The Society by Karen Guyler (best ebook reader android txt) 📕

unmarked, all alive as far as Luke was aware. All apart from Jed Carson, the photos Gordon Stamford had shown her while Luke watched.

“The kill list, yes?” It took longer for her to respond this time. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Your guesswork leaves something to be desired.”

“Last man standing?” It was only a questioning whisper, but Bailey tensed. Christ. No matter how good they were, no one was going to get close enough to the US President to kill him—he would be the survivor. That would kill his re-election chances next month if it came out. Was it in retaliation to Tony Banks instructing The Society to kill him? How had Jed Carson found that out? Did The Society have a security breach?

“Are you actively assisting?” Luke had to prod her again to get her to answer.

“We’re actively not investigating.”

“Seems you need to decide just how special the relationship with our friends across the pond should be. This meeting stays between you and me. It serves to show you I can find you anywhere, you’d do well to remember that. One last question, Eva Janssen, Buchanan’s wife, is she a target?” He followed his hunch.

“I don’t know details but I believe we can count her as active collateral, a warning to Buchanan.”

Luke moved the Glock down beneath Bailey’s bare arm, its barrel level now with her heart. “Tell whoever’s listening, I don’t like to share. She’s off limits, she’s mine.”

38

“Lily, where are you?” Charles found her sobbing and screaming near the pool. “What’s the matter?”

She clung to him, hysterical, the only comprehensible sound she made was calling for her mum, over and over, until he had to tell her enough. A glance into the small square enclosed room she’d looked in explained for her.

He led her up the stairs to the second floor into another bedroom and wrapped her in the red blanket he retrieved from the floor. “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to get you a drink of water.”

In his search of the main bathroom cabinet and the drawers in his brother’s bedroom, Charles had to trust his schoolboy French. His hand paused over the tap in the kitchen. He’d read that the water was safe there, but it didn’t hurt to check. There were no plastic bottles in the fridge, none in the tall cupboard in which Terry kept his food, no empties in his bin. It must be.

“Here you go,” he lifted Lily’s hand and dropped two sleeping pills onto her palm, “these will help.” He didn’t know what else to do.

“I want Mum,” she wailed.

“I know. But I’m here with you.” He sat beside her, letting her cry herself out on his chest until she sagged against him, her breathing even, regular, no more hiccupping sobs.

Charles laid her down, felt her forehead. Not overheating, good. The plunge pool-cooled breeze from the courtyard wafted around the whole place. It was an ingenious design.

She looked so young. Lily, his unexpected bonus seven years ago when he reunited with Eva. Just growing into herself, Lily was losing the childish roundness from her face, as it became more heart-shaped. Her cheek bones would reveal themselves in a year or so if she was going to take more after Eva than him. Longer eyelashes than either of them, his brown hair, Lily’s potential tallness from further back in their family trees. All to play for still at eleven-years-old. So young, too young for this week’s traumas.

Lily, I’m sorry.

On what looked like a church pew, out of place in a room painted sandy yellow with terracotta stars decorating the ceiling, tumbling down the walls, lay his brother. Flopped sideways he stared at a point beyond where Charles could see, a bluish tinge to his open lips.

Lily should never have seen this.

Terry had clearly enjoyed the sweet pastries and fried street food more than the spiced vegetables. And probably the local spirits. Past his brother’s out of shape body, past even the ridiculous—was that a sarong?—he wore in place of trousers, his garish yellow shirt nailed Charles’ gaze. Or rather, what peeked out of its open collar. Charles undid the next two buttons, steeling himself more against Terry grabbing at him to stop him, than what he might find. Terry’s killer had gouged a message into his chest, the curving number Terry had lived for.

The jagged eight was raw, his skin puckered with what would be horizontal ribbons of blood streaming down it, if he were sitting upright. They’d carved it when he’d been alive.

Yes. Charles caught himself. It wasn’t a celebration that The Society hadn’t beaten him there, that Terry’s death was nothing to do with Charles’ problems. An unfortunate coincidence, that was all this was, a warning instead, as stark and clear as if they had written the actual words: honour your debt.

No smell of decay, no insects Charles could hear or see. The tiny fireplace would be their conduit, the molecules of the odour of rotting flesh already rising beyond the rooftops their invitation. Terry’s arm was cool, not cold. Maybe only so many hours since he died. Been killed.

Killed. The killer had replaced the padlock on the outside of the door, and Charles had smeared his fingerprints all over it. He might only have minutes before the authorities arrived and a Moroccan prison would never be a good place to be.

Bolting for the front door, checking the ornate spyhole, he swiped up the padlock from the standing sentry cabinet beside the door where he’d left it and wiped it on his shirt. He found a key in a drawer which locked the door, leaving it in place to make it more difficult for other key holders. Bolts at the top and bottom slid across smoothly, ramming into holes in the substantial doorframe. It might withstand a few attempts to batter it down. The warning it would give was all he could hope for. Because until Lily woke up, they were trapped there.

Charles stood for a moment