Finders Keepers by Edie Baylis (epub ebook reader txt) 📕

liked how that had gone last night either. Saul had made a right mess of the girl’s face and shooting her up with smack was a bit unnecessary, but then she had been making a racket. ‘I guess now we can dump her somewhere? We could do without a bird adding to the problem. If she hasn’t got what we’re looking for, then it’s pointless holding onto her.’

Saul stared at Keith incredulously. ‘Sometimes I wonder whether you’ve ever had a brain cell or whether you come out with crap just to wind me up.’

He watched Keith’s face crinkle in confusion and felt more than he had in a long time like slicing the man’s other ear off so he didn’t look so ridiculously unsymmetrical. ‘The girl’s going nowhere. Grow half a brain! You really think we can let her walk now? Just because she hasn’t got them on her doesn’t mean she doesn’t know where they are or who’s got them. She must know and so we’ll keep her until she tells us.’

‘And if she doesn’t?’ Keith asked, unsure whether he wanted to hear the answer.

Saul smiled. ‘She will.’ Grinding the remains of his cigarette out on the kitchen table, he stood up. ‘In the meantime, clean this shit up.’

TEAGAN AWOKE, HER HEAD pounding and nausea like she’d never experienced before pulsing through her body. Her eyelids felt glued together, her whole face stuffed with cotton wool.

She tried to open her eyes, each one weighed down with concrete blocks, her mouth as dry as a bone. She found one eye wouldn’t open; the pain pulsing behind it breathtaking. Reaching up to touch it, she couldn’t, her arms... What had happened to her arms?

Panic rising, she pulled against whatever was trapping her, confusion spiralling. Fuzzy memories filtered into her head. Those men... The car... She couldn’t remember anything else. What the...?

Eyes adjusting to the room shrouded in darkness, Teagan blinked, each movement excruciatingly painful. She could see very little: the outline of a window; a chink of light behind curtains. Various shades of black and white with a small helping of faded colour swam in her mind.

With her senses gradually coming to life, she realised she was lying on a bed. Whose bed? Where was she?

Tears sprang into her eyes and her breathing became laboured as, with growing horror, Teagan realised she couldn’t move her arms because she was manacled by her wrists. She’d been handcuffed to a bed.

Yanking frantically against the restraints, all she achieved was to make an unholy racket as the cuffs banged against the metal bed frame. That and the pain where they had chafed against her wrists.

The speeding in her brain intensified and her stomach clenched. Heaving, she scrambled to sit up; the restraints stopping her from adopting a full sitting position. As her stomach heaved violently once more, the best she could manage was to twist her head and vomit stinging bile partly over herself, the rest across the bed.

Sobbing, Teagan felt she might pass out when she heard the key turn in the door.

‘Feeling unwell?’ Saul flicked on the light, his eyes dancing with mischief. The girl on the bed was a pretty thing. Or she had been until he’d clumped her.

He would have preferred not to have to had to smash her in the face and by the time they’d arrived at one of the flats he’d presumed she’d calmed down enough for it to be safe, but the minute Keith got her out of the car, she’d kicked off again. Still, the one eye, blackened and swollen almost shut, would heal and it didn’t mean he had to look at her.

She was lucky that was all she’d got. At least the swift clump had knocked her silly enough to drag her into the flats unhindered. To anyone who’d happened to spot them, she looked like the classic pissed-up tart being helped home - a common sight around these parts. No fucker would say anything even if they had noticed because he owned all of these flats, plus most of the tenants were toms anyway, so they didn’t give a shit. It was water off a duck’s back where they came from.

Once they’d got her into the flat, the stupid bitch had kicked off again. Screaming, screaming and fucking screaming. Blathering how she’d had nothing to do with the stolen drugs. Saul shrugged. He hadn’t a clue what she was going on about. No one had half-inched any drugs - they wouldn’t be that stupid, but he worked out fairly quickly that they wouldn’t get anywhere questioning her whilst she was in such an angsty state, so the best thing was to reset her head. She’d soon become more pliable. They always did with a shot inside them.

The silly tart hadn’t even seen it coming, but there had been a split second of sheer terror when she realised she’d been spiked. She’d been just about to scream, yet hadn’t quite managed it before the heroin hit her square between the eyes. And she’d be getting as much of that as necessary to keep her quiet and create a bargaining chip to make her talk. Because she would talk once she became reliant, he would make sure of it.

Saul stepped forward, watching Teagan attempt to back away up the bed. Pointless really - she couldn’t go anywhere. ‘I’ve brought you some water,’ he smiled. ‘Looks like you could do with it.’

In reality, he felt like drowning her for wasting his time. He may well yet do just that, but not now. Unscrewing the top of the plastic bottle, Saul pulled Teagan upright and held the bottle to her dry lips. She gulped at it gratefully, some going in her mouth, most spilling down her black dress.

Saul grinned, aroused by the thought of her nipples straining against wet clothes and pulled the bottle from Teagan’s lips. ‘Are you going to behave yourself today and tell me what I want to know?’

‘I-I don’t know