Stolen Lust (Beauty in the Stolen 1)

The gang doesn’t play around. They go for the big prizes, and their thieving stunts are daring. A fan site, mostly made up of geeks and wannabee crooks gushing over the Phantom gang’s nerve and skill, claims the gang is openly taunting the police who have been unable to find a single lead in fifteen years. That’s why Ian was so meticulous about not leaving evidence and why he went to the trouble of blowing up his truck. Will he burn down the house in which they were hiding out? Probably. There’s no doubt in my mind they’re long gone by now.

As the pieces fall into place, the behavior of the detectives makes sense. No wonder they want to catch Ian so badly. No wonder they pushed me so hard. Contrary to what I thought earlier, they knew he’d been shot. Yet they don’t understand Ian’s motive for taking me. He didn’t need another car. If the truck’s tank was full, he could’ve driven all the way to Bloemfontein. Do they guess he needed me to stitch him up? Judging by appearance, you’d never say I’m capable. I know what they see when they look at me—the same thing the man at the slot machines did. They see a blond bimbo, a woman whose best skill lies between her legs.

Is that why Ian said it had been a while? No. He didn’t look at me like that. If he’d made those kinds of assumptions, he wouldn’t have asked if I could handle Mint’s car and the blood. When he said, “It’s been a while,” there were no foregone conclusions. He saw me as a person, not a generalization, not that I’m defending his criminal actions.

The intensity of his dark gaze is drilled into my memory. I see it so clearly in my mind’s eye, it’s as if he’s looking at me right now. I know with instinctive knowledge despite his murder-free record, he’s capable of killing. It was written in his comportment and in the way he carried himself. He’s not scared of violence. On the contrary, he thrives on it. He’s just mastered his violent side well, squashing his more animalistic needs with frightening control.

A cold shiver creeps over my skin as I throw another glance through the open door at the phone that lies on my bed. Though expensive, it’s not valuable enough to pass for a bribe. Besides, he doesn’t need to use bribes. His threats are enough.

I shut my laptop and rub my hands over my eyes. I don’t get why he replaced my phone, but that’s not the thought that lingers with disconcerting unease. It’s how he got into my apartment.

Scrap that. A man like him can easily enough pick a lock. It’s that he did it unnoticed and that he locked the door behind him when he left. Wait. Oh, my God. Does he have a key?

My only consolation is the belief that he must be over the border by now, Mozambique or Botswana perhaps. Nevertheless, I drag the mohair blanket from the back of the sofa over my legs and shift down until my head rests on the cushion. From this position, I have a clear view of the door, and I have no intention of moving.

I jerk awake with a start and blink. Sunlight filters through the cracks of the blinds. It’s the yellow, dust-particle-speckled light of early morning. I was so tired after the ordeal and an almost sleepless night I passed out.

The next thought hits me with a rush of adrenaline to heat my veins. I’m late for work. Then I remember. A sick feeling descends to the pit of my stomach, wiping away my hunger.

Throwing the blanket aside, I sit up and flinch at the headache that threatens to split my skull. That’s what I get for drowning my problems in wine.

Unlike Ian, I don’t have the luxury of not polluting my body with chemicals. I go to the bathroom and take two painkillers with the pills for my heart, swallowing them down with water from the faucet. With the medication in my stomach, I have to eat.

After a bowl of fruit salad and yoghurt drizzled with honey, I have a shower while I wait for the coffee to brew. I stay under the spray of the water for a long time, but when the warmth does nothing to alleviate the tension in my shoulders, I turn off the water and dry myself.

With a towel wrapped around my body, I pour a big mug of coffee and sip the liquid fortification while studying my closet and contemplating my outfit.

I need to go job hunting. My qualifications don’t allow for any occupations that require a tertiary education. I never thought I’d need a degree. The farm had been in my blood, just as it had been in my dad’s. Branding cows and planting maize don’t require a university degree. I know how to read the cycles of the moon to determine sowing seasons. I can tell by the color of the soil if it’s fertile. I don’t need a degree in agriculture or a fancy mineral analysis to know when to add compost, but the farm is gone. That leaves me with clerkly or waitressing work or a receptionist position if no typing is required.