Kill For Me (Detective Hannah Robbins Crime Series Book 5) Page 2

  The pain ripped through Lucy like a physical blade tearing her apart. She needed some answers. She couldn’t wait.

  She wouldn’t wait.

  She picked up the phone again.

  Swiped at her face. Pushing the tears out of her eyes so she could see the screen. Tapped through to the last call dialled and dialled again. Again it was rejected.

  She went to the text message and sent another.

  I’m home. What do you want?

  Lucy clutched the phone hard, staring at it, willing it to respond to her. To tell her what it wanted from her.

  It pinged in her hand. She couldn’t open the screen fast enough.

  What would you do for your daughter?

  She was fast.

  Anything.

  How far would you go?

  She didn’t even need to think about it.

  As far as was needed.

  There was silence. Lucy had the urge to throw the phone across the room and into the wall but it was her only communication with the person or people who had Faith. She had to keep it close.

  They were talking to her now. They wanted something. She just had to get it out of them what it was they wanted. She would do it. She would do anything.

  The text message came. Relief swept through her. This must be it. This must be what they wanted. This was her chance to get Faith back. She would do what they wanted and she would get her daughter back.

  She opened the message.

  You have to kill someone.

  5

  ‘Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Aaron, happy birthday to you.’ The noise in the incident room was raucous. My detective sergeant, Aaron Stone, was sitting at his desk looking uncomfortable with the noise surrounding him and the fact that the noise was aimed at him. He lived with Asperger’s and no one in the office knew this other than me which was why there was this much fuss directed at him. I hadn’t been able to deter the team, no matter how much I had tried. And I had. I warned them that he wouldn’t appreciate it, that he hated fuss, that he didn’t want to celebrate his birthday, that he wanted it to pass unnoticed. But, this was happening. No one paid me any attention. They adored Aaron and wanted to show him that.

  Pasha Lal, the newest member of the team, was standing in front of him wielding a chocolate caterpillar cake with five candles down his back to denote Aaron’s forty-fifth birthday.

  ‘Blow them out then?’ she insisted. ‘And don’t forget to make a wish.’

  ‘Yeah, that we get a decent job in the office,’ said Ross.

  I raised my eyebrows at him. ‘Really?’

  ‘Not that I want anyone to die, Boss, but… you know what I mean.’

  I did. He was fed up dealing with the more mundane cases we had been given in lieu of a murder.

  Pasha pushed the caterpillar closer to Aaron who leaned back a little. Not much but I noticed.

  ‘Blow,’ she said.

  He gave me a pleading look. I smiled at him apologetically. He was struggling but he knew the team and had worked with them long enough to be able to cope with them. He would do what he needed to after this to calm himself.

  With a feeble breath he blew on the candles. They flickered and went out and he breathed a sigh of relief that it was all over. Then they relit themselves. The room roared with laughter.

  Damn, they’d bought those stupid candles that you can’t blow out.

  Pasha looked at Aaron’s face. She must have seen something because she took a step back. ‘Okay, I’m going to cut this delicious looking creature up. Who wants some?’

  Several shouts of ‘Me!’ went up and Pasha walked to her desk where there was a pile of paper plates and a large knife. She had come in prepared. It was usual practice for the birthday boy or girl to buy the cakes but today Pasha had thrown that habit out of the window and had brought the cake in for Aaron herself.

  ‘Want to cut—’ she started, but Aaron glared at her. ‘I’ll do it, shall I?’ she laughed.

  ‘Dibs on the end piece,’ said Ross from his desk.

  I shook my head. ‘Dibs?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a real thing where cake is concerned, Boss.’

  Pasha handed it out to the team. It was gratefully received.

  I sidled up to Aaron. ‘Did you have a good morning with Lisa and the kids?’

  ‘Yeah, she made a healthy breakfast before work and I opened my presents.’

  Aaron had changed his diet since he he’d had a heart attack about four months ago and this was enforced by his wife.

  The incident room doors opened and our DCI, Kevin Baxter, walked in. ‘Looks like I’m missing something interesting.’ His eyes landed on Pasha cutting up the caterpillar cake. ‘I have good timing though.’

  Pasha stood in front of him with a piece of cake on a plate. ‘Like a piece, Sir? It’s Aaron’s birthday.’

  ‘Is it now?’ He turned to Aaron. ‘Happy birthday, Aaron.’

  Aaron nodded mutely.

  Baxter turned his attention back to Pasha. ‘It’d be rude to say no.’

  She held out the plate.

  ‘Am I taking this from someone’s starving mouth?’ he asked.

  Pasha laughed. ‘There’s plenty to go around.’

  ‘Was there something you needed?’ I asked him.

  He looked to Aaron. ‘No, no, it’ll wait. I’ll catch up with you later.’

  I didn’t like the sound of this. Baxter was trying to get rid of Aaron out of the Major Crime Unit. He had offered him a position in the Training Department a couple of months ago but Aaron had turned him down. I knew Baxter still wanted him gone. Aaron and I were determined Baxter was not going to win this battle. We would do whatever was necessary even if that meant going over his head and talking to Superintendent Catherine Walker.

  Aaron pulled his earphones out of his desk drawer and plugged them into his ears. Baxter gritted his teeth. This was one of the issues. He had no understanding of Aaron’s sensitivity to noise and presumed he wanted to listen to music during his work day and was slacking when he should be working. He didn’t realise it actually helped Aaron and kept his productivity levels up.

  Baxter looked at me, a what-are-you-going-to-do-about-it look on his face.

  We needed to resolve this sooner rather than later.

  6

  Lucy stared at the phone screen.

  She had to kill someone?

  If Faith wasn’t genuinely missing she would think someone was trying to wind her up. In fact, maybe that was what was happening. Maybe someone she knew had collected Faith from school and this was all a wind-up. No one would suggest she kill a person in reality.

  Not if they knew her.

  She was the person who caught spiders and let them go outside. Her last ex, Faith’s father, he had laughed at her for this. He told her to stand on them, that there were plenty more of them willing to rampage through the house, but she refused to listen and had saved every one. Though he didn’t know he was a father, and the guilt at times ate away at Lucy, she was adamant she had done the right thing. She had thought she was in love with him, and he had doted on her but he had shown a different side on occasion, a streak she wasn’t willing to bring a child into the world with. A mean and nasty streak. So she had ended the relationship when she found out she was pregnant and had walked away.

  Her head didn’t feel as though it belonged to her. What was this ridiculous game and how was Faith involved with it?

  Just send Faith back now, or tell me where to pick her up. Enough is enough. She sent the message.

  The phone vibrated in her hand.

  If you want to see your daughter again you will kill someone.

  There was no ambiguity about the message. No one was laughing.

  I won’t. She sent.

  Say goodbye to Faith.

  Lucy whimpered. Pushed her back into the wall and pulled her knees up to her chest. Was this real?

  Please tell me she’s okay.


  There was silence. Why wouldn’t they answer? Lucy closed her eyes tight shut. Pleaded for them to respond. To let her know that Faith was fine and was waiting to come home.

  The phone vibrated in her hand again. She pressed at the screen with jagged movements. It wasn’t them. It was her best friend Sophie.

  Hey, thought I’d check, see if you’re still up for movie night on Saturday? I’m fetching the wine! Yummm.

  Lucy started to cry again. The tears streamed down her face. Life was going on around her and she wasn’t interested. All she wanted was Faith and someone was holding Faith. Against her will. The phone slid out of her hand and onto the floor. She couldn’t go on like this if they didn’t answer. If the silence continued then she would have to go to the police. She would have no choice.

  Her phone vibrated and shimmied across the floor tiles. Lucy grabbed for it, snatching it up. It had to be them. They had to text back.

  It was them.

  It was a photograph message.

  Faith was sitting on a sofa watching television. There was nothing to say where she was or who she was with, just that she was alive and well and hadn’t been hurt. It was even possible she didn’t know she had been taken away from her mummy without permission.

  Lucy cried even harder, holding the phone close to her chest before bringing it back in front of her face to stare at the image of Faith mesmerised by the television again. She was oblivious and Lucy was grateful for that. She couldn’t be more grateful for anything. Grateful that she was the only one who was suffering.

  The phone vibrated again.

  You’ve seen her.

  Lucy let out a deep breath.

  Now if you want to see her again you will kill someone.

  Her hand holding the phone started to shake. She couldn’t read the words on the screen. Her body was trembling. Her foot was tapping on the floor.

  Were they serious about this? Was this the price to get her daughter back? She had to kill someone? But who? Who did they want her to kill? And why?

  She sent a message. Who? And why?

  It doesn’t matter why. The who doesn’t matter. The choice is yours. You kill someone, anyone. Take a photograph, send it to this number and you will get your daughter back.

  She would get her daughter back. She would get her daughter back. Six words that drummed a beat in her chest. She would get her daughter back.

  Yes, she would do anything to get Faith back.

  Did that include killing an innocent person?

  7

  How on earth would she kill someone?

  And was she actually sitting on the freezing floor considering this?

  She was.

  If this was the only way to get Faith home then yes, yes she was. He had said he would know if she called the police or if they were involved. She didn’t know how, if it was because he had someone in the police or… she looked around her kitchen… did they have devices in her home? She had no idea how well planned this had been. How far in advance they had prepared this. How technologically advanced they were. They had managed to clone her phone number to text the school so they were somewhat tech savvy. She couldn’t take any risks. Not with Faith’s life. With her own, yes, but not with Faith’s.

  Once she had Faith to safety she could hand herself in to the police. Do her time. Make it all right. But first she had to get Faith back. Make sure she was safe and secure.

  Her phone vibrated. It was Sophie again. Three question marks graced the screen. She was impatient. Oh how she wished she could talk to Sophie. Tell her about the mess she was in and about what she was contemplating. Sophie had a good head on her shoulders and would know what to do, the right move to make. Though Lucy couldn’t see any move other than to do as she was told.

  She texted Sophie back that she thought she was coming down with something and she would let her know nearer the time if they needed to cancel. Sophie sent big virtual hugs back. Lucy loved Sophie to bits.

  Maybe Sophie could help her kill someone? Come up with a quick and painless way that would be bearable. It needed to be as painless for Lucy as it did for the unsuspecting victim. This was going to psychologically kill her as much as it was going to physically kill them. And how the hell was she going to choose a victim? What was she supposed to do, roll a dice? Get people to pick a card? What the hell!

  And how would she do it? Scenarios ran through her head but they were all too violent or too bloody or would take more strength than she possessed. She had to think of not having witnesses, because even though she was going to hand herself in, she didn’t want the police to come for her, she wanted to go to them in her own time. When she had sorted Faith out. Made sure she was back and secure.

  Her head was spinning so much that thought was barely possible. She realised just how ill she felt. How she was supposed to be in any state to do this she didn’t know. She wasn’t in much state to stand up at this rate.

  Back to what she had to do and her head spun even more. It wasn’t even as though she read crime novels. She was a romance reader. People fell in love and ended happily ever after. She couldn’t pick up one of her books and figure out a way to do it from there. The most she could figure out from her books was how to learn to love herself, enjoy life and be worthy of being loved. Not that she had been loved since she had had Faith. She had concentrated on being a mum. The best mum she could be. Relationships hadn’t come into the equation, though Sophie had been talking about it recently. Trying to nudge her into that direction. Talking about starting an online dating profile or even setting her up on a blind date with some bloke or other that she knew. But she couldn’t go there. Faith was her world and she couldn’t imagine bringing a man into it. And what man was interested in a woman who had a ready-made family?

  Her bones started to stiffen. How long had she been on the kitchen floor? She looked at the phone at the side of her. Two hours had passed. She had been crying and wailing and thinking and texting with them, for the past two hours. It would start to get dark in another couple of hours. She needed to decide what she was doing because she couldn’t sit here all night and the longer Faith was out, the more concerned she would become about why she was not at home. She would wonder where her mummy was and why she hadn’t collected her. Lucy had to get her back which meant she had to come up with a plan.

  She started by dragging herself up off the cold tiled floor. Her joints screamed in protest as she climbed up the wall, one slow movement at a time. Once she was upright she looked around her, as though the room had the answer. She looked out of the window and there it was on the driveway. An answer of some description. A way she could do this without feeling it as such, without seeing much of anything happening and without getting any evidence on her person.

  Outside on the drive was the car. If she drove at someone hard enough she could knock them over and kill them. If she did it in the dark on a quiet street, there would be no witnesses and no CCTV. There would be no blood on her clothes. She would take the car straight to a car wash.

  She moved closer to the window and stared out at her car.

  Yes, this was the way she could do it. She was going to kill someone with her car.

  8

  He looked at the little girl on the sofa and let out a sigh. It had been easy enough to do and it was all going to plan. Faith was a pleasant child and was trusting and generous. She had taken food from him and was now sitting on the sofa watching a cartoon he had found on one of the many networks.

  All he’d had to do was clone her mother’s phone number. He had been surprised she still had the same number as when he was with her but she obviously had. He sent a text message from his computer to the school as though it was coming from her number and they had given the girl to him. Any old hacker could pull this trick. Just because he was good with a computer shouldn’t mean he could walk away with a child this way.

  He looked across at her again. She wore a bright smile and was relaxed enough. He didn’t want to scare
her, all he wanted was to hurt Lucy. Taking Faith wasn’t enough. It was too easy to take her – as he had found. No, he had to make Lucy pay in a much more brutal way. He would make her very, very sorry she had ever crossed him even if she never knew why this was happening to her. That wasn’t important. In fact, it made it all the more sweet.

  He would keep his word though. He would return the child if she carried out his demand. But he wanted evidence that she had done it. He didn’t trust her. Not one bit.

  And thinking about evidence. He then had to worry about Lucy being evidence of the crime. Of it all leading back to him when she did as he asked. If he knew her she wouldn’t be able to live with herself. She might even tell someone, even if it was just her best friend. He couldn’t have anything lead back to him. He knew full well that he would be as liable, legally, for this murder, as she was. And he had no intention of going to prison for something she did. That she deserved.

  He would have to think of a solution when it came to it. For now, he kept checking his phone. She had to do it soon because she’d be desperate to get her daughter back.

  He was, however, prepared to hold on to the child for as long as it took her to carry out the task, he’d rented the AirBnB for the night so he was covered, None of his neighbours would see him with the child. And he was serious when he said he would know that she had been to the police. He was currently tapped into her phone camera and could see the ceiling of her kitchen. He would know if the police came and she showed them her text messages.

  9

  Lucy watched the clock tick down. Her body alive as her nerve endings screamed in frustration. They wanted to get this over and done with, but she needed for it to go dark first and for there to be fewer people around to witness it. It wouldn’t be dark until six pm. It was a hell of a long time for Faith to be with a stranger, but she looked happy enough in the photo. She wasn’t being held in a shed or any other dingy place. It looked like she didn’t even realise she was not supposed to be there. Lucy hoped whoever had her remembered to feed her.