the morning exactly. So we cancelled all the classes. The four of us waited at the dojo.”

“Waited for what?” Sarah asked. “To be blown up?”

Aaron shook his head. “Someone slipped in the night before and planted the bombs. We detected the phone lines cut in the morning, which severed our alarm system. Since we can trust Vivian—”

“Big risk,” Sarah cut in. “Maybe we can trust her now, but this letter was written twenty-five years ago. Basically, you trusted an old document’s accuracy with your life.”

He looked out the windshield for a moment as if he was collecting his thoughts.

“We trusted her,” he said. “And we decided to do it together.” His eyes found hers again. “Because pyros love to watch the explosion, or visit the scene of the crime afterwards, our plan was this. We would wait inside the dojo until a minute to ten, waiting, watching the outside for loitering strangers. Then we’d vacate out the back and watch the people gawking at the fire afterwards, taking pictures. Our goal was to put a face to The Clock.”

“Did it work?”

“Better than we thought. The bomber himself, The Clock, entered the front of the dojo and picked up a brochure. He talked to me about classes. Alex opened the back door and made like he was a student leaving a class. Daniel and Benjamin made a lot of noise as if they were teaching a class while Benjamin took a photo of the man talking to me. Our guest left a few minutes before ten and we bolted out the back.”