Rage (Benson Security 3)

Callum caught sight of movement through the kitchen window. Someone was coming down his drive. A very familiar someone. His heart began to beat faster at the sight of Isobel Sinclair. She’d been delivering his groceries for months now, but he’d rarely seen her. It had been a deliberate move on his part, forced by self-preservation. Everything about Isobel called to him, making him want to drag the curvy woman into his lair and spend a few hours forgetting his life with her body. And that was something he couldn’t let happen. He’d learned the hard way that he was better off alone.

“I’m phoning to see if you’re dead,” Betty said, dragging his attention back to her. “Still with us, I see.”

“Why do you sound disappointed?”

“We’ve already established that I think you’re a big pansy arse for even thinking about offing yourself. I’ve been through a helluva lot more in my lifetime than you have, and I’m still standing. You need to suck it up and get on with the life you’ve been given.”

Aye, so she’d told him. On numerous occasions. Callum wondered yet again why he bothered to pick up the phone when she called. “What have you endured that’s worse than having both your legs blown off?” He should have kept his mouth shut. It was an amateur mistake. One he’d only made because he was distracted by the woman walking towards his house.

“You don’t know loss and agony until you’ve had a hysterectomy, son. Don’t even get me started on what a double mastectomy feels like.”

“No,” Callum said. “Let’s not get you started.”

He was still dazed from the visit when she’d offered to flash her boobless chest at him, in order to show him it was still possible to live a good life with missing body parts. Or as she had said, “So you’ll see that you can still be sexy when there’s stuff missing. Being boobless hasn’t slowed me down any. Ask the vicar.” Then she’d given him a toothless grin—because she’d lost her teeth in Lake’s car. It had taken the two men working together to get her under control. Callum was still traumatised just thinking about it.

“I need to go,” Callum said, his eyes on Isobel as she let herself through his gate. There were no groceries in her hands. This wasn’t a delivery. Immediately, every instinct he had went on alert and he noted every detail about her.

She was paler than usual, and her dark hair, tied in a twist, was nowhere as neat as she normally kept it. She looked around furtively, as though afraid someone was watching.

Or she was afraid of him.

“Are you going to shoot yourself? Is that why you need to go?” Betty asked.

“Not today, Satan, not today.”

“Good. Then can you finish that bowl you’re making and send it to me, so I can give it to Kirsty? I need something to bribe her with.”

That was enough to pull his attention away from Isobel. Just. How the hell did Betty know he was woodturning? His eyes scanned the room and he cursed under his breath. There was a tiny camera fixed in the corner of the room near the ceiling. Bloody Elle, she’d bugged him. Of course she had. He’d bet there were cameras all over the damn property, watching every damn move he made. The staff of Benson Security had no concept of personal boundaries.

“I’m going to kill them,” Callum muttered. Right after he found every bloody surveillance toy on his property.

“Can you do it after you’ve finished the bowl?”

“I can’t believe you lot have been watching me. What have you been doing? Sitting around, eating popcorn and monitoring the sad sack in Arness?”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist. There’s no camera in the bathroom. I argued for one, but everybody kept saying that was an abuse of your privacy. They wouldn’t let me watch the night-time feed, either.” Betty’s voice turned wicked. “Is it true you sleep in the nude?”

Callum shuddered. He couldn’t even think of anything to say to that. As soon as the call ended, he was going to remove every damn camera and shove them up…

“Kirsty would like it,” Betty said, pulling his attention away from his plans. “She likes all that arty-farty crap. And she’s banned me from the security office, so I need to bribe my way back in. Can you send it to me this weekend? Before you kill yourself?”

Callum didn’t have the energy to follow Betty’s logic. Isobel was at his door, and his house was full of cameras, so that his ex-colleagues could spy on him. He sure as hell didn’t have the time to ask Betty what she’d done that was bad enough to get her banned from Benson Security’s Invertary office—she practically lived in her armchair in the corner of the reception area.

“I’m hanging up now,” Callum said as Isobel rang his doorbell.

“Don’t die before you finish the bowl,” Betty shouted, “and put a bow on it. Make it fancy before you send it. Kirsty’s in a foul mood, and a bow would definitely help.”

With a shake of his head, Callum ended the call. He had more on his mind than Betty’s pathetic attempt to pay off Lake Benson’s wife. It wasn’t going to work, anyway. Kirsty had grown up in Invertary. A deep distrust of Betty had been bred into her from birth.

Callum stared at the door as Isobel rang the bell again. If he opened it, he’d be opening himself up to whatever problem she obviously had. He didn’t do that anymore. He didn’t get involved with other people’s problems. And he sure as hell wasn’t someone who could help her.

Through the frosted glass, he saw her shift in place before she rapped the door with her knuckles. Callum broke out in a cold sweat. Part of him itched to pull open the door and offer his help. The rest of

him knew that what little help he could offer wouldn’t be of much use.

Isobel knocked the door again, and this time, it was a much more timid tap, as though she was losing her confidence. Callum’s heart pounded. She would soon get fed up and go, taking her problems along with her. That was what he wanted. He rubbed his sweaty palms on his jeans. Aye, he definitely wanted her to take her problems elsewhere.

Through the window, he watched her step back, look at the door and chew at her bottom lip. She wrung her hands in front of her. All colour had gone from her face. Her usually pink cheeks were pale. Slowly, her eyes closed, and she nodded and turned, heading back down the path.