Bait

I buzz again. Clear my throat as I wait for her voice.

Still nothing.

I call her number. It rings out.

I smile to myself, wondering if the cheeky little bitch is goading me to break in after all.

I’m tempted.

But no. I opt to press her neighbour’s buzzer instead.

She answers in a beat.

“It’s Leo,” I tell her. “Abigail’s boyfriend. She’s not answering.”

“Oh, sure,” she says and buzzes me in.

She’s waiting for me on the landing with a smile on her face.

“You can wait in here until they get back,” she tells me. “If you’re at a loose end, I mean.”

I stare blankly.

“They?”

“Your brother and Abigail. I guess they were heading out for more supplies.” She pauses. “Is he single?”

How my blood runs fucking cold.

“My brother?”

“Jake, right? He was right here.”

Abigail’s door key is in my fingers in a flash. I’m inside her place in a heartbeat.

It’s boiling in the kitchen. I open the oven to find a burning lasagne. I turn off the oven and head through to the bedroom.

They can’t have been gone long. The smoke alarm isn’t even sounding.

I call her name as Sarah joins me in her hallway.

“They went about half hour ago,” she says.

I spot her phone on the sofa.

I call up her messages. Check her calls. Check everything.

And then I see it.

Her online fucking hook-up login. I call up the logs with shaky fingers.

My heart is in my throat as I realise how fucking stupid I’ve been.

My laptop. The sonofabitch was on my fucking laptop.

And he took more than five fucking grand from my bank account.

He took my black swan, too.

I call up his tracker on my phone but the sonofabitch has disabled it. They could be fucking anywhere.

I pace up and down as the fear seems to register for Sarah.

“Your brother… he’s not gonna hurt her, is he? Come to think of it, she seemed pretty wired.”

“She didn’t say where they were going?”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t ask. Didn’t think.”

I call Serena. I’m hissing fury as she picks up.

“It’s Jake,” I tell her. “The cunt’s got Abigail.”

She tells me she hasn’t seen him, hasn’t heard anything since last night.

Fuck.

My hands are in my hair. My scars itch worse than they’ve ever fucking itched since I’ve had them.

“Check my laptop,” I tell Serena. “Look for anything. Any clue. Check the history.”

I don’t even want to think what he’s using that five grand for. I don’t want to think about how fucking crazy he must be.

“The bank,” Serena tells me. “Some dating website…” She pauses. “Wellington’s local depot.” She clocks it as soon as I do. “Oh no, Leo. Oh my God, no.”

And I don’t need a tracker to tell me where the sonofabitch is heading. He knew I’d find him all along.

“Lock the doors,” I tell my sister. “Lock the doors and stay inside.”

“Don’t go there!” she hisses. “Please, Leo! Don’t fucking go there! Call the police!”

But I can’t.

He’s too fucking crazy for the police to turn up.

No.

There’s only one person he wants, and that’s me.

Bait.

Of course.

How fucking ironic.

Tonight her username’s more apt than it’s ever fucking been.

“Don’t call the police,” I tell her. “I’ll handle it.”

“NO, LEO, DON’T!” she screams, but I’m already hanging up.

Wellington’s will never mean anything but tragedy to me. They always told us their products were flammable, but they didn’t tell us quite how much so.

Didn’t tell us how they’d turn our warehouse into an inferno if one of their drums caught light.

Five grand.

I wonder how much fuel he can have bought for five fucking grand.

Enough.

“Is she gonna be okay?” Sarah asks as I leave.

“She’ll be fine,” I say, and I mean it. I’ll make sure of it.

I call Jake’s number knowing full well I won’t get an answer.

It doesn’t matter. He’ll get my message and I know it.

“I’m coming,” I tell his voicemail. “But you knew that, didn’t you? You can let her go already, Jake, I’ll be there regardless. Don’t do anything fucking stupid until I get there. You don’t need to hurt her. She’s done fucking nothing to you. It’s me you want.” I pause. “And I’m on my fucking way.”

For the second time today my foot is to the fucking floor as I pull away.AbigailI thought I was scared in the back of Leo’s truck, trussed up in the footwell in the middle of the night. But it’s got nothing on how sick I feel in the back of Jake’s.

I can smell the diesel from here. I can hear the liquid in the big vats behind the seats swishing around every time he takes a corner.

I don’t need a memo to tell me that this stuff going up is what killed Mariana.

And I don’t need a memo to tell me that Jake is planning on doing it all again.

Maybe he did it in the first place.

“Bait,” Jake calls from the front.